第五章 赶 场

二十世纪六十年代后期，我刚十三岁那年，继母带我去乡下赶场，为正在坐月子的姑妈购买鸡禽肉蛋类的营养补品。时值文革运动，“斗私批修” 、“割资本主义尾巴”的战斗如火如荼，自发的农贸集市也被定性为“自由市场”，属取缔之列。但老百姓总得过日子，按计划配给的油盐柴米很难满足日常之需；更何况那种有着数千年历史的传统贸易方式早就融入老百姓的日常生活，要彻底改变它绝非易事。看来场还是要赶的，生活也要继续。谁都知道，自由贸易毕竟有违文革运动的宗旨，所以上集市卖东西和买东西都有点像做贼一样，生怕被当做资产阶级的典型给人民群众专了政去。虽如此，在我这个都市少年眼中乡村集市还是挺新鲜的：从来没有见过那么多头缠白帕、脚蹬草鞋的农夫，扯起嗓子笑骂吆喝；从来没有见过那么多背着背蔸的婆婆大娘和拖起乌黑大辫子、挽着提篮的幺姑儿们，在如蚁的人堆中穿进挤出……。继母在前面走着，时不时于神色慌张的讨价还价中，将成交了的禽蛋塞入我手中的塑料网袋。我还记得那时的鸡蛋可要光鲜得多，绝对生态喂养正宗土鸡所生，才六分钱一枚。在转悠了一整个上午，我手中的网袋逐渐膨胀，越来越沉之后，继母和我正为今天的收获而由衷庆幸，心里也升起一种“凯旋”之感时，忽听有人大喊：“纠察队来了！”人群开始骚动，刹那间哭喊叫骂声，猪嘶鸡啼声，扁担、箩筐断裂声……混杂一片，有天崩地蹋之势。可怜忙着躲闪的我也弄得鸡飞蛋打，险些被拴进纠察队的办公室，还是继母以泼妇似的力争，才将我从皮绳下抢救出来。

——在那个特定的年代里，我也算有了第一次“赶场”的经历。

据有关资料记载，我国最早的集市大约出现于商周时期。那时的集市处于贸易的初级阶段，规模较小，一般都是临时择一块方便之地（交通道口、水陆码头等）进行货物交易，所谓“日中而市”，多半是在午时前后，后来也有早晚交易的，完毕后各自散去，场所无固定设施，时间规律性也不够强，被称为“草市”。隋唐之际，四川地区这类草市非常兴旺，成为当时广大农村的商贸集散中心。草市在发展过程中为了方便买卖，一些永久性固定的服务设施应运而生，如商铺、饭馆、茶摊、客栈、娱乐场所……等，逐渐形成规模，并有了约定俗成的逢集时间和划分出不同类别的专业市场。这类集市被四川人习惯性地统称为“场”，比如成都附近的石羊场、白家场、琉璃场等；去场上卖东西或买东西，甚至不卖也不买只是闲逛、玩乐、喝酒、吃茶、瞧热闹……，就叫做“赶场”。千百年来，赶场已经成为了四川人尤其是广大农村老百姓物质生活与精神生活的重要组成部分。

“场”作为最基本的集市商贸单位，也是城市的胚胎和雏型。历史上四川地区的城镇化大都经历过由场而镇、由镇而县、由县而市……不断发展壮大的过程。据粗略统计，四川的“场”总不下四、五千个，尤其在人口密集的成都平原，可说是“三里一场，五里一集”。这许许多多场的出现，当然得益于“天府之国”优越的自然环境和丰饶的物产。农民地里的菜蔬、圈里的猪羊，除满足基本的享用，将多余的拿去场上出售，然后又购回烟酒油盐等其它生活的必需。这种传统的交易方式，在巴蜀大地历数千年而不变，至少我们从汉代一个叫王褒的写的《僮约》中，读到过“牵犬贩鹅，武阳买茶”的记载。因此，赶场做买卖虽然早已不是以物易物的简单交换，但顶多算得上初级的商品贸易形式。说它“初级”，更因为这些售物者多属自产自销，并非出于资本的积累，仅仅是换取生存的必需而已，所以它还带着强烈的农耕文明的色彩。惟其这种色彩，致使“赶场”传承为一种特定的地方文化现象，散发出浓郁的巴蜀大地泥土的芬芳，并一直延续到今天。

赶场都有较固定的场期，其疏密视当地的经济状况而定。一般讲，发达地区逢场日的间隔较密，有逢单日、逢双日的，有逢一、四、七或三、六、九的……，有的甚至天天赶场，称为逢“百日场”；贫困地区则十天半月逢一次场，甚至有的长至一月才逢场，出产与需求成正比。在富饶的川西平原邻近的几个场总要尽量将场期错开，以便人们今天赶这场，明天还能赶那场。如双流县的黄龙溪逢双赶场，距它仅三里之遥的毛家渡则逢单，那位摆地摊代人书写信件状纸神符的李大爷，便可天天往返于黄龙溪和毛家渡之间，生意好得不得了。

赶场的时间大多从早晨一直到午后，下午二、三点钟便已散尽了。隆昌县境的云顶寨，则有临晨赶场的旧俗。据说这种延续至今，趁天亮前赶场的习惯，是为了早些回家吃早饭，而不至耽误白日的农活。——是时，四野的乡民于黑幕之下，打着灯笼火把，肩挑背负，来到云顶寨不足百米的石板街上进行交易；当日出东山时交易完毕，赶场的人们也蒸发似的消遁于无形，真有些神出鬼没的感觉，故当地人又将它称做赶“强盗场”（也有称“鬼场”的）。为了亲身体验赶“强盗场”的神秘过程，我曾携同友人，于头天夜里（过去逢三、六、十，现改为三、六、九）入住了云顶寨的“粱家小店”茶旅社。可惜因为来时路途的过于劳顿，我们一觉睡到了大天亮，等我们忙乱中拎起相机撵上街去，空空荡荡的街面上只剩下了“一地鸡毛”。

赶场的内容可谓丰富多彩，生意买卖自然首当其冲。场镇上一般都是以街代市，临街的各类小店铺和街沿上的地摊儿杂错相拥，各臻其能。为便于交易，稍大一点的场镇还要划定区域作为各种专门集市，如米市、菜市、油市、猪市、牛市、鸡鸭市、鱼市、炭市、竹木市……多的竟达二、三十个。一到赶场天，商贩云集，乡民汇聚；市场上人头攒动，讨价还价声此起彼伏，夹杂着不绝于耳的牲口嘶鸣，热闹非常。买卖做完后，茶馆肯定是要泡的。哪一个场镇没有三、五家茶铺子？赶场天的茶铺，人声鼎沸，弥漫着刺鼻的叶子烟味。乡民们吃茶会友，摆龙门阵交流农事、互传信息。近晌午时，在茶铺中灌满了茶汤的人们，又三、五相约走进饭馆，要来豆腐干、花生米和猪脑壳肉……，再灌它几大杯当地自酿的跟斗儿酒（高梁酒），然后才二麻麻地、自言自语着、偏偏倒倒撞回家去！

其实赶场并不一定非要干啥具体的事务，除了吃茶喝酒外，还有那么多诸如看戏听书瞅录相、转糖饼儿斗鸡公划甘蔗等等有趣又好耍的事情；再不，看看热闹也怪引人入胜的。尤其对于小孩子来说，赶场无异于走进了天堂。

有一年跟随父母回崇庆县农村老家过春节，长辈们平日都忙于走人户的应酬之中，无暇顾及我这个凑不上趣的小人儿。这正好给了我清闲，乐得邀约些小伙伴，三里五里的去附近集镇上赶场。大约当年我与许多同龄人所共有的人生理想，是长大后做一名光荣的解放军战士，所以赶场时最能吸引我的莫过于汽枪打耙。那时打耙摊上的耙牌都是用木片做成的各种动物，排排坐似的踞蹲于十米开外的耙架之上；“子弹”则是可反复使用的坠有彩色棉线的小铁钉。规矩为一毛钱十发，如若十发均能将动物们打倒，可获得相同数量“子弹”的奖励；再打倒，再奖励，以至无穷。在经过汽枪的试用和对“子弹”的严格挑选后，我便很快达到了弹无虚发、指谁打谁的境界；眼看着一毛钱就可能玩上它一整天，耙摊老板终于喊黄，立马变规矩为只给予一次性奖励。虽然这让我多了些破费，但心里的那种满足感到了今天还难以忘怀！

…………

过去的小人儿都一个个长大了，乡坝头的场还在一次次地赶着。

我们生活的这座城市，曾经稍一抬脚，便可踩在了田坎上，要想下农村赶场是稀松平常的事情。如今城市规模的无限扩展，城市人口急剧膨胀，惨烈的生存竞争，冷漠的人情世故，让我们的视野局限于畸变的物质与精神需求，生活圈子越缩越小，城市更活像一座漂浮在***上的钢筋水泥浇铸的孤岛。

赶场，似乎已成为都市人遥不可及的一种奢求。

好在前不久我的家从闹市搬到了郊外，从我家的阳台可以隐约望见些明丽的田畴，春风里还能嗅着阵阵油菜花的清香。每遇节假日的清晨，睡眼朦胧中便已忖度着今日逢双还是逢单，是赶寿安镇呢？还是赶踏水乡？

　

　

　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Fair-Going

　　　　 In late 60s of the 20th century, I was just 13 years old. Once, my step-mother brought me to go to a fair in the countryside to buy some nutrient things such as chickens, eggs and meat for my auntie who was then in her family way. At that time when the Great Cultural Revolution was in its upsurge and a movement was going on wildly to “combat selfishness and repudiate revisionism” and “cut off the tails of Capitalism”, the spontaneously emerging agricultural trading market was also labeled as “free market” to be abandoned. But the common people had to keep a living and their planned portions of living necessities were barely sufficient to meet their needs. What was more, the traditional way of trading which had existed for thousands of years had already become an indispensable part in the daily life of the people, and it was absolutely difficult to abandon all free markets completely. Life was going to continue and fairs were going to exist. Everybody knew that free trade was against the aims of the Cultural Revolution, so, going shopping at the fair was something done stealthily and people doing so were afraid of being caught as an example of the bourgeoisie to be punished by the people’s dictatorship of the masses of the people. In spite of this, the country fair was something fresh to me a boy grown up in the city. I had never seen so many farmer-peddlers with their heads tied with white towels and their feet wearing grass-shoes shouting and laughing at the top of their voice, and so many women old and young carrying back-hampers or baskets elbowing their way amidst the crowds….. My step-mother walked in front, and from time to time she would stop to bargain for something hurriedly and frightfully and stuff what was bought into the plastic net-bag in my hand. I remember the eggs at that time were much fresher than those of today---absolutely ecological eggs without any pollution, and only six cents a piece! After a whole morning’s shopping, the plastic net-bag in my hand was becoming bigger and heavier and my step-mother and I were enjoying the “harvest” of the day and were about to go back home “triumphantly” when suddenly someone shouted: “The pickets are coming!” Suddenly, the fair became a tumult---a mess of crying, cursing and sounds of animal-screaming and things clashing as if an earth-quake was taking place. Poor was I who broke all the eggs in the hurry to escape and I was nearly bound by the pickets and put in custody in their office if not for the shrewdly struggle of my step-mother that rescued me from the binding eope of the pickets.

　　 That was my first experience of fair-going at that particular period of time.

　　 According to historical records, the earliest fair-markets appeared in about the time of the Shang-Zhou Dynasties, which were very small in size at their early stage of development. Usually the trading took place provisionally at a convenient spot like a traffic-cross or a river port, and around the noon time (the so-called “marketing in the middle of the day”). Later trade was also carried out in the morning or in the evening. The traders would leave after trading was over. The market had no fixed facilities and regular schedules. This kind of market was called “grass market”. In between the Sui and Tang Dynasties, this kind of market was very prosperous in Sichuan, being the trading center for the vast rural areas. In the course of development of the “grass market”, some permanent fixed service facilities came into being to facilitate the trading　 such as the shops, restaurants, tea-stalls, hotels and entertainment places, and the market gradually formed its scale and its established regular date, and also had its divisionary sub-markets for each special commodities or lines. This kind of market was called “Chang” (Fair) in Sichuan, like the Shiyang Chang, Baijia Chang,Liuli Chang etc., and going to buy or to sell in the Chang, or just to have a walk, to play, to drink some wine or some tea for nothing there, was called “going to the Chang” or “fair-going”. For thousands of years, fair-going has become an important part of the Sichuan people especially the broad masses of the rural people in their material and spiritual life.

　 “Chang” as the most elementary market commercial unit was also the embryonic form of the city. In history, most cities and towns in Sichuan had a gradually-growing course of development from Chang (market fair) to town to county to city. According to a rough statistics, the Changs in Sichuan amounted to several thousand, especially in the densely-populated Changdu Plain which could be said to have “a chang every three li and a market every five li”. This situation was of course resulted from the favorable natural conditions of Sichuan and its rich produce. The farmers would sell their surplus vegetables, domestic animals and grains in the fairs or markets and buy back their daily necessities such as cigarettes, wine, oil and salt. This kind of traditional trading never changed in Sichuan for the past thousands of years as we can read the records “bring along the dog to sell the geese and buy tea in Wuyang” from the book Tong Yue ( Regulations for Young Servants) written by Wang Bao of Wuyang of the Han Dynasty. Therefore, trading in the market fair, though already no longer a kind of barter, could only be counted at most as a primary commercial trade pattern. It was “primary” because these traders were mostly self-sufficiency, selling what they produced themselves only to buy back they needed for living instead of out of the purpose of capital accumulation, bearing strong colorings of the farming culture. It was with such that “going to fair” was succeeded as a specific local cultural phenomenon to the present giving forth strong fragrance of the soil of the Ba-Shu land.

　　 The time for a fair was established based on the local economical conditions. Generally speaking, more developed regions had more fair days, some on odd-numbered days, some on even-numbered days, and others having fair every three days. Some places even had fairs every day---called “a hundred day fair”. In the poor regions, however, people had a fair day in ten days or half a month or even in a month. This was because production and demand were in direct proportion. The fair days of several neighboring places in the abundant Western Sichuan Plain were always staggered in order that people could have chance to go every fair. For instance, Huanglongxi of Shuangliu had its fair day on even-numbered days and Maojiadu three li from it had its fair day on odd-numbered days so that Old Man Li who wrote letters for illiteracy could have business on both places.

　　 The fair usually began from morning till 2-3 o’clock in the afternoon when all traders would leave. But Yunding Village of the Longchang County had a custom of going to early morning fair---to go trading before dawn was aimed at going back home earlier for breakfast in order not to delay the farming work. In the dark of night, people from all directions of the neighborhood, shouldering or carrying on back all kind of goods and with torches in hand, came to the market-place in the stone-plated street of Yunding Village which was no more than a hundred meters long to trade. And the fair would be over at sunset and the traders would disappear completely like shadows. This was called by the local people “going to the robbers’ fair” or “going to the ghost fair”. In order to experience the mystic process of “going to the robbers’ fair”, I, once, together with my friends, stayed at a Liang’s Inn on the eve. But it was because we were over-tired for the journey that we slept till broad daylight and when we hurriedly run to street with cameras, it was already nobody there--- only some chicken feathers left on the ground of the street.　　　

　　 The fair was rich and colorful in content, of which trading was the most important. In the town, the market was usually placed in the street with various small shops on both sides and trading stalls on the walk-sides. In order to facilitate trading, bigger market towns allocated areas for specific markets such as the rice market, the vegetable market, the oil market, the pig market, the ox market, the poultry market, the fish market, the charcoal market and the wood and bamboo market---dozens of them in total. On the fair day, people gathered and traders came and the market became very crowded noisy with people bargaining mixed with sounds made by animals. When trading was over, tea-drinking at the tea-house became a must. There were surely several tea-houses in every market town, which were especially busy on fair days, noisy and filled with the strong smell of tobacco. There, the country people drank tea, met friends, chatting about farming affairs and exchanged information of all kinds. Approaching noon time, people who had enough tea water in their stomach would go in twos and threes to the restaurants to eat their lunch equipped with dried bean-curd, peanuts or pig-head pork, and several cups of home-made liquors. After that they would, half-drunk and murmuring what nobody understood, stumbled their way back home.

　　 Actually, fair-going would not necessarily be with certain specific purpose. Apart from drinking tea or wine, there many other interesting things to do such as watching TV videos, listening to story-telling, going to the theatre and many other playful things, or even watching the crowd in the street, which was also intoxicating, especially for the children, for whom the fair was just like a paradise.

　　 Ne year, I followed my parents to go back our home-town in the countryside of Chongqing County to spend the Spring Festival when all the elders were busy visiting and receiving the relatives and had no time for our youngsters. To my pleasure, I invited a few of my childhood friends and went to the fairs in the neighborhood. At that time, the common ideal of the children of my age was to join the PLA when grown up and become a glorious fighter. Therefore, the most attractive game in the fair was the target-shooting by air-gun. The targets then were all animal images made of wood plate lined on a shelf ten meters away, and the “bullets” were small iron nails which could be used repeatedly for many times. The shooting fee was ten cents for ten shots and if all the ten shots hit home, another ten shots would be given as a reward and this would go on with no limit. After a try shot of the air-gun and strict selection of the “bullets” I could be able to make every shot tell. In this way I would be able to shoot all the day long only with ten cents. Finally, the boss failed to keep his promise and said that he would allow my with only on reward. Though this cost me some more, yet the satisfaction I felt then was permanent!

　 ………………..

　 Now the youngsters have all grown up, but the fair-going in the countryside is still going on.

　 The city we are living in was very close to the countryside in the past. Just a few minutes’ walk would lead you to a rural fair. So, going to the fair market used to be a frequent happening. Today, the scope of the city is extending limitlessly and the urban population is growing drastically. The fierce competition for survival and the indifferent human world have limited our vision in the deformed material and spiritual needs. Our living space is shrinking and the city is becoming more like an isolated island of cement on the vast ocean.

　　 Fair-going seems to have become an unreachable desire for the city people.

　　 Fortunately, my home has recently moved to the suburbs from the noise of the city. From the balcony of my new house, I can see vaguely the bright and beautiful fields and smell the pure fragrance of the rape flowers blown over by the spring breeze. And on the mornings of my holidays, I am pondering in half-sleep if today is a fair day and which fair I’d like to go to--- the fair in Shouan Town or that in Tashui Town?