Taste of Cave Dwelling Prose Essays
I brought back a large bag of red dates from Yan'an. My family gathered around and asked me, what other specialties are there in Yan'an? I replied casually: "There are also cave dwellings." My family was puzzled and looked at me blankly.
In fact, during the entire trip to Yan'an, I was excited to live in that cave dwelling. I was attracted by a strong earthy smell. The earthen kang head, the hot pot of wine, and the lamp in the cave have always been bright in my heart. On the hillside, under the old locust trees, there are rows of earthen cave dwellings, with strings of red peppers and several bunches of yellow corn hanging on the window lattice. The smell of the earthen cave dwellings is intoxicating and even dizzying.
Southerners always have a deep curiosity about cave dwellings, as if they are earthen nests dug out by cave-dwelling animals on the mountain, and as if this dwelling still retains the primitive life of the ancestors of northern Shaanxi, where they drank hair and drank blood. trace. In fact, this is not the case. Cave dwellings have their own cuteness, and they have become the most representative of the regional characteristics of northern Shaanxi.
Building cave dwellings is a major event for rural people in Yan'an, and there is a lot of emphasis on it. The first thing is to find a Feng Shui master to check the Feng Shui and choose the terrain. The cave dwelling should face the sun, with its back to the mountain and its face to the open area. People in northern Shaanxi generally build kilns in a line with three or five eyes. From the outside, the kiln has several openings, each with a door. After entering, there are two or three openings. There are tunnel-like small doors that communicate with each other, forming a whole and communicating. Family members, connected with family ties.
The windows of the cave dwelling may be the most exquisite and beautiful part of the entire cave dwelling. For arched cave dwellings, the windows can only be arched. The size of the hole is the size of the window. Because the Loess Plateau is crisscrossed with ravines and the colors are monotonous, in order to beautify their lives, the clever people in northern Shaanxi like to decorate their cave dwellings with window grilles. So the paper-cutting technology came into being. During festivals, all the aunties in the village pick up scissors and buy colorful paper. They sit in groups on a Kang to study, discuss and cut window grilles together. According to the pattern of the windows, they cut out various window decorations that symbolize auspiciousness, wealth and peace, such as "more than a year after another", "dragon and phoenix present auspiciousness", "five sons succeed in the examination" and so on. The window is the main light area in the cave dwelling. The window grilles are pasted outside the window, which creates a unique harmonious beauty of light, color and shadow, both from the outside and the inside.
People in northern Shaanxi created cave dwellings, and life in caves shaped the simple, honest and restrained character of northern Shaanxi people. Cave dwellings can accommodate everything and bear everything, just like the thick backbone of farmers in northern Shaanxi, which can bear all the burdens of life.