In August 2021, Changhong Village, Chongqing, Yuan Longping's image of a rice field painting.
The author | Yang Jie
Edited | from Yuhua
In 2021, some people leave Earth and become "stars". One day in May, Yuan Longping, the "father of hybrid rice", and Wu Mengchao, the "father of Hepatobiliary Surgery in China", passed away, the latter being permanently named asteroid 17606 10 years ago. Now, people can only look at them like stars.
Zweig said: A nation, a genius out of millions of people, millions of idle hours in the world passed, and only then did a truly historic moment appear, the hour when humanity was star-studded.
That year, 11 registered survivors of the Nanjing Massacre died, as did 101-year-old Josép Almudvir Mateu, the last known soldier of the International Column in the Spanish Civil War.
There are also people who stay in the nature they love forever in this year. The Yellow River Stone Forest 100km Cross Country Race left Liang Jing and 21 other competitors; Chogory Peak buried Juan Moore of Chile, Ali Sapara of Pakistan, and John Sigul Jonson of Iceland. In November, four Chinese geologists were swallowed up by nature while measuring nature in Ailao Mountain, and closed their eyes under a large tree.
The novel coronavirus remains dangerous and cold, with 4.82 million people worldwide dying of COVID-19 in 2021 as of December 25, including composers from Bollywood in India, former finance ministers from Algeria, filmmakers from Cambodia, presidents of the Baseball League of Cuba, jurists from Haiti, painters from Singapore, former presidents of Chad...
The dead know that everything is empty, and the living can only look back and remember.
1
People like to use the phrase "the end of the times" to describe the departure of big people, and 2021 is a year when the times have repeatedly ended.
On the day Yuan Longping died, many people cried. He is a scientist with a high degree of national awareness, appears in language textbooks, and is also active in the "still let you eat too much" memes.
He had a good foundation in health, in his early 20s, through the air force pilot selection, but because the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea had ended, he did not enlist in the army; in the same year, he represented Chuandong District in the Southwest United Provinces Swimming Championships, won the fourth place, and then promoted another place, he could enter the national team.
Yuan Longping, who almost became a sports athlete, glimpsed two starving bodies outside the school gate during the three years of natural disasters, and was deeply stimulated and determined to study grain production.
The story that followed is known to everyone. In 1967, he led the establishment of the "Rice Male Sterility Research Group", which went to Sanya every year to breed, and even tied seeds to the body and used body temperature breeding to promote germination.
In March this year, Yuan Longping fell at the Sanya Hybrid Rice Research Base, transferred to Hunan for treatment in April, and died of multi-organ failure on May 22, completing 91 years of life.
On April 13, 2018, 96-year-old Wu Mengchao underwent surgery on the patient.
On the same day, Wu Mengchao, the "father of Chinese hepatobiliary surgery", also left, and the memorial service did not play mourning music as usual, but was replaced by the "International Song".
China once concentrated about half of the world's liver cancer patients. But until the founding of New China, liver surgery was still a blank. Under the advice of his teacher Qiu Fazu, Wu Mengchao began a life of "lying down and tasting bile".
In 2011, 88-year-old Wu Mengchao completed 190 liver tumor resection surgeries in one year, setting a Guinness World Record for surgeons who insisted on surgery.
He was quite harsh with the doctors under him: "Why do you have to use that instrument, just use it, click a few dozen dollars, how heavy should the burden on the patient be?" You won't use surgical lines? How much is that one? ”
For the patient, the face is changed again. As soon as his hand touched the door of the patient's head, the patient's tears fell. Liver disease patients, the family is afraid of being infected, the temperature of one hand can last for a long time.
Another 104-year-old doctor let go. Ge Qinsheng is a pioneer and founder of endocrinology in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in China, and in the farewell hall of Union Hospital, people held red roses to send her off, and in the coffin, the first edition of "Clinical Reproductive Endocrinology" edited by her was placed. She has been working on the quest to treat infertility, and many lives have been born.
2
Death is indeed an uncertain necessity that everyone has, and going to death is indeed the present tense that everyone has. But why do you have to keep this inevitability in mind all the time? Why not forget it (Confucianism, Taoism) or enthusiastically affirm and embrace life even if we don't forget it? Doesn't this also lead to the realization of the nothingness that exists?
The philosopher who uttered these words, Li Zehou, died on November 3, Beijing time, and he said that his parents died before the age of 40, and that it was an accident that he lived to be 91 years old, and that a skeleton was placed in his home to welcome death.
When asked about his life experience at the age of 90, he replied that "I have not yet realized it." When he was 12 years old, he saw a mountain full of flowers on the top of the mountain in his hometown, but suddenly felt, "If I die, what is the meaning of all this?" The mystery of life and death hit him at that moment, he later recalled, "and this was probably the original origin of my interest in philosophy."
Last spring, in a small town in Colorado, Li Zehou wrote: "In the spring breeze of March, I look out of the window, but when I see the Rocky Mountains covered with snow, I can no longer see the mountains of red rhododendrons and golden yellow canola flowers. ”
A year later, he died in the United States, spread to the country, the intellectual circles mourned, and another thinker returned to the stars.
In 2010, Li Zehou was in Shanghai.
At the beginning of the year, Shen Changwen, a 90-year-old publisher, died early in the morning. The magazine he edited, Reading, was once the spiritual pursuit and cultural dream of a generation.
When Shen Changwen looked back on the past, he once said that he had done publishing all his life and read countless books, but he was not a person in the literary and ink field, only because he had been reading for utilitarian benefits for many years, one was not interested, the other was not seeking the truth, just trying to make a difference. Until the year of retirement, "the books I read only served the interests of this old man."
In 2008, Shen Changwen was outside the Sanlian Bookstore in Beijing.
Shen Changwen's "Reading" recorded the death of another giant. Historian He Zhaowu died in May this year.
"There's a guy here, and he's writing his name on the water." This is a sentence that He Zhaowu likes very much, and it is also Keats's epitaph. Keats died at the age of 26, and there is a proverb in English that says, write your name on the sand, and the tide will wash away. Writing the name on the water is more thorough, and there is no more while writing... Just like the ancient poem said, 'Life is sent to one life, and it is like dust'. ”
His life was full of ups and downs, but he said that it didn't make much sense to write it. A month after he left, Xu Yuanchong, a titan in the translation industry, also left.
He translated Guan Ju as Cooing and Wooing, feeling that this was the only way to show foreigners the beauty of ancient Chinese poetry; in his essay on Lao Tzu Translation, he understood "Tao" as "divine law." This reporter once interviewed Xu Yuanchong, who was nicknamed "Xu Dacang" by others, which is characterized by "madness"; he once said that "Fu Lei's translation is not as good as mine", and the business card printed "Sixty books sold at home and abroad, and the only person who translated poetry into English and France."
In his old age, Xu Yuanchong still formulated a work plan of "translating 1,000 words a day"; at the age of 93, he decided to translate the complete works of Shakespeare. He was persuaded to take a break, saying, "The joy of translation is like water and air to me, and I can't collapse when I'm immersed in the world of translation." ”
For madness, he feels that "we should be confident Chinese, and we should be a little crazy." ”
A foreigner with a deep understanding of Chinese has just passed away. On December 26, the sinologist Shi Jing moved away, telling the intricate personnel affairs of modern China through historical examination and storytelling, so that Western readers could understand a rich China. Yu Ying, who worked with him for 10 years and passed away this year, called him elegant and gentle. Those who study history become history.
Shi Jingqian said that in the whole world map, China is an important and extremely attractive existence. Westerners need to spend a long time digesting and analyzing the data they get. Something that can be seen at a glance does not exist. The more vague and faceted our view of China becomes, the closer we are to the most elusive truth.
In 2014, Shi Jingqian gave a lecture at Peking University.
3
This year, some people who, judging by age, are far from death are also gone.
Wei Meng, a 32-year-old investor, died unexpectedly; Wei Yongkang, a 38-year-old "prodigy", left. The 47-year-old poet Hu Xudong can no longer pick up a pen, "everyone talks about him with a smile and a very happy look."
This unknown poet is remembered by many people. In 2021, we have lost so many unknown "supporting roles".
Wu Mengda is perhaps the most well-known of them. We don't remember what films he starred in, but we can only recall his crazy, stupid, or serious appearance around Stephen Chow.
Another Hong Kong actor with a familiar face but no name is Liao Qizhi, from Chow Yun Fat in the Shanghai Beach period, to Leung Chao-wai and Andy Lau of the Wireless Five Tigers, to The Later Xiaosheng Lin Feng and Nicholas Tse, Liao Qizhi has played. He's been acting all his life, he's been very old, and he's been taking the bus to the set.
The actors who died this year also include Cao Pi in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", Yang Junyong who played Jia Rong in "Dream of the Red Chamber", Zhou Jie in "Yang Guifei", and "Xie Dazu" Yu Yuexian... Their departure took away some of the youth of the post-80s and post-90s.
One truly "unknown" deceased is Wang Shunyou, a 56-year-old Chinese postman who rides a horse alone on a horse for 330 days a year on the Maban Postal Road in Sichuan's Muli Tibetan Autonomous County. He delivered an average of 700 newspapers, 28 magazines, 45 letters, 25 prints and 5 parcels a month, without delaying a single post service or losing a single piece of mail. He died of illness in May, not knowing which colleague would continue to hold his horse.
The young archaeologist Liu Tuo is best known for his life when he was mistakenly caught by government forces while traveling in Iraq.
His work often revolves around danger, and in his camera, there are crooked chain bridges after the Lushan earthquake, and stone tablets standing alone in farmland. He has been in the Middle East since 2013 and has been to all Middle Eastern countries except Israel, both those who have just fought and those who are in the midst of war.
In October this year, Liu Tuo died at the age of 31 while inspecting the cave murals in JiazarJiaShan, Malkang City, Sichuan Province.
Another young deceased man of his age, Chu Chang'an, was a doctor who, after his death, contributed his last remnants to medicine and donated his body to his alma mater.
Liu Yutan, who chose the same way to "return" with him, is an ordinary senior at Chengdu Medical College. She died unexpectedly in a car accident and returned to school as a "general teacher", with teachers and students of the department holding flowers in silence and playing "You Raise Me Up" by the West Side boys.
Two months before the accident, she just spent her 21st birthday and sent a QQ message: "One year old and one gift, one inch of joy, I have a pavilion, no worries and no fear..."
On September 18, 2021, the Memorial Hall of the Nanjing Massacre Victims of the Japanese Invasion of China held a lights-out ceremony for the survivors of the Nanjing Massacre who died this year.
The departure of ordinary people is equally tragic, and the survivors of the Nanjing Massacre, who have gradually been forgotten, are disappearing one by one. Huang Liushi, who died in September, once said: "At that time, we ran backwards, I didn't dress like a person, and my face was smeared with black ash. We witnessed a female boatman who was punting a boat and was killed by the Japanese. Fu Zhaozeng, who left the next day, said before he died: "From history, so I cherish the happiness of having enough food and clothing and grandchildren under the knees of my grandchildren." ”
On the first basement floor of the Memorial Hall of the Compatriots Killed in the Nanjing Massacre by the Japanese Invasion of China, there is a wall of photos of survivors, and whenever someone dies, the lights behind the photos will go out. This year 11 lights went out and 11 "stars" lit up.
People rightly remember Armstrong, the first person to go to the moon, and partly remember the second person who landed on the moon, Aldrin, but few people know that when the two of them stepped on the moon before and after, michael Collins, who was on the same page, stayed in the command module to fly around the moon.
In April, Michael Collins, the most forgotten lunar third man, died in Florida at the age of 90.
In the quiet sea of the lunar surface, a crater near the landing of Armstrong and Aldrin was named Collins Crater. In a sense, the people who were once closest to the moon really became stars.
They will continue to shine in the night sky of 2022.
(All images courtesy of Visual China)
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Produced by China Youth Daily and China Youth Network