Say goodbye to Grandma Qu

On May 19, 2016, Qu Duyi (former) and the film's director Li Keyong were on the set of the Xinhua News Agency's micro-film "Red Temperament". Yellow Garden/Photo

On November 26, 2021, a generation of legends in The Chinese press came to an end. After celebrating the 100th birthday of the Communist Party of China, her own 100th birthday, and the 90th birthday of her Xinhua News Agency, Qu Duyi, the recipient of the "July 1st Medal," the only highest honor in the party's press so far, closed his eyes forever in the clear tranquility of the winter afternoon.

When I first heard bad news, sorrow came from it.

Grandma Qu and I are related. I've interviewed or visited her three times in a row in the last ten years. Coincidentally, once every five years, it was not arranged in advance.

Let's talk about the most recent one, that is, this year. On August 9th, I went to Grandma Qu's house with hao yuanzheng, a famous portrait photographer, and Cao Xiaoli, choreographer, to take a group of 100-year-old commemorative photos for her. At that time, she was having difficulty moving, sitting in a wheelchair with a nasogastric tube, but in good spirits. With the full assistance of her daughter and son-in-law, the shooting went smoothly and was completed in less than an hour. Teacher Hao successfully captured the light in the eyes of the old man. Originally, Grandma Qu didn't know much about people, but when someone asked if she recognized me, she clearly shouted: "Xiao Li." "I was thrilled. This scene was recorded by Xiaoli with her mobile phone and became my precious memory.

After more than half a month, on August 31, Xiaoli and I went to send a photo album to Grandma Qu, in addition to the portrait photos taken this time, we also specially added some family photos of Grandma Qu of different ages. We flipped through it and pointed to the people in the photos one by one, asking her who they were, and she answered like a stream, a good one. One of them is a group photo of Yang Zhihua and Qu Duyi's mother and daughter, who were only about ten years old at the time, wearing a soft hat and leaning in his mother's arms. I pointed to the young Duyi and asked, "Who is this?" Grandma Qu pointed to herself: "Me! I asked, "What about this?" Grandma Qu looked up and said loudly, "Mom! At that moment, she seemed to have returned to the distant past, and became the innocent little girl again. A "mother" called so usually, it seemed that the mother had just been with her, but when she turned back, she disappeared. I cried—my daughters are a hundred years old, where has my mother gone? The story of time is so sentimental...

That day, there was also something funny. We recalled that when she was shooting the micro-movie "Red Temperament", Grandma Qu ate a lot of roast duck, and she listened to it and said: "Eat so much!" There was still a little embarrassment in the tone, and everyone laughed.

The allusion to eating roast duck happened five years ago, in 2016. In order to shoot Xinhua News Agency's first documentary micro-film "Red Temperament", we invited Grandma Qu to a studio near Beijing's East Sixth Ring Road and filmed all day from morning to night. It was that day, when facing the camera to recall her father Qu Qiubai, she said the words that later touched countless people:

"I never understood which of the elegant scholars and the mighty revolutionaries was my father."

At that time, Grandma Qu was 95 years old, but her health was amazing, and I heard that she had swam shortly before the shooting. Still, I still feel that she is too tired to work so hard. At lunch, I was determined not to let her eat an ordinary box lunch with the crew, so I asked the executive director Yao Junyi to "buy something good for Grandma". As a result, Xiao Yao bought a roast duck. I cursed in my heart that this boy does not have a long brain, 95-year-old man, can he nibble on the roast duck? Who expected that Grandma Qu would eat 12 rolls of roast duck in one go! We were dumbfounded. At first, it was her nanny who rolled it for her, and then she felt that the nanny's roll did not have enough meat, so she rolled it herself and ate the corners of her mouth. I couldn't help but ask, "Grandma, do you particularly like roast duck?" But she asked, "Huh?" Doesn't anyone love roast duck?! "She was brought to live in the Soviet Union by her parents since she was a child, spoke Russian very well, and spoke Chinese with a little Russian accent all her life. It is not difficult to imagine what kind of combat sharpness she asked me in Russian Chinese.

Speaking of Russian, I led the team to her house to shoot, and as soon as we met, I asked, "Grandma, can you still sing the Internationale in Russian?" Her father, Qu Qiubai, was the first translator of the Chinese full version of the Internationale. Grandma Qu sat on the red and white striped sofa, singing with her mouth open, and everyone on the scene held their breath in an instant, afraid of interfering with her. She sang in one breath, without falling a word, the words were round, and the breath was full.

At that time, she was the only living witness to the six major congresses of the Communist Party of China. The Sixth National Congress is the only national congress held abroad in the history of the Communist Party of China. On June 18, 1928, when the "Silver Villa" outside Moscow was opened, the delegates sang the "Internationale" in unison, and many people remembered their comrades who had just been killed in the "White Terror" in China.

On that day, we listened to Grandma Qu's singing, and what we heard was not just a song, but also the smoke of nearly a hundred years of war, the wind and rain of life, and the sound of the storms and storms of life, which suddenly struck our hearts, and made us hear the blood and tears.

The first time I interviewed Grandma Qu was in the spring of 2011, exactly ten years ago, with Brother Zhao Cheng, collecting materials for a manuscript that pays tribute to the heroic martyrs. Counting now, I realized that Grandma Qu had turned 90 that year. For many years before, I remembered that I had met a person in his 70s. Why? Because she is very cheerful and lively, which is seriously inconsistent with the ninety-year-old. She said to us, "I can kick high now!" Before the words could be heard, he stood up and kicked his toes over his head at once. At that time, we were also scared and scared, and rushed forward to dissuade her, afraid that she would be injured. Grandma Qu didn't care, and smiled heartily: "Boy, you have to strengthen your exercise!" ”

This smile is a kind of open-mindedness after crossing the waves of disaster. She lost her father at an early age, squatted with her mother in the prison of the reactionary warlords, and later experienced various setbacks, but she was still able to dilute peace so much. Qu Qiubai, whom she calls "Good Daddy", also has such a temperament. On June 18, 1935 (the same day, seven years after the opening ceremony of the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of China), in Changting, Fujian Province, the defeated Kuomintang reactionaries decided to execute the former main leader of the Communist Party of China.

Early that morning, Qu Qiubai, who was in captivity, got up early, changed into a freshly washed black Chinese cardigan and white cloth knee pants, brewed a cup of strong tea, lit a cigarette, and meditated at the window. At this time, the footsteps outside the house were hurried, and he knew that the last moment had come, so he quickly wrote a cursive poem in half a sentence: "When the smoke and clouds under my eyes are over, I am at my leisure." "Indicate "Autumn white no pen".

On a lawn under the Changting Luohan Ridge, facing the executioner, he sat cross-legged, smiled and nodded: "This place is very good, shoot!" ”

Now, the little girl who had "cried out of her illness" when she heard the news of her father's sacrifice has also returned to the thick earth. Her laughter at her dead father, her mother, who had been through the vicissitudes, must have been waiting for her not far away. Nearly a century apart, the family was finally reunited.

Grandma Qu said that the happiest time of her childhood was when her father took her to the forest outside Moscow to pick mushrooms, and she always remembered the taste of milk scum that her father bought. At this moment, she must have returned to the forest of her childhood, the mushrooms were filled with small baskets, the milk scum could eat as much as she wanted, and the "good father" and mother were around, and they would never be lost again... Of course, there is also roast duck, you can just roll it, and you can't hold up as much as you want.

Dear Grandma Qu, farewell forever! I wish you eternal peace and happiness.

Li Keyong Source: China Youth Daily

Source: China Youth Daily