"Once Upon a Time Slow" - Mu Xin

Remember when we were young

Everyone said it sincerely

Every word is a word

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Early morning at the train station

The long street is dark and empty of people

The shop selling soy milk is steaming

The sun has become slower in the past

Cars, horses and mail are all slow

A lifetime is only enough to love one person

The locks in the past were also beautiful

The keys were beautiful and stylish

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You will understand if you lock her up

The first time I heard Mu Xin’s name was from the song “Once Upon a Time Slow” that was circulated on the Internet. Then I saw Mu Xin from the painter Chen Danqing’s article. Because I particularly liked Mr. Chen Danqing’s expressions, after reading his recommendation of Mu Xin, I went to look for Mr. Mu Xin’s works. After reading "Literary Memoirs", I truly understood Chen Danqing's strong admiration for Mu Xin.

Mu Xin (February 14, 1927 - December 21, 2011), formerly known as Yangzhong, nicknamed Muxin, and pen name Muxin, was a poet, writer, and painter. Born in 1927 in Dongzha, Wuzhen. Graduated from Shanghai Fine Arts College. Settled in New York in 1982. At 3 a.m. on December 21, 2011, Mu Xin passed away in his hometown of Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province at the age of 84. Mu Xin is Chen Danqing’s mentor.

Mu Xin’s life can be called a legend—from Wuzhen to Shanghai, from Shanghai to New York, and then back to his hometown from New York. In 1984, I was always alone, with only literature and art to accompany me. His life formed a literary and artistic bridge between China before the "Cultural Revolution" and today. His art is an active dialogue between East and West, classical and modern.

Mu Xin was versatile throughout her life and was good at poetry, prose, novels, literary theory, drama, and music. Mr. Mu Xin’s followers and admirers have done and said a lot. I have no ability or qualification to evaluate Mr. Mu Xin. I am just expressing my own likes and thoughts.

When I first saw Mu Xin’s works, I fell in love immediately. My heart was as shocked as a thunderbolt, and it was different from all the literary works I had seen before. After flipping through the scroll and reading, I was really "astonished" that the text could still be written like this? Mu Xin's articles could not be written by others, because Mu Xin never thought of writing other people's articles.

It took me about two months starting from June to finally finish roughly reading the book "Literary Memoirs". While flipping through, I kept searching and making inquiries, and then I finished the book with only a half-understanding, confusion, and gulp. There has never been a book that read so awkwardly and slowly as "Literary Memoirs."

For a contemporary literary writer’s vernacular works, many parts are incomprehensible! can't read! I was really speechless. I couldn't help but feel deeply ashamed of my ignorance, lack of knowledge and lack of knowledge. I was speechless and had nothing to say... I could only pay tribute to Mr. Mu Xin. He is not only an author, he is also an advanced connoisseur of literature. He guides us to see the beauty of literature in the entire world. Facing such a wise man, I am glad to have read this book.

Mu Xin gave lectures on "History of World Literature" to Chinese artists who were wandering in foreign lands in New York. Mr. Chen Danqing launched Mu Xin's "Literary Memoirs", which contains more than 800,000 words and a lecture note from 1989 to 1994, in such a grand way, so that after we are familiar with Mu Xin's literary works, in this way, I learned about Mr. Mu Xin’s broad and magnificent realm in literature.

Chen Danqing said, "He loves literature to the point of sin, and he is as isolated from the world as sin." This is not a history of world literature, but rather, so many writers gradually gathered around and illuminated the person who illuminated them.

From the pre-Qin Dynasty to the Tang and Song Dynasties, from the Ming and Qing Dynasties to the May Fourth Movement. From the Book of Songs to opera, from novels to philosophy. From Tao Yuanming to Shakespeare, from ancient Greece to Persian literature, from the Renaissance to magical realism...it spans five thousand years, spanning Asia, Africa and Europe. Countless sages and philosophers, famous teachers and masters talked with great eloquence, as if they were picked up casually and calmly. Between the lines, it is exquisite and interesting, thorough and rational, and sparkling.

In the Tang Dynasty, it was in costumes, in the Song Dynasty, it was in plain clothes, and in the Yuan Dynasty, it was under pants and vests. Comparing food to food, Tang poetry is like chicken and duck trotters, Song poetry is like hot stir-fried cold pots, and Yuan music is like tofu puffs and crispy twists from roadside stalls. Li Bai is a baritone and Du Fu is a bass. Li Bai is elegant and clear, his horse is flying in the sky, and the roaring waves are returning to the waves. Du Fu is calm and solemn, the horn sounds in the night, and the moon shines in the sky. The poems in "A Dream of Red Mansions" are like water plants.

Take out the water, that's bad. Put it in the water, it looks good.

In addition to being impressed, I am still impressed. Only then did I know what it means to be knowledgeable about the past and the present, and what it means to be knowledgeable about both China and the West. However, the books and authors I heard, knew, and read were, at best, just a drop in the bucket of what my husband mentioned in his book. In such a vast ocean of literature, I am so small and humble. In front of Mr. Mu Xin, I can only look up and look up.

After that, I successively read "Reflections of Colombia", "Special Issue on the Third Anniversary of Mu Xin's Death", "The Past of Su Lu", "Random Thoughts of Qiongmeika", and Mu Xin Talks about Mu Xin : Supplement to "Literary Memoirs", "Feast of Fish and Beauty" and other books. The amount of knowledge Mu Xin possesses is astonishing. When he gives lectures, he is mining his own gold mine of knowledge. He can dig out something no matter whether it is ancient or modern, Chinese or foreign.

You must act sincerely, and you will not be happy if you are pretentious. The simplicity of the text comes from the sincerity of the heart. Mu Xin's writing is not sloppy, diseased, or pretentious. The writing is exquisite and concise, the vision is broad, and the words and sentences are used to sweep away the drool-like prose mode in China. It is the kind of vernacular writing with life and heritage. Yes, you need to be knowledgeable to read Mr. Mu Xin, so that you can be hit by his aesthetic intuition and witty remarks.

"My 'self-rescue' relies entirely on reading. 'Books' are the most magical and greatest thing." The young Mu Xin is obsessed with reading ancient and modern Chinese and foreign books. While he systematically read traditional classics under the guidance of his family and tutors, he also read many foreign works from Mao Dun's collection. So he said, "When I was a boy in my hometown, the 'home' of a world-famous writer, the house was full of European and American literary classics. I devoured them and got 'literary gastritis.'" A person has read so many books and has opened up the world. Those joints, how amazing.

"Literature is my faith, and it is this faith that has enabled me to survive the disaster." How many books and readers of the Republic of China were annihilated. His life was closely accompanied by an intensifying cultural fault line. He refused to give up, but actually never gave up. This was the hidden background of the lecture on the history of world literature in New York.

Literature is lovely. Life is fun. Art requires sacrifice. During Mu Xin's imprisonment during the Cultural Revolution, all of his works were burned and three of his fingers were broken. In prison, Mu Xin used dirty underground water to write the 650,000-word "The Prison Notes" on the "Confession" paper. I drew the keys of the piano on white paper and "played" Mozart and Bach silently. Regarding the Cultural Revolution, Mu Xin never complained or recalled it in the article, leaving only a faint haiku: "I am a slave during the day and a prince at night."

"I have been dealing with me for a long time, and I would rather be me." From 1982 to 2006, Mu Xin fled his hometown and went to New York. The painful memories of the past made him live a cautious life.

Time does not spare anyone, and I have not spared time either. When Mu Xin started a new round of creation in a foreign land and wrote eloquent papers, essays, novels and poems, he returned to the destroyed library in his heart. The difference is that this time he was finally able to publish his own work. He raced against time to write one piece after another. I write until late at night day after day, writing 7,000 to 10,000 words every day.

“Presenting art, retiring as an artist.” Mu Xin is like a big bird flying in the starry sky of literature and art, looking flatly or even looking down at everything. Treat people like books, treat books like people. There is a "reader's concept" in my mind, which is ten times more advanced than me. I write to it with awe, lest I make a mistake or be rude.

When no one understands you, don’t speak out yourself. "Some people are like snorkeling, some are like freestyle swimming, and some are like butterfly swimming. The splashes are big and splash everywhere, and they look back from time to time. Snorkel, not splash. Nowadays, people rely on splash to compete for the limelight. They are very poor swimmers. , some water splashes are actually splashed out when sinking, and everyone thinks this person is really good at swimming, great!"

"Every line must express its own character." This is. What I pursue all my life are the mottos of poets, painters and musicians. In 2006, Mu Xin's literary series was published in mainland China for the first time and began to gain recognition among local readers. In the same year, at the warm invitation of his hometown Wuzhen, he returned to China to settle down. He was seventy-nine years old. "When I come back, ah, when I come back, everything is gone."

Are you finally shining? The end of my journey.

His passion for literature, love for life, and such a deep love for art supported him to live out his life very gracefully and with dignity, maintaining all his love.

There will never be anyone like this again. I can’t explain my relationship with him. “Also a teacher and a friend” is an overused word. I have had many good teachers and good friends along the way, but there is only one Mu Xin. Xiaodai, a boy from the Guizhou countryside who served him in his later years, missed him deeply. Once when he mentioned Mu Xin's funny jokes, he said resolutely: Teacher Danqing, I will never meet such a person again.

Wanqing Xiaozhu—Mu Xin’s Former Residence Memorial Hall. His disciples remembered his mentor in such an affectionate way. Rather than saying it is a master-disciple relationship, it is better to be positioned as a successor or a role called a ferryman.

Writer Chen Cun once said: "Those who want to write in Chinese should read Mu Xin early and have a sense of themselves." Because: "Mu Xin is the standard of Chinese writing." I have read it late. , fortunately I read it. Fortunately, I also read it.

Nowadays, the five years of lecture notes compiled by Chen Danqing are no longer regarded as just a "lecture on the history of world literature." Just as Mu Xin originally imagined, this is his own "literary memoir" and an "absurd novel" that "overcomes this era in his own body."

This is also Mu Xin’s gift to the world, the gospel of literature.