Gu Xiaojun's French version of "The Last Lesson"
Gu Xiaojun (left) answers a reader's question
Reporter's Note:
"Hello! Is there a place to sell water? ”
"Drinking water outside, small paper cups. Next time you can also bring your own cup. ”
"Hello! I've finished borrowing the book, do you have any plastic bags or something here? ”
"Plastic bags are not allowed now."
"Hello! You can't bring a bag in, can you? ”
"You can bring it, but it has to be a bag smaller than A4 paper."
……
Gu Xiaojun, 41, is an administrator at the National Library. At the entrance and exit of the reading room on the second floor of the library, there was a computer on the table in front of him, and the system recorded the reader card information of each visitor. His character is a bit like an NPC (non-player character) in a computer game, and he needs to go out of his way to answer a series of questions from readers about borrowing books, getting cards, drinking water, going to the toilet, and so on.
After the second season of the documentary "But There Are Books" aired, Gu Xiaojun's name entered the public eye. In fact, he is not a "labor model" among the many administrators of the national map, and the first attention of the director was because of a post on Douban.
On December 15, 2013, Douban user "Lao Yuan" posted a post in the "National Library" group to inquire about Gu Xiaojun, and used several exclamation points in a row:
"That caretaker, nature roll, probably in his early 30s, and then bring a metal-rimmed glasses !!!! Slightly chubby !!!! Sometimes on the morning shift, sometimes on the evening shift!!!! The nose is a bit big!!! He taught himself Persian every time!!!! ”
A day later, netizen "nlc-bob" left a message below the post:
"You must know, this is a wonderful colleague of ours, in addition to proficiency in English, probably I remember that he also knows French, German, Greek and other five or six foreign languages, and is currently learning Persian, I think it may be because he is a history major, so he is ready to learn all the languages of ancient civilizations ..."
After the documentary was broadcast, some labels were also attached to Gu Xiaojun's body, such as "sweeping monks" and "ascetic monks", and people usually believe that such people who are obsessed with seeking knowledge will be somewhat different in life. I also held a similar idea and sent an interview invitation to Gu Xiaojun to try to find the contradictions in him - whether it was his "mismatch" with the external environment, or his inner struggle when dealing with the "sense of gap".
In the documentary, when Gu Xiaojun read aloud the fragment of the literary work "The Last Lesson" in French, he suddenly shed tears and said "I'm sorry" in front of the camera. I also wondered why he was choking up and what was behind the tears.
During the interview, when we talked about language, history and books, Gu Xiaojun could speak for three or five hours, completely tireless. During a break, he picked up his phone and looked at electronic versions of Sanskrit and Greek, either documentary materials or his own translations. Gu Xiaojun is still single, and he has devoted most of his life to the history and language he loves. He only started using his smartphone in November last year, and the most popular use was the office software for organizing reading notes, but still did not install WeChat.
I threw away the "labels" about him, but he was like a martial arts master, and he defused these moves one by one. It seems that in Gu Xiaojun, everything can go naturally, adversity can transform into a positive meaning, and while insisting on himself, he maintains friendly interaction with the outside world.
In the staff lounge on the third floor of the national map, he showed me some handwritten Greek passages, and he tried to translate interesting fragments of French, German, and English into ancient Greek, which he described as a "backward learning method." He is also willing to talk about the ancient Roman politician Cicero, who said that he knew Cicero very well, and some of their spiritual traits may be similar, such as achieving neutrality with reality while adhering to ideals.
The last time we met, Gu Xiaojun took me around the old site of his high school. It was a school near Hujialou in Chaoyang District, and the name of the school had been changed, and the bookstore he used to go to at the intersection was no longer there. When he was in high school, he was faced with a history textbook and he already wanted to know more details outside of the test center. For example, in the French Revolution, how did Robespierre, who was once powerful, become a prisoner of the order?
When the interview was over, my thinking also changed a bit. I no longer dwell on why he shed tears when he read "The Last Lesson", but more importantly, after going around, the most original place in his heart is still there.
The following is based on Gu Xiaojun's narration.
Choose the ideal, and do not turn your back on reality
I chose the history department in college, mainly because the high school homeroom teacher was a history teacher, and he was particularly concerned about my curiosity about history. History is a lot of people who learn it to the death, but I don't deliberately memorize it. I have my own ideas about many statements in history, and when I discuss with the history teacher, he will not tell me that this will not be tested, you can remember it. He would analyze with me, and even look up some information other than the lesson plan. At that time, the Internet was not very passable, he checked some books, and suddenly said to me one day, hey, Gu Xiaojun, you look at this. I found that many conclusive things, if broken and kneaded, would find that they were very different from the actual history. I am very grateful to this teacher, who encouraged me to realize my interest in this area.
When I was in college, my research direction was historical documents. At that time, not many students chose this field, because of the high requirements for language, in addition to understanding the latest academic developments, but also to interpret various ancient documents.
I can't say how many languages I have fully mastered, some of which may not be proficient, but I did try to learn Japanese on my own since I was a student, and later learned French, ancient Greek, etc. History is all-encompassing, and mastering more languages can help me get close to the great figures and classic literature in history, and experience a stronger spiritual shock.
The subject of my college dissertation was the history of the Renaissance, and I found that many humanists had mentioned one person—Cicero. I think the core quality of Cicero is an infinite struggle, or a curiosity. People face challenges, sometimes passive, is unavoidable, but sometimes can also be active, to meet the challenge, like Gu Ailing, constantly breaking through new actions. Isn't it a curiosity to see how much you can break through to your own abilities and your own limits, and to see how good you really are?
And they have more than a simple passion. Like many people now, there is a momentary passion, but how long can this passion last? The last PK is persistence, or a very common phrase, that is, "do not forget the original heart". The original intention is the original intention of entering the path.
More importantly, when the ideal and reality contradict each other, they often choose the ideal. And what is even more powerful is that they are not simply turning their backs on reality, but a kind of neutralization, better flexibility, and finally achieve their original intentions.
Those "points that grow in the heart" are eternal
The Last Lesson is about the Franco-Prussian War, where France lost and Germany annexed some French lands and forced the natives to speak German. The little Franz in the text, he almost skipped class that day, but after a series of French lessons, he had a sense of his mother tongue.
If you look closely at the background of the story, you will find that in fact, Germany has also been forced to speak French in history. If you look at this question macroscopically and rationally, you may feel that the author Dude is, in a sense, also engaged in a kind of battle, a kind of cultural imperialist rendering of his own national language. He did not directly point out that the French language was about to be enslaved, but that he was speaking from the point of view of a child who seemed to understand.
Many people who read "The Last Lesson" have no special concept of French and German, including things like "French is the most beautiful language in the world", and many people are arguing whether this sentence is correct or not. These are not necessary, what is necessary? That's the kind of universality it is. For any enslaved people, he would be inspired to read this —to keep his own language.
"When a people are reduced to slavery, as long as they keep their language, it is like having the key to open their own cell."
I cried when I read this because I thought it was very well written. If you think about it, the mother tongue itself is a mother, and they won't let you be with your mother at once. Tudor puts this kind of person and emotion for language very aptly in it. And for me, I may have more sensitivity to language, and more emotional attachment to language.
I'm a more emotional person, but where is the strangeness, I'm generally not agitated in this kind of situation, maybe I slept less that day. In fact, I read a lot of other things when I was shooting, including The Communist Manifesto, including Socrates. I didn't presuppose feelings, I just read that paragraph and somehow it was like that.
There are a few articles that are off-limits for me and can't be mentioned too deeply, or not read in person. I think that's fine. If I read it one day and don't feel it at all, like an outlet point can't go in, I will be quite painful. This kind of dot can lead you to read things, such as ancient Greek, Sanskrit. It's not necessarily all crying, but it's all about drawing people over with an instinctive love.
Other purposes can also produce this kind of "attraction", such as for further education, for the purpose of evaluating titles, or to get the hearts of some people by these - this can also be understood, but I think the attraction generated by these purposes is instantaneous, and only those "points that grow in the heart" are eternal. As long as you are born in this world, you will like this kind of thing, for various reasons, you discard it, but you can still pick it up from time to time.
On Douban, a reader posted a "looking for Gu Xiaojun", and the director told me that I did not specifically check it. Before that, I had also heard people write online that there was a person in the national map who learned Persian. All indications were that this man should be me, but I was supposed to be learning Greek. I think the important thing is not who I am, what matters is that people can pay attention to this kind of thing, not to say which star appears in the national map, or that a bad thing in the national map causes social concern. I think at least it can give people a good yearning.
When I made the documentary last March or April, the bigger change for me was that I started using my smartphone. The main reason is that we can't come in without a health treasure in our museum, which forced me to change my mobile phone. I went to the business hall to do a mobile phone card only to find that now it has become a small card, I first used a Nokia mobile phone, and then changed to another miscellaneous card machine, the maximum memory is 256 megabytes, the function is to make a phone call to send a text message.
I found that smartphones have a particularly big benefit, you can use PDF and Word, and there is also a function of reading memory, which is quite convenient. In the past, when I finished writing in Word, I had to copy it on a USB stick, go home and plug it into the computer and look at it again. Now that I'm done writing, I'm on my phone, I can read it in the car, and then I think about it and make up sentences, and all of a sudden the speed (of learning languages) has increased a lot.
Overcome "poor contact", and do not abuse those who want to do so
After graduating from college, I worked as a sales agent for a travel agency and as a staff member for the Olympic Organizing Committee. But at my busiest hour, I'm still looking at French books, looking at Wikipedia when I'm still okay, looking at history, looking at biographies of Western scholars I like. I felt at the time that the only thing missing was time. I hope that I will have time to put this accumulation together later.
I came to the country on January 4, 2009. At that time, I also had a lot of choices, including some state-owned enterprises. But to be honest, I feel like it's all too far away from me, and I want to go to a place that's closer to culture. Later, I happened to see that Guotu was recruiting employees, so I submitted a resume, so I came.
Growing up I wasn't a big fan of money, and I don't think I'm very good at making money. So this is my choice, and I must have chosen a path that is not very glamorous on the surface. In this way, there is no need to envy the brilliance of others, and you are not taking this road.
I saw someone say on the Internet that Gu Xiaojun was an ascetic, and I don't think so. I have a lot of respect for ascetics and the word "ascetic", but I really don't. Where do you see me suffering? There is no suffering, I don't eat or drink for the things I like, everything is natural. In fact, I think this is cool and can get a lot of satisfaction.
Many of my relatives around me, including my mother, none of them knew ancient Greek, and I never told them about such details. Usually elders, more or talk about how much salary, looking for a girlfriend. Like there is a lot of drama on TV, satirizing this phenomenon, but then again, with the elders, don't talk about what to talk about, you have to communicate.
And these things are general knowledge, telling others about something in a specific field, he will certainly not know, but everyone knows general knowledge. So I don't think there's a conflict, there's really no need to tell people everything, for example, "in the second century A.D., The Greek language began to have a tendency to secularize its grammar in terms of words," which is the subject of research.
My colleagues and I don't usually talk about ancient Greek, but we probably talk about French or books. For example, if anyone wants to see The Red and the Black, I tell him what the French language is all about, how the translator is, and so on. I usually don't talk too strongly about anything, I usually talk about something else, by the way. Do not do to others what you do not want, and do not indiscriminately do to others what you want.
Almost ten years ago, I had overcome the feeling of "bad contact" with the outside world. In fact, it is not compatible with my own state and the surrounding state, as for the sense of gap and complaints, I seem to have really not, only occasionally some fluctuations, and indeed catch up with the people around me more tolerant of me.
I think there is a saying in ancient China that is particularly good, that is, "if you are poor, you are good at yourself, and if you are poor, you can help the world." This ancient "poor" does not mean no money. "Poverty" refers to a kind of hardship, a state, a kind of self-inability to stretch. If you look at the traditional character "窮", at the bottom is a body and a bow, which is a typical hieroglyphic character, which is a kind of unexplained. So what to do at this time? It is a typical "single-handedness" and doing your own things well. If you can "reach" and one day you can stretch, then "helping the world at the same time" is also the accumulation of these times when you are "alone". That's the saying: opportunity is reserved for those who are prepared.
And I think that you don't hurt anyone by doing these things, you don't have to influence anyone, and you don't have to be like a Taoist gentleman with a straight face. Just do your own thing, recruit who to provoke whom, right? Some people may think that you are more strange or something, but it doesn't matter, he said his you got you, and he didn't feel it after a long time.
In the crowd of the library, it seems that the waves are not alarmed, but in fact, they are surging and surging
If you don't pay attention to the crowd in the library, you will feel that it is a quiet pool of stagnant water; if you take the initiative to observe, you will find that it seems to be not alarming, but it is actually surging and surging here.
Because the people who come, in addition to a few leisure, most of them have a strong sense of purpose, some are college students to write papers and check materials; some are office workers to prepare for judicial examinations, civil service examinations or recharge themselves; there are health problems, to the book to seek medical advice; there is a kind of group like "frustrated literati", they come almost every day, can feel from the conversation, they read a lot, but because the positioning is not accurate, has not given themselves a chance to find a chance to settle down, So I went to the library to find my way.
When readers come to borrow or read books, I wonder, why are they reading these books? Is it to write a paper, to write a report, or to say it is based on interest? I also wonder, how much did he really know about that book, about that field? Will it be an expert, or just a little white? I think either way, it can produce a spark of thought. Because in most cases, reading and learning is a person's behavior, just like practicing martial arts, there must be a stage of left and right fighting. If you can find someone to practice, the other party just happens to be a similar degree, which is even better.
In the past, there was an area for foreign language reference books on the first floor of our library, and the content of the books was not like a novel, and the readability was not strong. There was an old grandmother who read the Russian encyclopedia one by one. She also copied Russian entries on A4 paper, entries such as "nuclear reactor". Each time, she took a thick stack of paper and copied it very neatly. She was supposed to be the kind of educated intellectual of the 1950s and 1960s. I could feel that the professionalism of her knowledge and her ability to control the Russian language were very comparable.
Later, when the area was renovated, there were no foreign language reference books, and when they were replaced by philosophical bibliographies, she never came again. I was very impressed with her, but unfortunately I didn't have the opportunity to talk, I would like to ask her, what are the contents copied?
The reader I was more impressed with was an old gentleman. I knew him around 2010, when he had just retired and wanted to learn English, he used Shakespeare's original work and the Chinese translation to look at it, but found that some Chinese the translated sentences could not be pushed back, so he asked me.
Later, the old gentleman was not in good health, had limited mobility, and was so serious that he could not walk the walking ladder. If he wants to go up to the reading area on the third floor, he has to take the elevator outside, and then we open the door on the third floor for him. Once he came to Guotu just to ask me an English sentence, and when he finished asking, he turned around and left. He walked very slowly toward the door, just a little bit.
I once heard that some old gentlemen with Alzheimer's disease actually remember their own knowledge. For example, Ji Lao (Ji Xianlin) died at the age of 98, and a few days before leaving, he was still watching "Ramayana". I believe in this kind of thing very much, and if I get that kind of disease in the future, I may be able to say bad things, but my consciousness will always retain the language I have learned.
If I can live to be 90 years old, if I am still insisting and expressing, if there is a program like "But there are books" at that time, they will shoot another me at that time, and I will tell them about these "observations" of learning, and I believe that my understanding will be deeper.
Article/Reporter Zhang Fan