Liang Xiaosheng's Mao Dun Literature Prize trilogy of "The World of Man" is a tome of more than 1.5 million words, spanning nearly half a century and recording many major historical events.
The popular CCTV TV series of the same name has compressed it into 58 episodes. Because there are many backgrounds in the last century, especially the first 19 years of life from 1969 to 1988, it is relatively unfamiliar to young audiences. If you have not seen the original book, it is not easy to feel empathy.
Stills from "The World"
China is bounded by 1980, and the changes are quite amazing just from the perspective of the daily food, clothing, shelter and transportation of ordinary people in "The World of Man".
As the old saying goes, thirty years in Hedong, thirty years in Hexi, the world is changing too fast. Liang Xiaosheng, who has the reputation of "civilian spokesperson" in the literary world, can't help but sigh:
1. Thirty years ago, I often worried about not having enough food to eat; thirty years later, I often worried about my children eating less.
The people take food as the sky, and the children who have been chased by their families to feed since they were young will not understand that at that time, the children made mistakes, and if they were punished by their parents for not being allowed to eat for a day, it was simply worse than being beaten.
2. Thirty years ago, everyone envied that they could buy cheap things; thirty years later, whoever bought something expensive would have a value.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the planned economy of centralized purchasing and marketing was in an extreme shortage of materials, and everything was required for tickets. Food stamps, meat tickets, food tickets, sugar tickets, etc., and even matches must have tickets, which is simply difficult to walk without tickets - eating bowls of small noodles in the restaurant also requires two or two grain stamps. For people who go out, if you have money, you have to have a few pounds of national food stamps in your pocket, and you have confidence everywhere you go.
Food stamps
Of course, eating meat is limited, and tickets may not be able to buy. In Su Tong's book "Snow White Pig's Head", there are relevant detailed descriptions. In the play, there is a scene where a large group of people line up to buy meat and wait to go home to make dumplings under the pot. Due to the lack of supply, Zhou Bingkun pretended to be the person in charge of the store and called the food company in time to transfer the goods, and the "six little gentlemen" of the soy sauce factory finally bought it.
When they were riding home with a large piece of pork alone and a bicycle on a snowy night, they were quite proud of the triumphant return of the soldiers, and even Zhou Mama even praised them when she saw them: Our family's old knots, it is really capable!
When my grandfather died, three pounds of high-temperature meat were bought for one pound, and two pounds for one pound of pig head meat. Her mother said that she was lucky enough to buy 30 pounds of high-temperature pork head meat with a five-pound ticket and beautifully performed a funeral for the foreigner.
Today's food and clothing is no longer a problem, looking back at the arduous journey, how many people can't help but lament the lives of ordinary people in these decades, the changes are too great.
It is rare that the film pays attention to the truth of details, and the narration makes up for the lack of time difference, so that the audience can quickly substitute relevant memories and resonate with the development of the plot:
For example, Zhou Bingkun participated in the work and was still wearing the red sweater pants left by his sister. This is not surprising, the boss wears the second wear, the third wears the fourth, the trouser legs or sleeves are connected to a section of similar color, and can be worn for another year.
Cotton monkey is a nickname worn by the Harbin people for wearing cotton coats, and the author took it as the nickname of Luo Shibin, an important figure in the book. It can be seen that wearing cotton coats at that time, especially green military coats, walked in the crowd, which must be more conspicuous than today's hipsters wearing Canadian brand names.
smock
And half of the middle school students, often wear the work clothes saved by their parents, although they look fat and large, but they are strong and faceless. Even the labor gloves in the parents' factory, a pair of pairs of neat pairs, will be dismantled into threads, and the mother will be woven into threads and pants, giving full play to the wisdom of the working people to make the best use of their resources.
3. Thirty years ago, those who had no choice but to wear holes and patches were because they were "poor"; thirty years later, those who spent money on holes and patched clothes wanted to put "cool".
At that time, khaki cloth used to be very rare, because every household relied on cloth tickets to supply limited quantities, compared to cotton, chemical fiber raw material khaki cloth is not easy to change color, but also firmly worn.
And cotton clothing is not wearable, especially manual laborers and naughty children, are the masters of expensive clothes. In the movie "Hello Li Huanying" starring Jia Ling, there is a plot of a mother making up a lot of torn pants for her naughty daughter.
In the case of purchasing meat tickets, pork, brown sugar and other daily necessities, it is said that a pound of white sugar is wrapped well, which can be used as a gift for a relative. Malted milk, sachima. Canned food and the like are high-end gifts.
In the 1960s and 1970s, families who could buy bicycles were comparable to those who now have cars. Therefore, the Zhou family at that time, economically speaking, should belong to the middle and upper level. After all, at that time, a formal worker of the "iron rice bowl" could barely support a family of four or five.
In contrast, Zheng Juan's family of four, a black household in Gongle District, is much more difficult to make a living by selling her adoptive mother sugar gourd popsicles. Therefore, Mother Zheng did not hesitate to put down her self-esteem and accept the money sent by Zhou Bingkun.
In the whole light-typed, low and crowded shantytown environment, the Zhou family is a typical self-built house, and the mottled walls are very realistic. Two modest huts, plus a family wrapped in a quilt and squeezed on a fire in order to save coal. Therefore, bingkun wanted a room of his own when he was a child in the play, which was nothing less than a fantasy wish.
However, with the development of the plot, after the characters in the film entered the 80s, their lives finally changed dramatically.
In the play, you can see public telephones, black and white television sets. Of course, there are also many social phenomena such as eating and drinking at public expense, playing white strips, laying off workers, and going to the sea.
Zhou Bingkun back to the high-end hotel, opened a "no white Ding" restaurant, made money to buy a three-bedroom and a living room with a small courtyard, toilet gas second-hand house at least more than 100 square meters, only 1700 yuan. The city named after Jichun in the book is based on Harbin, and such a house price can't help but make people sigh a thousand times...
In addition to the above detailed background, all have a highly original sense of reality, and the play also uses various props to highly restore the texture of the times.
The outstanding labor models in the factory at that time will receive many awards, that is, large and small enamel cups and pots. In the lens of the labor model Du Dehai, there is a close-up of the enamel porcelain cup printed with xxx rewards.
Another example is the wooden fence of the shantytown, the tin grain bucket of the grain station, the embroidered curtain of the Zhou family, the sleeve of Zheng Juan, and so on. These have all been discovered by everyone, and they all reflect the intentions of the crew from the side.
The success of the play is also due to Liang Xiaosheng's very real detailed description in the book "Human World".
Liang Xiaosheng
In the play, Gong Bing, a material worker at the Songhuajiang Soy Sauce Factory, caused a soy sauce leak accident, Secretary Qu told the people cleaning the battlefield that they should sprinkle lime on the ground, otherwise the flies would come here for a meeting.
The reason why there are such real details is because Liang Xiaosheng did not go to the countryside to work in the soy sauce factory, and the "Six Little Gentlemen" are his buddies and his friends for many years.
"Human World" is a realistic work, if you want to deeply understand that era, after watching the TV series, you can also read Liang Xiaosheng's "Human World" book.