According to philosophers, there are no two leaves alike. Similarly, there are no two towns alike. For almost twenty years, I’ve been trying to figure out the differences between my hometown and other cities in the world. And now I still remember the day before I went to Nanjing for my college, I took a day’s time to stroll around the small town in the purpose of finding some unique features of it, be it good or bad, so that I could bring those memories along to a strange city, using them to smooth the nostalgia and fill the emptiness in my heart when I was alone in the night. And I really did find something unique of my hometown that day. What’s more, I found that those unique aspects had developed into to some underlying habits or rules, even those who inhabited in it for more than half a century could hardly be aware of it.
The transportation of my hometown was really a strange one. First, I’d like to tell you that my hometown is a really small-sized town with only 100, 000 people. I hadn’t realized that the only main street of the town should stretch continuously for more than 3000kms. That means a more than 30 minutes’ bus ride and more than 25 stops for the whole journey for such a small town. It’s just like a small, thin and long noodle. Besides, there are neither railway station nor superhighway across or near by, but these facilities are all equipped in a subordinate town which is far smaller than the town. For those who want to take the train would have to take a one hour’s bus to the subordinate town or 1.5 hours’ bus to the municipal, and for those who want to enter the superhighway, it is the same. What’s more, the people in the town have not a single complaint about it.
For recreation of the town, it’s really monotonous and unique. And I believe that it has remained unchanged for at least 100 years. The inhabitants of my hometown, from 5 years old kids to 90 years old folks, are in a crazy love for a kind of local cards, which is said to be invented by our ancestors in the Chu Dynasty. And it’s also said that Mahjong was originated from such kind of cards. Those who don’t know how to play will definitely be disdained by others. And every household holds at least tow sets of that kind of cards. This kind of local cards is not difficult to play, but you have to be able to recognize the different ways of writing Chinese characters “one” to “ten”, including the abandoned traditional form. The funny thing is that in a year’s College Entrance Examination, the students were asked to write out the ten abandoned traditional forms of Chinese characters one to ten. Naturally, 99% of the students in our town got all the points, which was said to raise one point of the average score of the students in our town’s schools. Thus, the inhabitants of my hometown were very proud of it, and the atmosphere of playing the cards grew stronger and thicker.
There is another unique feature of our hometown ---- the dialects. If I tell you that there are at least 15 kinds of local dialects in our hometown, you may not be that surprised. But if I tell you that those 15 kinds of dialects are pronounced completely differently, you would be greatly surprised. For example, there are 15 kinds of pronunciation of “ I ”, which sounds totally different in other people ears and can only be understood by the inhabitants of my hometown. And I believe you will be more surprised to learn that our dialects are one of the best preserved Chu dialects in ancient times. Many Chinese linguistics have been visited my hometown to do research. Among all the dialects in Hunan province, our dialects are also considered as the most difficult dialects to understand, leave alone to learn it. But we can understand all the dialects of the whole province. And there is even a publication about how to learn our dialects. There is also an anecdote handled down to this very age. Zeng Guofan, one of the ministers of Qing Dynasty, was my countryman. It was said that when his Xiang army was confronting with the TaiPing rebellious army, the TaiPing army sent a spy to my hometown to ask about the information about Xiang Army. The moment he spoke, the inhabitants recognized him out and sent him to Zeng’s army. Not only did he get no information for the TAiPing rebellious army but also he himself got killed.
Actually, there are many other unique aspects of my hometown. The three I mentioned above, though some are not so pleasing or satisfactory, I, like many of my folks, am quite comfortable with them. We may not so upward, but we are the most unsophisticated group, we love our hometown, no matter how ugly it is, or will be.
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