One - longing for sunshine

Hami

I am naturally timid, so I particularly admire heroes.

Thirty years ago, in the summer of 1967, I huddled in a mud hut converted from a nunnery on Wushan Mountain in Hangzhou. It is ventilated, dark and humid all year round and rarely gets sunlight. Fortunately, it is very shaded even in the hot summer, and it is far away from the crazy hustle and bustle of the street. I took advantage of this rare quiet time to reread Julius Fuchik - all other books were burned by the fire of the Revolution, but I was lucky enough to save his. The more I read, the more I feel that the personality charm of this Czech journalist, writer, and immortal anti-fascist hero who embodies the "Prague spirit" with his own life illuminates this darkness and warms my heart.

I want to put his quote on the wall. But in those days, "I dare to guarantee Chairman Mao" that no one would do this. But I have to do it.

I saved some money for food and bought paper, pens, ink, and paint. I scrubbed three dark, thin-skinned half-height boards and whitewashed one mud wall. I invited my old friend Lu Jun (whose calligraphy is good) to write down a lot of Mao Zedong's quotations such as "The road is tortuous, but the future is bright" and "The people, and only the people, are the driving force for creating history". Neatly posted all over the house. At the same time, a whole pile of white walls was left, and Fuchik's famous sayings written by Lu Jun on light blue drawing paper were affixed: "I love life and fight for it. I love you, people, when you When you answer me with the same love, I am happy; when you do not understand me, I am sad. If I have offended anyone, please forgive me; if I have made anyone happy, please forgive me. Do not grieve for me. Let my name awaken no sorrow in any heart. . . . If tears can wash away sorrow from your heart, then cry not for my sake. It is unjust to die for joy and lay a sad angel on my grave." (I chose Liu Liaoyi's translation)

Then I climbed the mountain and picked the green cypress leaves to line me. The lower right side of Schwabinski's famous portrait of Fuchik, which has been treasured for many years, is put into the frame that originally stored the wedding photos of my parents (who had already gone to heaven prematurely). The photo belongs to the "Four Olds" and has been hidden elsewhere), and it is hanging in the upper left corner of the large famous quote.

Suddenly, the entire white wall looked bright and elegant. A ray of sunshine seemed to flash out of the dark room...

All this was done by the three of us brothers and two or three friends, and it was noisy and lively for most of the day. However, the revolutionary masses who only heard human voices and did not see what we were doing had already gone to report.

When the friends had just dispersed, Comrade S, the household registration police officer, walked in. He glanced around slowly, seeing nothing unusual, and finally set his sights on Fuchik's head.

After a long while, he said to himself:

"This man's hair is so beautiful!"

A few days later, a friend of a friend heard that There lived such an "untimely person" on the mountain. I stopped by during my trip. I happened to have a few pieces of film left in my Leica camera, so I took this shot in front of the statue of Fuchik and his famous quote. (pictured below).

Because there is no flash, the photo is not sensitive enough, but you can still see the shadow of sunlight shining in the tiny eyes of the person in the photo.

In October nine years later, the sun finally shines on the earth.

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Second - Born in the 1960s

Zhao Baitian

Xu Hui wrote from Zhengzhou, talking about how easily people are deceived by appearances. He felt sincerely "lucky" that he and I were born in the 1960s. He said of his work this way - "connecting a generation to form an overall force.

Xu Hui is called by Li Wan "a commentator who has a profound understanding of this generation." Li Wan quoted a passage from his "Alienation" here. This passage reveals the image of the life of this generation and what I believe in it. The ideas are surprisingly similar (we all mentioned the word regret), but the difference is the maturity in its expression. Xu Hui said, "I once proposed the concept of 'people born in the 1960s' , this concept is to say: We were born in the 1960s, when the world was undergoing radical changes, and we were still ignorant. When we grow up, hearing about and recalling the exciting deeds and scenery of that great era, we The regret is so great. We were easily thrown out of the 1960s and became its insignificant coda and feather." Just as I was talking to Xu Hui about the 1960s. As a "symbol", Xu Hui borrowed an album published by Cui Jian in 1994 and gave this generation an ironic definition: an egg under a red flag. However, it was laid too late. This is the fate of this generation in Xu Hui's eyes. They are unwilling to be mediocre because they are catching up with the end of the great era, and they find it difficult to make a difference because of the increasingly standardized and organized environment.

Can you name a group of people born in these ten years as a whole? Perhaps it is an extension of Zhang Chu's "I grew up in an era when ideals were broken", Xu Hui gave a "genius generation in fragments" ” (He practiced this idea and tried to describe it in a young academic journal). This is not without confidence, but it does not also mean that it is acquiescence that the elites of this generation sing in their memories as the only way to save them. Because the singers who represent this generation often focus on their experiences in the early years of their lives, Li Wan named him a generation with "big ambitions and few talents" (perhaps this is a self-deprecation?). He pointed out that the biggest symbol of this generation is: Experience glory in your imagination.

Of course, Li Wan also described some other more profound symptoms: a temperament of fantasy or even sleepwalking, a natural sense of distance, extreme contradictions, unclear expression, marginality, wait-and-see (living in his Outside, the revolution is outside him), born in the urban-rural fringe, natural sentimentality, etc. Li Wan said that distance is the core thing of this generation, and obscurity is a way for them to face the world; their affection for the past, keeping a distance from reality, their love for themselves, and their worries about the future are their Habit. In the above description of Li Wan, I am more inclined to agree with the "fantasy" and "wandering" temperament he found in Gao Xiaosong, Zhang Chu and Dou Wei. The meaning of the combination of these two words conveys this more accurately. The shape of life and emotions of a generation, I think, may be called: the wandering generation.

Their childhood is wandering. The scenery of the lonely countryside, kites and cooking smoke, the occasional sight of death, crazy games, and a certain incident stirred up small waves in their young hearts. These common scenes in the 1970s and the emotions caused by them have become the initial memories of their lives. I have recorded this kind of "wandering" in my previous poetry writing: "In the 1970s, a child looked at the broken sun in the puddle/In the 1970s, two children were betting on the way home from school/In the 1970s, A group of teenagers ran like wild horses/low and humid streets, and the dust raised lasted for three days/…/In the 1970s, the winter wind blew huge ice pillars/like shining iron nails/70s In the 1970s, wildflowers bloomed/The world is vast, and wildflowers bloomed in places no one knew/In the 1970s, the plane landed/A giant steel bird, the fanning air overwhelmed the patches of green grass." (Excerpted from my book "The Seventies" ). When Gao Xiaosong sang "The Age of Floating White Clothes", it was more of a state of nostalgia and reminiscence. In their hearts, they recognized and loved that era. A group of boys who had not grown up (refused to grow up?), They believe that the most beautiful memories in life are always the first days (childhood and youth, countryside and campus, childhood playmates and college girls). It is precisely in the different attitudes towards the past that I suspect that the voice is simply an outlier among this generation: "Once time passes, reality is lost, and the life in the past is the most unreal life" ("The Seventies") .

Later, this group of people went through an embarrassing period of voice change. They read, went to college, imagined or wrote poems, or continued their wandering in the streets. Write a girl's name on the pole. Later, they grew up, entered society, and started a new round of wandering, reform, opening up, and marketization. All of this passed before their eyes like a fast lens, and the acceleration of the world almost caught people off guard. , they hurriedly went to work, made money, bought houses, got married, and became a new generation of citizens. What is all this but wandering on the surface of life?

In his book "Contradictions of Capitalist Culture", Daniel Bell pointed out that the mark of the 1960s was the global Sexual politics and cultural activism. Radical and ideal dreams are the brilliant colors that shrouded the materially impoverished 1960s. The generation born and raised in this environment (they have seen the red tail of that dream), their emotions are not like those in the 50s. People born in the 1960s are heavier, but far less relaxed than those born after the 1970s. So, what are the typical emotions of this generation?

As a person born in the 1960s, As a person who is on the last bus and is now approaching the age of thirty, I often feel a sense of embarrassment. In my letter to Xu Hui, I mentioned that this sentiment was particularly strong today in the 1990s: “Our previous generation has their heavy historical fragments to chew on, while the younger generation born after the 1970s A group that has pressed us for nothing is the aesthetic of lightness that is prevalent among them: adventure, games, mood, festive atmosphere, Valentine's Day and birthday parties, curiosity, usefulness and the yearning for success. Life is more beautiful and easier than ours, but we still have to perform reluctantly..." This group of people may be the last generation with a sense of roots and a sense of history. The group behind them have used light. Aesthetics dissolves the weight of history. But this generation, while seeing the divine world, does not give up worldly taste and fun, which is different from their predecessors. Their "hanging" in spiritual form made it possible for them to become the least noticeable and most easily ignored generation from the 1950s to the 1990s. Li Wan expressed this very well in the article: They are the transitional bodies of the transitional era, possessing the characteristics of the two generations before and after, and becoming observers of both generations at the same time.

If people of an era either shoulder the burden of the changes of their era or die in the wilderness under its pressure, what happened to the best people of this generation has already Reminiscent of Allen Ginsberg's first line in "Howl": "I have seen the greatest minds of this generation destroyed by madness..." and Saul Bellow's: "More People die of heartbreak. "

As a generation in transition, the burden of the times has slipped over their shoulders unknowingly and slipped behind them unknown to them. The people born after this generation seem to be more in line with the trend of the times. In the acceleration of social change, they whistle loudly and happily glide on the surface of the world of things. They have more reason and more talent to become The future master of the new world.

Despite this, the generation born in the 1960s came on stage. Although it is still "vague" and has not yet formed the "overall strength" that Xu Hui and others hoped for, they are beginning to show the outstanding character of this generation. Among the footsteps on the stage, the flag bearers and singers of this generation appeared at the same time. "Reminiscing so early", some people say that their faces are still young, but their hearts are already very old. Now we already know that they recall it because of their experience of wandering around in their youth, and because of the feeling of... emptiness in their hearts today. After waking up from the dream, they will become older. Have they ever had a dream? They have not really grown older.

Xu Hui places his hope on "the arrival of a great opportunity." Maybe there will be a moment when the joy and tears we have accumulated day and night will burst out freely? But experience tells me that waiting is a danger. With words, experiencing glory in imagination will inevitably cause a retreat in action.

There is no need for prayers or elegy. For this generation, what is more important is down-to-earth action.