404 Yuan Ling: Night Watchman Gao Hua

Beast Note: In 2012, Yuan Ling’s “news features” or “in-depth reports” came out like a spurt. He wrote about the current situation of silicosis among migrant workers in Shaanxi coal mines, which no one paid much attention to. His works such as "Moss on Blood Coal" and "Dust" became a sensation. Later, he created classic features such as "The Night Watchman Gao Hua" and "Out of Masanjia". , establishing its leading position in the news feature industry.

It was also at that time that I noticed Yuan Ling. In those years, I often bought the magazine "Lens Vision" at the newsstand. "Out of Masanjia" was published in that magazine.

Yuan Ling: Night Watchman Gao Hua

On the night of August 21, 1991, in the kitchen of a Tongzilou dormitory in Nanjing's Gulou District, the news came over the radio that the Soviet Emergency Committee's coup had ended, and the last effort to save the old system failed. At the same time, Gao Hua wrote the title of the book "How the Red Sun Rises" (hereinafter referred to as "Red").

In his memories before his death, he said in his hospital bed that at that time he clearly felt that history had reached a critical point and he needed to overcome his fear and difficulty and write it down.

21 years later, Gao Hua has reached the end of his life. But the book stayed. It is the result of overcoming fear, nothingness, and the banality of everyday life.

At the farewell ceremony for the body, Zhang Ming, a scholar from Beijing, shouted, "Gao Hua, the sky will dawn!"

This sentence caused some controversy online. In Zhang Ming's opinion, what he felt at that time was real. If 21 years ago or even earlier when he was a teenager, the fear Gao Hua tried to overcome came from the blindness of the people under the "red sun" and other threats, then today's sky is more like a "white night". In such an era, the darkness an explorer perceives is more borne by him personally.

In the eyes of close relatives, Gao Hua is an ordinary person and a kind-hearted relative. It is somewhat difficult for them to understand the outside world's concern for this relative. Even during the years when he was writing "Red", his wife Liu Shaohong didn't know about it.

On the sickbed, Gao Hua once told Zhang Ming in a self-deprecating way that he probably shouldn't do research on party history because he had been exposed to a lot of darkness. It might be better if you do ancient history.

In Yang Kuisong's view, this sense of darkness is more a lack of material faced by party history researchers. Political restricted areas, personnel taboos, and file secrecy make researchers like a burning photo studio, only seeing what they can see.

Such difficulties have resulted in very few talented researchers of party history, leaving them with the feeling of having no successors. Mainstream party history research cannot get rid of the color of the family history of the ruling party, which is actually "party history politics." Shifting from party history to modern history has become a last resort for scholars who still want to pursue it. However, without exploring the history of the party, how can we trace and understand the destiny of contemporary China?

Gao Hua went against the grain and broke in as an outsider studying the history of the Republic of China, depoliticizing the history of the Party. In the darkness, he clung to the exposed corner of the silhouette, holding an old-fashioned oil lamp in his hand, trying to penetrate the entire vast darkness until it burned itself out.

This is a posthumous resume of the Night Watchman.

silent last words

In the home after Gao Hua's death, his books were crowdedly stacked. Except for those fortunate enough to be placed in bookcases, they could only occupy most of the floor in the bedroom and living room.

This is like the detention center of No. 9 Middle School where young Gao Hua went to borrow books. The messy books fell into the darkness and dust of the warehouse. Gao Hua used a snakeskin bag to bring some out every time, and he paid a lot of money. The price of a fried oil ball was a pity in those days.

This is the last word left by a disappeared middle school. Due to its anachronistic Catholic origin, it was disbanded in an unprecedented era. The young Gao Hua translated it through silence. From this, he initially acquired his own language behind the curtain of recorded voices, that is, the ability to understand the world.

His sister Gao Hui, who followed Gao Hua to borrow books from the left-behind residence, recalled that he could deduce the political situation at that time by looking at the rankings of figures in the "Reference News" subscribed to at home every day, such as Chen Boda's loss of power and Lin Biao's loss. In the terrifying red August, Gao Hua snatched "Pushkin's Selected Poems" from his mother's hand which she was about to throw into the fire. In school, the composition of the fourteen-year-old boy Gao Hua was posted on the wall newspaper. The female classmate Liu Shaohong was greatly impressed by the names and theoretical quotes such as Bakunin and Kropotkin that appeared in it, which buried her memory for many years. Overcoming concerns about family background, she fell in love with Gao Hua and got married. His friend He Jun seriously discussed with him the question of whether Chairman Mao could live to be 150 years old as Ye Jianying said, and the conclusion was that it was impossible. This saves them from the depression of living under the red sun for a lifetime.

It was also in this era, when adults were just beginning to escape from the sound of quotations and make homemade sofas or chests of drawers for small families. The young Gao Hua had already begun to notice the obscure term Yan'an Rectification from various materials, and instinctively felt that it Show some connection between it and the red sun.

There may be some kind of blood gene in it. Gao Hua's father was once an important member of the Nanjing underground party and engaged in intelligence work. During the liberation of Nanjing, the underground party performed "too prominently" and even untimely joined forces with the troops heading south at the Kuomintang Presidential Palace. Under the general policy of "downgrade, control, and elimination" after liberation, the underground party was even more disadvantaged. Gao Hua's father had been working as a secretary for a long time, and in 1958 he naturally became a rightist, even though he said nothing during the rectification movement. During the Cultural Revolution, my father fled to avoid criticism, and large-character posters and wanted orders were posted on the doorstep of his house. His close friend He Jun received a warning from the school and an "isolation order" from home, while his sister Gao Hui was called a "puppet" at school. Gao Hua was admitted to Nanjing Foreign Languages ​​School in 1963, but was stuck in the political review process.

At the climax of the "One Strike Three Antis" campaign, all the students in the school were pulled to the side of the road to witness the passing of the execution convoy and receive dictatorship education. When Prince Sihanouk visited Nanjing, Gao Hua and other Black Five children were gathered together and were not allowed to participate in welcoming this closest friend of the Chinese people. Those who are not qualified to see Sihanouk's glory have the opportunity to see through the surface of the times and gain an inner vision.

Inner vision allowed Gao Hua to understand the rules of exchange between material and spiritual things, but he made the choice to exchange fried oil balls or a pair of high-quality socks for borrowing books. After eight years of working at a store counter, he could no longer settle for being a well-oiled salesman, so he applied for a transfer to the History Department as his first choice. Although he was not good at mathematics, he was only admitted to a junior college, but the energy that had been dormant for many years exploded on campus after a long absence. In the memories of his college classmate Guo Biqiang, he was always a master at occupying seats and the central figure in lights-out discussions. Two years later, he became one of the only four candidates to be promoted from associate to undergraduate at Nanjing University. The historical last words that echoed vaguely in the warehouse finally became clear day by day.

the passing tide

When Gao Hua wrote the title Red Sun, the tide of the 1980s had just receded from the beach in China. It is difficult for latecomers to understand that era, an era in which white sugar, rebar, tea eggs and the four modernizations, literature seeking roots, and new ideological enlightenment went hand in hand. Two equally strong and exciting thighs were wrapped under the sheet of the times. Today we hear Already feel separated: "material civilization, spiritual civilization."

Therefore, it may be difficult for us to understand that Gao Hua insisted on joining the Youth League at the "advanced age" of 26 years old. Xiao Gongqin, a senior whom Gao Hua met at the time, still retains the habit of riding a motorcycle and driving thousands of miles, which makes it difficult for people to connect with his "new authoritarianism" lofty theories. Gao Hua, who never drank alcohol in the future, was a high-roller who drank heavily before 1986. At his wedding banquet, his friend He Jun mistakenly drank soda in advance in order to fight for wine, causing the banquet to turn upside down and end in a mess. Like other older young people who take the last bus to college, the youth of this generation seems to never end.

During their undergraduate years, Gao Hua and Guo Biqiang participated in the "History of the Cultural Revolution" writing group of a Tianjin classmate Zhang Luo. A group of newborn calves worked together to collect the manuscript. It was not until they met that they realized that in this era there were still restricted academic areas.

After graduate school, Gao Hua and Yan Shian joined the circle of teachers and students in the Department of Philosophy, and participated in the translation of "Get Out of Dilemma", a book in the "Overseas China Studies Series". This series of books follows the famous "Toward the Future" series. The track was born at the wrong time, leaving only the aftertaste of that era. The name of the translator Gao Hua can still be found on the cover of this gray book published in 1990.

The extended youth of a generation passed away together with the "magic and martial prosperity" in Gu Zhun's imagination, and came to an abrupt end. That summer, Gao Hua shed tears that were rare in his life. The black hair began to invade the gray, and the blood that boiled when I heard the teacher explaining "The Book of Ren An" in the university class ten years ago has calmed down and returned.

The circles of the past fade away and friends disperse. His friend He Jun went abroad, and his classmate Zhang Hua, who was promoted from junior college to bachelor's degree, went to work with Gao Hua. Gao Hua, who was just over 20 years old, settled down on the cold bench in the Tongzilou dormitory and began to face the tunnel entrance of party history alone.

Pests and the Red Sun

At a meeting in Beijing in 1989, Xiao Gongqin and Gao Hua happened to be assigned to a room together, and they became friends from then on. Gao Hua told his past seniors that he was turning to study the history of the Chinese Communist Party. "The history of the party is more interesting than the history of the Kuomintang, which is very boring," he joked.

Twenty years later, Gao Hua's words reminded Zhang Ming of the time when he went down the well humming a tune. Zhang Ming once worked as a miner in a coal mine in Shanxi for several years. Every time he entered a dark tunnel, he knew that he might not be able to return to the ground again. Pretending to be a relaxing ditty, it can bring some comfort.

At the beginning of the 1990s, several friends began to hear Gao Hua's idea of ​​writing a monograph on the Yan'an rectification movement. This book is not intended to apply for a project. Like Sima Qian's "Historical Records", it is a private work.

Gao Hua never told his wife Liu Shaohong that his climbing grid this time was any different from the past. But once Guo Biqiang went to Gao's house, Gao Hua's teenage son Gao Xin excitedly told him, "Dad is writing a great book."

The word "great" is probably what he heard on the back seat of his father's bicycle. Gao Hua often takes his son to kindergarten and elementary school. In the rhythm of the wheel, he releases a little of the psychological weight of this book to his young son.

Simplicity allows children to bear the word "great", but in the heart of father Gao Hua, it also adds the weight of "mediocre". As an ordinary lecturer and associate professor at Nanjing University, Gao Hua produces results according to his years of experience, is evaluated on professional titles, is assigned a house, and raises his son. Transition from a single dormitory to a suite with two shared bathrooms. While buying piles of books at home, you should also pay attention to the shortage of other expenses. The banality of daily life always conspires with fear to kill greatness, which is not uncommon in the Shakespeare plays that Gao Hua is familiar with.

The house in Nanjing has no heating in winter, and Gao Hua's small room faces north. The cold bench becomes colder, but it retains inner sobriety, preventing people from being dizzy in the darkness of the material. In those complicated and trivial historical narratives that flickered and avoided, and hesitated to speak, he heard the last words again.

The last words come from the smell of wild lilies after Wang Shiwei's death. After decades of historical dust, he has become an empty name that is inconvenient to delve into. In the smoke-filled standard room of the hotel, Gao Hua talked to Xiao Gongqin about the similarities and differences in the fates of Wang Shiwei and Ding Ling. It may also come from the two unknown bodies soaked in formalin in Yan'an Peace Hospital. They are undoubtedly intellectuals who defected to Yan'an because of the decline of the Kuomintang-controlled areas. There are also those Red Army commanders and fighters who were killed in the name of the AB regiment. They died at the hands of their comrades.

Unlike the assassinations in the Kuomintang-controlled areas, these people were killed under the dazzling light of the revolution. Their fate is intertwined with the rising red sun. This makes their last words even more inaudible. The tradition of killing people under the sun continued until Gao Hua's boyhood. He recalled his neighbor's mother who was kidnapped in the "One Strike Three Antis" execution convoy in 1970, and also thought of his father's hasty escape. He wanted to identify the blank spaces of the human form that had been erased by the radiance of the red sun, and to speak those missing languages.

In Yang Kuisong's view, Gao Hua's father was a revolutionary and an intellectual. He naturally sympathized with these people, was concerned about the secrets of their fate, and could understand their thoughts.

There is no such thing as the outstanding courage of his father when he was engaged in underground work, nor the thrilling plot of "The Wind", everything is submerged under the ordinary appearance of daily life. But like a substation that makes a subtle buzzing sound in the sun, only those who get closer can detect the horror. At a party many years later, Zhang Ming was deeply impressed by Gao Hua's suggestion - singing "We Are Pests" together. "We are pests, righteous Laflin, wipe us out!" After singing this, several non-mainstream scholars here probably remembered the heroic saying of "wiping out all harmful pests" and carrying lime buckets in their youth. Participating in the health movement, I realized the fear of being sterilized by the system's lime that Gao Hua or himself tried to overcome when he was "climbing the grid".

When Yan Shian finally saw the book, he told Liu Shaohong that Gao Hua was going to "become famous in one fell swoop."

Gao Xin, who thought his father was writing a "great" book, was already an adult when the manuscript was completed. His first impression of the book was "real, terrifyingly real."

Zhang Ming said that "Red" is a book without any pretense, a book that does not want to save anyone's face. Speaking from his experience as a kiln worker, this is a brick that was fired in a well-fired kiln and then cooled by quenching water. The passion and calmness have reached the extreme at the same time. This point makes the quality of "Red" surpass all the party history research works so far. The empirical method of party history opened up by it with its calm penetrating power allowed a group of latecomers to find the furrow.

"Red" did not find its birthplace in mainland China. The book arrived in the hands of many readers broken. In order to pass the border inspection, people had to dismantle the upper and lower volumes of books and bring them in separately, which triggered a lawsuit in which lawyers sued the customs. More people rely on photocopying for circulation. Its challenging name, combined with its archaeologically accurate content, has generated considerable controversy. When Gao Hua evaluates the professorship title, it is not convenient for it to be used to publicize academic achievements.

But it spread to boundaries that mainstream writings could not imagine. A common rumor is that when Yang Zhenning visited NTU, he specifically praised Gao Hua, the then president. This somewhat relieved the pressure Gao Hua was under at the time.

"He was concerned about fundamental questions and wanted to answer why we are like this today." said Gao Xin, who was the first to call his father's work "great".

hostages of history

In the spring of 2008, after an examination at Shanghai Hepatobiliary Hospital, Gao Hua was diagnosed as having no symptoms of cancer. Afterwards, Gao Hua and his wife took several photos in the park.

Xiao Gongqin has never forgotten these photos. "This is the most beautiful photo of Gao Hua I have ever seen. He is like a flower. He has just experienced pain and sees the sun again, and he feels like he is blooming."

This ray of sunshine may be the last grace that God lends to Gao Hua on credit. Soon, the overturned cancer was confirmed again, and Gao Hua rushed towards the accelerated process of life.

During this period, Gao Hua experienced many changes in his life. In 2005, his transfer to China Normal University in Shanghai was full of twists and turns. He was interrupted by force majeure at the last moment when he was about to attend classes at China Normal University, which was similar to the incident of He Weifang going to Zhejiang University a few years later. Yang Kuisong, who participated in the introduction of Gao Hua, regretted this setback. In 2009, Gao Hua's mother passed away. Already ill, he took care of her wholeheartedly, laying a bed on the floor in his mother's ward at night. Three months before Gao Hua's death, his father passed away, ending his life of secrets and complaints. The successive deaths of his parents may have had strong psychological implications for Gao Hua.

The cancer interrupted Gao Hua's late-stage research on the history of the Cultural Revolution, and he was forced to stop writing the Lin Biao volume on contemporary history, which he had completed for more than 100,000 words.

As the mining accident shows, when people ask for the ore from the darkness, the darkness also asks for its price. It often requires the best pathfinders.

A true pathfinder understands this. Therefore, while Gao Hua laughed at Zhang Ming for not being exposed to too many dark materials, he did not complain about his illness. He just insisted not to let his son Gao Xin engage in his own business, even though he had cultivated his son's interest in history on bicycles and in bookstores since he was a child. Compared with sons inheriting their father's legacy, this choice is closer to the reality faced by Chinese pioneers, such as Lu Xun or Li Shenzhi.

Gao Hua's serious attitude towards cancer is like facing a necessary but impossible task. None of the visiting friends could see his expression of pain, and would even forget Gao Hua's identity as a patient in the ward. He received all available treatments, photocopied and bound every examination report, and studied the prognosis of his condition. He did not even have the idea of ​​"racing against the disease", as some friends secretly hoped for him, leaving behind a complete research monograph on the history of the Cultural Revolution during his lifetime. While he was ill, he read books, tutored doctors, held meetings, gave lectures, and wrote papers as seriously as before, and he did not make any changes because of cancer.

While ill, Gao Hua published "The Age of Revolution". More than a year before his death, he wrote a long essay of more than 17,000 words reading Long Yingtai's "Big Rivers and Seas", analyzing the mentality and destiny of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait in the past sixty years, and asking about unsolved historical mysteries. No one can imagine that the historical insight and vast feelings in the article came from a patient with advanced liver cancer. Rather than calling it an essay, it’s poetry and wonder.

Friends have always believed that miracles may happen to Gao Hua. Three days before his death, Xiao Gongqin told Gao Hua to prepare for two completely opposite situations, to have a miracle happen or to accept his fate. Gao Hua nodded calmly.

Gao Hua only expressed his regret to his wife once. He said, "Before I was diagnosed with cancer, my insight into historical materials was at its best!" A new night shift doctor told Gao Hua face to face that his condition was serious and he had been reported in critical condition twice. Gao Hua said to his wife afterwards: "She thinks I am an iron man!"

Even when internal bleeding began, Gao Hua did not give up because time was running out. He cut the analgesic cream into eighths to quarters and applied it to prevent the mind from becoming dependent. He mentioned that he might end up with the same hemorrhage as Sun Yat-sen, and he did not regret this, but he wanted to keep his clear head and neat appearance in the end. Three days before his death, he got a haircut. In the last moments, he and the photographer Hu Jie had a tacit understanding of each other, leaving behind those clear and dignified shots. The white hair of life lost its moisture, leaving behind a transparent spirit that burned spontaneously.

On December 26, 2011, history finally took away its hostages and kept the night watchman at night. Under the white sheet of farewell, Gao Hua's calm face left the last metaphor to the world. On the hospital bed was poet Bei Dao's latest collection of poems, "The Vigil," which he read frequently during his last days.

Yu Jie: Why do stones breathe?

——Yuan Ling "The Moss Will Not Go Away"

2018-09-04

Yuan Ling, who comes from a mountain village in southern Shaanxi, looks like this in the eyes of the editor: "He is slightly stooped, wearing simple casual clothes and not very tall. He is easily lost in the crowd. His eyes flicker and look forward, as if there is something There was a hint of anger and majesty. After seeing the person, he showed a strange shy look that belonged to a teenager. "

Two years before I left China, I occasionally met Yuan Ling during Sunday services at Ark Church in Beijing, and we only exchanged a few words. At that time, my situation was extremely bad, my old friends were going to jail one by one, and I no longer had the desire to make new friends. I only know that Yuan Ling also makes a living by writing. Perhaps he was oppressed by the darkness in his life and came to the church to find God. I don’t know if he found God later. A few years later, I read a poem he wrote called “Stone” and felt a little comforted in my heart – “God said/Do not look back/Lest you become stone//Then we Could it be anything else? //Where can we grow flowers except on the barren ground? /In the breeze of the mountain pass/are all scarecrows//The water flows in the humble place/The snow in the shade never melts//Reflection simulation The body/kite learns how to fly//how the stone breathes/feels the air around it.”

It was in 2012, when I left China, that Yuan Ling’s “news features” or “in-depth reports” came out like a spurt. He wrote about the current situation of silicosis among migrant workers in Shaanxi coal mines, which no one paid much attention to. His works such as "Moss on Blood Coal" and "Dust" became a sensation. Later, he created classic features such as "The Night Watchman Gao Hua" and "Out of Masanjia". , establishing its leading position in the news feature industry. This book "Moss Will Not Go Away" is composed of twelve stories selected by Yuan Ling from the special articles written over the years. It is divided into three parts: "Humble People", "Birthplace" and "Life and Death Lessons". The title of the book comes from a short poem by the author: "The moss will not disappear/as long as there is/the last poor man in the world." The humble lives he describes are not even grasses, like rootless moss, but they are even more important. Stubbornly growing on rocks that cannot find any nutrients.

Yuan Ling was admitted to Northwest University as the top scorer in the local area, and later studied at Fudan University and Tsinghua University. He then worked as a reporter, editor and manager in many media. If he continues on this path, he will be considered a "successful person" to some extent. However, he was never able to adapt to the intrigues of city life, and once returned to his hometown in the mountain village to live a minimalist rural life. Locally, he is a writer whom people have not heard much about, wandering around in rural counties like a weirdo who does not do his job properly. His father is a retired country doctor. He once hoped that his son would enter the government and become an official. Now that he has seen clearly that his son's future will not be as prosperous as other young people, he has no choice but to let him go. For so many years, Yuan Ling has been preparing for that special career - writing, but even if he said it, the villagers couldn't understand that written things are not like a big house, a good car and accounts. The deposit is so concrete. If you don't buy a house, work as an official or do business in a big city, you are a standard "loser" in the eyes of the folks. In fact, Yuan Ling also bought a house, but it was different from what the villagers expected - it was a mud house located on the half slope of the Eight Immortals mountain stream. The front of the house was covered with grass, and a water pipe was buried behind the house. It is drawn from the spring water in the valley and flows happily on the grass. Yuan Ling wrote that the flowing water pipes "seem to have a soul hidden underground."

Today's Chinese villages are no longer the villages of the past where the sounds of chickens and dogs were heard and the people watched and helped each other. Even the quiet and simple "border towns" described by Shen Congwen have been swallowed up by the billowing dust. Yuan Ling's plan to return to his hometown to write was aborted, and he moved into the city again, becoming a "low-end population" who lived in rented houses and did not even have medical insurance. He lived a difficult life, and when he wrote about his compatriots who were living an even more difficult life, he lost the sense of distance of a bystander. "Even if a person travels around the world, he will not see all the difficulties. There will always be some difficulties that are more difficult than the difficulties." Yuan Ling will not encourage the "low-end population" to be with the motherland like those writers who became the chairman of the Writers Association. He also knew that his writing could not solve any social problem, even for those specific and minor cases. But he is willing to record silently, and is convinced that these records can become part of history, as Kafka said: "If you can't cope with life while you are alive, you should use one hand to block the despair that envelopes your destiny, and at the same time , use your other hand to write down everything you see in the ruins."

It’s not a novel or news, it’s an encounter in life.

American writer Carver said in his novel collection "Cathedral": "When I was a child, reading made me know that the life I was living was not suitable for me. I thought I could change it, but it was impossible, it couldn't be like this. , in a snap of the fingers, become a new person, change the way of life. I think literature can make us aware of our own shortcomings and the things in life that have weakened us and are making us breathless. "Literature can make us understand that it is not easy to live as a human being." I think this is the fundamental reason why Yuan Ling takes writing as his career. That year, in the second year of his PhD studies at the Institute of Ideology and Culture at Tsinghua University, he got a job opportunity from the Beijing News, where he could conduct front-line news reporting and writing. So he dropped out of school, which puzzled his mentor Professor Ge Zhaoguang, an intellectual historian. Unable to retain Yuan Ling, Ge Zhaoguang replied, "It is better to have one more conscientious reporter than one more reluctant scholar."

In fact, Yuan Ling is not satisfied with being a reporter who dares to tell the truth, otherwise he would not have repeatedly left the top media where he works. The manuscripts he wrote that exposed the darkness of reality were often blocked by the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. This was an experience that Liu Binyan, a senior conscientious journalist, had already experienced, and it was not surprising. More importantly, there was a sound like breaking porcelain deep in his heart. He could not accept his words being brutally castrated—this was exactly the masochistic life enjoyed by Hu Xijin, the representative of imperial literati and editor-in-chief of Global Times. There is a joke that Hu Xijin interviewed an old eunuch when he was young. The eunuch said: He loves the Qing Dynasty, misses the Qing Dynasty, and hopes that the Qing Dynasty will continue to be in power. Hu Xijin asked: "Sir, the Manchu Qing government is corrupt and incompetent, has lost power and humiliated the country, and is openly hostile to the Chinese people. Why do you support it?" The old eunuch said: "Without the Qing Dynasty, my penis will be cut in vain." Hu Xijin fell into deep thought. , took out a small notebook and wrote it down. This sentence became his motto from then on.

On the contrary, none of the characters in Yuan Ling's works can enter the "Twenty-Six Histories" dominated by emperors and generals. He lovingly described his family members foraging for food in the ravine. He remembered the starting point of his writing, that silent and solid place - "There is a layer of people in my grandmother's generation. They are like the background of other people's lives. They have no value and can be used at any time." Remove it. But in fact, they are more reliable than the parents and captains who are active at the front desk. They are like the stone ridges of the field, which have grown black moss and have been silent for many years, but they have not sprouted. Without them, the field will immediately collapse and the harvest will be reduced to nothing. It is like the field itself, which nurtures everything here, but never makes a sound. Only when you lie down and touch the ground can you hear the sound of the wind. "My grandmother is like this. The old man is kind, tenacious, and of course ignorant - she has lived frugally all her life, but gave all her grandfather's pension to the female nun who promised her to enter the "Western Elysium" and owned real estate everywhere.

The low-level characters written by Yuan Ling are different from the beautiful imagination of leftist literati behind closed doors: all poor people are good people, all poor people are moral people, and all poor people have a "clean spirit" like Zhang Chengzhi and Liang Xiaosheng. The article "Abandoned Children in Lankao" starts from the fire that devoured the lives of seven children in a shack next to the garbage dump, and reveals the complex human nature of Yuan Li, a Lankao woman whose reputation is second only to Jiao Yulu and the "mother of orphans". Yuan Lisu is difficult to define as a "good guy" or a "bad guy". She is on the edge of good and evil, and she does something where the government does nothing. She saved the lives of many abandoned babies, but the living conditions she gave them were not as good as the pet cats and dogs of middle-class families. Yuan Ling did not give a judgment of good or evil, he just described the facts and gave the power of judgment to every reader.

Yuan Ling's writing is restrained, and restraint is the highest state of writing. Yuan Ling's writing is neither literature nor news. It is a story of the encounter between life and life that cannot be classified or named. It is what the Chinese sages said: "Young people are like young people and people are young, old people are like old people and people are old." , is also what the Bible calls “love your neighbor as yourself”.

When people ask for the ore from the darkness, the darkness also asks for its price.

In this book, there are several articles with miners as the protagonists, writing about earth-shattering but silent mining disasters, about the terrible occupational disease silicosis, and about how families who have lost loved ones repair their broken families. Yuan Ling's editor Luo Changping recalled that he can still recite the sentences in "Moss on Blood Coal": "Because they are disabled people, people who were entombed by the sheets of fate before their lives had time to unfold": " Encountered a person's mining accident... This is a silenced process, there is no focus of the camera, there is no scene of rescue at all costs, there is no anger and accountability." There is also a quotation from "The Night Watchman", "As the mining accident shows, when people ask the darkness for ore, the darkness also asks for its price. What it demands is often the best pathfinders." At the level of intellectual history, historian Gao Hua, the author of "How the Red Sun Rises", is also a coal miner who has spent his life digging in dark tunnels. If he hadn't worked too hard and given too much, how could he have died young? Many years ago, I had a simple conversation with Gao Hua at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He was so cautious and did not dare to criticize current affairs. However, when he talked about the historical truth that he cared about, he immediately spoke endlessly. He was completely different from before. people. Gao Hua couldn't bear the boundless darkness, so he burned himself in the darkness. His early departure may be a blessing, otherwise when the Xi Jinping era begins, he will see another round of "poisonous sun" rising, and he will surely feel that his book was completely in vain.

If the darkness is as thick as cotton wool, people in it will not only be unable to find light, but will also lose their eyesight. People like Chen Guangcheng who can distinguish right from wrong in the dark are rare. In the ravine of Yuan Ling's hometown, there was an old man who lost his eyesight in a mining accident and could not even perceive light and dark. But just after the disaster, he relied on exploration and inner intuition to rebuild his entire life, "from surviving in the house, to working on the five acres of slopes, raising a daughter who went to school, and sending away his sick wife... His figure is not standing tall The giants are like the endless moss paving the path to repair the world." This world experienced with incomplete senses is actually a complete world, and people who slowly walk through this world have truly created their own rhythm of life. For these people who are already doomed to failure, there is no glorious victory to speak of, and holding on means everything. If he wants to live like a normal person, "then he must have found some other way and followed a persistent inspiration." Sometimes pain can be addictive and make people immersed in it. Sometimes it is like an open secret that makes people wake up from the new daily life. In the book "The Moss Will Not Go Away", pain is a coordinate that can change its position at any time. It challenges people's limits, and those who survive are promised to start another life.

China's coal production ranks first in the world, which is another strong evidence that "it's awesome, my country". However, in China, mining accidents happen all the time, becoming a secret behind the coal production figures. Coal is black and red, and coal is stained red with blood. I remember there was an American TV series called "Godless Land", which told the story of a mining town in the early days of the western development in a gloomy style: In a mine collapse accident, the town lost everything in one day. Adult male miners, leaving a group of widows and children. How does this small "daughter country" survive in an environment where bandits are raging? Fortunately, they met a knight who was always on target, and the knight protected them from the catastrophe of the thieves' attack. However, in today's China, no knight can save the miners and their families in "A Laugh in the Sea", because what they are facing is not a group of bandits, but systemic corruption and brutality, and the party is worse than the bandits.

In coal-producing areas such as Shanxi, the mining disaster forced officials with insufficient backing to step down, but left unscathed those with strong backing - Li Peng's son Li Xiaopeng was promoted to Minister of Transportation. With every reform, the privileged class always benefits, while the situation of miners at the bottom gets worse and worse. Yuan Ling wrote: "Since the coal reform, many people are still working in the mines opened by fellow villagers and relatives. Every year, some people who go out in spring always come back incomplete, turned into ashes, or lost nerves in their limbs. Every year The ashes of the victims are buried in a mountain col, and the bodies of slowly dying people may lie on the beds of every old house. Baxian Town, with a population of less than 30,000, hides the graves of thousands of miners and hundreds of miners. The disabled miners and their relatives have also become laggards. The number of laggards is no less than that of the people moving forward, but they are like a carpet of moss, with no opportunity to stand out." There is no public condemnation in this sentence. But it is more powerful than any word of condemnation.

Death never comes unexpectedly

The title of this book is "The Moss Will Not Go Away", which seems to imply some kind of optimistic expectation for life. However, the whole book is full of the breath of death, which seems to echo the author's other book "Ninety-nine Deaths I Experienced".

Yuan Ling has an extraordinary curiosity to decipher the mysteries of death. From the mutilated abandoned baby who died in an accidental fire to the poet Haizi who died in a spring thunderstorm, every death and every ruin of life is not accidental or in vain. When Wang Duoquan's father returned home from the mine, he was already suffering from incurable silicosis, but he struggled to work in order to leave a sweet well for his family. Yuan Ling wrote: "Wang Duoquan's father spent the whole spring carrying sand and cement from the river uphill and built a cement well by himself. On the night when the well was capped, his father helped his mother and mother who came back from school. The little niece made dinner and suddenly said that her chest felt sweet, as if she had tasted the boiled sesame candy in advance, and then a large amount of blood spurted out... Waiting for his mother to call people back, his chest and surroundings were covered with blood. The last of his blood was lost, like a mining accident scene... That day, Wang Duoquan felt that his father had dedicated all his blood to himself, so that he never dared to think of death again. "Such an exhausting death can be compared to Socrates. Comparable to dying calmly. Before Socrates died, he asked his disciples to help him repay a chicken he owed to a friend. He firmly believed that "everyone has the sun, the main thing is how to make it shine." The life of Wang Duoquan's father shone once before death came. He was born toward death, and his humblest love was heavier than coal.

Ke Zunyu, a silicosis patient, died in the kitchen of a relative's house, and his brother who depended on him was washing dishes outside the house; Huang Junbing sucked up more than 20 cylinders of oxygen a few months before his death, and took many oxygen bags with him... Read these stories , I seem to know these silicosis patients who have lost everything. My father worked as an engineer in an iron mine in Sichuan when he was young. College students of that era often volunteered to go to "the most difficult places in the motherland," and my father was certainly no exception. Every day, he went down the mine with the miners; while his mother's heart hung in the air all day long, worried that his father would not be able to come up. One day, my father suddenly fell ill. The doctor said it was silicosis, so he treated him with silicosis drugs, but his condition continued to worsen. The hospital issued a critical illness notice, and I almost became a child without a father just after birth. . Later, my father was transferred to the hospital for review and was diagnosed with hepatitis. After some treatment, he was cured. From then on, silicosis became a derogatory term in our family. In Yuan Ling's writings, too, silicosis has no mercy and devours every living life. There are currently six million silicosis patients in China.

In a town where death is rampant, Yuan Ling is clearly aware of the limitations of being an outsider and the limitations of writing itself: “On the miner’s new grave, there are several lit cigarettes stuck in the soil, which is the solace of the bitter taste of his time on earth. Time stands still in the rhythm of people eating coal and coal eating people, and we can only stay here for one night, and we are busy returning to the county town to wash away the coal soot that has penetrated our skin and flesh. Those black holes are like leading to hell itself. , the baskets carrying the miners disappeared in it, and we couldn't wait for them to come up next time, nor could we reach the bottom of their existence." Tao Yuanming said: "Relatives may be sad, but others have died. What he said is the same as the mountain." At the funeral of the deceased, the singer sang a similar funeral song: "The deceased is suffering in this world, listen to my song. You were a hero in Shanxi and left your wife to earn a living. Money. In the end, I became a ghost in my hometown, and a handful of loess was really pitiful. "Words cannot save lives, nor can they defeat death, but words can summon strangers from far away places, making people no longer so lonely and helpless. This may be the reason. The reason why Yuan Ling never gives up writing.

RFA