Memory

My first workplace was in another county and is about 200 kilometers away from the city I now live in.

Before I joined that department, there were only five people working there. Plus the two new enrolled employees (including me), there were seven employees in my first department in total.

Our department had a row of single floor houses that went from east to west. We used three rooms as our office. The three rooms had no walls inside them. They combined together as a big house. The other rooms are used as our dormitory.

Our office equipment was a typewriter, a dial telephone and a coal-ball stove. We used the stove to heat water. In the winter, we used the stove to keep warm.

There was a tap water tap outside our office, but it was locked up all the time. Even if someone sometimes unlocked it, there was still no water flowing out. It's said that the reason was that our office was on a small hill so that the tap water couldn’t go up that high.

We fetch water from a deep well in the southeastern part of our office. Because we were on a small hill, the well was really deep. When we looked into the bottom of it from the opening of the well, the water was like a small mirror. We only used a rope to attach a bucket to fetch water, so we had to be very skilled.

We also collected the rain as domestic water, so every time it rained, we took all our buckets, pots and basins under the eave.

Our office didn't have a closed wall. Only on the southeast of our office was there an iron gate, but on the southwest of our office there was an open area.

I shared a room with the person who was assigned to our office in the same year, but he graduated from another school. We slept on a simple wooden bed. In the winter, we laid a lot of rice straw under the reed mat to keep warm.

During summer nights, sometimes I would go to the county stadium to skate (it was not really skating. I only wear skating shoes to skate on the evenly cement ground). Unfortunately, I was not able to skate as well as the others and I often fell down.

After skating, I was always thirsty and sweaty, so drinking two bottles of orange squash was my routine.

I don't know how to describe the feeling of working there. On one hand, I was happy and excited because I had already grown up and started working for the government. On the other hand, I was a little sad about not having the chance to work in my hometown. Fortunately, four years later, I was transferred to my hometown.

In an instant, many years have passed since then. I have already become the Old Liu from the 小Liu [Chinese people like to call young people by adding a 小 (xiǎo, means small or little before their family names)].

Recently, I tended to look back on my youth. The reason may be that I am older. Life is time; life is also a memory. I wish everyone beautiful memories.