Want to plant a field (creative talk)

In the summer of 2020, as soon as the COVID-19 epidemic was brought under control, I went to Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province to collect wind. The trip to Zhuangxiang made me deeply interested in rice culture, and I ate most of the raw rice and did not know how a plant of rice was grown. I can only imagine: the farmer's expectation when soaking the grain seeds, the careful sowing, the blessings when raising the seedlings, the songs when planting the seedlings, the hard work when the seedlings are planted, the sweet fragrance when the rice blossoms, the prayers when the ears are drawn, the joys when harvesting... I know that the real rural life also needs to discover the sense of scene and texture that explores the subtle and penetrating mind.

One hot afternoon, I walked through the fields with zhang Bangxing, a local Zhuang writer. The rice in the field was green, just over the knee. I suddenly had a whim, and I wanted to go to the field. We took off our shoes and rolled up our pants to get down to the field. The water is warm and pleasant, and the mud is delicate like sand, like a silk cloth wrapped around the feet. I walked backwards in the rice paddies like a drunkard, afraid of stepping on the rice seedlings of the farmers. Zhang Bangxing said that when cultivating management, farmers will use their feet to distinguish weeds and rice seedlings, step on weeds to make fertilizer, and will not damage the seedlings. I looked at the green patch in front of me and asked where the weeds were? Lao Zhang said that you have not planted a field, you can't see it.

At that time I wanted to plant a field. I want to worship a master farmer as a teacher, "Sangye is the father of the cultivator, and the hoe is with the shepherd boy" (Meng Haoran," Tian Jia Yuan Ri ,1). It starts with driving cattle into the field, three ploughs and three rakes, and then selecting and breeding seeds, sowing grain into seedlings, and then the rice aroma comes and harvests into the warehouse. I have to perform such a great process to qualify for "a good year in the fragrance of rice flowers."

In fact, we are all planting a field of our own. Writing a long novel, too. When I set my sights on the hot land of Wenshan, I had a premonition that there was "a field" that I was willing to cultivate. I need to choose seedlings, cultivate intensively, ground, suck nutrients, walk in the field, and find them on the ground.

Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture is located in the southern borderlands, guarding the southwest gate of the country, more than 40 years ago, it was still full of wars and heroes, and it was not fully opened to the public until the mid-1990s. It is one of the regions with the widest and deepest poverty in Yunnan. After the battle against poverty began, the people of the frontier land declared war on poverty without hesitation, which was no less than the war to defend the frontier in that year.

I visited dozens of border villages, witnessed the great changes in remote mountain villages, and met many leaders in poverty alleviation. Some of them are the former models and combat heroes of that year. Xiong Guangbin, director of the village committee of Luojiaping Village in Maguan County, is an old former branch and militiaman who has experienced hundreds of battles. In order to cover his comrades in a battle, he operated an anti-aircraft machine gun for more than half an hour, and his ears were shocked and bloodied. At that time, he guarded the checkpoint on the position, at night when he didn't sleep, he ate dried peppers, and in half a year, he ate countless dried peppers. Who would have thought that our years of peace would have something to do with these dried peppers? Now Xiong Guangbin has led the whole village to get rich, and every household in the village has a new house, a smooth cement road, an honor room, and a villagers' activity room. Flowers bloom on both sides of the road, fruits are dotted with branches, cottages are hidden in the shade of trees, and even cooking smoke is permeated with a peaceful and peaceful poetry. Who would have thought that this was once the frontier front?

In our time, society is progressing, concepts are being refreshed, and this historical process requires us to perceive and truly reflect it by literary means. The vicissitudes of the sea into mulberry fields are no longer the concept of time flies and the past is more than a thousand years in the minds of the ancients. In villages where you used to ride a horse a few years ago, you can now drive to the entrance of the village with a foot of the accelerator; the young people in the village who chase fashion and dress up in a fashionable way make it impossible to tell whether they are farmers or urban office workers. The change is real, just between "turns".

As far as the changes in the fate of the characters brought about by the "turn", I pay more attention to the history before the characters "turn". The writer Wang Anyi said that a long story is to write about the fate of people. No one's fate is similar, and no one's fate can be summed up in a word. Of course, I appreciate the fate of those legendary and heroic characters. Just like the protagonist Zhuo Shimin in "The Sun Turns". I once interviewed an old police officer with a special status who, when he was employed, was just a code name on his payroll. He is a legend in the era of peace, an unsung hero who silently guards peace for us. I asked Zhuo Shimin, a veteran with experience in the war, to use the detection of a trafficking case to go into a remote village and go to the main battlefield of poverty alleviation, just like taking my eyes to pay attention to this great war declaring war on poverty. Like the other characters in the work, he also wants to complete his magnificent turn again in the continuation of the legend of life. I believe that some people live to interpret legends, which makes writers like us not too lonely.

This is my 7th novel since the beginning of the new century. It is also a transformational work of mine. In the past, I was more devoted to historical narratives, taking national culture and history as the objects of my learning and expression. This time I turned my gaze to the present, to the Zhuang. As I walked on the border of the southern country, I relived the fiery and pure 80s of the last century, when the cannons were booming here, and I was a young man who had just graduated from college and came to the frontier of Yunnan, and we often went to comfort the "loveliest people" who came down from the battlefield, and their sense of glory and pride in fighting for the country made me unforgettable. This time, I re-acquainted myself with concepts such as frontiers, nationalities, national gates, and border lines, which are not only in the sense of human geography, but also promote a sense of national identity, national dignity, and pride as a Chinese.

(The author is the chairman of Yunnan Writers Association)