Four years ago today, writer Li Ao died of illness in Taipei, the most influential and widely publicized cultural event in the spring of 2018. 38 days later, Li Ao's 83-year-old birthday. In an interview, his only son, Li Jie, made public his father's will.
Li Jie told reporters that in fact, his father had many wishes in his life that had not yet been fulfilled, but the biggest regret among them was the great cause of peaceful reunification of the two sides of the strait for which he had been waving the banner all his life.
After Li Ao's death, the Taiwanese entertainer Cai Kangyong said a word: He alone has all the shadows of the divine powers in the Eastern Evil, The West, the Poison, the Southern Emperor, and the Northern Emperor, and when he is gone, the jianghu will no longer be there. In a word, tie Li Ao and Jin Yong together.
Today, 83-year-old Li Ao is gone, and 94-year-old Jin Yong is also gone. There are fewer and fewer "fun" people in this world. More importantly, the deep, thick and broad national spirit in them seems to be less and less.
This old angry youth who has been cursing all his life
The greatest wish is cross-strait reunification
Text | Qunxuejun
01
There are many adjectives that comment on Li Ao:
Sitting alone in the study hall, walking alone in the literary world, and fighting for independence;
Wild and uninhibited, sharp and affectionate; knowledgeable, poor and poor, vertical and horizontal;
Awaken the world with cynicism, and save the world by cursing;
Shock the two sides of the taiwan strait with a pen and influence countless Chinese with one mouth
……
Anyway, any pompous words are always on him, as if it is not excessive. In fact, there are only two of the most obvious behavioral characteristics in Li Ao's body, one is that he likes to brag, and the other is that he likes to scold people. Bragging is mainly to himself, scolding people is mainly to others, which makes Li Ao appear even more narcissistic and particularly arrogant, which is where Li Ao attracts many people to like, and it is also the place where Li Ao makes other people particularly disgusted.
In fact, most of the time, for Li Ao, whether it is boasting or cursing, you should not understand him literally, or you should not be led by his nose, but understand the meaning behind his words.
For example, Li Ao's most famous boastful remark: The top three people who have written vernacular texts in the past five hundred years are Li Ao, Li Ao, and Li Ao. There were also some comments and criticisms attached, such as saying that Lu Xun's vernacular language was not good, the Japanese language was too heavy, and the literary language was too heavy. Many people think that Li Ao, you are too crazy! In fact, Li Ao's big words are just a kind of marketing, at that time he just published "The Tradition under monologues", he said that sentence, the purpose is to advertise the book, and today's book waist seal can not move to say what "annual great dedication", "shock the literary world", "this year's most anticipated novel" and the like are the same reason, are marketing means, as a result, the book is immediately out of stock.
It is said that the two hardest things in the world are to put other people's money in your own pocket and the other to put your own thoughts into other people's heads. In this way, Li Ao is really an unborn marketing master, because others do marketing, at most sell out the book, he does marketing, not only sold out the book, but also successfully sold out his own slogan.
There are also times when Li Ao's "boasting" is nothing more than a kind of humor, even a little bit of self-teasing. For example, he said, "I have two major regrets in my life: first, I can't find someone as wonderful as Li Ao to be my friend; second, I can't sit downstage and listen to Li Ao's wonderful speech." This is clearly self-deprecation in the guise of boasting, and at first glance it is the smell of Chekhov or Wilde.
For example, Li Xin, the boss of Sanlian Bookstore, took a young editor to Taipei to meet Li Ao. Li Ao asked the two young people who had just met, had they gone to see the National Palace in Taipei? The editor said he went yesterday. Li Ao immediately replied, then you can go back to your hometown tomorrow. Because There are two national treasures in Taiwan, one is the Forbidden City, and the other is me, you have all seen it now, and it is considered that the merit is complete.
This sentence, which sounds witty and "arrogant", is actually copied from Picasso - when Dalí first came to Paris and met Picasso, he said: "Sir, as soon as I arrived in Paris, I did not go to see the Louvre, I came to see you first!" Picasso responded with a loud voice: You did the right thing!
So you see, the real "arrogant" is not only Li Ao, this is real humor, self-confident humor.
02
From a deeper point of view, Li Ao's boasting is actually a character that was "forced to be forced". From being a well-known talent to being suppressed by the Taiwan authorities, he was physically imprisoned, his writings banned, and his speech banned. After he was released from prison, he saw people walking in the cold of tea and the cold of the world, and knew that if he did not "pretend to be amazing", I was afraid that it would be difficult to have a head day. The writer Chen Cun said:
A person who is held in solitary confinement must inspire himself to be courageous from the top down. The need for big talk and empty talk is the right thing to do. Li Ao's "big talking habit" must have been the root of the disease that fell at that time.
When it is the theory of knowing people.
In Li Ao, this kind of big talk habit is not only like to be in the limelight, afraid of being snubbed by the nature, but also to survive in adversity, not to advance or retreat of the "wolf nature" to create, to put it bluntly, is the personality of a child who dies and does not repent, but from a small angry youth to an old naughty child, slowly forming habits, the older people are, the more difficult it is to change their temper.
Li Ao's love for scolding people also comes from the same mentality, and it is said that there are three thousand people he has scolded in his life. But there is a point, he never scolds the lonely and nameless, nor does he like to beat up the falling water dog, basically whoever is famous and popular, he scolds whom. For most of the "fans" in the cultural circles, although he also did his best to sneer at the things, such as his routine of saying sanmao's stories, it was nothing more than "white tiger star-style Kefu, Baiyunxiang-style escape, leukemia-style international route and boiled water-style flood feelings"; for example, he satirized Bai Yang as "the wang eight who finally knew that his wife stole Han", such as his satire that Yu Guangzhong was a dog of Chiang Ching-kuo, and so on, although the words were harsh, but they were limited to harsh words, a bit like a child cursing, and the scolding was done quickly.
However, there is one type of person, Li Ao scolded the most fiercely, that is, the political circles on the island, especially the "independence faction" that came out of the Green Camp later.
03
In his lifetime, Li Ao suffered the most for him by the Kuomintang, to be precise, it was Chiang Kai-shek, so his attack on old Chiang Kai-shek was the heaviest:
Chiang Kai-shek lived to be 89 years old, lived longer than the Qianlong Emperor, the longest-lived dictator in Chinese history, and he braved the grandeur of the alternation of the old and the new, combining the practice of the old gangs with the rule of new science and technology, which was even more intense for China.
However, clear-eyed people can see that this is of course a scolding, but it is also a scolding with "pity for each other", a bit of "the hero of the world who is the enemy, Cao Liu" flavor. Li Ao also admitted that the two people who had the greatest influence on him in this life were Hu Shizhi as a teacher and Chiang Kai-shek as an enemy.
Later, he scolded Chiang Ching-kuo that "most of Chiang Kai-shek's sins in his later years should be counted on his head, and the blood on his hands is not much less than that of old Chiang Kai-shek", saying that Xiao Jiang "destroyed the flowers with his hot hands for forty years, and only a few months before his death did he come up with a little pity for Xiang Xiang and cherish jade. He scolded Lee Teng-hui: "An hour of a death row prisoner counts an hour... Lee Teng-hui counts a year in a year. "At least two people as opponents."
When he gave a speech at Peking University, he publicly ridiculed Lien Zhan for entering the women's toilet, and said that Ma Ying-jeou was "a small white-faced, not a heroic Ying, a little girlish, and cowardly." "It is already lamenting its misfortune and angering it, and only joking and even pitiful remains."
Speaking of which, of course, Li Ao hates the KMT, but when the DPP came to power, the lesser of the two evils took power, and his anger toward the latter was far greater than that of the former. For example, he scolded Chen Shui-bian: "There are five situations that are very similar, Such as the monkey and the crown, the villain who wins the zhi, the poor who are rich, the flower child who eats the dead crab, and Chen Shui-bian who is the 'president'." For example, he scolded the DPP: "They are like monkeys climbing trees, the higher they climb, the more we see the butt." By the time of Tsai Ing-wen, Li Ao was dying of old age, but he did not reduce his intensity, pointing out that Tsai was a liar, a psychopath, and a speculator, and wanted to let Taiwan be squeezed dry by the United States.
If Li Ao's hatred for the KMT stems from the two Chiang Kai-shek's persecution of his personal and liberal ideas, then his attack on the DPP stems more from his staunch nationalist concept -- "Taiwan independence" will never be tolerated.
Li Ao claimed to have inherited the mantle of May Fourth all his life, but unlike some intellectuals like Hu Shi who had a "cosmopolitan" vision, Li Ao had very strong national feelings. It is said that in Li Ao's later years, a reporter asked him: If you do not recognize the "Republic of China", then where do you live? The old guy put his head on the head: "I am Chinese, I live in China, Taiwan is just a rebellious province of China." ”
From the concept to the system, although Li Ao will not fully agree with the practice of this shore, in his heart, there is a concept that far exceeds the struggle between party and political views, that is, the recognition of the Chinese nation and the expectation of national reunification. From a sociological point of view, this is a deep and broad emotion, a spiritual cornerstone of a community that can unite and stretch.
Flaunting liberalism and insisting on nationalism, tightly entangled in the same person, regardless of each other, are not the ideological characteristics of Li Ao alone, but the common spiritual outlook of many intellectuals of his generation who experienced chaos in their youth.
For example, Jin Yong.
04
Self-media person Wang Xiaolei (Liushen Leilei) once compared these two "talents":
China's top talents are generally of two types, Li Ao and Jin Yong. You go and there are basically no exceptions. It's just that there are 80% of Li Ao and 20% of Jin Yong; or conversely, 80% of Jin Yong and 20% of Li Ao.
One is called "Ao", wandering also, amusement also, noisy also, micro-me no wine, to Ao to swim; one is called "yong", ordinary also, blunt also, humble also, happy to open the afterthought, begging me a moderate.
An extremely publicity, as long as the prostate is working normally, it can be the earth; a habitual humility, "where there is", "dare not dare to be".
They are all published anthology, one is called "Qianqiu Review" and "Long Live the Commentary", Long Live Qianqiu, give up who I am; one is called the Three Swords Building Essay, Ming Window Xiaozha, and I say that they are all "essays" and "Xiaoza".
A person who said that he was the first person to speak in the vernacular for five hundred years; a person who always said "I don't dare to be under any circumstances" and "I am not the best writer", in fact, I feel that I write very well in my heart.
In fact, Li Ao also scolded Jin Yong, saying that he was "hypocritical":
Jin Yong's so-called belief in Buddhism is actually a kind of "method of choice", and he believes in anything that is beneficial to him; he pretends not to see anything that is unfavorable to him; its nature is no different from that of a good man and a woman, and the selfish component is greater than everything, and you must not be serious. He is hypocritical, and this hypocrisy, which is a family of its own, can be called "Jinyong-style hypocrisy."
Jin Yong did not answer Li Ao's "provocation", but after almost thirty years, he mentioned a past event:
Li Ao and I were supposed to be fine, and he invited me to his house. Later, because he divorced Hu Yinmeng, Ming Pao reported truthfully, and he blamed me for not helping him, and I said: We newspaper people speak completely fairly, and we will never help you because of personal friendship.
Strictly speaking, Li Ao and Jin Yong are not of the same generation, one is an old Taiwan, and the other is buried in Hong Kong, but as for the general trend of the two sides of the strait and three places, both of them have always been firm "reunification factions." This is not necessarily some kind of superficial "political stand", but the cultural identity of the bones - the two talents grew up on the mainland, and the humanistic background of their lives was shaped by the Great Wall of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River in Huangshan. Both of them experienced eight years of separation and chaos in their teenage years, the country was broken, hated other birds and frightened, and their identification with the country was very different from that of their descendants.
His teacher, Mr. Xu Zhuoyun, who had been scolded by Li Ao, took refuge with his parents in Shashi, Hunan Province during the War of Resistance, and one day, a group of soldiers passed in front of the door, all of whom were eighteen or nineteen years old. Mother told Xu Qiuyun that these were all Sichuan troops who had gone to the front line, and they were afraid that they would never come back. That year, when Xu Zhuoyun was eight years old, he said: My childhood ended suddenly. The national sentiment of the older generation shaped by suffering is difficult for those of us who come after us to truly understand.
When the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression broke out, Jin Yong was already a teenager, and after that, he was exiled to the rear, drifting to and fro, witnessing the hatred of the country and the family, and his expectations for the strength and prosperity of the motherland were from the heart.
One of Jin Yong's earliest readers on the mainland was Deng Xiaoping. According to the recollections of those around him, as early as March 1973, Deng Xiaoping, who had just returned to Beijing from Jiangxi to resume his work, asked someone to get a set of Jin Yong works from abroad. At about the same time, Jin Yong met Chiang Ching-kuo in Taiwan, and after visiting Kinmen Island, he lamented: "It is my greatest wish in my life to see a unified Chinese government with my own eyes." ”
Jin Yong's patriotic voices received an echo a few years later, and on July 18, 1981, Deng Xiaoping received Jin Yong's entire family at the Fujian Hall of the Great Hall of the People. Although the conversation did not formally propose "one country, two systems", Deng Xiaoping explicitly told hong Kong friends that "don't worry, there will be no major changes in life." After returning to Hong Kong, Jin Yong told the Ming Pao monthly reporter that Deng Xiaoping's wind and bones were better than any heroic figure in his own pen.
A year later, Jin Yong had a long talk with the visiting Margaret Thatcher in Hong Kong, pointing out: "On July 1, 1997, the People's Republic of China restored Hong Kong's sovereignty, implemented one country, two systems, and hong Kong people governed Hong Kong and maintained prosperity. Later, Jin Yong served as a member of the Drafting Committee of the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and served as the head of the political system group, and he and the elder of the same ethnic group, Cha Jimin, who also served as a member of the drafting committee and also served as the head of the industrial and commercial group, and called Hong Kong the "second investigation", made outstanding contributions to promoting the smooth return of Hong Kong and promoting the construction of the Basic Law and the SAR system.
05
After Li Ao's death, the Taiwanese entertainer Cai Kangyong said a word: He alone has all the figures of the divine powers in the Eastern Evil, The West, the Poison, the Southern Emperor, and the Northern Emperor, and when he is gone, the jianghu will no longer be there. In a word, li ao and Jin Yong were tied together.
Today, 83-year-old Li Ao is gone, and 94-year-old Jin Yong is also gone. There are fewer and fewer "fun" people in this world, and more importantly, the deep, thick and broad national spirit in them seems to be less and less.