Shanghai does not believe in tears

It has been a week since Shanghai lifted the lockdown. Yesterday, the subway passenger flow has returned to half of its usual level, and the street market has gradually become a little bit angry, but we all know that not everything will come back, and some things are gone.

A friend said that he didn't know how to describe his current mood. Seeing that some people around him seemed to be laughing and laughing, he only felt strange for a while, and he definitely couldn't laugh along, but there were no tears. Anxiety of wanting to cry but not being able to cry.

I understand him. It was not only his self-deprecating "slow response", but also a deep inner fear that the epidemic could return at any time, sweeping away our daily lives.

Now all the people in Shanghai are survivors, and they also have the special mentality of survivors. It wasn't just economic loss or material deprivation, it shook the hope and confidence that a generation or two had taken for granted, made us realize that too much was out of our control, and proved in a dramatic way that Floyd The self-concept revealed by Germany long ago: "The self is not the master of its own house."

The reason why Shanghai is Shanghai is not because of the abundance of water and soil on this side. From the very beginning, it is because it can provide a sense of scarce security in a turbulent era, so that people can be free from fear and scarcity. This certainty is defended by the spirit of the contract. Even if it is not always explicit, the old Shanghainese often have an unfounded self-confidence: no matter what the outside world is, Shanghai will not "come blindly".

As a countryman in the outer suburbs, I have only been a "Shanghainese in the sense of household registration" since I was a child. The city is my home, and now that feeling is lost again. If anything, I came to a strange city, and now I wake up to find that the city has become unfamiliar, although I clearly know it's not its fault.

Frank Kitson, a British military officer who was sent to Kenya in 1953, later recalled his jungle lurking experience: "Everything was strange at first, but after a while normal life became strange. ." Countless people who have experienced the lockdown will feel the same way. In fact, after a long time, we no longer know what "normal life" should look like.

After I was able to leave the community, no matter where I went, I had a strange feeling, as if I was a stranger in Shanghai. Either it, or me, something has changed irrevocably. The city may need a heavy rain.

I've been listening to Shostakovich repeatedly these days. "Waltz No. 2" is so healing. In that somber, graceful, pathetic, and vast music, there is a soul with mixed feelings hidden. He, who has never been able to stretch his whole life, has this passage in the preface of his memoirs:

A man without memory is but a corpse. So many people walked past me, these walking dead, and they remembered only the events that were officially licensed to them—and only in an officially licensed way.

The reason why man is a living creature and not a tool is that we have hearts, memories and thoughts to which we belong. If the city is also an organism, then the city spirit is the "soul in the machine", and when this spirit disappears, the city itself gradually dies. The American military officer in the Vietnam War said with a sincere absurdity, "It became necessary to destroy the town to save it." What we're experiencing now is as much an imitation as it is a flip.

It is this experience that makes us unmistakably see that a person, even a city, is fragile. Amidst the ruins of our daily lives, the city acquires a decadent beauty of declining civilization. When you face the city late at night, it's like dancing with its ghosts.

It was a traumatic experience for the citizens who loved it so much that many refused to face its reality. In the sci-fi short film "Beyond the Crack in the Aquila", the time traveler was old and tired, sitting on the ruins of a desolate civilization. After witnessing this cruel truth, he chose to return to the virtual world. At this time, the illusory memories It has become an opium to soothe the soul.

In fact, even if it is sealed for ten years, Shanghai's body will survive. There are more times in history than this far more tragic era, but it is of little significance to us personally. The lens of history often faces the spotlight, but the talents in the dark bear the weight of the times.

We should never forget the roars, songs and silences in the dark nights of those days. Don't forget them, those who have died, never to return. Those seemingly fragmentary fragments may determine how we rebuild our lives from the rubble in the future. Memory is not necessarily just sadness or false comfort; it can also be a source of healing power.

It may not be many years before our descendants will not be able to understand why we experienced this, and it will be difficult for us to explain to them, it is like a rainstorm, people are covered, but they do not know how it is. occurring. In the labyrinth of this age, we all see only a dark corner.

When there is a rupture in our lives, many people don't realize it, or realize and don't know what it means, think it's temporary, and refuse to believe that the rupture has occurred. Even if everyone gets the same experience, no one can do it for you how you feel. Zhou Zuoren has long said: "About a person's awakening, it must happen from the heart. If there is no painful reality, there is nothing to say."

The experience of the city may have been the laughing stock of the decade, and Shanghainese don't seem to be worried. In May, Shandong University was transported and quarantined because of one positive case. Students ranted on the Internet "Whoever scolds Shandong University, I will scold whoever", while the response of Shanghai people is often "Whoever scolds Shanghai, I will talk to him/her." scold together."

More than one non-local friend said to me, thank you Shanghai, although you have suffered a lot, it was the suffering of Shanghai that made a turnaround in the life of all of us in the past two or three years, "Shanghai is Shanghai after all, it is The most civilized city." Although Shanghai people sometimes tease themselves, "Crossing the river by feeling the stones, Shanghai is the stone", but if you can really reach the other side, it will have a meaning beyond the city itself.

Of course, some people say that the suffering of Shanghainese is not too much, at least they can still cry, "In the real world, the miserable people are even more miserable, and the people who are desperately crying and worrying about the sky are more powerful and able to Satisfied, not satisfied." Another voice said, "Don't glorify suffering, it is meaningless."

Although these two views are vastly different, they both deny the value of experience, the necessity of memory, and reduce it to moaning or worthless mentioning. It is really meaningless than misery, and glorifying suffering is more objectionable, but that does not mean erasing it from memory—suffering itself may be meaningless, but our own experience of it will.

For many people, "Shanghai" has changed beyond recognition, and some friends who can't bear more disappointment are ready to leave the city, whether to go overseas or return to their hometown. For them, what they love is the former Shanghai, not the current one. I also know that it is a kind of inner torture: living in Shanghai, but not here, that kind of feeling is like an out of body.

Shanghai is no longer Shanghai, but I believe it will become Shanghai.