Chinese Version
08-19-2021，Thursday，Big Storm

Recently, I heard a children’s song in my hometown Zigong dialect: “The Zigong dialect is like putting salt into a hot pot. We Zigongians think it’s just right, but you will say it’s a little salty”. I laughed about it for a while and could not help thinking of the white salt in my hometown Zigong and my Zigongian memory about salt.

In the 1970s, after meat, sugar, tobacco, and wine were limited by monthly government issued coupons, soy sauce was also limited, yet there was no limit on salt in Zigong. While mixing salt with water as soy sauce, Yeyi, my nanny, would say: “The color is wrong, but the taste is the same.” Recalling this, I realized that as a child, my taste was not very sensitive. However, my children’s taste was very delicate. I still remember the first time I put sugar in the double cooked pork belly for my son, he immediately felt different and told me that he didn’t like the dish with sugar in it.

In the small shop near my home, the white salt is placed in a large bamboo dustpan with a diameter of about one meter. The salt is always wet because it absorbs the moisture in the air. I often went to the small shop to buy salt. It costs a few cents a pound and I never thought salt was precious.

The first time I knew salt was very precious was in 1974, in the popular children’s film “Shining Red Star”. When I saw Pan Dongzi, the child protagonist in the film, on the way to deliver salt to the guerrillas on the mountain and after passing the White Region guard’s inspection, he lifted his cotton-padded jacket and said proudly to his old friend: “Grandpa, salt!” (he had dissolved the salt into water and poured it into his cotton padded jacket earlier). I could not understand why and how salt could be so precious in the film.

In July 2021, while talking to M, an retired professor of European history, about our origins, I said, “I come from a small city in inland China.”

M professor immediately asked, “I’m curious about how the salt is transported to inland cities in China?”

I asked in surprise, “Why do you suddenly think of salt?”

M professor explained: “I heard that my ancestors in Russia, under the rule of Catherine II in the middle and late 18th century, are a family licensed to transport sea salt to the deep inland of Russia. Edible salt is a rare necessity in the inland. I wonder how sea salt got to small inland cities in China. ”

As soon as I heard it, I said proudly, “My hometown Zigong had already produced well salt 2000 years ago. Zigong, also known as the salt capital, is famous for its prosperity. ”

After circling half the earth and after living for over half a century, I finally understood how salt used to be so important to ordinary people, and why Zigong, my hometown, used to be so important. This once important small city has accumulated a rich cultural history, which is the pride of the native Zigong Salt capital.

Little Episodes

1. “During the Anti Japanese War, Zigong was the city with the highest amount of donations. More than 200,000 Zigongians either donated money and/or bravely participated in the war. Their donation of 120 million yuan ranked first among Chinese cities, surpassing Chengdu and Guangzhou, which made all the Zigongians very proud. ”

The famous Shenhai well, which was dug in 1835, is 1001.42 meters deep and covers an area of about 1500 square meters. It is the first well over 1000 meters deep in the world. It still retains the layout and style of the early 19th century. It is a typical well salt production site in the Qing Dynasty. According to records, salt workers of all dynasties have successively drilled more than 13000 wells in Zigong. ”

2. The inscription of “Resistance and Revival” on Guangguang street, Ziliujing District, in Zigong:

“During the Anti-Japanese War, because sea salt was blocked, the civilian and military supplies of salt in Hubei and southwest provinces of China depended on Sichuan salt, and Zigong was the most important salt supply city. In the spring of 1938, Zigong was ordered to increase salt production and transport with remarkable results. Therefore, Zigong became a key target for the Japanese in an attempt to cut off the salt supply and to shake the will of the Chinese army and people in their resistance of Japan. From October 1939 to August 1941, the Japanese carried out 7 times and 18 batches of indiscriminate bombing on Zigong, causing great disasters to the Zigong people.

The people of Zigong rose up to resist and set a record in the history of salt production in the three years of indiscriminate bombing by the enemy. The salt production increased from 7% in 1937 to 27% in 1941. It effectively smashed the aggressor’s strategic plot to cut off the supply of salt and disintegrate the fighting spirit of the Chinese army and people in the war of resistance against Japan.”

3. In the 1974 popular children’s film “Shining Red Star”, the scene of Pan Dongzi showed his old friend his cotton-padded jacket soaked with salt water:

4. Qingzi, my high school classmate, left a message after I shared this story among my friends: “The story of Zigong, my hometown. The story of an ancient small city with salt flavor and sentimental.”

“Anthropologist Ren Naiqiang believes that the development of human civilization before the 17th century was mostly accompanied by the expansion of the salt road.”