The camel team came and stopped in front of my house.

They stood in a long line, waiting for people to arrange. The weather is dry and cold. The camel puller took off his felt hat and his head was steaming. It was a puff of white smoke, melting in the dry and cold air.

Dad is bargaining with him. On the humpback of Shuangfeng, each horse carries two sacks of coal. The camel puller said that they came from Mentougou, and they and the camel came step by step.

Dad made a deal with him. People are unloading coal and camels are eating grass. I stood in front of the camels and watched them chew: such an ugly face, such long teeth, such a quiet gesture. When they chew, their upper and lower teeth grind alternately, their nostrils are steaming, and foam is stuck on their beards. I was shocked and my teeth moved.

The teacher taught me to be calm like a camel. See it never in a hurry, walk slowly, and it will always arrive; Chew slowly and you will always be full. The leading horse always has a bell tied under its long neck. When it walks, it will make a sonorous, sonorous and sonorous sound.

"Why do you want to tie the bell?" What do I not understand?

Dad told me that camels are afraid of wolves and wear bells. The wolf heard the bell and dared not violate it.

My childish mind is full of ideas different from those of adults. I said to my father, "No, Dad! Their soft soles silently walk on the soft desert. Didn't you say that they walked for three days and nights without drinking a mouthful of water, but quietly chewed the food poured out of their stomachs? It must be that the camel puller couldn't bear the long and lonely journey, so he put a bell on the camel and added some fun to the road. "

Dad thought for a moment, smiled and said, "Maybe your idea is better."

Winter is almost over, and spring is coming. The sun is so warm that people want to take off their cotton-padded jackets. Isn't it? Camels also took off their old camel hair robes! Its fur fell off its body in chunks and hung under its stomach. I really want to cut them with a pair of scissors because they are so untidy. The same is true of camel pullers, who also take off their sheepskin and put it on the small peak on the camel's back. The sack is empty, and the bell rings more clearly in a relaxed pace.

Summer has come, and there is no sign of camels. I asked my mother again, "Where do they go in summer?"

"who?"

"Camel!"

Mom can't answer, she said:

"Keep asking, keep asking, you child!"

Summer passed, autumn passed, winter came again, and the camel team came again, but childhood is gone forever. I won't do anything stupid like camel chewing in winter. However, how much I miss the scenery and people who lived in the south of Beijing when I was a child! I said to myself, write them down. In this way, I wrote a book "Old Things in the South of the City".

I think silently and write slowly. I saw the camel team coming in the winter and heard the slow and pleasant camel bells. Childhood came back to my mind.

Extended data:

Summer passed, autumn passed, winter came again, and the camel team came again, but childhood is gone forever. I won't do anything stupid like camel chewing in winter. However, how much I miss the scenery and people who lived in the south of Beijing when I was a child! I said to myself, write them down. In this way, I wrote a book "Old Things in the South of the City". (Excerpted from the preface to Old Things in the South of the City)

It describes a warm and harmonious Eiko family living in a quadrangle in the south of Beijing in the 1920s. Old Stories in the South of the City was selected as "Top 100 China Novels in the 20th Century" by Asia Weekly. Full of nostalgic tone, it expresses its multi-level emotional color in a natural and seamless way. Everything in the book is so orderly. Slowly flowing water, slowly camel team, slowly passing crowd, slowly passing years ... The perfect combination of scenery, events, people, things and feelings is like an elegant and implicit poem.

In the late 1920s, a six-year-old girl named Lin lived in a small alley in the south of Beijing. Xiuzhen, a "crazy" woman who often stands in the alley looking for her daughter, is Eiko's first friend. Xiuzhen once had a crush on a college student. Later that college student went back to his hometown and never came back. Xiuzhen's daughter, Xiao Guizi, was left at the foot of the city by her family, and her life and death were unknown. Eiko is very sympathetic to her. Eiko learned that the little girl's life is very similar to that of the little devil, found the mark on the back of her neck, and quickly took her to Xiuzhen.

After Xiuzhen met her daughter who had been separated for six years, she immediately took her to her father. As a result, the mother and daughter died tragically under the train wheels. Houjia moved to Xinlian Hutong. Eiko met a young man with thick lips in a nearby desert garden. In order to pay for his brother's education, he had to steal. Eiko thinks she is kind, but she can't tell whether she is a good person or a bad person. Not long after, Eiko found a small bronze Buddha on the barren grass, which was discovered by police spies. He took the young man away with the police, which made Eiko very sad. When Eiko was nine years old, Feng Daming, the husband of her wet nurse Ma Song, came to the Lins.

Eiko was very sad to learn that Ma Song's son fell into the river and drowned two years ago, and her daughter was sold to someone else by her husband. She couldn't understand why Ma Song left her children to wait on others. Ma Song was picked up by her husband with a donkey. Later, Eiko's father died of lung disease. Eiko took his family on a long-distance carriage and said goodbye to his childhood with all kinds of doubts.

Xiaoying (Lin) is the protagonist of this film. When she found that there was a great contrast between the good wishes of adults and reality, her innocent and kind young mind became more and more fragile. The endless tragic cycle in the film is even more eye-catching and thought-provoking, which is also the key to the film's richness.