Na Island, Na Man, Nasuo
Sticking to the isolated island for thirty-two years, there is a "Robinson" in the depths of Lingdingyang
The sea breeze brought hot and humid water vapor across Wailingding Island, and the mountains were filled with clouds and mist.
On the edge of the cliff, a seed fell in a crack in the stone.
The harder the stone, the more dangerous the terrain, the stronger the sea breeze, the deeper the roots and the tighter the branches.
This is Podocarpus, vigorous, upright and full of vitality.
He, like Podocarpus pine, takes root in the island and grows in the sun regardless of wind and rain.
He is Xie Jian, as his name is.
Xie Jian is an ordinary courier at the Wailingding Island Post Office of China Post Group Company, Zhuhai City, Guangdong.
In 1988, he entered this post office after retiring from the army and took root on the border island. For 32 years, he regarded the island as his home and served the military and civilians stationed on the island wholeheartedly. Song of life.
There is a "Robinson" in the depths of Lingdingyang
Open the map of China and the Wanshan Islands, which are part of Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province, are oriented from east to west, like a chain, guarding the only channel into the Pearl River Delta in the South China Sea.
Wailingding Island is one of the most remote islands, across the sea from Hong Kong and Macau.
In 1988, Xie Jian, who had been a signal officer in the South China Sea Fleet for four years, was discharged from the army.
At that time, Zhuhai City Hydrographic Bureau, Marine Supervision, Fishery Administration, Customs, Post and other units all extended an "olive branch" to him. Finally, he chose the post and came to the Wailingding Island Post Office.
"Fear on the beach, say fear, sigh Lingding in the ocean." 700 years ago, the patriotic poet Wen Tianxiang was captured and passed by Lingdingyang, expressing the sinisterness and inner loneliness of this place.
The conditions on Wailingding Island 32 years ago were not much better.
For a long time, Wailingding Island has suffered from inconvenient transportation, backward communications, shortage of water and electricity, backward culture, education and public health, and the difficult conditions have exceeded Xie Jian's imagination.
“At that time, there was still no electricity. The kerosene lamps were on. Vegetables and fresh water had to be transported over land. The supply was very abnormal. When the boat was stopped in severe weather such as typhoon and fog, it was difficult to eat.” Xie Jian said.
In fact, on the first day on the island, Xie Jian encountered difficulties.
Originally, I just wanted to know something in advance, so Xie Jian went to the island empty-handed.
The person who picked him up was Lai Bo, the only postman on the island. He had worked on the island for 8 years and was nearly retiring. Xie Jian was here to take him.
Lai Bo took Xie Jian back to the post office, and after a brief handover, he took the already packed luggage and left for the ship, including the only pot, leaving only a 10-square-meter stone room and half a bucket for Xie Jian. Fresh water and a wooden bed with a broken summer mat.
"I was completely dumbfounded at the time. I stayed where I was and watched the boat disappear below the sea level a little bit." Xie Jian said, this means that for a long time, not only will I have to explore my business, but I will also face no change. Survival problems such as clothes, bedding and food.
In order to satisfy his hunger, Xie Jian tried to eat snails in the seaside reef.
Once a wave came and pressed him into the seabed reef, almost unable to get out.
Later, with the help of a doctor on the island, Xie Jian survived the initial "survival crisis" with a hot pot and a few packets of instant noodles.
More than 10 years later, Xie Jian met Lai Bo during a meeting in Zhuhai. Lai Bo took his hand and flushed. The first words he said was an apology: "I'm sorry, I will leave without teaching you. "
It turned out that Xie Jian was not Lai Bo's first successor.
Several people ran away within a few days after arriving on the island before. Lai Bo was worried that Xie Jian was also a person who could not bear the hardships, so he "made the best plan."
It's hard to draw water, and I don't even dare to take a bath with water.
It often rains. Xie Jian grabbed the towel and soap and ran to the backyard to take a rain shower.
Sometimes the gods are not beautiful, and the rain stops as soon as the soap is applied, and they can only be wiped dry.
The island is sultry all year round. In order to fall asleep, Xie Jian always moved to sleep outside except on rainy days. At night, when mosquito bites were severe, he drank and hypnotized him. As a result, every day he woke up full of bags.
Living on the islands with high temperature, high humidity and high salt content all the year round, Xie Jian, born in 1967, looks much older than his actual age: his skin is dark, thin and white, and when he smiles, a few deep lines are squeezed out of his face. ditch.
The joints of the ten fingers were swollen and bent due to rheumatism-this is the most obvious mark left by the island to Xie Jian.
"Compared with the photos taken when he was a soldier, no one would recognize the same person." Xie Jian said.
The living environment is difficult, and working on the island is regarded as a daunting journey. Most of the agencies stationed on the island adopt a rotation system, but Xie Jian never thought of giving up, and it took 32 years to work.
Over time, his memory of the city has remained before going to the island.
Once back to Zhuhai to participate in a model worker meeting, when he passed the revolving door in the hotel, he turned several times but couldn't get out.
Homesick Stone by the sea records the guilt towards loved ones
Xie Jian said that the most difficult thing is not the difficult living conditions, but loneliness.
"A person, an island, a post office, for a long time, that loneliness and loneliness can drive people crazy." He recalled the days when he waved his hands again and again.
Because of the need to receive telegrams every day, Xie Jian never left the island to go home once in the first 5 years of going to the island.
He told reporters that the most feared thing is that the fishermen are gone every New Year's Day. He thinks of the lights on the land and the islands are all in darkness.
"It was extremely difficult. I often climbed to a rock by the sea and cried in the direction of the landing place. After crying, I yelled, and then cried. When I was tired, I slept on the rock." He said.
That reef became Xie Jian's homesickness stone.
It's okay to be busy during the day, but the most difficult at night.
In the past, there was no TV or radio on the island, and the power supply was unstable. At night, he could only read old newspapers and magazines with a kerosene lamp, turning it over and over again.
The sun is rising and sunset, the tide is ebb and tide.
In 32 years, the best years of Xie Jian's life have been dedicated to the island.
For his choice, he has paid the price of his life and a half and owes three generations.
Speaking of the suffering on the island, Xie Jian seemed to tell a story. He laughed heartily every time he went to the "wonderful place", but when he talked about his parents and his wife and daughter, he couldn't stop crying.
Just after the Spring Festival in 1993, the parents who had not seen their son for five years said they would come to the island to see him.
The two rushed all the way from Zhanjiang to Zhuhai, and then transferred to a wooden shell ship with mixed cargo and people.
The boat drove for six or seven hours, and my mother vomited for six or seven hours, too dizzy to get up on the board.
After arriving at the shore, Xie Jian carried her back to her residence, and lay down until the next day before opening her mouth. The first sentence was: "My son, you really lie to me. Is this the Zhuhai Special Economic Zone? How can it be worse than our country. , You go back with us."
Xie Jian hugged his mother and cried and said, "Don't you think I am good? You have to support me, as I did when I came to the island as a soldier."
Mother couldn't screw him, and left the island in tears a few days later.
The parents never came again.
In 2001, his father died in a car accident. A few years later, the paralyzed mother left in a wheelchair.
Xie Jian didn't have time to meet the last time.
"For so many years, I am sorry for my parents." Xie Jian choked.
In fact, the object of this guilt is not only the parents, but also the wife and daughter.
In 1998, the tenth year of landing on the island, Xie Jian, the "older youth", married Cai Lizhuang, an island girl.
For a few years after marriage, Cai Lizhuang did business in Zhuhai, and Xie Jian sent mail on the island. The couple stayed together.
Later, Cai Lizhuang compromised and left the city and returned to the island.
As a result, the income is reduced and the cost of living increases.
In 2006, after learning about Xie Jian’s difficulties, the unit absorbed Cai Lizhuang as a laborer.
In this way, the husband and wife, one master inside and the other outside, made the postal service vivid and colorful and became "model couple partners" on the island.
In 2010, the island elementary school was partially closed due to a shortage of students, and Xie Jian's three children had to go back to school in the city.
Can children who grew up on the island adapt to the urban environment?
Who will take care of them?
...A series of questions are waiting for the couple to make a decision.
When the unit leader learned about it, he proposed to transfer Cai Lizhuang back to the urban area to work, but Xie Jian did not nod his head: "No matter how great the difficulties are now, it is only for the family. If another person is transferred to the island, this difficulty will become two. Instead of this, let me take care of the difficulties at home.” Finally, Xie Jian persuaded her 70-year-old mother-in-law to return to the city to take care of her three children and temporarily solved the problem.
After the old man became seriously ill, the children have been taking care of themselves.
In this way, in 10 years, the family can only reunite once a week or two, and the three children become another kind of "left-behind children."
One year, Xie Jian won a national award. When recording a program in Beijing, the program team showed him an interview video. The reporter asked the children how much they would give their father. Two children scored 5 points and the other 2 points.
"At that time, everyone at the scene laughed, and I laughed too, but I felt very uncomfortable." Xie Jian told reporters. After I came back, I asked them if you would not support me in the future. They said no.
"They haven't told me a lot of things. I couldn't help crying when I thought of the picture of my daughter's small body and a stool cooking for herself."
"If you choose the same, you must abandon the same. If you choose the island, you have to abandon the distant home." Later, in a diary, Xie Jian wrote.
The will parcel in the sea is more precious than life
Wailingding Island Post Office is very close to the coast, less than 100 meters away.
Now that I came to this island, I first saw a five-story post office when I disembarked, and then I saw the town government and other units.
Here, people regard Xie Jian in a green uniform as a relative, and affectionately call him the "Owner of the Island."
Communication on Wailingding Island is not well developed. Before mobile phones became popular, postal services were almost the only way for fishermen to communicate with other places.
Since the first day on the island, Xie Jian has determined to be a competent postman on the island.
Xie Jian took up the post without a day’s training. At first, he knew nothing about postal services. Relying on the basis of being a signal soldier, he learned by doing and gradually became an expert.
One of the biggest characteristics of mails sent to the islands is that many mails do not have a detailed address, and generally only have the words "Received by Lingding Island, Zhuhai City", which makes delivery difficult.
Wailingding Island has a floating population of more than 3,000 people, mostly fishermen working in Hong Kong and Macau fishing boats.
They come from all over the country and live in no fixed place. They go to sea for ten and a half months.
In order to grasp the information of the fishing boats and fishermen, Xie Jian will board the fishing boat when he is free, climb on the fishing raft, chat with the fishermen, and grasp various information about the boats staying on the island.
The content of the telegram at that time was either a happy event or a tragedy. No matter what, the recipient would be excited.
Once, a telegram was sent from Taishan, Guangdong, and the content contained only four words: "Wife has a good birth."
After much searching, Xie Jian finally found the recipient Liang Jinqing on the ship.
I thought he would be very happy, who would have thought that he would hold me in a hug, crying.
He said: "Look at me in my 30s. My wife has a heart attack. I have been pregnant with a few. The doctors said that I can't give birth. This time my wife said I must give birth to everything, even if I die, I must protect the child."
Seeing the excited expressions of the recipients time and time again, Xie Jian thought that the burden on his shoulders was so heavy that he could not be sloppy. It also made him deeply understand the true meaning of "a family letter worth ten thousand dollars".
Relying on his work, Xie Jian delivered the mail to the recipients one by one without a street name or house number.
According to incomplete statistics, over the past 32 years, Xie Jiantuo has sent more than 30,000 difficult emails and more than 3,000 “dead letters” to save lives. The soldiers and civilians stationed on the island have been called “green messengers” on the island.
Xie Jian valued the parcel more than life.
Just after the Spring Festival in 1992, Xie Jian took a fishing boat to escort two bags of mail to Dangan Island, which was farther away. The fishing boat broke down shortly after it departed. It was drifting on the open sea. It was really "a lone boat".
From morning to night, because there was no communication equipment on the boat and the fishing boat was too small, the ships did not find them.
It was getting late, Xie Jian and the owner fell into despair.
"If I really die, maybe the mail floats on the sea, it will be picked up by kind people and sent to the recipient!" Thinking of this, Xie Jian wrapped the mail with the rain-proof cloth of a fishing boat, and his heart was too. I decided a lot and started writing a will.
"I have written a will four times in my life, three times in the army, and once on this fishing boat." Xie Jian said with a smile. By eight or nine o'clock in the evening, they saw a big fishing boat from a distance.
"At this time, I can only take a gamble!" Xie Jian lit his clothes. Perhaps it was because of Fu's fate, and the weak flames were discovered, and they were successfully rescued.
"Every honor has its weight"
On the second floor of the Wailingding Island Post Office, there is a three-story glass locker, which is full of medals and awards stacked in layers.
2010 "Zhuhai City Model Worker", "Zhuhai City Model Ethical Staff", "Zhuhai City "Excellent Communist Party Member" in 2011, "National May 1st Labor Medal" in 2012, "Guangdong Good Man" in 2014, "Chinese Dream·Labor" in 2015 The "Top Ten Most Beautiful Employees", "National Model Worker"...
When the reporter asked him which honor he valued most, Xie Jian smiled naively and scratched his head: "It's all the same! All the same! Every honor has its weight!"
Five years ago, on the eve of May Day, Xie Jian was named a "National Model Worker", and the media reported on the deliveryman who won the highest honor for a Chinese worker.
Overnight, the postman from the small island in the South China Sea became a celebrity.
After becoming famous, Xie Jian still boarded fishing boats and climbed fishing platoons every day to learn about the staying boats from fishermen and prepare for accurate delivery.
"I saw you in the newspaper!" A fisherman standing on the fishing raft said with a thumbs up, "Xie Jian, model worker! Good job!" "That's all in the past!" Xie Jian did not He waved his hands embarrassedly, showing his honest smile.
Every afternoon, the passenger ship from the city to the island has not yet arrived, and Xie Jian has already been waiting at the pier.
In recent years, the wind of e-commerce has also blown to the island, with more and more packages.
Mail is sent to the island with passenger ships every day. There are dozens of pouches every day, and Xie Jian has to carry it back and forth several times, just like that, day after day.
The remoteness of the island and the high transportation costs have made many express companies "daunting". The post is still the only channel for the military and civilians on the island to communicate with the outside world.
Because of the inconvenience of transportation, the physical stores on the island only sell some simple daily necessities, which are far from meeting the needs of the military and civilians on the island, and more and more people are engaged in business on the island.
"Islanders basically purchase materials through the Internet, and now the amount of mail in one day is equivalent to the previous month." Xie Jian, who has experienced the changes in the island, said with emotion.
Mail for Beijian Island, Miaowan Island, Henggang Island and other non-navigable islands is also delivered through the Wailingding Post Office.
There are no shops on these islands, and the daily necessities needed by the military and civilians rely entirely on mail, making life very inconvenient.
The island was not navigable, so Xie Jian "brushed his face" and asked warships and fishing boats to help transfer mail.
"Model worker is an honor, but also a responsibility." Xie Jian said this more than once.
It was this sense of responsibility that allowed him to save one dead letter after another, so that he never refused the parcel delivered by fishermen knocking on the door in the middle of the night, and allowing him to stick to this 24-hour post office for 32 years; This sense of responsibility allowed him to gain the trust of the military and civilians of the island.
"No matter how high the mountain or the island is, it cannot stop the postal service from serving the people. As a party member, as a model worker, you should play an exemplary role and go all out to work!" Xie Jian said.
Be "Thank You Fool Who Never Gets Away"
A party member is a beacon.
In the 1990s, this small island, only a few nautical miles away from Hong Kong, suddenly became bustling with hundreds of ships from Hong Kong, Macau, and Mainland China that docked every day, and many smuggling ships were mixed in it.
Some smugglers found Xie Jian, hoping to smuggle the goods through the post and promised a lot of money, but Xie Jian sternly refused.
Later, when the island developed tourism, many people made a fortune based on various relationships, and some people saw Xie Jian's fame and wanted to bring him into the gang to help with peace, but Xie Jian also declined.
"I'm just an ordinary postal employee. The island residents' trust in me is the greatest affirmation of me. I will not trade this!" Xie Jian said.
For 32 years, Xie Jian, who was willing to stay in poverty, was still willing to stay in poverty.
Relatives said that he was too honest and useless. Some people who left the island said: "Xie Jian is a fool, and he will never get the hang of it!"
Stay away from the unit and the organization, but he always regards the green uniform on his body as life.
"The uniform is the'organization' that restricts me. Everything I do must first think of being worthy of this uniform." Xie Jian said.
Nowadays, Wailingding Island has become a beautiful tourist island, with more residents and tourists, and the services provided by Wailingding Post are becoming more abundant.
During the delivery, Xie Jian would recommend the "Ule Shop" to fishermen, and use the rest time to teach them how to operate, and sell dried seafood dried by hand to the whole country.
Every year, "Double Eleven" has become the busiest day for the couple.
In August 2017, the strong typhoon Hato hit the island severely, and many residents suffered serious damage to their homes. Xie Jian became a promoter of "Island Insurance" again. "After experiencing it, I know that it is terrible. Insurance is a kind of protection for everyone. He said, "I just want to do something for the people on the island, so that the lives and property of the people on the island will not suffer too much."
In January 2018, Xie Jian was elected as the representative of the 13th National People's Congress, and the burden on his shoulders became heavier.
In order to perform his duties, Xie Jian used to board fishing boats and climb fishing platoons when delivering parcels, and did a good job of social conditions and public opinion research.
He often comes into contact with small, medium and micro enterprises and finds that they have a heavy burden.
Beginning in June 2018, under the active contact and promotion of Xie Jian, the Wailingding Island Post Office and the Wanshan Ocean Development Pilot Zone Taxation Bureau jointly launched a "tax and postal" joint construction, tax incentives to enter the island, and mail tax Activities such as invoices.
The messenger of the year once again sent the tax and fee reduction policy dividends to the taxpayers of Wailingding Island.
"Only by climbing on the fishing raft and walking into the fishing boat can we truly hear the voice of the masses and do practical things for the masses," he said.
From making telegrams and sending letters to delivering parcels and doing business, a small post office on Wailingding Island has witnessed the great changes of the times.
On the island, a red and white lighthouse stands 50 meters away from the post office, emitting a dazzling light every night to navigate the ships.
Communist Xie Jian is like this lighthouse, 32 years as a day.
The day before leaving Wailingding Island, Xie Jian brought reporters to his "Homesick Stone".
Everyone sat on the ground facing the sea.
As the sun sets, the sky is red, the sea is red, and Xie Jian's bronze face is also red.
In the distance, on the street diagonally across from the post office, a Podocarpus pine stands upright.
This is the sapling transplanted from the mountain by Xie Jian in his early years.
There used to be a lot of Podocarpus on the island.
This kind of pine specializes in growing on islands that lack water, soil, and rugged cliffs. The harsh environment not only slows down its growth, but also creates its peculiar shape with nine bends and eighteen bends.
The islanders said that Podocarpus pine on this island is different from that on land. Even if the species on the island is transplanted to land, it will not look like on the island and lack the bone of character.
The weak seedlings of the past are now flourishing and vigorous.
(Reporters Liu Dajiang and Mao Xin)