"Meaningful" "Yanyang Chu": Tell the story of China that belongs to the nation, mankind and the future

In art, Clive Bell argues that "the common nature of all visual art" is "significant form", which identifies any art as a reasonable grasp of the material and emotional worlds by the creative subject in accordance with the laws of aesthetics and forms. If we are not limited to the visual arts, but extend to all art forms (including literature), it is nothing less than focusing on form—because form and content are often inseparable (form is often conceived as content, and content is often externalized to form), then this concept of "meaningfulness" common to art (especially excellent works of art) can be used to the examination of Miao Yong's "Yanyang Chu": focusing on its style, thought, or cultural dissemination.

The stylistic meaning of "YanYang Chu"

For people to establish a biography, there are roughly three ways to write: first, the narrative is completely faithful to the ability of the master, not fictional; second, the narrative subject is loyal to the master's ability, and the plot and details are slightly fictional; the third is that the narrative is generally loyal to the master's ability, and the plot and details are mostly fictional. Therefore, the literary world has a distinction between historical transmission, other transmission, and external transmission. Careful study shows that "Yanyang Chu" should belong to the second and third kinds of mixed situations, that is, the narrative subject is faithful to the life deeds of the protagonist Yan Yangchu according to historical materials, and the specific character emotions and event details are made to a large extent of reasonable fiction. In a sense, it is a mixture of historical and other traditions.

As a writer, judging from Miao Yong's previous writings, this writer who regards literary creation as a hobby (because he also continues to serve as a literary or other management work), has written poetry and prose (published the poetry collection "Mountain Rhyme", the prose collection "Mountain People", "Scattered Words", etc.), and is responsible for the creation of reportage literature (publishing a long reportage "Monument", "History Will Not Forget", "The Great Man of the World Who Walked Out of the Mountains", etc.). And this experience of writing happens to achieve the original pattern of "Yan Yang Chu": a biographical novel that resembles a long reportage; it has both a realistic side that respects facts and returns to history, and a romantic side that uses emotion to release poetry. In short, this kind of romantic realist literary writing that breaks through boundaries and integrates across categories integrates and penetrates multiple fields and diverse creative experiences, and when it is taken to the extreme, it is possible to produce shocking literary and artistic masterpieces.

Xu Yinyangchu's achievements in China were mostly before 1949, and his post-1951 influence was mostly seen in foreign countries, coupled with the relatively closed and backward reality before the reform and opening up in China, for several years, the Sichuan people did not know Yanyangchu, but he was an authentic Chinese who came out of the bashan Shu water (his ancestral home is now the Five Society of Zhongxing Village, Sanjiang Town, Bazhou District, Bazhong City, before the age of 23, he lived and studied in bashu), a world-renowned modern civilian educator and a pioneer of China's new-style rural construction. Although descending from the 1980s onwards, there have been books such as "The Complete Works of Yanyang Chu" (Hunan Education Publishing House, 1989), "Yanyang Chu Anthology" (Sichuan Education Publishing House, 1990), "Yanyang Chu Memorial Anthology" (Chongqing Publishing House, 1996), "The First Biography of Yanyang" (Yuelu Book Club, 2001), "Telling the People" (Interview with YanYang Chu by American writer Pearl Sai, Guangxi Normal University Press, 2003), "Yanyang Chu Biography" (Tiandi Publishing House, 2005) and other books. However, using the technique of biographical fiction (naturally rubbing into the documentary technique of reportage) to depict Yan Yangchu, who died in 1890 and died in 1990, gives this real character who died not far away but is far away from many contemporary Chinese people a living three-dimensional sense and richness, and opens a different and interesting way to praise his great achievements and selfless dedication, and the author's more than 400,000-word "Yanyang Chu" made by a sword in ten years is the first time. This may be a stylistically new feature of the book, and it is worth exploring further.

The ideological meaning of "Yan Yang Chu"

For example, "Yanyang Chu" is also regarded as a kind of biography, but compared with the ordinary autobiographical biography or his biography, Miao Yong's biographical ability obviously enhances the storytelling and interest, that is, the "readability" in its "must-read" is exerted to the extreme: there are poetic reproductions of natural customs and objects in various places, as well as a large number of dialogues that are also vulgar and elegant, setting off the atmosphere, and the strong ink and color of contradictions and conflicts, difficulties and obstacles. The book vividly recreates Yan Yangchu's life with reasonable literary imagination and a large number of innovative details--from receiving enlightenment education at an early age to leaving his hometown to study at a young age, from the application of learning to the grand plan, from the experiment of Dingxian County (now Dingzhou City, Hebei Province) to the help of a foreign country (as far away as the Philippines, Guatemala, Colombia and other Third World countries). Due to the organic integration of detailed historical materials, vivid situations and poetic language, Yan Yangchu's tall image with a big heart and unswerving ambition jumped on the paper. From 1918, when he volunteered to serve in the French army on the battlefield of World War I (educating the Chinese workers camp as a translator), to 1990, when he died in the United States with a lifetime of hard work and some regrets of unfinished business, Yan Yangchu, who has never lost his Chinese nationality for more than seventy years, has always been practicing his original intention expressed at the summary meeting of the YMCA's industrial camp in China: not to be an official, not to get rich, and to dedicate his life to promoting civilian education, opening up the people's wisdom, and building a new style of countryside!

The old saying "Those who have lofty ideals can accomplish things" (Later Han Shu Geng Yi Biography). Yan Yang was born in a rural family, and since childhood, he has had the lofty ambition to do something practical for the people of Li. At the age of 13, he left home to study at a Christian school hundreds of miles away (Langzhong, Sichuan, Chengdu and other places), during which he deeply realized with the empathy of compassion and unique observation that the toiling masses represented by Sichuan's "second brother behind his back" rushed to seek a living but could also be content with poverty and bitterness, and also sighed in his heart the depravity and inaction of the stupid children who sang and danced and were drunk and drunk. After categorically rejecting a full scholarship from the British University of Hong Kong in order to retain his Chinese citizenship, he obtained bachelor's and master's degrees from Yale University and Princeton University in the United States with outstanding talent and lasting perseverance. After completing his studies, because he deeply felt the importance of the education of the "new people" (the common people who were "stupid, poor, weak, and selfish" into "new people"), Yan Yangchu gave up the prosperous life and unlimited scenery of the future, resolutely returned to China, took root in the countryside, was not afraid of power, fearlessly hardships, and persistently carried out civilian education and new-style rural construction experiments in Dingxian County, Chongqing Xiema Town, and other places.

As Dostoevsky said: "Everything that is new always begins like this, and at first there are many enthusiastic people, but soon they become cold and do not do it." Because he has understood that it is impossible to do without a hard work, and only those who want to do it can endure this pain. In the more than twenty years of Dingxian and Xiema Town, Yan Yangchu, with his own personality charm and inspiring idealistic spirit, united people of insight, overcame thousands of difficulties, firmly determined that Qingshan would not relax, and finally established a civilian education model that combined school education, social education, and family education, and a rural transformation plan of "attacking stupidity with literary and art education, curing poverty with livelihood education, helping the weak with health education, and overcoming private interests with civic education." Obviously, the practice of civilian education and rural construction exudes the ideological significance of patriotism, love for the people, and love for education at the essential level -- this kind of courage and great talent that can be described as "the rise and fall of the world, and the responsibility of the people" has positive practical significance for the construction of new rural areas in China today, the building of a solid defense line against poverty and the inspirational education for the vast number of young people, and even the realization of the "Chinese Dream" of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the vision of building a socialist modern power in an all-round way. General Secretary Xi Jinping commented in his speech at the 2017 Central Rural Work Conference: "When I worked in Zhengding County, Hebei Province, I had a deep understanding of Yan Yangchu's experiment. Yan Yangchu opened civilian schools, promoted cooperative organizations, created experimental farms, taught agricultural science and technology, improved animal and plant varieties, and improved public health in the countryside, and achieved some positive results. Thinking of Miao Yong's "Yanyang Chu" published by the Oriental Publishing House in 2021, just at the historical intersection of "two hundred years", the author, who is the vice chairman of the Sichuan Provincial Trade Union, stands in the new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and should have such a meaning of paying attention to reality, a vision of "going to the future", and a feeling of "helping the world at the same time".

The cultural meaning of "Yanyang Chu"

In his speech at the opening ceremony of the Eleventh National Congress of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the Tenth National Congress of the China Writers Association, General Secretary Xi Jinping said with a heavy heart: "I hope that the vast number of literary and art workers will tell the Chinese story well with affection and strength, and show the world a credible, lovely and respectable image of China." Chinese people have always had a profound sense of the world, and contemporary Chinese literature and art should turn their attention to the world and to mankind. The vast number of literary and art workers must have confidence and ambition, inherit the flow of hundreds of generations, will change today, and create more excellent works that highlight China's aesthetic interests, disseminate contemporary Chinese values, and reflect the common value pursuit of all mankind. It is true that although the situation and destiny of the peoples of all countries in the world are different, the unremitting pursuit of a better life and the indomitable struggle to change their destiny are common. Chinese literary and art workers writing about this common value pursuit of all mankind and the benevolent people who help to this end are easy to resonate widely, and can also show the "feelings of the world" that Chinese people have always had.

History has proven, and will continue to prove, that the only thing that transcends time and space is the great personality and spirit. Yan Yangchu once said: "I am a child who combines Chinese culture with Western democratic and scientific ideas. I do have a sense of mission and a view of salvation: I am a missionary, preaching civilian education, and the starting point is benevolence and love; I am a revolutionary, and I want to use education to eliminate vices and customs, to eliminate old innovations, but I do not advocate violence for violence, killing people and setting fires. ...... I believe that 'everyone can be Yao Shun'. St. Augustine said: 'In the depths of every soul, there is something holy'. The universality of the human conscience is also something I am convinced of. It can be seen from this that Yan Yangchu had a great personality and spirit; his words and deeds and deeds were written and praised by people, and they were in a reasonable way. In a sense, Miao Yong's long biographical novel "Yanyang Chu" is not only an artistic reproduction of Yan Yangchu, a pioneer of civilian education, who has thousands of low-level masses in his heart and "one heart to be a widow and a cow", but also a remembrance and praise of his great personality and spirit. In an interview, Miao Yong summarized Yan Yangchu's personality and spirit into three points: the forerunner of telling the Chinese story well, the leader of rural education construction in China, and the practitioner of the community of human destiny. Sincerely! Looking back at yan Yangchu's experience in serving the French Chinese workers' camp in his early years to the establishment of the Pingjiao General Association in China, from the exploration of single civilian education to the arduous process of all-round civilian education practice and new-style rural construction and transformation in Dingxian and other places, he truly practiced the simple concept of the ancient Chinese motto of "Min Wei Bang Ben, Ben Gu Bang Ning" ("Shang Shu , Song of the Five Sons"), and provided a valuable empirical legacy for the rural education construction of the motherland and even many third world countries in the world.

Realistically speaking, Miao Yong's "YanYang Chu" is a literary and artistic work that "looks to the world and invests in mankind" and better "shows the world a credible, lovely, and respectable image of China" - Yan Yangchu assisted the Philippines, Thailand, Guatemala, Colombia, Ghana and other countries to establish the Rural Transformation Promotion Association in the 1950s, and founded the International Rural Transformation Institute in the Philippines in the 1960s, and served as an adviser to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (Lu Xun's) international assistance has made a good footnote to this. It can be said that the book is a Chinese business card handed to the world by Chinese writers, and it is written with frank, simple but touching romantic realism, telling and telling the Chinese story that belongs to the nation, to mankind, and to the future - the book was selected as one of the top ten humanities and social science books of the Oriental Publishing House in 2021. In fact, through this book, we can also deeply appreciate the significance of Yan Yangchu's "do not forget the original heart, forge ahead" for young people who carry hope and belong to the future: For Xinxin students, Yan Yangchu's personality and spirit are like a guiding light, and in the face of the attack of "pseudo-historicism", "nihilism" and "exquisite egoism", we can clarify the outlook on life, values, and world outlook, face the world's road, and clarify the direction of moving forward; for young people who step into society, Yan Yangchu's personality and spirit are like a recipe that can enlighten and cure physical and mental stubborn diseases, so that people can remember "benevolence, righteousness, etiquette, wisdom, filial piety, and courage" at the same time, dispel the haze on the way to struggle, and precipitate the fragrance accumulated over the years. I hope that such sentimental and responsible literary and artistic works as "The Beginning of Yanyang" can emerge more. (Jun Bing, professor of Sichuan University, member of China Literary and Art Critics Association, vice chairman of Chengdu Literary and Art Critics Association)

Source: China Youth Daily client