"If pain is the source of joy, why should we grieve because of pain?" - Goethe
1
One day, I suddenly received a WeChat message from bai yan, a friend in Beijing, "Teacher Li Hengjiu just called and wants to add you ToChat." ”
I was very surprised and happy and immediately agreed.
I have been missing Mr. Li Hengjiu for too long.
One day in 2004, I was on a website that I frequented, Yishi Chinese, and saw a modern poem written by a netizen in a rather sad and humorous style. So I left a message at the back, attached to the poem "Believe in the Future" by the famous poet's index finger.
The next day, I saw someone following my post. He said that seeing the poem of the index finger felt very intimate, and recalled the scene when the index finger wrote the poem 35 years ago and recited it in front of him.
At the end, if I am interested, you can accompany me to discuss this poem with my index finger in person.
The Internet is really a hidden dragon and a Crouching Tiger.
I wasn't just surprised, I was overjoyed.
You know, the index finger is the originator of contemporary Chinese obscure poetry.
When I was a young literary teenager in my early 20s, I had read many poems by obscure poets Gu Cheng, BeiDao, and Shu Ting, and the index finger was the founder of this school of poetry.
The person who said he was going to take me to visit the index finger was Mr. Li Hengjiu.
I was preparing to write a book about the Internet and conduct interviews with many netizens across the country. And a person who is friends with his index finger must be a person with a story.
Later, I made an appointment with Mr. Li to meet.
He was in his early 50s at the time, but his face was crisscrossed with knife-like chisels.
He probably saw my surprise and said, "Don't you feel like I'm in a special situation?" My experiences are all written on my face. ”
"But your voice sounds so young."
I was a little afraid of hurting his self-esteem to say.
"That's it! The spirit is good. I can't stand practicing 300 push-ups a day. ”
He laughed and shook my hand.
Li Hengjiu talks funny and has a cheerful personality. Even if you don't know any of his experiences, you can feel that he is a wonderful character.
Later, he actually took me to see my index finger, who was recuperating at home.
The three of us dined together at the restaurant.
I was very impressed by that meeting.
In the noise of the hotel, Li Hengjiu and the index finger talked loudly, so that they forgot their feelings. Horizontal thesis, longitudinal history. Talk about Lao Zhuang, talk about "Niu Hao", and also talk about "Dream of the Red Chamber". After talking about Ostrovsky, he talked about Alai's "The Dust Has Settled".
The final topic focuses on the poetry of the index finger.
Two of you, one of mine, a large section of reciting the poem of the index finger. And seriously debate whether the original deleted paragraph of the poem "Believe in the Future" should be retained.
I was not only fortunate to see the masters of the index finger of a generation of poets, but also the friendship between two people who transcended all worldly things. What else could I think of in that scene besides reminding me of the "mountain flowing water" of Yu Boya and Zhong Zi period?
Because I was touched by them, I even forgot to eat, and several times I couldn't help but burst into tears.
It was the first time I had met someone as knowledgeable and memorable as Li Hengjiu.
He should go on the "Challenge the Impossible" show.
In that special era, he once wanted to publish a collection of poems "Chu Tuo Ji" for a group of literary young index fingers, Wu Bing and others at that time, and collected more than 160 poems by hand, of which 36 were written by the index finger alone.
Later, he learned that the book could not be published in the situation at that time, so he memorized more than 160 poems in a week.
After the end of the Cultural Revolution, when the poet Lin Mang edited and published the volume of the poetry collection "Index Finger", Li Hengjiu recorded 11 poems that the index finger himself had forgotten based on memory.
In the face of my surprise, Li Hengjiu said that this is really nothing, that is, up to now, Pushkin, Lermontov, Tang poems and Song Ci and other ancient and modern Chinese and foreign poems, he can also memorize more than two thousand poems.
2
If it were not for the vicissitudes of history, Li Hengjiu's goal in college would be the department of Chinese peking university.
But the Cultural Revolution changed everything.
Embracing idealism and heroism, he and a friend sneaked across the border to Vietnam, thinking of going to the jungles of Vietnam to help Vietnam resist the United States. As a result, they were politely sent out of the border by Vietnamese troops.
Returning to Beijing with nothing to do, Li Hengjiu, a young man of literature, went to the library to read books.
There he met the index finger that later founded the Obscure Poetry School.
In 1969, Li Hengjiu and his index finger went to the queue separately.
The index finger went to Shanxi, and Li Hengjiu went to Inner Mongolia with Ah Cheng (yes, that famous writer) and others.
The remarks that had been sneaking across the border and in the special era eventually became his crime, and he spent 10 years of a career behind bars.
In order not to involve his family, Li Hengjiu severed ties with his family after being sentenced to prison. But his mother inquired around, and after 4 years finally found a place to see him.
That day he found that his mother was wearing only one shoe on her foot. The mother said that because of the large number of people on the bus, one shoe was stepped on at the Yongdingmen station, and after getting off the bus, she walked barefoot to the prison.
Li Hengjiu crawled to his mother on his knees, holding his mother's bruised feet and crying bitterly.
It was the only time he cried in his 10-year career.
Relying on a strong and optimistic personality and reciting more than a thousand poems every day, Li Hengjiu spent the darkest years.
When he finally found a home that had been relocated several times after he was released from prison, his parents were already dead. Soon the father died, and the mother suffered from Alzheimer's disease, and she no longer recognized the son she missed day and night.
For three years, Li Hengjiu shut himself in his room and wrote more than 1.6 million words about the experience of the Cultural Revolution, of which more than 700,000 words were included in books such as "A Hundred Years of Smoke and Rain" and "We in That Era".
A Hundred Years of Smoke and Rain is a collection of 500 contemporary Chinese writers, poets, scholars and celebrities who look back on their most memorable experiences of the twentieth century. The book is considered to be the "Map of the Qingming River" of Twentieth Century Chinese Society, and is the "Last Supper" of Chinese culture in the twentieth century.
After meeting Li Hengjiu in 2004, I listened to him tell many experiences of special times. His story was incorporated into a book I wrote about the web, See Who's Online.
We haven't seen each other since. I was busy writing, and he was busier than I was as editor-in-chief of a newspaper. We only occasionally learned about each other's information through Bai Yan, and later, such information was also interrupted.
It wasn't until this time that we received Bai Yan's message that we established contact on WeChat.
After 15 years apart, I realized that a lot of things had happened to him in these years. The most important thing is that he has been suffering from rectal cancer for 5 years.
I thought he was going to tell me a lot about being sick, because cancer is a big ordeal for everyone.
It is the ultimate torture of life.
Unexpectedly, he sent me a bunch of photos of his travels.
He said that he now travels by car twice a year and has just learned to use WeChat, so he should contact me quickly.
Aside from traveling, I now do only three things a day: fitness, research, and writing.
Regarding his experience with the disease, he said it was available online.
It was a 50,000-plus-word article, "Walking the Line of Life and Death." Li Hengjiu has always had the habit of keeping a diary, even in prison, when he is handcuffed to a single cell.
When he came out, he brought out a diary of more than 200,000 words.
The beginning of "Walking through the Line of Life and Death" is the quote from Goethe at the beginning of my article.
Li Hengjiu said in the article, "For many years it has spurred my life like a motto. When I have experienced many tribulations in life, it has repeatedly given me spiritual support in my vision of the future and alleviated the degree of suffering. When I encountered the doom of rectal cancer this time, it once again became the spiritual support for my life, bringing me the courage to overcome difficulties. ”
Seeing Li Hengjiu's radiant appearance in the photo, I believe he is telling the truth.
What is there that a person who has not fallen after so many tribulations cannot be overcome?
Bai Yan told me on the phone that he never felt that Teacher Li was a patient, except for the few days of hospital surgery, he had been busy, busy with work, busy playing around.
Admirable.
Li Hengjiu is still the wonderful Li Hengjiu. He walked through the Yucha Grand Canyon and successfully crossed the Grand Canyon of his life.
Above the canyon, a blue sky.
Grand Canyon in Yucha Village, Ganquan County, Shaanxi Province
The index finger signed and sent Li Hengjiu's poetry collection, which I borrowed and did not return in time, and is still treasured on my bookshelf