Appreciation of Lin Mingzhong’s Prose in "Those Things Escaped from Typhoon"

Typhoon is called "feng shui" in the old saying of the fishing village. It probably means wind and rain. In the past, when a typhoon came, all the fishing boats fled, hid, and sank. There was almost no boat visible on the sea.

Those who escaped fled to ports that could shelter from the wind and waves, most of which fled to the Huangpu River in Shanghai; smaller boats hid and moved to the shore in various ways, resting high enough that the waves could not hit them. Those fishing boats that had no time to escape or hide had to resort to a method of sinking the ship on the spot, artificially sinking the ship to the bottom of the sea, leaving only a thin mast exposed. When the typhoon passes, it can be refloated again. Escaped.

This word "escape" is really well used. In the face of such a natural disaster, what kind of resistance can we do? Escape is the only way out. To escape is to survive, and to escape is also a kind of reverence for nature. Although escaping is a helpless choice, it is an instinctive choice. Escape is self-protection, it is admitting to bowing down. Now it’s called transfer and evacuation. The great transfer of thousands of people and things is actually just one word - escape.

But it was only after we paid a lot of blood that we learned the lesson and returned to the ancient truth, and then we were truly regarded as human beings. In an era when property is more important than human life, during the typhoon on Army Day in 1956, at a military radar station located at the east end of Huanglong, 19 young officers and soldiers jumped into the air risklessly to rescue radar equipment washed away by the waves. Go to sea. This is the sea of ​​typhoons, this is the boiling waves, this is the storm that convulses the islands and reefs. 19 flesh and blood bodies, 19 fresh lives, followed the green weapons without hesitation... 19 tombs, 19 sets of empty military uniforms. Whenever I think about these typhoon disasters or man-made disasters, my heart trembles.

In my childhood memories, I regard typhoons as simple fun. Typhoons that don't rain are called "Zoge" Feng Shui, and we all go to the beach to watch the waves. One wave is higher than the other, and the waves are blooming, like white hair three thousand miles away; the waves follow the waves, the waves hit the waves, and the whole sea is like a gap that cannot contain the waves; the waves originate in the water, the waves rest on the shore, and the beach is full of The foam broken by the big waves covered it layer by layer, layer upon layer, and there was almost no sand to be seen.

Occasionally, floating objects will appear on the sea and be pushed to the shore by the waves. If it is a valuable thing like a moso bamboo, someone will jump into the sea first to get it, because if it is too late, it will be snatched away by others. At that time, a large bamboo could be sold for four or five yuan. If two or three people discover and go into the sea at the same time, then they have to share it equally. This is an unwritten rule in the fishing village. At this time, the person's head is just a black dot in the waves, erratic. He has to move the floating objects as far as possible to the beach to facilitate landing. It would be very dangerous if it was blown onto the rocks. Most of the people in the fishing village are good at swimming. People watching from the shore don't feel it is thrilling to swim in such waves, but those struggling in the sea feel that they have made a windfall.

Fortunately, typhoons occur in summer. Children who are more courageous will go to the beach to swim and surf the waves at this time. This is the fun and passion that typhoons bring to the children of fishermen. You can imagine how big the waves caused by the typhoon are on the sea. But we headed towards the big waves, muttering: "One wave is bigger than the other." At the moment when the big wave stood like a body and reached the commanding heights and was about to pounce down, we got in like a fish. Wave bottom. You may not know that the waves are rolling and roaring above your head, but the bottom of the waves is calm, just like the bottom of the sea is always quiet. When we got out of the wave, we went to meet the next wave. Only when encountering the so-called three waves of rolling waves, most of them have no time to make moves, and will be rolled to the beach with their faces covered by the big waves. It is dark, their hair, ears, nose, and mouth are all covered with sand, and the pants they are wearing have long been forgotten. Where did the big waves peel off? Fortunately, the beach is flat and soft, so it generally does not hurt the body and is not dangerous. Therefore, the adults are watching from the shore and will not stop it. Of course, that would be unthinkable today. Only after experiencing the turbulence of typhoons and waves can the lives of fishermen's children become tougher. This is an admiration for the living environment, rather than a simple life adventure.

In a real sense, escaping from a typhoon means fishing boats escaping to the Huangpu River in Shanghai. This is something the children have been looking forward to for a long time. Of course, it is impossible for children to know that adults fleeing typhoons are essentially fleeing for safety. Only with this opportunity can fishermen get out of the island, out of the fishing village, and see the great Shanghai.

After it was confirmed that the fishing boat had escaped from the typhoon, the fishermen began to make preparations.

The fishing boats at that time were all wooden sailing boats with small tonnage and only 60 horsepower. The speed was very slow. It took eight or nine hours to drive to Husongkou in Shanghai. In my mind, Daji Mountain was the only place to go to Shanghai, but it was so far away at that time. In fact, it was between Sijiao and Yangshan, and it took less than an hour at the speed of today's speedboats. When escaping from the typhoon, the waves are not very big. Passengers will gather on the deck to lie down, bask in the sun, enjoy the sea breeze, and watch the large numbers of fishing boats escaping from the typhoon sailing side by side. Although the boat kept rocking, I didn't feel seasick. Occasionally, the crew can be heard pointing at the pontoon that has just passed the boat. The number is a sign for them to recognize the way.

When I saw the lights at Husongkou, it was already dark. It would take an hour or two to drive to the Huangpu River, and it was already midnight by the time we docked at the pier. Boats escaping from typhoons basically dock at the Jungong Road Wharf and Dinghaiqiao Wharf on the Huangpu River. When there are many ships, they will be driven to the wharf closer to the inner corner of the Huangpu River. The fishing boats in my village are gathered together, forming rows of boats, like a moving village, very lively. In this way, we stayed on the Huangpu River for a few days. Although we ate flatbread, fried dough sticks, and soy sauce soup, the children were so happy that they had already forgotten all about the disaster that the typhoon might cause to their hometown.

There are two things you must think about when you go to Shanghai. One is to swim in the Huangpu River. River water is fresh water, and only reservoirs on islands are fresh water. I have never swum in such a big river and such a big reservoir. We posed in various poses and jumped from the high bow of the boat. The splash was higher than a person. The river surface seemed to be very wide, so we could only swim halfway and turn back. The bottom of the river was not deep, so we could dive down and grab a handful of mud. Come up and throw them at each other for fun. Another thing is to check out the 24-story International Hotel on Nanjing Road. It was the tallest building that was said to be magical by fishermen who had been to Shanghai. See if the hat really falls off when you raise your head, see if the roof of the building is really shaking and floating in the clouds, and see if there are really as many people and cars under the building as there are ants. , crawling like ants. Maybe there are many more, such as the jingling trams, neon lights that are farther than the moon, and all kinds of food that can only be swallowed if you can't afford it. Everything seems real, fake, dreamlike, and engraved in my memory of escaping from the typhoon.

While we were escaping from a typhoon, a fishing boat was hijacked in our village. It was during the Cultural Revolution that two opposing factions of fishermen in the village fought violently and violently. As a result, the Lianmen faction was beaten by the Lianzhong faction and they ran away from home and fled to Ningbo. However, nearly a hundred people only escaped on two fishing boats, and then they were unable to produce or live at all. Finally, they received news that the village's boat was trying to escape the typhoon. For the exile group, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so they took a train from Ningbo to Shanghai overnight and ambush at the Huangpu River dock. As soon as the fishing boats escaping from the typhoon docked, this group of people swarmed up. There were only a few people on the boats escaping from the typhoon, and they were outnumbered. They could only surrender and watch eight boats being hijacked. They regained their strength and re-formed the confrontation between the two groups. situation. Some people recalled afterwards that if they had not escaped from the typhoon, they would never have been able to grab these boats. God helped.

I don’t know when the escape from the typhoon in Shanghai started or when it ended. It seems that there is no way to verify this, and there is no need to verify it. Nowadays, many seawalls have been built to shelter from the typhoon. When a typhoon comes once in fifty years or once in a hundred years, fishing boats can basically not leave the county. We seem to be getting closer and closer to home, but we are far away from the Huangpu River, and those who escaped the typhoon are also further away.