This series is the second season of the "Daily Supplement Questionnaire" of Beijing Youth Daily
The theme of this volume: Qingming, how should we understand remembrance, death and life?
Author: Editorial Board of "Daily Supplement"
Answerers in this issue: Jia Yinghua, expert in the history of the late Qing Dynasty, famous biographical literary writer, and guest speaker of hundreds of forums
01
The customs of the Qingming Festival are different in different places and in different homes, and the ceremonial atmosphere is also different, or sad, or peaceful, or solemn, or lively... What is the way you personally agree with the commemoration?
Answer: Pursuing the distant future with caution is an ancient tradition of the Chinese nation. Every Qingming Festival, the tombs of ancestors are often visited by families to commemorate the simple folk customs and customs of their ancestors. In this regard, the ancients regarded it as "the people's morality returns to the thick." ”
In the current situation of the epidemic, I would rather agree with the way to entrust the cemetery to visit the mausoleum. Previously, on the anniversary of the death of the old father-in-law, in order to prevent the "gathering of the crowd", each family sent a representative to pay tribute. Now that the Qingming Festival is approaching, in order to meet the requirements of epidemic prevention, the whole family has agreed to entrust the cemetery to worship and sweep, and place flowers and fruits in front of the tomb of the old man to express the mourning of the whole family. It not only prevents the infection of the epidemic, but also expresses the nostalgia of the whole family for the elderly.
02
Talk about the experience of sending off your life the most?
A: Speaking of the experience of sending off my life the most, it was the process of sending off Sun Yaoting, the last old eunuch in China. In December 1996, I was attending the Chinese Writers' Congress when I suddenly received a notice from the conference group that there was an urgent matter at home to find me, and that some family members might have died. I immediately called home, and my mother and family were safe and sound. After receiving a call from Guanghua Temple again, I learned that the ninety-four-year-old last eunuch Sun Yaotingxian had passed away. He always saw me as family. For many years, I went to Guanghua Temple every Sunday rain or shine to visit this long-lost friend.
It was for this reason that I formed a deep friendship with Sun Yaoting, who poured out to me the legendary story of serving the last emperor Puyi and Empress Wanrong, as well as the secrets of the palace that had never been revealed to others. Based on this, I wrote the book "The Last Eunuch Sun Yaoting", which was abridged and translated into fifteen languages. I also filmed historical documentaries such as "The Last Eunuch Revisits the Forbidden City" and "The Last Eunuch Remembers the Secret Story of His Life", which have attracted attention from all over the world. Before the old man died, he instructed me to write an inscription for him, saying, "Can you write an epitaph for the last emperor Puyi, but you can't write an inscription for me?" He also demanded that Ye Luo return to his roots and be buried in his hometown of Tianjin Jinghai. After his death, I paid for his funeral and personally collected ashes for the elderly and buried them. Who thinks, the village is afraid of destroying feng shui and not letting the eunuchs be buried. After several years of unremitting hard work, I finally fulfilled the old man's last wish and fulfilled my promise to him on his deathbed. This event will never be forgotten.
03
If you have a life around you that you can't let go of for a long time, how do you heal yourself?
A: Many years ago, my mother passed away, which made me unable to let go of my feelings and erase the grief in my heart for a long time. Because it was my old mother who encouraged me to write more than a dozen real biographies of characters since the late Qing Dynasty, such as "The Second Half of the Last Emperor's Life", and also supported me and personally accompanied the local neighborhood committee to testify in court, winning the copyright and reputation rights cases. When I became a civil servant, she warned me in a serious tone that not a single penny of public money could be "stained." I have always kept this sentence in mind.
After retiring, I wrote and published "Remembering My Mother", which calmed my grief and pinned my infinite nostalgia for my mother.
04
If you were confronted with a child, how would you answer "What is death?" "Such a question?
A: In the face of children who have not yet entered the world, I must tell him honestly that man is at best a grain of dust in the vast universe. Life and death are inevitable laws, and we must cherish the decades of time in the world. To borrow a phrase from the ancients: "The poor are good at the same time, and the poor are alone." Live happily while giving happiness to others.
05
Regarding life and death, please recommend a book or film and television work that most inspires you, why?
A: As for the issue of recommending books to others or children, in my opinion, it is still a sentence that Lu Xun once said that makes sense: first go through the overview, and then make a choice. Remember, this is the meaning of what he said when someone asked Lu Xun to issue a list of recommended books. It's still worth playing.
06
Sooner or later, everyone will face disease, aging, disability, the end, in your opinion, what is the way and way to face the "fear of death"?
A: Actually, in the final analysis, human beings cannot avoid the final proposition of death. There is only one way or way to deal with the simple, and that is to face it calmly. To live a day is to be happy (and strive to bring happiness to others every day), not to seek pain for yourself. Even if you die, you must die happily.
It took people nearly seventy years to gradually realize that happiness is what needs to be sought. Troubles are often self-inflicted.
07
If you were the screenwriter of your own life story, how would you design the end of this story?
A: A few years ago, when I was chatting with my old friend Chen Zhongzhong, the author of "White Deer Plain" (which had not yet come out at that time), he also opened his face with a smile (wrinkle) and asked me, what is your greatest wish in life? I joked that if I could no longer write a more valuable book, I would use the book "The Second Half of the Last Emperor's Life" (now a dozen "Last Emperor Series") as a pillow for me before I died. Not long after "White Deer Plain" came out, Chen Zhongzhong faced reporters and said similar things.
Now, I have another wish: before I die, I will take the premiere of historical documentaries such as "The Life of the Last Royal Family" and "The Last Eunuch" as the ending of the design of my life story.
For this reason, when Sun Yaoting, an old eunuch in his nineties, walked out of the Forbidden City after a seventy-year absence, he stood on the Jinshui Bridge and said a sentence to me, which was enough to warn the world: "The country is righteous and the heavens are smooth, and the officials and the people are at ease."
08
If you are born here now, which of the three things do you think you are most proud of and "worthy of this life"? For the rest of your life, what are your personal dreams that reflect the value of your life?
A: At this point in life, there are no three things that are most proud and worthy of this life. If you have to be reluctant, you have to choose three things:
1. Filmed historical documentaries such as "The Life of the Last Imperial Family", "The Last Eunuch", "The Last Uncle Visiting the Forbidden City", etc., and has been pursued by foreign film and television institutions such as the "Discovery Channel" in the United States to buy it. Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Zhang Ziyi, etc. have all watched the fragments.
2. Written and published by the People's Literature Publishing House, "The Second Half of the Life of the Last Emperor" (continuing Puyi's "The First Half of My Life"), "The Last Eunuch Sun Yaoting", "The Last Emperor's Brother Pu Jie", "The Last Emperor's Uncle Zaitao", "The Last Emperor's Sister Yun Gong", "The Last Uncle Runqi" and more than a dozen biographies of the last (since the late Qing Dynasty) and so on. This truly records the epitome of the great changes in a hundred years of history from one side.
3. At that time, he did not go to Peking University (he was recommended to peking university to study, and the leaders did not let go), and later taught late Qing history classes at Peking University and many universities in Taiwan. He became the main speaker of CCTV's "Hundred Family Forum" and spoke for three consecutive years.
The rest of my life's dream: First, books such as "The Mystery of the Last Empress Wanrong" were published, and the "Last Series" produced twenty books, adapted and filmed several films and televisions. The second is that the historical documentaries I make can be screened in public. Third, I treasure several unfinished manuscripts such as Puyi's "The First Half of My Life" (the People's Publishing House has published a clear sample or sample book); the original edition of Zhou Shaoliangdian's "Ninety-two Volumes supplement to the Dream of the Red Chamber" that I have collected; the original Mongolian and Han "Edict of Xuantong Abdication" of the Li Fan Department, and many other books can be published and distributed publicly; and the book "How to Write Character Biographies", which has been published and fills the gap in liberal arts textbooks, has officially become a textbook or teaching reference book.
Then there is the superfluous words: some of the celestial aliens in my collection, meteorites, can do a meager contribution to the health of the human body.
You can answer all of the above eight questions.
You can also choose the few questions you most want to answer.
We will select meaningful and sincere answers that will have the opportunity to be published in Beijing Youth Daily and its new media. Please send your answer to xiaobian's mailbox from now on: [email protected]. (The total number of words answered does not exceed 2000 words)
Editor/Jing Wang
![Puyi was the last emperor, but had no children[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)