Ten days before my birthday this year, I bought a house in the United States and signed a thirty-year loan contract. In a stack of paper as thick as a dictionary, the lawyer pointed to the place where the signature should be and said softly: "Here , here, and here." Various inexplicable and life-threatening combinations of numbers and English unfolded in front of us. I saw "2046" at a glance, which is the number of years when the loan is due. I was reminded of Wong Kar-Wai's movie 2046. The protagonist is writing a novel and says that as long as people get on the train to 2046, people can regain their lost memories.
I was born at the end of August, and my biggest dissatisfaction with this day is not receiving gifts. Since it was two days before school started, I couldn't catch up with the new classmates so I could use the trolley to collect gifts. As an only child, there are always only two guests at celebration parties - my father and my mother.
Ever since I can remember, I seem to have had ritual requirements for birthdays. Cream cakes are a must and celebrations are a must. At that time, there was a restaurant called Bonnie Fried Chicken in Xidan, which felt similar to KFC. It was my introduction to American fast food. At that time, the mascot of Bonnie Fried Chicken was a bear wearing a hat and looking like he had a special liking for fried chicken. It was much more convincing than a chicken holding up a chicken leg and grinning.
At the end of the 1980s, Beijing’s foreign fast food made its debut in the gray street shops. The two-story building cannot seat more than ten tables, and the interior decoration has different temperatures, different lights and different smells. There was no Meituan at that time, and it was rare for every family to "eat out". The second uncle called the banquet "eating fat mouth", which shows that everyone usually has a very plain mouth.
In the winter of 1987, when KFC opened in Beijing, the streets were packed with people. I guess the American reporters in China at that time must have found it even more incredible and magical than I recall now. Many people born in the 1980s, like me, have unreservedly included cabbage salad and mashed potatoes, the standard dishes of American southern food trucks, as happy childhood memories. They are all busy with their money, and they often have to eat KFC to successfully travel back to their childhood and gain a sense of satisfaction that is rare in today's extremely rich material life.
Because I was young, my definition of food was limited to the understanding that if it is sweet, it is "eating as a set", and if it is not sweet, it is "eating as a side". This characteristic is quite compatible with the American people. So I don’t take seriously the Moscow restaurant that Mom and Dad mythologized as “Old Mo’er”. But the architecture of this restaurant is still very impressive. Beijing Moscow Restaurant is part of the exhibition hall complex and adjacent to the Beijing Zoo. It is a must-choice venue for many Beijing children's birthdays. After getting into trouble in Monkey Mountain, Liger Mountain and Orangutan Museum, coming to the magnificent "Old Mo'er" is a kind of cleansing from the inside out.
"Old Mo'er" was designed by the Central Design Institute of the Soviet Union in 1954 to reflect the brotherly friendship of the Socialist Alliance. It is said that there is a "Beijing Restaurant" in Moscow. I don't know what it looks like. In short, eating in a Moscow restaurant feels like attending a state banquet in the Great Hall of the People. Dress appropriately, behave in a civilized manner, and don't speak too loudly, as there will be echoes if you speak too loudly. Of course, the most important point is that "Lao Mo'er" was the only restaurant in Beijing that served Western food for a long time. The rule of "holding the fork in the left hand and the knife in the right hand" that can only be seen in movies is really used here.
Of course, other Beijing Western restaurants that advertised high quality in the early 1990s, even with knives and forks and tablecloths folded into a peacock's tail, were still far behind. Because they can't compare to Lao Mo'er's marble floor, six-meter-high pillars, saffron carpets and golden revolving doors. Even if you are not a fan of cold sour fish, canned braised beef, or beetroot soup, as soon as you sit on the red sofa chair in the vast restaurant, you will feel a sense of "kingdom and domination".
However, within ten years, we have discovered that Russian food is a cuisine of Western food, not Western food itself. Then, another Western restaurant opened in the exhibition hall. It also had cutlery, tablecloths, and elegant style. It was called Pizza Hut.
I will give you time to laugh for 30 seconds.
If you haven’t laughed enough, laugh a little longer. I wait.
In short, the American reporter in China who originally reported the crowd-pleased opening of KFC in Beijing must have vomited blood all over the floor when he saw Pizza Hut’s trick of “sticking green onions in a pig’s nose”, just like me on the side of a highway in suburban Washington for the first time. It’s the same as seeing a drive-thru restaurant that combines Pizza Hut and KFC. I learned a new word today. The imperialists are playing tricks on me.
But no matter what, my high school birthday was spent cutting Pizza Hut pizza, digging into baked snails, and licking the ice cream balls floating on the Coke. Of course, the most important thing is the walls we built on salad bowls with cucumber slices and Mayonnaise in those years; those half-meter-high walls with magic horses inside are not important, the key is that they can be established mechanically. of “take it once” salads; those times when you’re not done yet, you’re laughing so hard, the pizza is cold and the salad is not ready yet. It’s hard to buy it with a thousand gold! It’s hard to buy it with a thousand gold!
The 18th birthday is also a good time that money can’t buy. My first love boyfriend gave me 99 roses at the door of the planetarium. Holding them up made me feel like I was about to store cabbage for the winter. It was the weight and taste of happiness. At that time, there was a sandstorm in Beijing and the sky turned yellow. The astronomical telescope in the planetarium was basically used as a display for the collection. The "stars" could only be seen in the dome movie of the planetarium.
The planetarium is also tenacious, and it has remained the same for ten years. The same movie my dad took me to watch on my birthday when I was in elementary school was the same movie I watched with my boyfriend in college. It was both romantic and nostalgic at the same time. Looking up at the Big Dipper, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Sagittarius, Orion, and the twelve constellations, I almost talked about Saint Seiya.
After the performance, there was a small stall selling zodiac products. I just vowed to be an astronomer, so it made sense for me to force my dad to buy a "Virgo" bookmark. That bookmark says that my clover is a daisy, and that my personality traits are conservative and mysophobic. At the age of 8, I was full of great curiosity about these two unfamiliar words, and tried to understand them as if they were a prophecy. And after growing up, he spared no effort to grow in the opposite direction.
(To be continued, please move to the public account "Shenma Dongxi" to read)