I remember all of this, yet I cannot remember the face of any of the workers. Among them, there may have been a fifty-year-old, short yet stout and robust laborer, or an unassuming young man with a thick neck who could lift a bundle of rebar with his bare hands, or even someone pushing a dusty red wheelbarrow transporting lime. In earlier days, some might have worn camouflage uniforms.
I remember all of this, but I have never known the name of any worker. Some might be named Wang, some Zhao, and some might share my surname. Yet, even if I passed by the construction site countless times, only the towering cranes caught my attention, not the workers squatting by the roadside, covered in dust, with trowels and electric hammers casually placed by their feet, and a half-stack of broken red bricks we used for playful banter, treating them as toys.
