Spring Festival back to hometown, with friends to visit the lakeside academy located in the center of Ganlu Ancient Town, was given Mr. Yun Ye edited the "Impression Ganlu" many volumes, home to read, the neighbor Mr. Youdequan's two short stories: "Ganlu Artist" and "Small Cooking Rice", first attracted my eyeballs, read it again, I couldn't help myself, just two or three pages of paper, read and read again, can't bear to release the volume, a burst of emotions rushed to my heart.
"Ganlu Artist" tells the story of the local artists of Ganlu repairing Ganlu Temple in the early 1940s, first sculpting the "Double Dragon Play Bead" on the top of the second wall door, and then sculpting the "Three Monks Taking Sutra Diagram" on the first wall door. After visiting the academy that day, I also searched for the former site of Ganlu Temple, but found nothing. The "ganlu artist" tells us that ganlu was originally such a feng shui treasure land with culture, tradition and wisdom and happiness. If the Jiangnan vein is interrupted among our generation, it is really a sin, and I am sorry for our ancestors.
"Little Cooking" tells the story of a barber who neither knows his origin nor his end, but also walks the alleys of the village. I can't remember how many times this "little cooking" master shaved my head as a child, and if I hadn't read this article today, I wouldn't even have remembered that there was a person in the world who had been "little cooking", who had long since disappeared from my childhood and rural memories. In fact, "Little Cooking Rice" used to be a special and important figure in the lives of all the nectar people in that special era, and his barbering skills and his desolate singing brought us special benefits and feelings that no one could reach; his unfortunate life and the wind and bones of his life were a very real portrayal of the Chinese of that era, but he did not even leave a real name, we forgot him prematurely, only Mr. Youdequan remembered him.
The stories of "Ganlu Artist" and "Little Cooking Rice" undoubtedly touched me, but it was Mr. Youdequan, who recorded these two stories, who brought me more deeply. Mr. You is obviously a master of articles, a few strokes, that is, can write the story of the life of "manna artist" and "small cooking rice", and the timelessness of his writing and the lofty intention of his intention are not inferior to Mr. Wang Zengqi's articles in my opinion. Reading such a wonderful article, who can believe that the author is actually a village mason master of our nectar?
Although Mr. Youdequan and I are close neighbors, the small village where I grew up, the Shen family, is a few hundred meters away from the village where Mr. You lives, which is only a few hundred meters away, but I know very little about his early education and life experience. I remember seeing Mr. Youdequan many times when I was a child, and he was a master mason who went from house to house and helped others. Mr. You's masonry skills should be particularly good, especially good at painting. I remember that in the mid-1970s, when my family built a new house, the painting on the head of the new stove was by Mr. You, and its bright colors and realistic images left a very deep impression on me as a teenager, and it was the finishing touch of my new house.
In my impression, Mr. You was about 40 years old at the time, just in his prime, although he was not tall, he looked white and looked different. On weekdays, he was silent and taciturn, and he was a little angry with books that were rare at that time. It seems that the composition of his family is a little high, and it should not be a poor and lower-middle peasant, which was obviously a very important problem at that time, which may be an important reason why he appeared to be particularly responsible and self-disciplined compared with other members.
Since I left the countryside in the autumn of 1979 to go to university in Nanjing, I do not remember seeing Mr. Youdequan again, nor have I heard more about him from my neighbors, and I guess that he probably did not rely on his superb masonry skills to become a table master or something, and made a fortune and became a big money, otherwise there must be his legend on the rivers and lakes. Nine times out of ten, he has been relying on his craft, working hard and living a normal life. Because of this, when I suddenly read these two short articles by Mr. Youdequan, I was struck deeply!
It is often said that the text is like its person, and I am convinced of this! The person who can write such a wonderful article must not be an ordinary mason master! Mr. Youdequan's "Ganlu Artist" clearly has his own shadow, he is a folk artist who loves art, has a high degree of achievement in painting and sculpture art, and fervently hopes to inherit the Jiangnan cultural context. His understanding and sympathy for the bleak life of "Little Cooking", and the praise of his spiritual qualities of "keeping his word" and "being poor but not greedy" highlight Mr. Youdequan's own tortuous life experience and character, which make me deeply admire.
"It's the worst of times, it's the best of times." The era that Mr. Youdequan experienced in his prime years was undoubtedly a crazy and absurd era, and many people living in that era exerted the evil of human nature to the extreme, while many more people were more or less physically and spiritually destroyed, making their lives somewhat distorted or complaining. However, there are still many people who have maintained a goodness to the world and life after experiencing various human tragedies, and they can still see the true feelings and beauty of the world in the suffering experienced by themselves and others, and Mr. Youdequan must be such a person.
▲ Mr. Youdequan, photographed in February 2022
Mr. Youdequan should have been an 80-year-old man when he wrote these two short essays, and the era he experienced did not give him the opportunity to go out of the countryside, but his life as a mason in the ganlu countryside did not make him lose his good and good wishes and expectations for the world and life. Not only is his article well written, but the rich and delicate heart of The Jiangnan literati revealed in his article, the spiritual character of compassion and selflessness, is enough to shock and move the world. I have to say that Mr. Yodquan has a beautiful heart! I am proud to have such a special neighbor and predecessor!
(Shen Weirong: Professor, Department of Chinese, Tsinghua University)
Author: Shen Weirong
Edit: Jin Jiuchao
Editor-in-Charge: Zhu Zifen
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.