Yesterday, "310,000 Elderly People Living Alone in Shanghai, and The Young People Who Helped Them" was popular in the circle of friends. The article interviewed several young residents living in Shanghai, who used their own experience to tell how they took their neighbors and elderly people in Shanghai to buy and grab goods, find medicines and dispense medicines, contact for help - and finally communicate with each other and exchange warmth.
Before the lockdown, we seemed to "not see" the elderly in our lives, but China was such a huge aging society. As Lu Ge said in an interview after 95: "I have never dealt with these old people before, and I don't know each other." After the sealing, I suddenly saw so many helpless and powerless old people. ”
2020 Photo Diary: March 8 Sanitation Workers. Filmed by: Hu Yingdi
Writer Li Rui has studied in Hong Kong. He thought of words like "myth" or "miracle" in the midst of a thousand-foot building, and he always wanted to go behind myths and miracles and see the real life of ordinary people in Hong Kong. During the wanderings, he remembered Sissi's "white-haired A'e".
Today, movable type Jun shared with book friends teacher Li Rui's article "Suddenly remembering the white-haired A'e", as well as an article in Sixi's new work "The White-Haired Era of Rose A'e". "Sisi's life of 'white-haired A'e' will be as meticulous as the old man's compassion and self-compassion, like a poem of the evening scene of life on the eve of the day. Because of compassion and self-compassion, compassion and forgiveness are also a little courage to resist desolation and fear. (He Ping)
Suddenly I remembered the white-haired A'e
—
Li Ruiwen
2020 Photography Diary: March 19 The Elderly Out. Filmed by: Hu Yingdi
Looking out from the window of Wu Duotai International Center, all you can see is a group of buildings with walls rising up to the sky, and the crowded buildings are like undulating mountains, stretching endlessly in front of the eyes, and the gaps in the buildings reveal the shadows of some mountains, which are often obscured by clouds, far away, misty, and seem to be the walls of buildings and streets. At night, the thousand-foot-walled buildings are illuminated, and against the background of the night, they are dazzling and bright, which will remind you of words like "myth" or "miracle".
From Taiyuan to Hong Kong, it was a month. I used to see Hong Kong from movies and tv, and now I see Hong Kong from the window of a hotel. For a month, every day, I faced the "miracle" outside this window. But I know that every day, the people who come to the street like a tidal wave from the "miracle" are bound and urged by the nine-to-five chains, and they are hurriedly begging for life day after day, and they cannot care about myths or miracles. Myths and miracles do not quench their hunger and thirst, and grassroots people cannot live by the scenery outside the window. I always want to go behind the myths and wonders and see the real life of ordinary people in Hong Kong.
In addition to meeting the students of the fiction writing class in the International Writers Workshop at Baptist University, I also had several opportunities to travel in a month. I went to the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts Opera House in Wan Chai, watched "The Love of the New City" directed by Mr. Mao Junhui of the Hong Kong Repertory Theatre, and saw Leung Ka Fai and Su Yuhua, who were rumored everywhere in the media. Went to Victoria Mountain and saw Victoria Harbour, which had been watched countless times on TV, on the cable car to the summit. I went to the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and saw a new and beautiful campus on the beach that was exactly the same as on the postcard. In short, none of them have gone beyond the general line of sight of a tourist.
However, it left a strong impression on these trips - Hong Kong's religious sites are really dense and numerous. Catholic Church, Christ Church, Buddhist Temple, Taoist Temple, Tianhou Mazu Temple, Wong Tai Sin Temple, abound. Under the crowding of buildings and streets, these churches and temples are like islands and reefs rising from the sea, tenaciously showing their sustenance and beliefs to the world. I was a little surprised that after more than a century of assimilation by British colonial rule, so many indigenous temples were left behind, leaving behind such a tenacious and tenacious indigenous faith. I can't help but think: Are the incense in these temples flourishing? What kind of men and women are there to worship?
The opportunity finally came.
The Xiuzhen girl who led the way for us pointed to the dynamic road map above the subway car and said that it was there, and the last stop we had to go to was Tsing Yi.
In the pyrotechnic place names of Kowloon Tong, TaiZi, Yau Ma Tei, Lai Chi Kok, Lai King, etc., "Tsing Yi" is like a clear spring emerging from a hot and dry field. And coincidentally, it was like a deliberate arrangement, and I wanted to see the local drama in Hong Kong, so I came to this dramatic place. Xiuzhen held a color-printed advertisement in her hand, which was printed with the headline of the banner: Tsing Yi Neighborhood United Water and Land Circles Performed to Congratulate the True Emperor on his Birthday. Below the title, the two costumed actors of the Mingzhi Sound Troupe are gorgeous and feminine. At the bottom of the cast list, there is a list of consecutive scenes from the twelfth to the sixteenth day of march in the lunar calendar, for five consecutive days. The three plays staged on the 15th day of the third month of the lunar calendar are: "He Shou Xian Ji Da Sends Son", "Three Laughing Marriages", and "West Building Wrong Dream", starring the famous actors Gai Minghui and Wu Meiying of the troupe. From this advertisement alone, we have seen the solemnity and liveliness of the eyes.
Sure enough, before I reached the place, I heard the drum music and bamboo and the gentle singing voice coming from afar, and soon from the bright lights, there was a burst of smoke from the incense fire. A huge theater, with thousands of seats, has long been crowded, and even the corridor behind the seats is full of audiences. The old story of the lover on the stage who eventually became a family member has been played for hundreds of years, but the audience still stared at the tricks on the stage with great interest, and with those heavy makeup and a smile, they confirmed their romance and fantasy that they were unwilling to easily show in ordinary life. The stage is facing the statue of The True Emperor, and there is an endless stream of people who come to worship and kneel, and the entire venue is surrounded by a shed made of the cheapest chemical fiber fabrics, and the stalls selling incense and snacks are crowded under the shed. People come and go, rubbing shoulders, the smell of incense smoke and fried food rising and rolling above people's heads, this scene of authentic local life, let me suddenly return from Hong Kong to the mainland, as if suddenly in a county town or a township in Shanxi Temple Fair. Exactly the same scene, exactly the same crowded incense and food, exactly the same kneeling, exactly the same rising and thriving popularity.
I don't know why, at that moment, I suddenly remembered "white-haired A'e". This white-haired A-e is a fictional character written by my good friend, Hong Kong writer Ms. Sisi. Eighteen years ago, for the publication of my novel collection "Thick Soil" in Taiwan, Xixi and a few friends were busy, and at that time, we once met in Guangzhou for the sake of books. When they met again eighteen years later, Sissi could only write with his left hand. Sissi, who can only write with her left hand, gave me her new book, "White-Haired A'e and Others."
The white-haired A'e in the book, in order to take refuge decades ago, the whole family came to Hong Kong, and on the dock where this person came and went, she had a hard time giving birth to children, and repeatedly calculated the family's expenses in the crowded stalls of street shops and vendors. Inadvertently, the husband died and wrinkled. One by one, the children around them grew up, left their original homes, established their own homes, tied the chains of nine to five, and hurried in the bustling city. The white-haired A'e was baptized in a trance, went to the hospital in a trance, and once, in a trance, she opened the piggy bank, and saw male emperors and female emperors on the shiny coins, one by one in the cold metallic luster... The green silk in the trance finally turned into a full head of white hair, and looking at the city and life that was more and more difficult to understand in the trance, the white-haired A'e became more and more like a helpless child.
Under the lights, the seats crowded with spectators were crowded. From time to time, a white-haired head will jump out conspicuously from the crowd, and I suddenly believe very firmly that among them, there will be the white-haired A'e in Sisi's pen who is sitting precariously, accompanied by undulating silk bamboo, and has a board and eyes on the stage of "The Wrong Dream of the West Building".
2020 Photography Diary: March 14 The Old Man Who Passed By. Filmed by: Hu Yingdi
Rose Ae's gray hair era
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This article is excerpted from "White-Haired A'e and Others"
Sisi, Yilin Publishing House, 2022 edition
White-haired A'e, real name Yu A'e, born in 1910. When I was a child, my father still had a long braid, and the emperor still lived in the Forbidden City. When the white-haired A'e could walk, there was a revolution in the streets. Little Yu A'e grows up day by day, and with a blink of an eye, the girl becomes a big girl; and then she blinks her eyes, and the big girl becomes a little wife, how many eyes can she shake? The little wife becomes the old mother. In the middle, it is only marriage and children, war and migration, and life and death. The white-haired A'e felt that some things did not seem to have changed at all, the fragrance of the white orchid was still the same as before, the tea leaves and eggs were still the color of the past; some things were different from before, and the people of her generation, some stepped on the lotus flower, some put on skates, and slipped away.
The white-haired A'e's hair was only white at the age of 60, and there was not much snow hair, only a few silkworm silks emerged from the side of the ear, which looked solemn. At this time, the white-haired A'e has long been draped in a gray plain coat, regardless of the shirt and trousers, all ink blue, coal ash, and the fancy dress of her youth has disappeared. The earrings are not worn, and the brilliance that blooms on the skin is nothing more than a fleeting flower; the nail polish is of course not applied, and occasionally a little flower dew is applied to the corner of the coat to dispel the heat; the white orchid is no longer pinned on the placket, only flat on a small plate, arranged in the shape of a fan. In late summer and early autumn, when the seasons changed, she opened the camphor wood box and exclaimed at a firefox fur and a camel hair cheongsam with brocade dough and phoenix pattern: What a beautiful dress. But she stopped wearing them, where to wear them? Camel hair sprouts sprouted like beans that grew on brocade grasslands, and firefox's long hairs fell off like yellow leaves, but she was reluctant to abandon them. They are my favorite clothes. Still hidden deep in the box.
* * *
The day she started eating wheat paste, the white-haired A'e felt that her age had been lowered to one year old again. She remembers that the little baby reached more than ten months and began to eat semi-solid substances. Ancient children eat milk cakes and fish porridge, and modern children eat rice paste and wheat paste. Today, the white-haired A'e eats wheat paste. A jar of oats that can be eaten with boiling water does not have to be boiled, and with some chicken, fish and a little salt, it becomes wheat paste. Since suffering from high blood pressure/ since the transfer of power in charge / since she has increasingly returned to the age of babies, her daughter has controlled the white-haired Ae's food, clothing, and housing, especially food, and asked her to adjust her tastes and habits. The daughter told her to put up her hand to count whether three meals a day were properly balanced nutrition: one milk food, two cereal foods, three meats, four vegetables and fruits, and to absorb enough fiber, not to eat too sweet and salty things, not allowed to eat garbage.
The white-haired A'e drinks nutritious milk powder every day, eats wheat paste, and sometimes, her daughter cooks it with rough red rice in white rice. In the past, I used to eat red rice. She didn't know if it was time for war. Nutrition is not nutritious and she does not understand, only feel that everything is surprisingly similar to before, saying that it is scientific progress, and many things seem to be going backwards. For example, the daughter has recently washed the dishes without detergent, preferring to use boiling water; going to the market to buy vegetables, not using plastic bags, and bringing an old basket; and making money and not wanting to put it in the bank to buy a piece of gold. These are all things that the white-haired A'e did when she was young.
The white-haired Ae remembered that when she was at her heaviest, she had a hundred and five pounds, and then she became lighter and lighter. Her weight was also in direct proportion to her age loss: she had been declining from sixteen, thirteen, ten, and eight; so was her weight, which ten years ago she still weighed ninety pounds, then eighty, seventy, and now only sixty pounds. She felt her body dangling like an empty wine bottle, her skin sagging like a wrinkled sharpie dog, and her feet fluttering as if her body was about to fly at any moment. She suddenly remembered the weight of the three girls, who were getting fatter and fatter, fat like a balloon about to explode, and she was thin. I'm about to turn into a flower of dust.
She seemed to hear someone singing a lullaby: Little baby, go to bed. Otherwise, why was she so thirsty to sleep? Hypnotic songs summoned her. She sat and stood at home, naturally walked to the edge of the bed again, and lay down to sleep. She could sleep day and night, at any time. Yes, she was a baby, eating wheat paste, drinking milk, sleeping obediently, looking at the flowers when she woke up, listening to the grunting of pigeons flying outside the window. Shake, shake to Grandma Bridge, Grandma called me good baby. Someone is singing a lullaby again, gently shaking, gently shaking, I am sleeping in the cradle.
* * *
In the bathroom, the bathtub with low edges can be easily stepped into; the bathtub is also plastered with plastic flowers, which is never slippery; the wall is inlaid with copper pipes, which can hang large towels and facilitate the handrails. But the white-haired A'e never went into the bathtub, did not bathe or shower, and followed the ancient traditional method of putting a basin of water and wiping her body with a small towel. The daughter thinks that this washing will not wash the soap, which will cause itch marks all over the body; but the white-haired A'e insists that this is the only way to take a bath. The bathroom door lock has also been replaced, only a simple buckle latch is installed, and the door is opened as soon as the outside is pushed hard. The white-haired A'e was so frightened that she didn't know if her daughter would break through the door, pushed her into the bathtub, and forced her to take a bath.
If the daughter is pressed into the bathtub, soaped, squeaked and scrubbed, and then rinsed with a shower, then the white-haired A'e will become a baby of several months. Fortunately, nothing happened as expected, but the white-haired A'e experienced a baby-like bath. Last month, she was dizzy again for some reason, unable to get out of bed, and suddenly she drowned and sprinkled the filth of a bed. The daughter moved, pulled and pulled, wiped her clean, changed the sheets and clothes, and washed the clothes inside and out for an afternoon. The bed was covered with a septum and a diaper was wrapped around her. At this time, the white-haired A'e has completely turned into a baby.
A few years ago, the white-haired Ae was watching TV and saw a big fat man introducing the museum and the cathedral. The daughter said that it was a big star, named Ustinov, and his mother was so cute that she would always wear white and clean underwear, and said that at such an old age, who could guarantee that one day she would go to the hospital, if her underwear was black and dirty, how ashamed. The white-haired Ae blinked. The daughter also conveyed the news that the queen and the princess were never required to wash their own clothes, not even their underwear, so they used sanitary pads. This is the hygienic etiquette of modern famous boudoir aristocratic women. The white-haired Ae blinked again. As a result, since she no longer washed her own clothes, the white-haired A'e also used sanitary pads. With sanitary pads are adults, diapers, just supplies for babies. The white-haired Ae saw the crawling baby painted on the diaper box and thought she was only a few months old. In a few more days, she will turn into dust.
Every time the white-haired A'e fell ill, she thought she was going to turn into dust. The three girls came to visit her and invited her to go to the Church of God with her, and she only promised, with a lazy and sick look, and the three girls could only shake their heads: Alas, there are such people who have not yet received the Eucharist. Then say, recite the Virgin Mary, the Rosary. After the baptism, Rose Ae forgot all the scriptures, and the rosary beads were thrown in the corner of the drawer, and the Virgin on the refrigerator, once unsteady, fell to the ground and shattered. All this is not tight, the white-haired A'e understands very well, anyway, the baptism certificate was taken by the son, and the treasure is hidden in the safe deposit box of the bank. That's what everybody cares about.
The white-haired Ae thought she would soon turn into dust, but it wasn't, she wasn't sick, she was just old. As April approached, she thought she would not be able to pass the Qingming Dynasty; when August came, she thought she would not be able to pass the Mid-Autumn Festival. The New Year is a big hurdle, she thinks it can't be crossed, but all the hurdles have been passed. Her blood pressure calmed down, and the man hardened again. She pays for it to be a return to the light. Two weeks have passed, and nothing has changed, where there is such a long period of return to the light. The children comforted her, saying that she was only seventy-eight years old, not old, and that people today live a long life, eighty or ninety years old, and that ordinary people can live to be more than ninety years old. From seventy-eight to ninety years old, twelve years, if a child grows from eight to twenty years old, primary and secondary school graduates. Twelve years is a rich asset for teenagers, but if Heaven were to give twelve years to a seventy-eight-year-old man, it would probably be just irony. God was joking with me. He is the cunning owner, taking back the things he gives to man in stages.
The daughter said, write some letters to your relatives, they will be worried if they can't see your handwriting, so the white-haired A'e lifted the pen, and her nose was almost stuck to the letter paper, writing down the hen-sized words. Watching her write a letter, the daughter said, why not write a memoir, carefully write down the events experienced in your life, you can write down for twelve years. The white-haired Ae opened her mouth wide. Can I write? I remember many things that can be written down. Her son suggested that he write a little every day, and he would pay a hundred words and ten yuan for the manuscript, and the money he earned could be sent to his relatives in the mainland. The white-haired A'e opened her mouth again, and her relatives in the mainland could most touch her heart. So the daughter bought the original manuscript paper and came back, a small grid, white-haired A'e can actually write one grid at a time. She then recalled from the beginning: In an afternoon when the sky was cloudy and the sunless children had gone to work, I was alone at home lonely and bored to recall the past story I was born on the fifth day of the first month of the lunar calendar in the second year of Xuan reunification...
September 1988
Video: Young female writer Huang Yi on "White-Haired A'e and Others"
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