Miss He Lao, miss his "out out" wontons, his self-proclaimed Shengdou Xiaomin, the incomparable lines he draws by hand.
Photo by He Youzhi Chen Cun
I didn't bring a camera with mr. He Youzhi that day, and I thought it was rude to point at people with a camera. It was December 29, 2001, and Mr. Xie Chunyan was asked to lead the line. I was familiar with Julu Road, and had walked through it countless times but hadn't noticed the lane. The old-fashioned house, go upstairs, enter the door, and enter the "one room and four halls" that He Lao calls himself. Elder He and his master and mother were very enthusiastic, please sit down and drink tea. I went for the "Good Talk" column in Harvest magazine, which was hosted by Ah Cheng and me in turn, looking for interesting people to chat with. Since it is a chat, I will ask him about his experience and feelings in Shanghai, and talk about the changes in Shanghai's civil society. Before I went, I did a little homework and wrote a small copy, who knew that when I spoke, I was wrong. I said, "You have been in Shanghai since you were 28 years old," and Elder He immediately corrected, "17 years old." He came to Shanghai in 1938. "My head was immediately dizzy.
Elder He's room is very small, very similar to my home on Yandang Road, the living room, the dining room, the living room, the bedroom studio, but it is very tidy, and the old floor is also clean. He had lived in this house for more than forty years. "I feel that living in this kind of place is very humane! The neighbors next door, for example, I was painting here, and their mother-in-law was cooking small dishes in the stove, and this kind of noise came and said, "Fool me, this shrimp can be, I can hear it." Painting hard, go to the stove and help it out again. ”
Talking to Elder He is very cheerful. He told me about the details of life in old Shanghai, about rickshaws, trams, racetracks, thrift stores, night schools, crossing the Fourth Road, climbing the wall to watch football games, buying the cheapest tickets to listen to Peking Opera, and also talking about his hometown of Beilun Port. I chatted with him in Shanghainese, and his words were plain, material, and full of details. He laughed and said something, and he didn't know whether to cry or laugh. There's a passage that goes like this:
"The shoes are made by themselves, the clothes are made by themselves, and if they are broken, the boss will wear them down for the second, and the second will wear them down for the third." The little one is raised endlessly. This Chenguang, there is no ability to earn copper, there is the ability to raise small, one by one. This Chenguang has a low standard of living, for example, the alley sells spiced tea eggs, baked crispy beans, and beaten sand rounds. Ah, this tatsumi pork head, duck bladder, duck gizzard liver, duck leg. This kind of thing is much better than now, delicious! At night, a basket head is hanging down, a bowl of wontons is good and out, and the top is rubbing night mahjong. This light has the warmth of this light. [Laughs]"
Elder He said plainly: "Different periods have different meanings. People look back and look at the road they have traveled, although you have ups and downs, are actually quite interesting. ”
Elder He is frank and sincere, he does not think of himself as a master, he does not hide that he has painted things that are not worth painting, nor does he hide his failures. He told me that the hand-pulled fan on the old bathroom in Shanghai was wrongly drawn, and some readers suggested that the wind leaf should be hard, and he admitted that it was indeed wrong. Talking to Elder He, you will feel that he is transparent and he is bright.
After I went back, I converted the recording word by word into text, added a note to the Shanghainese dialect that was not easy to understand, added a clumsy title "Old Shanghai of old citizens", and printed the text and submitted it to He Lao for revision. He read it carefully, did not change his words, and wrote at the end of the article:
Mr. Chen Cun:
The text is read, the words are spoken by me, and of course I am responsible. Overall, there is no open-edge. The general feeling, said to be like "miscellaneous baked soup", some are ignored, such as: when the Japanese invaded, the common people hated. Of course, there is also fear. When I crossed the Sichuan Road Bridge, I was slapped by the ghost guarding the bridge because I did not have an epidemic prevention certificate. I didn't dare to be angry, I didn't dare to say anything, so I had to admit that I was obscure. For another example, there is no research on the current cartoon, and I cannot express opinions casually or with prejudices, but I always feel that I should study and study and organize and guide. Because this involves the education of minors. It's a pleasure to associate with you. It took you a lot of time to kowtow in thanks. Let me paraphrase the editor's hand: hair can be sent.
Heyou direct sign 1.11
Elder He's words are better than others who describe him and describe him, just like his painting himself, it is really himself. It is worth mentioning that there is also a remnant, "Harvest" magazine would like to ask Elder He to write the title of each article for this issue of the magazine, entrusting me to convey it. I proposed that Elder He insisted on not being allowed to resign. He said he couldn't write well and couldn't write it. Reading his paintings, you can see that he is meticulous, the next stroke has come from everywhere, and he has calculated on the picture. Selling paintings is about rulers, and he has not enlarged the size for the sake of selling prices, but repeats himself. He even repeatedly painted people illustrations that did not make money, and did not sell paintings. Elder He has his own pride, that is, the hand-drawn lines and white drawings that the French academy invited him to teach.
Later, borrowing the field of Haruhiko's eldest brother, I saw Elder He and his master and mother many times, became familiar with them, and dared to photograph them with a camera. A kind old man with sharp eyes and witty and authentic speech. The master and mother always smiled, took care of the old man's wine, and did not let her drink more. He called rice wine an oral liquid for life. In the last days of his life, he told Haruhiko that the wine was not much to eat.
He Lao's works have not gone away, and his old works have long been expensive in the second-hand market. He received many awards during his lifetime. Important ones are "Great Changes in Mountains and Countryside" and "White Light" have won the first prize of the National Comic Strip Award, and he won the first "China Art Award , Lifetime Achievement Award". One day I happened to meet a certain leader and was busy telling her the good news. After seeing that Elder He won the "Shanghai Literature and Art Award , Lifetime Achievement Award", I went to watch the ceremony, walked over to photograph him before the meeting, and felt that the two elderly people in the camera added luster to this award. With the passage of time, He Lao's works will become more and more precious.
On March 16, 2016, Elder He was only a few hours from the onset of illness to his death. He once said to me, "Grow old slowly and go faster." He is. A few days later, I went to see off the old man.
Miss Elder He. Whenever I hear someone talk about the "30s" and talk about what "magic capital" needs to be punched, I think of Elder He. His "out-of-the-air" ravioli, his self-proclaimed Shengdou Xiaomin, the incomparable lines he draws by hand. (Chen Cun)