In one summer and one winter, Liu Zichao used trains and self-driving to central Europe, where he had been many times. In addition to the charm of the region itself, he said, central Europe's attraction to him is that it has always grown in the cracks between empire and power, stubbornly maintaining its own uniqueness. Its strong sense of tearing and wandering made the travel writer feel a certain spiritual fit. In the book "Arriving Before Midnight", Liu Zichao recorded these two wanderings. On this writing, the surging news private geography with him did a quick question and answer.
The Paper: You have cited many literary works in your writing, in your travels, is there a moment when the central Europe of literature and the actual central Europe of literature overlap?
Liu Zichao: There are often such moments in ancient cities. For example, in the beer house in Prague's old town, the moment you push the door in, you often feel like you have entered the world of Hrabar or Hasek.
The Paper: In my understanding, documentary writing is also creation, and travel literature is also the author's personal expression, so what are the criteria for choosing writing materials between these two trips? What kind of Central Europe do you want to show?
Liu Zichao: Memory is the best criterion. When writing, some memories sink and some emerge, forming a natural choice. In this book, I want to show a region in the cracks (sandwiched between Germany and Russia), its history and reality, the state of human existence. The area itself is full of sadness and is probably one of the most tragic in the world.
The Paper: Can you feel the burden of history in the ordinary people you meet in Eastern Europe? Compared to people in other regions.
Liu Zichao: I can feel a certain heaviness. This heaviness is brought about both by history and by the reality that history is constantly repeating itself.
With the authorization of the publishing house, The Paper's private geographical excerpts include several sections to share with readers The Eastern Europe in Liu Zichao's eyes.
"Arriving Before Midnight"; Liu Zichao/Author; Wenhui Publishing House: New Classic Culture; 2021-8
Eger
I walked in the direction of István Dobo Square, where there was a forty-meter-high minaret. It is an outbuilding of a mosque that marks the northernmost point of the 16th-century invasion of Europe by the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Turning in from here, you can see the old István in armor standing in the center of the square, overlooking the pedestrians. He was called Old István because, according to Hungarian custom, the last name preceded the first name.
The statue of St. István I in Budapest
In 1552, István led two thousand soldiers in a month-long standoff against the invading 100,000 Turkish army. At that time, Hungary as an independent country no longer existed, and the Turks had already occupied a large area of Hungarian land, so naturally they did not pay attention to a small Eger. However, the Egers threw themselves into battle with a noble, strong spirit. In the decisive counter-siege battle, women also joined the battle, standing on the walls of the city and pouring boiling resin on the enemy.
Rumors began to rage among the Turkish army. They believe that the Egers were so brave because they drank bull blood. Little did they know that Eger was rich in a red wine that was as colored as bull's blood. The soldiers drank heavily from wine, and their beards were stained blood-red, making them look murderous. The Turks were defeated, Eger was saved, István became a hungarian national hero, and bull blood became Hungary's most famous red wine.
A country's food traditions always interact with national complexes, so that both acquire legend and legitimacy.
I remember when I was a child, I went to the alley to queue up to buy fritters, and my grandmother told me that the fritters were fried by Qin Juniper and his wife, so I knew that the uncles and aunts who were queuing up ate the national righteousness. At this moment, looking at the statue of the old István, I also very much want to drink a glass of Eger Bull Blood Red Wine to pay tribute to the heroic people of Eger.
Traveling through Europe in winter, I grew accustomed to walking into churches. Especially during Christmas, shops close, but churches are always open. Sometimes it's cold outside, or the weather is bad, I'll just walk into a church and sit down to warm myself up.
I like the smell of wood when I push open the church doors, it's always dark inside and it's quiet. As I walked toward Eger Cathedral, the world as serene as snow, I suddenly remembered that tonight was Christmas Eve.
A gypsy woman sat on the stone steps in front of the church, and I took two coins out of my pocket and gave it to her. There were only a few lights in the church, and it was dark and quiet. I sat on a wooden bench and could only see the vague outlines of the icon. I sat for ten minutes, and when I tried to stand up, I let myself sit a little longer. After that, I walked out of the church and gave the rest of the coins to the gypsy woman as well. For some reason, her face reminded me of the photographs of the victims I saw at Auschwitz.
I crossed the road, walked past the library and the weather station, and the streets were full of lights, but there were no passers-by. A drunk man walked by carrying a bottle of wine, muttering something in his mouth. Two drivers were standing in the middle of the road cursing each other, but there was no crowd of onlookers. Eger on Christmas Eve is so silent, where have all the people gone? I think that at home, people are probably already preparing for the carnival.
I finally found a restaurant full of people with good-looking Hungarian home cooking. Only two tables of customers were eating in the shop, and the rest were waiting to be packed and taken away.
I waited at the end of the line. Standing in front of me was a man in his thirties, very thin, wearing a brown leather jacket, a pair of round black-rimmed glasses on the high bridge of his nose, already slightly bald, and a dark blue beanie hat clutched in his hand. He said hello to me, and I nodded to him. He asked me if I was a tourist.
"Yes, I came here to see what winter looks like in Hungary." I say.
"Very quiet, right?"
"It was quieter than I thought." I replied.
He was a physics teacher at a high school in Eger, had no children, and lived only with his wife.
"Don't you cook some food at home on Christmas Eve?" I asked.
He smiled shyly and said that his wife was not very good at cooking, and that they bought dinner from the restaurant. He looked around: "Very authentic restaurant, not expensive." ”
"Yes, it looks pretty good."
It was the physics teacher's turn to order. He ordered while the waiter packed it sharply. At this time, he suddenly turned to me and asked, "Would you like to come to my house for dinner?" ”
The expression on my face must have been a little stunned, but the kindness of a stranger was always hard to refuse, not to mention that I was also curious about the family of a Hungarian physics teacher.
"If it's not too much trouble," I said, "thanks!" ”。
We walked out of the restaurant together and into Eger's Christmas Eve. He carried the dish in one hand and the beanie hat on his head with the other. He lived in a residential area two blocks away, with a small bar still open downstairs, and a few young men standing in the doorway smoking cigarettes. The physics teacher told me he lived in the room above the bar.
His wife opened the door and a Labrador ran over and rubbed and rubbed. His wife was obviously a little surprised to see me. The physics teacher explained, handed her the dish, greeted me with a smile, and went into the kitchen.
The rooms are covered with wooden floors and the heating is well burned out. On the wall by the window was a bookshelf, and in addition to the books, there was a group photo of the physics teacher and his wife. On the other side of the wall is a piano. The piano was covered with a tablecloth and there were many small toys on it, and it seemed that no one had played it for a while. The room was not very big, but it was more than enough for two people to live.
We sat down at the table. The physics teacher opened a bottle of red wine, and the wife had already put the dishes on the table. In front of everyone were wine glasses, knives and forks and plates. We toasted, wished each other a Merry Christmas, and then talked about irrelevant topics as we ate.
"You know, at first I thought you were Japanese," said the physics teacher, "I had received a young Japanese man before. ”
"Are there a lot of Japanese people who come here to travel?" I asked.
"That's right, I put a book on a homestay website, and a Japanese person sent me a letter to contact me, about two months ago. Compared with Chinese, there are quite a few Japanese people who travel here. ”
"Do you feel that Chinese is very different from the Japanese?"
"It's hard for me to see the difference on the outside," the physics teacher said with a laugh, "but Japanese people don't speak English very well, so it's hard to communicate with them too much." But I asked him what he thought of the tensions between China and Japan. ”
"What did he say?"
"He said he didn't care about politics, and a lot of young Japanese people didn't care, and they didn't even know who the current Prime Minister of Japan is."
It is even more frightening than a society in which no one cares about politics, where everyone is keen to participate in politics—something that can only happen in totalitarian times.
The physics teacher's story
It is natural for us to talk about the memory of the Soviet era.
The physics teacher took a sip of red wine, as if reminiscing about something very long ago. Then he solemnly told me that he was Jewish. During World War II, his grandparents lived through very terrible years. Originally living in Budapest, they were sent to concentration camps in Poland in the summer of 1944. They were responsible for the coolies and survived.
Auschwitz Figure Liu Zichao
After the end of World War II, in order to forget the past, the family moved to Eger. They concealed the identity of the Jews and did not reveal them to anyone. They even converted to Catholicism and stopped worshipping and living according to Jewish customs. They fear that if their true identity is revealed, they may suffer further misfortune in the future.
They keep their identities a secret. For a long time, even children didn't know these things. It wasn't until he was going to college in Budapest that the physics teacher's parents told him everything about the past.
"I left Eger with a strong shock." The physics teacher said.
By then, the Soviet Union had disintegrated, and the great changes in the socialist camp seemed to have taken place overnight. He began to go to the synagogue in Budapest, to participate in the activities of the Jewish community, and also to become friends with some young people of Jewish descent. He began to read the Bible and the Old Testament with his heart. Before that, he felt very divided into the history of the Jewish nation.
After graduation, the physics teacher returned to work at Eger. He said that with the exception of Budapest, the number of Jews in Hungary was already very sparse, even less in Eger, but he still maintained contact with the Jewish community in Budapest.
"Is the current situation of the Jews okay?" I asked.
"It's hard to answer with good or bad," said the physics teacher, "and when there is a natural or man-made disaster or a recession, it is always the Jews who bear the brunt of it — and this has been the case since ancient times." ”
I am reminded of the European historian Joseph Vuitton. The scene that P. Bourne wrote about in the book The Black Death. At that time, the Jews were considered the source of the plague and were exterminated. In those years, because of the European debt crisis and economic downturn, hatred of Jews rekindled in Europe, especially hungary. A fascist party called Jobbik (meaning "Better Hungary") gained a lot of support, and its leaders even entered the European Parliament.
"Interestingly, after media investigations, this person actually has Jewish ancestry. Like my grandmother, her maternal grandmother was Jewish and a Holocaust survivor. After the report came out, the man was purged by the Jobik organization, but the party's power was still very large. ”
"Have you ever worried about the future?" I asked.
"The Jewish people are always ready to suffer, and this is the experience we have learned from history," the physics teacher said, "and on this level, you could say that the Jews have never stopped worrying about the future." ”
He smiled and raised his glass, so I held up mine too.
"All we can do is pray." He said.
On the way back to the hotel, this sentence kept echoing in my head. The night sky is crisp, and the stars are like church candles. However, in a world of violence hidden everywhere, can we really take charge of our own destiny? Can those tragedies and sufferings, wars and massacres really stop being staged?
I think, no.
All we can do, then, is pray.