Mo Yan's original name was Guan Mo Ye
It was the age of a great famine, millions, tens of millions of poor people were starving, and a family in Ping'anZhuang, Heya Township, Gaomi County, Shandong Province, had been completely trapped.
They lived in a dilapidated mud house with no decent furniture. The black-yellow-black-yellow walls made the room darker and darker, and only the broken windows stingily threw in a beam of light.
All three boys were listless, but strict tutoring drove them to sit at their desks and read. The table and the bed were almost all their possessions.
The eldest son, who was already in his long body, seemed to be hungry faster than his younger brothers, and his stomach protested in waves, grunting, and passing into the ears of his younger brother Guan Moye.
Guan Moye (Mo Yan's original name) knew that the family had not been able to open the pot for several days. But whenever the father brought some food from outside, it was always the parents who gave it to the children, the brother to the younger brother, and in the end, it was the youngest self in the family who ate the most food.
The 5-year-old Guan Moye rubbed the sweaty brain and decided to ask his mother for more food. He ran outside the house and saw that under the great sun, his mother was toiling and mud, and seemed ready to paste the roof again for the rainy season that was coming in two months.
Mo Yan's father and mother
Although he knew that not only his own home, but also his friends' homes were in this situation, although he did not want to open his mouth, he still plucked up his courage when he turned around and looked at the two brothers in the room who were already hungry and blue-faced, but did not say a word and stared at the books.
Guan Moye stood behind his mother and whispered, "Mother, I am hungry." ”
The mother had to run the house day and night, take care of her three underage sons, and work with the rest of the production team. My father was an accountant, busy at work, leaving early and returning late all day, and his meager salary could not be exchanged for enough food.
The mother sighed and stood up to pat the clothes, the dust on them flying and shimmering in the strong sunlight. The mother came to the stove house with the pipe and opened the large vat containing the grain, and there was not a single grain of rice or a scoop of noodles. Not only was there no grain, but even wild vegetables and bran were eaten.
The mother blushed at the thought of giving birth to them but not being able to feed and dress the children. She turned her back to wipe her tears with her cuffs, unwilling to let her young son see.
"Third son, go to sleep, you won't be hungry when you fall asleep."
The little pipe blinked his eyes and called out to the two brothers to lie down together on the cold mat that had been worn out. The three brothers were so hungry that they couldn't sleep, and the house seemed to be particularly hot.
The eldest brother patiently coaxed the two younger brothers and counted them: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6..."
The eldest brother's voice gradually faded, and in a trance, Guan Moye walked into a granary filled with grain. He opened the first basket, and it was full of white-faced steamed buns!
Mo Yan and his mother
The second basket is a scallion oil flatbread! He grabbed it and stuffed it in his mouth, and continued to walk inside, and there were countless chickens, ducks and fish! Guan Moye had not seen so much food since he could remember, and the greedy child ate the sea plug, and ate it with a greasy face and a melon belly and collapsed to the ground.
Faint and about to go to sleep, only to hear his mother's voice, anxiously calling: "Third son, third child, wake up!" There's something to eat! Follow your mother! ”
Guan Moye opened his eyes and realized that the full meal he had just had was just a dream of yellow sorghum. The mother's tired face was reflected in front of her eyes, and her chapped lips were closed one by one, desperately pulling the pipe up.
"Hurry up, the wheat field is finished, let's go pick up the ears of wheat!" Go late and it's gone! Hearing that there was really food, Guan Moye woke up and ran to the wheat field with his mother. The two brothers had gone to another wheat farm.
Mo
When they arrived at the wheat farm, Guan Moye found that there were already many villagers here, and everyone was bending down and moving quickly, picking the ears of wheat and grains that had fallen into the soil after the harvest was over.
At that time, the villagers called this kind of behavior "picking up autumn", the so-called "picking autumn" is that all the grain in the local area has been collected into the warehouse, and the collective has already picked it up again, and the villagers who are plagued by hunger will pick up some bits and pieces of grain in the field.
Because although the collective has picked it up once, it is impossible to pick it up cleanly. Guan Moye did not dare to delay for a moment in learning the appearance of his mother, catching up with this kind of year when people would really starve to death, and picking up wheat was equivalent to saving their lives.
Before long, the 5-year-old was exhausted and out of breath. The sun burned the bare earth unscrupulously, and Guan Moye was sunburned red in the face and blackened in front of his eyes.
Suddenly, there was a whistling sound in the distance, and a full-fledged male voice shouted, "Steal the grain!" All out! Then the sound of loud steps came over. The villagers were shocked, because there was a big difference between "picking up autumn" and "stealing autumn".
Equivalent to the black and white sides of the same thing, "stealing autumn" means that before the grain harvest, someone went to the field to secretly collect the grain en masse. No one could understand why the man who guarded the wheat field called them "grain thieves."
However, looking at the man's fierce spirit and angry rush to come and eat people, the crowd of people picking wheat next to him subconsciously scattered and ran away, and Guan Moye was also frightened and jumped, standing up straight and turning his head to prepare to run, but he fell to the ground in front of him.
His mother quickly dragged him up, took his hand and ran desperately, still carrying a handful of grain she had just picked up, and Guan Moye's small hand also tightly grasped the grain of wheat she had picked up and did not dare to let go. But the mother is wrapped in small feet, can not run fast, pulling a 5-year-old child can not run fast.
The footsteps were so close that neither mother nor son dared to turn back, only to hear a scream of "ah", and the mother was caught. The man, who was guarding the wheat field, knocked down the wheat in his mother's hand without saying a word, and waved it at his mother with a large hand.
The mother was slapped firmly and fell to the ground. Guan Moye cried loudly and pounced on his mother, but was kicked aside by the man, who continued to beat his mother, and soon the corners of her mouth oozed blood.
The mother humbly pleaded for forgiveness, begged the man to raise his noble hand, and said with a crying voice: "There are 3 children in the family to raise, there is really nothing to eat, you can't watch the babies starve to death!" Spare me! Spare me! ”
But the man, without the slightest mercy, snatched the ears of wheat from his mother's hands.
Guan Moye clearly saw the desperate expression on his mother's face, perhaps afraid of hitting someone, and after finding that his mother could no longer make a sound, the rude man stopped.
Before leaving, he came to Guan Moye and confiscated even a little grain of wheat in his hand. Guan Moye looked at the man with hatred and remembered his face firmly. But the man didn't seem to care, and whistled away.
The mother hugged Guan Moye and cried, and she kept sniffing: "Son, the mother is useless, so you can't eat a full meal." Although she did not mention her own pain in the slightest, Guan Moye clearly heard the sound of broken dignity.
The tenacious and kind family of five somehow survived the famine in those years, but fortunately, under the guidance of their parents, Guan Moye and his brothers became their own instruments, and after the children all became adults, their family had turned over unconsciously.
But the beating and humiliation that his mother suffered that day became an eternal thorn in Guan Moye's heart, and it became the most painful thing in his memory.
More than ten years later, Guan Moye returned from the army as a soldier and became a burly and tall and strong boy. He accompanied his mother to the street to buy vegetables, lamenting that now that life is better, he no longer has to be as hungry as when he was a child.
And the latter words Guan Moye did not continue to say, that is: there is no need to let the mother be beaten up in order to fill a stomach.
While the mother and son were talking and laughing, Guan Moye suddenly saw the face engraved in his mind.
It was the man who beat his mother in the wheat field! Although he was no longer as strong as he had been, and had become an old man with gray hair, Guan Moye still recognized him at a glance.
At that time, the blood from the corners of his mother's mouth appeared in front of Guan Moye's eyes like a film, and as a son of man, he watched his mother's insulted anger burn up, and Guan Moye grabbed the man.
As the years passed, their situation had changed long ago. At that time, the weak Guan Moye was already a head higher than the man, and Kong Wu's powerful fist was stretched out, frightening the man into trembling twice.
At the moment of this first attack, Guan Moye's mother stopped him.
The mother waved her hand to let the old man leave, and calmly said to Guan Moye, "Son, the person who hit me is not the same person as this old man." ”
This act of the mother greatly shocked Guan Moye's heart, and judging from her mother's expression, she must not have forgotten the humiliation of that year. But because of the natural conscience of the Chinese peasant in her heart, she prevented her son from "taking revenge" for herself.
Guan Moye helplessly watched the enemy he had hated for more than ten years stagger away, and he also helped his elderly mother to walk home, along the way, neither mother nor son spoke, only the footsteps echoed the silence.
In the deep wrinkles of the mother next to him, Guan Moye realized: patience is a spirit that Chinese farmers cannot abandon, and in the thousands of years of feudal years, farmers have long been accustomed to being bullied and exploited, and swallowing anger has almost become a gene flowing with the blood.
The mother did not forgive the fierce and vicious man who beat her back then, but chose not to deal with the old man who was dying now. At that moment, Guan Moye learned tolerance and understanding from his mother.
For thousands of years, Confucian thought has been deeply rooted in the hearts of most Chinese, and "peace is precious", "tolerance is great", compassion and humility have become the group characteristics of Chinese.
Corresponding to this, there are those foxes who have not disappeared for thousands of years, bullying, and wolf-herding "little ghosts", that is, everyone often says that "the king of Yama is good to see the little ghosts and difficult to shake". This is where most of the contradictions in rural China stem.
A small number of people with chicken feathers as arrows hurt most of the humble and humble people. After pondering these things, Guan Moye picked up the pen and wrote several best-selling novels that spread around the world based on the contradictions at the bottom.
The man who beat up the child and the woman could not have dreamed that the child he had bullied at that time would later stand on the international stage of the Norbert Prize.
At that time, he was only 5 years old, and the pipe industry of sleeping in the field to collect ears of wheat in a stinky sweat became the later international literary hero: Mo Yan. With his own strength, he has pushed contemporary Chinese literature onto the world stage with a writing technique that combines proud talent and virtual reality.
Mo Yan at the Nobel Prize ceremony
When Mo Yan told the story of his past with his mother at the Nobel Prize ceremony, he received thunderous applause that lasted for a long time.
Mo Yan's mother's kindness touched all the people present, and letting go of the enemy who was close at hand and had caused a lifetime of psychological trauma to himself was not an easy decision for all.
Ke Mo yan said, "This is my home style." ”
Indeed, not only the Mo Yan family, but also tens of thousands of Chinese peasant families are so kind. When they are in a weak position, they swallow their anger, and when they become strong and no longer weak after half a lifetime of hard work, they choose not to blame the past.
Mother is the starting point of Mo Yan. It is not only the starting point of life and the starting point of growth, but also the starting point of his literary creation, the starting point of insight into human nature, and the starting point of ideological awakening.
Mo Yan's work "Fat Buttocks"
Mo Yan's "Fat Buttocks" and "The Song of Heavenly Garlic" were all born under Mo Yan's observation and understanding of farmers through his mother.
He was keen to praise his mother "Shangguan Lushi" in the face of overwhelming suffering, the difficult process of nursing her children, no matter how tired and heartbroken, can not erase the maternal love of "a woman is weak, for the mother is strong".
He is more adept at depicting poor peasants such as "Gao Yang", "Gao Ma", and "Uncle Fang Si" who work hard day and night just to support their families. No matter what kind of drought or famine years, no matter what kind of oppression and injustice they encountered, they never gave in to their hearts that pursued a better life.
Mo Yan's "Song of Heavenly Garlic"
No matter how many people focus their attention on the weak who are hard-working and hard-working, mo yan's work is more important to warn every ordinary person not to be the fierce man who guards the wheat field, and not to be a bullying "little ghost".
As a bullied person, Mo Yan's mother is tolerant. With a broad mind, she separated the fierce and evil young man from the old man who was faltering later, chose good, forgave evil, and stopped thinking.
But as a perpetrator, will the old man in his twilight years feel ashamed of his misbehaving when he was young, will he worry about the same pain for his wife and children, and will he silently repent when he dreams back in the middle of the night?
Mo Yan and his father and mother in his youth
Mo Yan's mother and son recognized him, but did he deny Mo Yan's mother and son?
The greatness of a brilliant writer is that he can arouse people's thinking from many angles through his works, and Mo Yan's use of his mother to pick up ears of wheat has given the world insight into the traditional virtues of Chinese.
It is not weakness, it is not incompetence, but when it is "able", it chooses to let go.
Mo Yan is in his former residence
Mo Yan used his pen to expand the territory and embodied the peasants into the image of his mother, so that the world could see the Chinese peasants with goodness, compassion and benevolence.
What is even more gratifying is that Chinese farmers have bid farewell to many darkest years in history and have their own right to speak, and the encounter like Mo Yan's mother will not appear again.
They deserve this new era of clarity and openness.