一、海邊的四兜海軍制服
1976年的有一陣兒，我們住在杭州灣靠近出海口的中港水產收購站。站裡一共三個本地男人，站長老吳四十歲上下，是個轉業軍人，常年穿一身四個兜的海軍淺灰色軍服。那時候部隊裡有講究，軍官服是四個口袋，士兵服只有上面兩個。
老吳腰板筆挺，乾淨俐落，卻總是帶著一種冷靜超然的氣質。他們不歸我們農場管。東海的漁船也不屬於農場。漁民打上來的魚，由站上收購。
當時年輕，不知道也沒問為什麼我們漁業隊，會住到那兒去。每天還幫他們將魚蝦分類。其實漁民打撈上來的，都是一大兜一大兜本地話叫「小蝦魚」的海產品。很少見到什麼大魚。
老吳那副矜持的樣子，引得姑娘們總喜歡去招惹他，善意地跟他開玩笑。幾乎所有的招數都用上了，但他就像一座冰山，似乎都不起作用。可偏偏有一次，他卻著了我的道兒。一般情況下，我是從不主動招惹男生的。在那個年代那叫輕浮，是姑娘們的大忌。尤其是面對有魅力的男人，我往往表現得越發若無其事。
二、以一抹清涼油融化冰山
但對老吳不一樣：首先他比我們大好多，不會有被誤解的嫌疑。其次 他比我還矜持「冷漠」，他就像隔著一層霧，冷靜地看著我們這些單純無知的女生想盡花招試圖讓他「失去」自控，內心深處彷彿仍帶著點善意的嘲笑。
也不知他在海軍部隊裡經歷過什麼大風大浪，橫豎就是一副「我自巋然不動」的神態。這下我可「忍」不下去了。那天 我偷偷用手指挖了一小坨清涼油。正趕上進貨，老吳在場地跟大家一起忙活。一天中也只有這一兩小時最忙。我走過去，趁他不注意，裝作不小心碰到了他的手，順利地將清涼油抹到了他的右手背上。過了一會兒手頭的活兒忙得差不多了，我走上前對他說：「老吳 儂搿眼睛邊上有魚鱗。」他一聽 馬上抬手去擦，因為手還沒洗，他習慣性地用手背去蹭，結果清涼油瞬間把他的眼睛辣得直流淚。哈哈哈哈！這下可把我們給樂壞了！
在那個認屁不懂的年齡，快樂就是這麼單純。
三、獲得出海的機會
因為這場捉弄，後來老吳成全了我一次。幾個姑娘吵著想跟漁船出海，老吳便讓大家在就地轉圈，說：「你們只要轉了圈頭不暈的就行。」結果姑娘們都轉得七葷八素，東倒西歪。旁邊看熱鬧的人捧腹大笑，唯獨我一個人挺了過來，被允許上了船，出了兩個小時的海。
真正的漁船出海，感覺就是不一樣。我們漁業隊在河裡開的機動船跟這出海的船比真就是小巫見大巫。在大海裡行船，那股興奮勁兒沒法提，但雙手必須要緊緊抓住欄桿把手。海浪一拱一拱地把漁船推得上下起伏，左右搖擺。陳舊的木頭大魚船上
有五、六個青壯年。他們在波濤滾滾的海裡撒了網。收網時我也跟著一起將沉甸甸的魚網拽上船。
那天我還看見他們在清理河豚魚，他們說：「不吃河豚魚，就不知道東海洋的滋味兒」但我到底還是差了點膽子，沒敢吃。直到很多年後在日本，我才吃過一次河豚刺身。五千多日圓一盤，魚片切得如紙薄粉嫩透光，在盤子裡薄薄地碼了一圈。結果根本沒吃出什麼不尋常來，也許是我的味蕾遲鈍吧，不過那是後話了。
四、返航途中站在船頭上裝酷
回頭說那天出海返航時，我站在船頭裝酷，好讓那些沒能出海的姑娘們羨慕。海浪「啪！啪！」地拍打著船頭，濺起無數浪花，打濕了我的褲腿兒。當時我的心直跳到了嗓子眼兒，表面上卻佯裝鎮靜。裝鎮靜是我的拿手好戲，自打看了一些古書和名著後，我就一直努力想成為一個「冷若冰霜」的人。當然 如果能「面若桃李」就更好，可惜有點遺憾。我站在船頭，目光只敢仰視前方，根本不敢朝下看。因為其實轉完圈後我也是不知東南西北的。如果看了下面滾滾的海水，一定會頭暈目眩掉進海裡。現在想想都後怕，那時只要漁船稍微搖擺一下，我很有可能就掉下去了。我的游泳水平還真不咋的！雖說掉進海裡餵魚倒還不至於，好歹船上還有幾條壯漢呢。
說到壯漢，那年夏天還真發生了一件趣事。D會計帶來了一位正在部隊服兵役的堂弟，說是要給我介紹對象。那位堂弟穿著一身四個口袋的軍官服，高個子，身板筆直 挺精神的。但他的臉偏偏不是我喜歡的類型，當時的我也不是不知道，內在比外表重要。但總心存僥倖，看著這位兵哥哥，我心裡委屈得不行。心想：難道我到了嫁不出去的地步嗎？即便成了老姑娘，我也是不能將就的！
五、天崩地裂的1976年
然而 這個充滿青春悸動與惡作劇的1976年，也是一個天崩地裂的年份。1月8日周總理去世，哀樂瀰漫，大家都圍著看電視轉播：「十里長街送總理」。7月6日朱德委員長逝世。7月28日唐山大地震，25萬人生命傾刻化為烏有。9月9日毛主席去世
那一年，哀樂聽得我們都能哼出調子來了。廣播裡念治喪委員會名單時，我們甚至能順著念出下一個人的名字，例如烏蘭夫後面，準是阿沛·阿旺晉美。可到了10月6日全國又開始敲鑼打鼓慶祝粉碎「四人幫」了。
小時候，我們根據社會公德，把人簡單地分為好人和壞人。入學後加強了思想教育。主席的號召中央的指示，在我們眼裡絕對是真理。可是文革開始批「三家村」，後來打倒劉少奇，我心裡就有點不太理解。再後來，一向助人為樂的母親突然怎麼就成了反革命了？最讓我認知受到巨大衝擊的是1971年的「九一三事件」。我們天天衷心祝福「永遠健康」的林副主席，怎麼一夕之間就成了十惡不赦的壞人了呢？
長大後，看到的，聽到的漸漸全面了，才發覺過去對好壞的認知是多麼不準確。好人不一定全好，壞人也不一定全壞。在成長的過程中，我對這個世界的認知就像坐過山車一樣，不斷地被打破被更新。哈哈。
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The Essential Balm Incident at the Zhonggang Maritime Station
Part I: The Four-Pocket Naval Uniform at the Edge of the Sea
For a certain period during 1976, we lived at the Zhonggang Maritime Aquatic Purchasing Station, nestled right along Hangzhou Bay near the river estuary. The station was staffed entirely by three local men. The station chief, Lao Wu, was a man in his early forties—a demobilized military veteran who spent the entire year clad in a crisp, light-gray naval uniform featuring four pockets. In those days, military attire carried strict, telling distinctions: an officer's uniform bore four pockets, while a common soldier's uniform possessed only the upper two. Lao Wu’s spine was as straight as a rod, and he was clean-cut and sharp in everything he did, yet he always carried himself with an aura of cool, detached transcendence. Their unit did not fall under the jurisdiction of our state farm, nor did the fishing vessels out on the East China Sea belong to us. The catch hauled in by the fishermen was simply purchased directly by their station.
Being young and naive back then, I neither knew nor ever questioned why our fishery team had been dispatched to live out there. Every day, we helped them sort the incoming fish and shrimp. In reality, what the fishermen hauled up in their massive nets consisted almost entirely of a local variety of small seafood known in our dialect as "little shrimp-fish." It was exceedingly rare to ever spot a genuinely large fish. Lao Wu’s deeply reserved and prideful demeanor acted as an irresistible magnet for the young girls in our team; they constantly loved to provoke him, playing good-natured pranks on him. They threw practically every trick in the book at him, but he remained as unyielding as an iceberg—absolutely nothing seemed to work. Yet, as fate would have it, he fell completely into a trap of my own making. Under normal circumstances, I was a girl who never, ever took the initiative to provoke young men. In that era, such behavior was branded as "frivolous"—the ultimate taboo for a young woman. In fact, the more attractive and charismatic a man was, the more I would put on an act of complete and utter indifference.
Part II: Melting the Iceberg with a Touch of Balm
But it was entirely different with Lao Wu. For one thing, he was considerably older than us, which completely eliminated any suspicion of romantic misunderstanding. Furthermore, he was even more reserved and "coldly indifferent" than I was. He seemed to sit behind a veil of mist, calmly watching us pure, ignorant girls exhaust our little bag of tricks trying to make him lose his self-control, likely harboring a faint, good-natured mockery deep within his heart. Whatever grand storms he had weathered during his years in the navy, he maintained an unshakable attitude of "let the world rage, I remain unmoved." This was a level of composure I simply could no longer tolerate.
One day, I quietly scooped up a tiny dollop of Essential Balm on the tip of my finger. A new shipment of seafood had just arrived, and Lao Wu was busy working alongside everyone else out on the sorting floor. Throughout the entire day, this span of one or two hours was always the absolute busiest. I casually walked over, and the moment his attention was diverted, I pretended to accidentally bump against his hand, smoothly smearing the Essential Balm onto the back of his right hand. A short while later, as the immediate rush of work began to wind down, I stepped up to him and remarked casually in our tongue: "Lao Wu, you've got a fish scale right by your eye."
The instant he heard this, he immediately raised his hand to wipe it away. Because he hadn't washed his hands yet, he habitually used the back of his hand to rub at his face. As a direct result, the potent Essential Balm instantly seared his eye, causing tears to stream uncontrollably down his face. Hahahahaha! We burst into absolute fits of roaring laughter! At that age, when we truly knew not a single damn thing about the world, happiness was just that beautifully simple.
Part III: Winning a Ticket to the High Seas
Because of that little prank, Lao Wu later granted me an incredible favor. Several of the girls had been clamoring and begging to head out to the high seas aboard a proper fishing vessel. Lao Wu simply told everyone to spin around in circles right where they stood, declaring: "As long as you can spin around and not get dizzy, you can go." In the end, the girls all spun themselves into a complete, disoriented frenzy, scattering and collapsing in every direction. The crowd of onlookers standing by to watch the commotion burst into fits of belly-aching laughter. Miraculously, I was the only one who managed to hold my ground. Thus, I was permitted to board the ship and head out to sea for a glorious two hours.
Heading out to the open ocean on a genuine seafaring fishing vessel felt entirely different. The motorized boats our fishery team navigated within the narrow rivers were completely dwarfed by comparison—mere child's play. The sheer surge of excitement from sailing in the deep ocean was beyond words, yet both of my hands had to grip the deck railings with absolute iron strength. Wave after wave lifted and pushed the vessel, making it surge up and down, pitching and rolling from side to side. Aboard that weathered, grand wooden fishing ship were five or six robust, young men. They cast their immense nets out into the rolling, turbulent waves. When it came time to harvest, I joined right in alongside them, pulling that heavy, sodden fish net back onto the deck.
That day, I also spotted them cleaning and prepping pufferfish. They told me: "If you don't eat pufferfish, you'll never truly know the true flavor of the East China Sea." But when it came down to it, I lacked the final shred of courage and didn't dare to eat it. It wasn't until many years later, when I was in Japan, that I finally tasted pufferfish sashimi for the very first time. It cost over 5,000 yen for a single platter; the fish slices were carved as thin as paper, delicate, pinkish, and translucent, arranged in a flawless, shimmering ring across the plate. Yet, in the end, my tongue couldn't detect anything extraordinary about it at all—perhaps my tastebuds are simply dull, but that is a story for another day.
Part IV: Playing It Cool on the Bow and the Soldier Who Didn't Measure Up
To return to that day at sea, as we charts our return course, I stood right at the very bow of the ship, intentionally putting on a massive act of playing it cool just to make the girls who hadn't been allowed to go utterly envious. The ocean waves went crash! crash! against the bow, splashing up countless sprays of sea foam that thoroughly soaked the hems of my trousers. At that exact moment, my heart was hammering violently right against my throat, yet on the surface, I feigned absolute, unshakable composure. Feigning composure had always been my absolute specialty; ever since devouring those ancient classical texts and literary masterpieces, I had been striving with everything I had to become a person who was "as cold and detached as frost." Of course, if I could simultaneously be "as radiant as a plum blossom," that would have been even better—unfortunately, reality left a bit of regret on that front. As I stood at the bow, my gaze dared only to look up and fixate on the far horizon ahead; I didn't dare to look down even a single millimeter. Because the truth was, after that spinning test, I couldn't tell north from south either! If I had looked down at that churning, rolling seawater beneath me, I would have instantly succumbed to blinding vertigo and tumbled straight into the ocean. Thinking back on it today fills me with a sudden, retroactive terror; if the vessel had lurked or shuddered even a tiny bit, I very easily could have gone overboard. And my swimming skills were truly nothing to write home about! Granted, I wouldn't have actually ended up feeding the fish—after all, there were still several robust, sturdy men aboard the ship.
Speaking of robust men, a truly hilarious incident unfolded that very summer. Accountant Di brought along his paternal younger cousin, who was currently serving active duty in the military, stating that he wanted to introduce him to me as a potential marriage prospect. That soldier cousin arrived clad in a magnificent, four-pocket officer's uniform; he was remarkably tall, held his frame as straight as a rod, and looked exceptionally sharp and spirited. But as fate would have it, his face was simply not the type I fancied in the slightest. Even back then, I wasn't ignorant of the fact that inner character matters infinitely more than outward appearance. Yet, I still harbored a stubborn longing for a visual spark. Looking at this soldier boy, a wave of profound, desperate grievance washed through my core. I thought to myself: Have I truly sunk to the point where I am utterly unmarriageable? Even if I end up becoming a forgotten old maid, I will absolutely never settle for anything less than what my heart desires!
Part V: The Shattered Truths of 1976
Yet, this very same year of 1976—so full of youthful restlessness and mischievous pranks—was also a year when heaven and earth literally collapsed. On January 8, Prime Minister Zhou Enlai passed away. The mournful notes of funeral music blanketed the nation, and everyone huddled around the television set to watch the broadcast of "The Ten-Li Long Street Sees Off the Prime Minister." On July 6, Chairman Zhu De of the Standing Committee passed away. On July 28, the cataclysmic Tangshan earthquake struck, wiping out 250,000 human lives in the blink of an eye. Then, on September 9, Chairman Mao passed away. During that dark year, we heard the national funeral march so frequently that we could all easily hum the tune by heart. When the official radio broadcasts read aloud the endless names of the funeral committee members, we could even predict the exact next name on the list with total synchronization—for instance, right after Ulanhu, it was bound to be Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme. Yet, by October 6, the entire nation was suddenly banging gongs and beating drums all over again, celebrating the crushing of the "Gang of Four."
When we were children, we used to categorize people into simplistic boxes of "good guys" and "bad guys" based on basic social morality. After entering school, our ideological education was heavily intensified. Chairman Mao's proclamations and the directives of the Central Committee were, in our eyes, absolute and unassailable truths. However, when the Cultural Revolution began by criticizing the "Three-Family Village," and later escalated to toppling Liu Shaoqi, a seed of quiet confusion was planted in my heart. Furthermore, how on earth did my mother—a woman who had spent her entire life helping others for the sheer joy of it—suddenly become branded as a counter-revolutionary?
The ultimate, monumental shock to my cognitive worldview, however, arrived with the "September 13 Incident" in 1971. Vice Chairman Lin Biao—the very man for whom we had sincerely wished "eternal health" every single day—how could he transform overnight into an unforgivable, monstrous villain?
As I grew older, what I saw and heard gradually became more comprehensive, and I finally realized how incredibly inaccurate my past perceptions of "good" and "bad" truly were. The good guys are not entirely good, and the bad guys are not entirely bad. Throughout the grueling process of growing up, my perception of this world has been very much like riding a wild roller coaster—constantly shattered, and constantly rebuilt. Haha.
特別感謝 Gemini AI 提供充滿活力的翻譯和文本潤色。
Special thanks to Gemini AI for providing the spirited translation and text refinement.
第三百四十九篇
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