At that time, love was just a bicycle and a star

This article was written nearly ten years ago (2013.11.24). The content comes from some oral life stories while chatting with my grandmother over breakfast. Now that grandma has passed away, I have slightly revised it and republished it to commemorate it.

This article has been minted into NFT, and readers can remember it as a node and become an absent witness of this relic of time (link in the message area).

There was a girl who came to Hong Kong from Haifeng County, Guangdong when she was nineteen years old and still very ignorant. When she first came to Hong Kong, she stayed at an aunt's home in Hung Hom. The old wooden house had only one room, which could accommodate a bed and a small cupboard. The girl slept on a low bed, leaning against the wooden board of the mahjong table. There were often mice and cockroaches running around.

The girl found a job weaving clothes in a factory and rented a room with a few other female colleagues. Just when she thought her life was going smoothly, the factory closed down a few months later. Fortunately, Hong Kong's manufacturing industry at that time The city was booming, and businessmen from the mainland came to Hong Kong everywhere, so there was no need to worry about lack of work. So the girl went to work in different factories, some in Tsuen Wan and some in Fanling. Later, many factories added dormitories and In the dining hall, the girl's life just settled down.

In her early twenties, there was a senior who was several years older at the place where the girl worked at that time. He was very supportive of her, and the girl recognized her as her "Qi Ma". Qima rented a room in the house of a minister in the factory. The girl would visit her from time to time. As the number of visits increased, she would meet a boy who was a few years younger than her and came home from high school: he was the minister's son. At that time, going to school was still a luxury. The two of them became familiar with each other, and he would share his daily experiences with her, and occasionally play tricks on the girl who had to work every day.

Later, the girl transferred to a new factory, but the dormitory of the female workers in the new factory was only two roads away from the minister's house, so she would still visit Qi's mother. Every time she went, she would still meet the boy, and her tender feelings gradually grew. long.

The girl works long hours, from 7 to 7 every day. The girl's cousin feels sorry for the girl and goes to her dormitory from time to time to deliver fruit to her. The boy doesn't want to wait at home all the time for the girl to come. He will wait for the girl to get off work and then tiptoe to her dormitory to knock on the door. Door, let the girl open the door and take him in. In fact, boys are not allowed to stay in the female worker dormitory at night, but there is no dormitory in the dormitory, and there are not many people who stay overnight. Therefore, they will go to the rooftop of the dormitory and watch the night sky while sharing the seasonal mangoes brought by their cousin. This is On their date, they didn't hold hands and didn't need love words.

Once, the boy said to the girl: "Let's go see a movie together someday!" But the theaters at that time were not what they are now. There were new shows every twenty minutes, and one of the girl and the boy had to go to work, and the other had to go to school. It’s always unworthy, “Haha, I didn’t go to see the movie in the end.” Many years later, the girl said this to her grandson.

The boy likes to act like a scoundrel and always says to the girl with a smile: "You have a job and make money, so you can support me so that I can study." "Why should I support you? How is that possible?" The girl is displeased. He said angrily, until slowly, starting from a certain day, the needle and thread in the hands of this garment factory girl had an extra item that was not for sale, with a lot of cotton and a very dense needle.

The movie always inadvertently falls on every period of life. The girl who takes the nonsense seriously, and the boy who loves to play rogue, the two get closer and closer until one day, they decide to get married. The girl grew up to be a virtuous girl and worked in a health center. After graduation, the boy found a job as a handyman at the airport, and later became an aircraft maintainer, sending iron birds into the sky. There are winged birds in the sky and his branches on the ground. Every day after get off work, he rides his bicycle and lands at his destination, where there is a beloved girl who has already cooked a table of meals.