In 1987, I graduated from high school, when Shifang was about to build a power plant, so I signed up to take the exam, and succeeded. Because we are all new employees and know nothing about power generation technology, the factory organized us to study and practice in Chongqing for one year. This is no doubt very tempting for us who have never been far away. The place of study is Huangjueping. Chongqing Power Plant is located here, so there are several related electric power colleges and technical schools. Outside the main gate of our technical school is Huangjueping Farmers' Market, where there are a few small restaurants and hot pot restaurants in addition to those selling vegetables and groceries. Hot pot restaurants are small and open in residential homes, usually with two or three tables outside and people living in the inner room. I've always wondered how these small hotpot restaurants make a profit. Until one day, a classmate and I were attracted by the fragrance and walked into one of them, and we knew the answer -- the secret of making profits in these hot pot restaurants lies in the "insert". To set, here used as a verb, means to put together or put together. Inlaid hot pot, is a patchwork combination of hot pot. When strangers come into the shop, the boss will arrange you where there is room, send you chopsticks and dishes, and you will immediately be immersed in the steaming atmosphere of eating hot pot. It is usually an iron or copper pot with an iron frame partition inside. This partition, there are four grids, there are nine grids, not like the mandarin duck pot that soup impassable, do not communicate, but only separated dishes not separated from the soup, different guests on the table, identify their own one or two grids, shabu call son yo. This way of eating is certainly a challenge for us. While it's not unheard of for us back home to stir a few pairs of chopsticks together in a dish bowl, it's among relatives or at least friends, unlike here in Chongqing, where people, whether they know each other or not, just pick up chopsticks and make fun of each other. As it turns out, I was overthinking it. Because with the character of Chongqing people, it is difficult to appear a hot pot to eat down, we are still strangers scene. The first time I set hot pot, met not a straight brute boy, but two girls close to our age. There were only two empty seats at our table, and the girl sat down naturally. My friend and I were not natural to close the legs, together with the legs, and our relaxed expression. The girls may not have seen such a scene, smile at each other. But for those of us who have never seen the world since we came from a small place, what we are most afraid of is this inexplicable smile -- always feeling that there must be something wrong with ourselves. Everyone began to do the hot pot with a twist. Or rather, we're not. Every time I picked up a chopstick of food, I was very careful, but the more careful I was, the more likely I was to make mistakes. When I picked up a goose intestines, carefully from the girls over the grid, do not want the goose intestines were like a slippery snake, twisting the body ran down, straight into the girl's hot pot grid. There are only three or five pieces of goose intestines, one of the few meat dishes we order. I want to clip back, feel embarrassed, do not clip back and some reluctant to give up. The girl opposite me with short hair and red coat seemed to read my mind. She smiled and picked up a piece of goose intestines on her plate, put it into my soup, and said, "Thank you for respecting my goose intestines. Don't let me 'insult' you!" This way, not only to avoid my embarrassment, and active atmosphere. In between, the sense of awkwardness that hung over our table was broken. The girl, named Wenting, is a regular student of the electrical technology school and a native of Chongqing. The girl with long hair, like us, was a Neijiang girl who had come for a short training. They are also occasional friends in hot pot restaurants, bonded over their love of hot pot. Later, this small group became four people, and Wenting and I love literature, together more times. We often go Dutch to eat hot pot, while talking about regretful youth and the Sahara desert, feeling both warm and friendly. I was eighteen or eighteen, the age when a girl smiled at me with a grain on her face and thought she liked me. Wenting although there is no brilliant face, but has 18 or 18 years old girl's youthful vitality and quaint. After that, my dream gradually more up, hot pot addiction is also more and more big. Every once in a while, I want to run to the hot pot restaurant, hope to occasionally "meet" Wenting, and her hot pot, talk about all kinds of interesting or boring things. She is like a spicy hot pot bottom material, and then plain and tasteless dishes, she can become interesting. Although the price of hot pot is not high, we often go Dutch, but a few yuan each consumption, for me is not a small burden. At that time, my monthly income was only 37.5 yuan, and the family received a little aid from time to time, which was barely a drop in the bucket. I sold food tickets and even borrowed money to eat hot pot. On days when I couldn't think of a way to borrow money, I would lie about a toothache or a flare up. We would meet for a walk in the playground, or go to the cinema to see a movie. We watched many classic movies together, such as Red Sorghum, Dunhuang and Breakdance. Sometimes she invited me, sometimes I invited her. We talked about the plot of the movie and the scene of walking on the stone steps became one of the most beautiful memories of my youth. Until we left Chongqing, we did not say a word beyond friendship, do a thing beyond friendship. I enjoy the warmth brought to me by this atmosphere, for fear of breaking this tacit understanding because of some inappropriate words and deeds. What she thought, I don't know. But she said many times that she believed in simple friendship between men and women, and I took that as a hint. Now that I'm at an age when any woman smiles at me and I suspect it's because I haven't washed my face, I still have a good picture inside of me, whether it was a hotpot encounter or a part of God's plan for me to understand something. I don't know. In the years since, I have eaten hot pot numerous times, and the size, grade and environment are far superior, but I just don't feel the same taste. I know. It's not about hot pot.

In 1987, I graduated from high school, when Shifang was about to build a power plant, so I signed up to take the exam, and succeeded. Because we are all new employees and know nothing about power generation technology, the factory organized us to study and practice in Chongqing for one year. This is no doubt very tempting for us who have never been far away. The place of study is Huangjueping. Chongqing Power Plant is located here, so there are several related electric power colleges and technical schools. Outside the main gate of our technical school is Huangjueping Farmers' Market, where there are a few small restaurants and hot pot restaurants in addition to those selling vegetables and groceries. Hot pot restaurants are small and open in residential homes, usually with two or three tables outside and people living in the inner room. I've always wondered how these small hotpot restaurants make a profit. Until one day, a classmate and I were attracted by the fragrance and walked into one of them, and we knew the answer -- the secret of making profits in these hot pot restaurants lies in the "insert". To set, here used as a verb, means to put together or put together. Inlaid hot pot, is a patchwork combination of hot pot. When strangers come into the shop, the boss will arrange you where there is room, send you chopsticks and dishes, and you will immediately be immersed in the steaming atmosphere of eating hot pot. It is usually an iron or copper pot with an iron frame partition inside. This partition, there are four grids, there are nine grids, not like the mandarin duck pot that soup impassable, do not communicate, but only separated dishes not separated from the soup, different guests on the table, identify their own one or two grids, shabu call son yo. This way of eating is certainly a challenge for us. While it's not unheard of for us back home to stir a few pairs of chopsticks together in a dish bowl, it's among relatives or at least friends, unlike here in Chongqing, where people, whether they know each other or not, just pick up chopsticks and make fun of each other. As it turns out, I was overthinking it. Because with the character of Chongqing people, it is difficult to appear a hot pot to eat down, we are still strangers scene. The first time I set hot pot, met not a straight brute boy, but two girls close to our age. There were only two empty seats at our table, and the girl sat down naturally. My friend and I were not natural to close the legs, together with the legs, and our relaxed expression. The girls may not have seen such a scene, smile at each other. But for those of us who have never seen the world since we came from a small place, what we are most afraid of is this inexplicable smile -- always feeling that there must be something wrong with ourselves. Everyone began to do the hot pot with a twist. Or rather, we're not. Every time I picked up a chopstick of food, I was very careful, but the more careful I was, the more likely I was to make mistakes. When I picked up a goose intestines, carefully from the girls over the grid, do not want the goose intestines were like a slippery snake, twisting the body ran down, straight into the girl's hot pot grid. There are only three or five pieces of goose intestines, one of the few meat dishes we order. I want to clip back, feel embarrassed, do not clip back and some reluctant to give up. The girl opposite me with short hair and red coat seemed to read my mind. She smiled and picked up a piece of goose intestines on her plate, put it into my soup, and said, "Thank you for respecting my goose intestines. Don't let me 'insult' you!" This way, not only to avoid my embarrassment, and active atmosphere. In between, the sense of awkwardness that hung over our table was broken. The girl, named Wenting, is a regular student of the electrical technology school and a native of Chongqing. The girl with long hair, like us, was a Neijiang girl who had come for a short training. They are also occasional friends in hot pot restaurants, bonded over their love of hot pot. Later, this small group became four people, and Wenting and I love literature, together more times. We often go Dutch to eat hot pot, while talking about regretful youth and the Sahara desert, feeling both warm and friendly. I was eighteen or eighteen, the age when a girl smiled at me with a grain on her face and thought she liked me. Wenting although there is no brilliant face, but has 18 or 18 years old girl's youthful vitality and quaint. After that, my dream gradually more up, hot pot addiction is also more and more big. Every once in a while, I want to run to the hot pot restaurant, hope to occasionally "meet" Wenting, and her hot pot, talk about all kinds of interesting or boring things. She is like a spicy hot pot bottom material, and then plain and tasteless dishes, she can become interesting. Although the price of hot pot is not high, we often go Dutch, but a few yuan each consumption, for me is not a small burden. At that time, my monthly income was only 37.5 yuan, and the family received a little aid from time to time, which was barely a drop in the bucket. I sold food tickets and even borrowed money to eat hot pot. On days when I couldn't think of a way to borrow money, I would lie about a toothache or a flare up. We would meet for a walk in the playground, or go to the cinema to see a movie. We watched many classic movies together, such as Red Sorghum, Dunhuang and Breakdance. Sometimes she invited me, sometimes I invited her. We talked about the plot of the movie and the scene of walking on the stone steps became one of the most beautiful memories of my youth. Until we left Chongqing, we did not say a word beyond friendship, do a thing beyond friendship. I enjoy the warmth brought to me by this atmosphere, for fear of breaking this tacit understanding because of some inappropriate words and deeds. What she thought, I don't know. But she said many times that she believed in simple friendship between men and women, and I took that as a hint. Now that I'm at an age when any woman smiles at me and I suspect it's because I haven't washed my face, I still have a good picture inside of me, whether it was a hotpot encounter or a part of God's plan for me to understand something. I don't know. In the years since, I have eaten hot pot numerous times, and the size, grade and environment are far superior, but I just don't feel the same taste. I know. It's not about hot pot.