Liu Zhenyun has been to many parts of the world and feels no different from walking in Yanjin Laozhuang Village. Although the architecture, rivers, skin color, and language are different everywhere, "human nature is the same."
Liu Zhenyun close-up
Liu Zhenyun sent a message to the readers of Xinmin Evening News
1． Grandma made me hold my stomach for the rest of my life
In May 1958, Liu Zhenyun was born in Yanjin, Henan Province, to an ordinary family. Yanjin County is under the administration of Xinxiang City, Henan Province, located in the north of the Yellow River, because of the dry climate, frequent droughts, and the cultivation of land is determined by the weather. "My father was an ordinary clerk of the People's Commune, and my mother was in tatters, very poor in substance, and very rough in food." Liu Zhenyun recalled.
When she was just eight months old, her grandmother in the countryside carried Liu Zhenyun from the county seat to the countryside and brought him back to Xilaozhuang Village in Wanglou Township to feed him. The Liu family's old mansion is a clean, old courtyard with two tsubaki trees planted at the door, green bricks and gray tiles, two rooms in the east and west, two rooms in the north and south, and the beams of the main room are written in 1974. There was a date tree in the yard, and after grandma died, it also died.
Liu Zhenyun's grandmother was in her yard
Later, Liu Zhenyun replanted a jujube tree in its original location. The items and utensils in the house also retain the original appearance of Grandma's life, and on the walls and cabinets, there are pictures of Grandma. The grandmother in the photo is kind and gentle. Today, Caiyun, who takes care of the Old House of the Liu Family, is a distant relative of the Liu Family, and has also become a celebrity because his name appears in "Mobile Phone". Caiyun said: "Grandma lived to be more than 90 years old, worked well all her life, and went to the ground in her 80s." ”
Grandma is actually not Liu Zhenyun's grandmother. Liu Zhenyun's mother, Liu Suqin, recalled: "I gave it to others when I was a child, and my adoptive mother raised it. Zhenyun When he was 8 months old, I joined the work and didn't have time to take care of him, Zhenyun has been following my mother in his hometown, and he has deep feelings for his grandmother. My mother is atmospheric, not an ordinary old lady in the countryside, self-reliant, knows a lot of truths, and several children are raised by her. ”
Grandma has always brought him up, is Liu Zhenyun, the world's dearest person, let him feel the warmth and companionship of the world, let him in the years after adulthood, worry about the stomach for a lifetime.
At the end of the novel and movie "Nineteen Forty-Two", Liu Zhenyun wrote about Grandma several times. During the three years of difficult times, Grandma walked forty miles on her back to Liu, who was only eight months old, from the county seat of Yanjin to the old village of Wanglou Township. "Without my grandmother, I would be one of many hungry people." Although there is no blood relationship, the grandmother to the grandson Liu Zhenyun means sacred affection and faith, which is the memory of life forged by love, warmth and hunger, and poverty, and is also the shining light of good feelings in human nature.
Liu Zhenyun and Grandma
When Liu Zhenyun was 5 years old, the village opened its first primary school, accepting students from 5 to 12 years old with a tuition fee of 5 yuan. Neighbors are talking about it: if you can't eat, where is the spare money to go to school? Grandma, who had worked as a long-term worker in a large household, did not speak, sold the silver hairpin she wore on her head, sold for 5 yuan, and dragged Liu Zhenyun to the primary school to register.
Grandma was a rural woman less than one meter and six meters tall, respected in the village, and a good hand at doing farm work. Every year during the busy farming season, it has always been a short-term worker that the owners are scrambling to grab--she bends down to cut a field of wheat, at a strange speed, without stopping for a moment, and looking back, the strong middle-aged male workers in the village will only cut in half.
Liu Zhenyun asked her why she was so fast at cutting wheat. Grandma told him, "When cutting wheat, you must not straighten your waist." No matter how bitter and tired you are, you get up and straighten your waist once, there will be a second, a third time... When others are resting and smoking, you have to continue to stop and keep cutting. ”
Grandma did not know words, did not have much culture, and worked in the yellow land all her life, acted seriously, and spoke simply.
2． My "philosopher" uncle taught me the truth
Liu Zhenyun was the first child in the family. Before he was born, life in his family was already difficult. Later, the family had a total of 4 children, three sons and a daughter, relying on the salaries of two adults to support 4 children, which was not an easy task.
Grandma and Liu Zhenyun are four brothers and sisters
There are also two uncles among the relatives in my hometown. In Liu Zhenyun's view, they are all philosophers full of wisdom. One uncle was a horse-drawn cart puller, and the other was a well-known local carpenter.
When I was 13 years old, I met my first life mentor, he was my uncle, my uncle was very tall, so his nickname was Big Man, he was a carriage driver in our village, he was the farthest person in our village to the outside world, he had been to our county. I said how about the county seat? He said the building is taller and there are more people. In the cowshed, in the sound of cattle and horses grazing, he gave me the first lesson of life, he said, remember my words, people who are not smart and stupid, will do one thing in their lifetime, and never do the second thing again.
He said: "People like you who are neither smart nor stupid, who are not up and down, are very troublesome in the world, have you thought about marrying a daughter-in-law in the future?" I said, "Uncle, should I think when I'm 13 years old?" My uncle added, "If you don't want to be 13 years old, you're a fool." I said, "Uncle I think, he says you want, but in your state of being neither intelligent nor stupid, you can only find a little widow." ”
At the end of the conversation, the uncle pointed out the direction of life to Liu Zhenyun: "If you want to marry a serious daughter-in-law, you have to leave this place." I said, "Uncle, what should I do if I want to go home?" He said, "You haven't left home, how do you know you're homesick?" If you are in this village, your best prospect is to drive a carriage like me. If you leave this place, you may have another path in life. "I listened to him, left my hometown at the age of 14 to join the army, and have been until now.
Photos of Liu Zhenyun when he was a soldier
In the years when Liu Zhenyun was a soldier, the words of another life mentor, the carpenter's uncle, often came to mind when he was on duty under the street lamp and reading books, when facing a dark desert Gobi.
My other uncle was a carpenter with a bit of numbness on his face, so everyone called him Liu Mazi. Liu Mazi's box cabinet was the best made and sold the best, and gradually we were 40 miles away, and the carpenter was left with him. All his peers felt that Liu Mazi was poisonous, and all the customers felt that his carpentry work was good.
I said, "Uncle, all your peers say you are poisonous, all the customers say hello, are you poisoned?" Or is it good? He said: "It doesn't matter if people say you're bad or you're good, the question is how to be a good carpenter." I said, "Then how did you become a good carpenter?" He said, "It takes three days for someone to open a cabinet, and I spend six days; but you can't be a good carpenter just by working hard, because I like carpentry, I like the smell of shavings." ”
This uncle told me the same as Confucius' words, "Those who know are not as good as those who are good, and those who are good are not as good as those who are happy." Do what you love.
Liu Zhenyun's work "One Day, Three Autumns"
3． Departure is another kind of arrival
Fate is really magical, liu Zhenyun, who calls himself "the stupidest in the whole village", originally wanted to change his fate by becoming a soldier and jumped out of the farm, but as a result, he was demobilized and returned home, first as a rural teacher of Tapu Middle School, and then through the college entrance examination to go to college. After graduating from Peking University, Liu Zhenyun entered the "Farmer Daily" to work, settled in Beijing, had a job with an iron rice bowl, became a city person, got the Beijing household registration book, got a house, started a family, and also gave birth to a daughter, the daughter's name is also related to his hometown Henan, because the rain is less and the drought is more, Liu Zhenyun hopes to pray for the wind and rain in his hometown, and specially named his daughter "Yulin".
Liu Zhenyun and daughter Liu Yulin
After several years of military experience, he went south and north to break into the reporter's career, making him old, approachable in appearance, and Liu Zhenyun, a classmate who went to the graduate class of Beijing Normal University with Liu Zhenyun, recalled in the article, "Liu Zhenyun likes to joke. He joked quietly, and his classmates evaluated him as follows: Liu Zhenyun's words will never make it impossible for people to distinguish between true and false, so even when he tells the truth, no one takes it seriously. His temperament, like his name, is tainted with some cloudiness and leisure, and when you think you see him, he is actually very far away. ”
Liu Zhenyun planned a famous column in the Farmers Daily, "Famous Artists and Villages", which has continued for decades and is still there. In January this year, this column published Liu Zhenyun's "Yanjin and Yanjin", in which Liu Zhenyun once again reviewed and answered his relationship with his hometown and the literary world.
At the beginning of writing, Liu Zhenyun said that he liked to talk about things in a profound way, but this just proved that he had not reached the profound stage. Just like mountaineering, when you don't reach the top of the mountain, you say how beautiful the scenery at the top of the mountain is, and when you get to the top, you talk about the chickens and cooking smoke under the mountain.
"I once said that the background of literature is philosophy. I left my hometown, but my work and I kept coming back to my hometown. The return at this time is different from the departure in the past. What I want to say is that the relationship between Yanjin and Yanjin is the relationship between my works and Yanjin, and the relationship between the world and Yanjin. In other words, Yanjin is the world, and the world is Yanjin. ”
Liu Zhenyun called himself a "stupid person" and had done two things in his life: one was writing, and the other was running. (Zhang Ying)