Dialogue with Liang Hong
The following is a summary of the interview
Who is "I"
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Dialogue with Liang Hong
Liang Hong is a scholar, writer and professor at Chinese Min University. He is committed to the study of modern and contemporary Chinese literature, and the study of the relationship between vernacular literature and vernacular China. He has published literary masterpieces such as "China in Liangzhuang", "Records of Liangzhuang", "Ten Years of Liangzhuang", "Sacred Family", academic works "Yellow Flower Moss and Soap Horn Tree", "The Disappearance of "Aura", etc.
△ Liang Hong
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Dialogue with Liang Hong
Liang Hong, born in 1973 in Liangzhuang Village, Yongdong Town, Dengzhou, Henan Province, graduated from nanyang in 1991 and worked as a rural teacher for three years after graduating from nanyang fourth division. In 1994, he was admitted to Nanyang Institute of Education, in 1997 he was admitted to Zhengzhou University to pursue a master's degree, and in 2000 he was admitted to Beijing Normal University to pursue a doctorate.
During the summer vacations of 2008 and 2009, Liang Hong returned to his hometown, where he had lived for two decades, in a rural village in Rang County, Henan Province. In the preface to a sociological and anthropological survey, and the results of which were written and published under the title of China in Liangzhuang, Liang Hong wrote: Liangzhuang is not known, it is just one of countless similar villages in China. But from Liangzhuang, you can clearly see the image of China.
Liang Hong: In China, the topic of the countryside is endless, inexhaustible.
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Dialogue with Liang Hong
In 2010, Liang Hong's work "China in Liangzhuang" was published, won more than a dozen literary awards such as "People's Literature", and was considered by critics to open up a new atmosphere in the literary world, triggering more than 300 domestic and foreign media to rush to report.
Liang Hong: Actually, when I wrote "China in Liangzhuang", it was a sense of shock. Because this place is familiar to you before, but you haven't really explored it inside. When I stood at the head of the village in Liangzhuang, looking at the desolation after the torrential rain, and listening to familiar people tell their stories again, I was very shocked.
Tagawa: It was around 2008, what kind of emotions made you think I had to go back to Liangzhuang, I needed to write Liangzhuang?
Liang Hong: The reasons are very complicated, such as academic reasons, I have been studying local literature, such as age reasons, originally only concerned with studying, and now after all the dust has settled, people suddenly calm down, and the desire of a certain piece of the heart rises. Another aspect may be social reasons, since the countryside was a particularly prominent problem around 2000.
Tagawa: You also said you felt a sense of betrayal?
Liang Hong: As a person who came out of the countryside, taught in colleges and universities, and has been paying attention to rural topics, I must have thought that I wanted to go back. You don't want to ignore it because it's already in your head. Back in Liangzhuang, I also have a lot of ideas, a lot of wishes to go to fruition.
Tagawa: Do you think it has been achieved?
Liang Hong: Not realized.
△ Liang Hong
Liang Hong: What am I doing? I have written about the fate of so many people, but I have not changed in the slightest, and I have no ability to change. So am I writing this entirely for my own fame and profit? Today you can still say this about yourself, you are too hypocritical, too selfish, you have gained fame and fortune, but your Liangzhuang people have not gained anything. And this group of people has been in your mind for a long time, he is not only a Liangzhuang person, but also my family, and a very important group in Chinese society. That feeling of guilt, that sense of hypocrisy, will haunt you all the time.
Later, I went back to my hometown alone with my bag. I walked along the turbulent river, walked a long way, especially healing. It is the feeling of "the deceased is like a sifu". Although your struggle is so small, on the other hand you feel that people live this way, and it does not make you particularly pessimistic. I think people will slowly go from an idealized state to a realistic state.
△ The people of Liangzhuang
Liang Hong: When I first finished writing "China in Liangzhuang", many people talked about the fall of the countryside and the fall of the hometown, including some rural issues. I feel as if I see some kind of sound, but in reality life moves very slowly, and change is very slow. At first, I had a huge desire to change society, and then I slowly told myself that as long as I seriously wrote a book, I wrote out the complexity of life, the complexity of survival, and presented it, which was also a contribution.
An important group of people in Liangzhuang is a migrant worker outside, and Liangzhuang's joys and sorrows are closely related to this group of people. Did they earn money? How often do they come back? When will they come back? When not to come back? Liang Zhuang's heart was completely with them, but they might not see each other for a year or two. So I had an idea, I must write out the state of life of this group of people. How do they eat in the city? How to circulate? How to love? How do you relate to the city? What does the city think of him? What do they think of Liangzhuang? How do you think of the city? Only by writing about this life of this group of people can it be a complete contemporary village.
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Dialogue with Liang Hong
After "China in Liangzhuang", Liang Hong, accompanied by his father, trekked through most of China to find Liangzhuang's migrant workers and record their lives, so there was "The Record of Liangzhuang". More than 10 provinces and cities, more than 400 migrant workers, and 2 million words of graphic materials are a vital part of the "Liangzhuang Model". In Exodus, Moses led the Israelites out of slavery and siege to a land where milk and honey flowed, while the people of Liangzhuang left their homeland and came to the city in search of their promised land.
Five grandmothers are one and two sides
Tagawa: What is the story you've heard that hurts your heart the most?
Liang Hong: It is the story of the son of the fifth grandmother. In the first book, I wrote about five grandmothers whose grandsons drowned in the river. The child's parents work in Qingdao. So in the second book, I'm definitely going to find Grandma Five's son, which is equivalent to writing a family story.
We connected the joint for a long time because the village spoke in dialect. Then the Chinese villages have no names, and you don't know which one it is. Finally asked a person and said, oh, that village, that place has a lot of electroplating plants, you say electroplating factories people know. As soon as I entered the village, I immediately fell into it, with a damp and musty smell. My face may be a little allergic to the air, and it is swollen at once, and there is a more serious allergy. During the few days I was there, my cousin sneaked me to the factory every day. Because I had never been in that highly polluted environment, as soon as I went in, I really had the feeling of particles entering my throat and swallowing little by little. I asked my cousin, why don't you wear a mask? The cousin smiled and said that only newcomers wore masks, because there was a lot of humidity there, and as soon as they wore the mask, they stuck to their mouths and couldn't breathe at all. When the young people first went, they still wanted me to spare my life and I wanted to wear it, but the old workers simply did not wear it.
Liang Hong: I hope everyone can read this chapter, that is, a migrant worker working in a factory, what is the social chain he has to face? How much does he make? It's hard to really know without research, and even if you did, you wouldn't know what their work environment was like.
During the few days I was in the village, I slept in the same bed as my cousin and her young son. The aunt dressed her young son very cleanly, washed his feet every night, changed into new autumn pants, and cared for it very much. I know in my heart why, and we haven't mentioned her eldest son, because it's a pain after all. During the few days I lived there, I felt that my cousin did not sleep at night, her breathing was very light, and one night I asked "Cousin, are you asleep?" We didn't sleep and we'll talk about it. Her first words were, "I have never slept since Bao'er (the eldest son) died." "I was immediately shocked, I felt that the deepest pain of human beings, it was really difficult to walk through. I had never mentioned the name Bao'er to her before, but I felt like it was on my lips, waiting for someone to ask her, so she could tell it.
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"It was after school that day and everyone was back.
The baby in front of me said, 'I didn't see my brother in the river.' ’”
I walked down the brickyard and cried as I walked.
The legs whimbled through the weeds, and the thorns on the body did not hurt at all.
It was stirred up in the whirlpool,
Little baby, say no, it's gone. - Grandma Five
Liang Hong, "China in Liangzhuang" "Save the Child"
Liang Hong: These sufferings are interconnected and unbearable for human beings, which is particularly important. So every time I write, I want to tell a person's story thoroughly, that is, I want everyone to know that this is not only the story of a migrant worker, not just a story of left-behind children, this is a story that we humans cannot bear.
The deaths of those nameless are happening on our earth and will continue to happen in the future. I want these nameless deaths to become famous. At least in Liangzhuang's space, I hope they can leave their names. It may seem very abstract and vague to say, but it does determine your behavior.
For example, I wrote about the security guard in the book, and a person left me a message saying that he had never thought about the life of a security guard and never expected to look at the security guard more. After reading his message I said yes, we often ignore these people. It's not that you have to talk to the security guard or whatever, but sometimes you don't have this person in mind, which means you don't see his life. You see, maybe you don't do anything, but you have such a piece of land in your heart, which is particularly important.
Tagawa: They may have a lot of links, and there are different people who are helping us build a safe and healthy environment. But if you don't pay attention, you may feel that many things are taken for granted and will not be grateful.
Liang Hong: Right.
Tagawa: But many times you will be affected by the environment around you, and your values will also be affected. We may just ignore these people around us, these things. What do you think is causing us to shield against this soft force?
Liang Hong: I think it is because our social life today is very complicated, China's countryside is undergoing rapid changes, and the cities are also expanding dramatically. If we don't pay attention, the street will be gone, and if we don't pay attention to the river, it will be gone. This is a period of great shaking of the times, and this shaking must be good and bad. On another level, this complex life makes everyone's limitations very large, and it may be difficult for him to just take care of himself.
But we are also a social person, and you have to know what kind of life we live in. We really rarely do construction in this regard, which makes it difficult for us to place ourselves in a higher sense, and naturally we will not pay attention to these complex social life.
△ Liang Zhuang's migrant workers outside
Tian Chuan: You originally assumed that after writing two Liangzhuang books, you would be finished, why did you write a third Liangzhuang story ten years later, so everyday, so detailed?
Liang Hong: I didn't think of it myself, I also felt that even if I finished writing two books, I wouldn't write Liang Zhuang anymore, otherwise I felt as if I was always eating Liang Zhuang rice. But I think people are changing, and every year I go home and talk to people, there is a change in emotion. This group of people has been in your mind for a long time, he is not only a Liangzhuang person, but also a very important group in Chinese society, and also my family.
Many people say that the "Ten Years of Liangzhuang" written this year seems to be written relatively lightly, but for me, this book is particularly important, because it is written entirely from the inside of the Liangzhuang village. I wrote about how Grandma Five got out on the street, she was a little tricky, but also very cute little old lady, her granddaughter rode a little pink tram with her around. If "China in Liangzhuang" is a holistic undertaking, the five grandmothers you see are a social five grandmothers. As a left-behind elderly person, and her grandson as a left-behind child, she has a kind of missing in it. So you're going to see an experimental grandma five, which is also the social existence of the five grandmas, and you're going to pay more attention to that level.
When you suddenly enter such a life, what you hear must be a story, a holistic grandmother, and these are also part of her. Like the chapter I wrote about women in "Ten Years of Liangzhuang", you find that many women in the village have no names. In today's twenty-first century, we only know that she is a cousin, she is a sister-in-law, but what is her name as a daughter? No one cares, no one cares.
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"By the way, Grandma Five, what's your name?"
Everyone shook their heads.
"Grandma Five, what the hell are you calling?"
"What's it called?" Grandma Five rubbed her face hard with her hands, "Mom, I haven't mentioned it in a long time." ”
It was the shyness of the girlhood, in another strange village, another family, which had been with Grandma Five for a long time.
Fifth grandmother, her name is Wang Xianzhi.
Liang Hong, "Ten Years of Liang Zhuang" and "Lost Daughter"
Liang Hong: When I asked Grandma Wu what her name was, I thought it meant a lot to her. Because at that moment, she suddenly thought of her girlhood, and the events of decades ago were forgotten. So the moment I talked to her, we were both a self-presentation. I think this is also my existence for this person, a little contribution. At first, my idea was too narrow, and I always thought that it was the real change that could bring some economic changes to the villagers. But as I kept coming home for so many years, I chatted with Grandma Five, Grandma Five's other grandson (Liang An), and my classmate Kasumi, and found that every time we came home, they were very happy.
I asked Liang An why did you go home? He just sat there thinking very seriously. I think this state of mind is particularly good and important. Usually he may not think about his life like this, but when I came back, I brought such a space, and then everyone thought about it together. Every time I go home, Kasumi must take a leave of absence, and she says I will follow you from beginning to end. She felt that her happiest moment was when I came home. It is this mutual spiritual infection that everyone has a little more self-awareness, so I have done a lot of "notes" in "Liangzhuang Ten Years". People who have not read the first two books about Liang Zhuang, I hope you will go to see what they are like in the first two books, just like the long river.
△ Liang Hong
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Dialogue with Liang Hong
After the "Liangzhuang Trilogy", someone labeled Liang Hong as a "three-rural expert". Liang Hong replied, "I am still a writer first. Liang Hong's writing is not only realistic, but also turns to fiction, and even has some absurdity. Returning to the source of the soul, he exposed his personal history softly and also wrote a polyphonic vernacular.
Tagawa: You told the story of measles when you were a child in the book, why did you choose to write this story?
Liang Hong: I think this story has a particularly metaphorical meaning for me. In a completely dark claustrophobic space, you are cut off from everything, and everything is a bed and a wall. I was supposed to be in the second and third grades of elementary school, and I wrote a lot of words on the wall, and I forgot all about what I wrote. But I like that in this darkness, where everything is quiet, but I feel that something is slowly rising. What is it? You may never catch it, but it must be something inside your mind, and I especially like that feeling.
△ Liang Hong
Liang Hong: At that time, it was also adolescence, and I would often stay alone in the turbulent river behind my house. The darkness came down, and I leaned against the tree alone, and I think that time was actually particularly rich, that is, you felt the presence of "me". I think my feelings about beauty, my feelings about the natural world, all stemmed from those years. At this moment, when I am talking, I still feel that time will pass very slowly.
I remember a time when I got up every morning to keep a journal, and then I just sat in a fixed position and watched the clouds in the sky. In The Holy Family, I wrote that "a gray-blue cloud followed her." Although this gray-blue cloud feels very general when written, this sentence is particularly important to me.
Tagawa: Do you hate it when people ask you why you write that? It's like the artist is being asked why you're painting this picture.
Liang Hong: Sometimes it will. But today I feel very happy because I didn't want to share my little secret with anyone else before. How important this gray-blue cloud is to me, it's actually quite interesting.
A gray-blue cloud
Tagawa: When did you actually start writing?
Liang Hong: I have been writing since the third grade of primary school, but the so-called writing is to write weekly notes, people write one, I write two. Then the teacher wrote a "read" in the weekly notebook, and I rarely got positive reviews.
Tagawa: Why?
Liang Hong: Because I pay too much attention to emotion, the plot structure is somewhat unbalanced, not the kind of complete, standard article that starts and turns. So I never won an award in a competition.
Tagawa: Where do these emotions come from?
Liang Hong: It may have something to do with the loneliness of childhood, and you will be good at experiencing it. This childhood experience may not be a whole thing, but it will certainly dissolve into many fragments. A thing, an idea, is then used by you continuously. Most of the characters you create have something to do with your heart.
△ Liang Hong
Tagawa: You also wrote in the book that when you were in school, you were chatting in the hallway with a girl in a self-study class, and the teacher criticized you, and you muttered a word, and you were not gay. Where did you get this concept from?
Liang Hong: I don't know where I came from, but I muttered that I was maverick and that I wasn't doing bad things. I don't know how serious this sentence is, but my class teacher can't hear it, what is this girl thinking, how dirty. This kind of thinking of his will also affect us, and there must be some kind of education for you, so I think discipline is everywhere.
Tagawa: You said that you were criticized for six days in a row around this.
Liang Hong: Yes, I cried for many days. When I was pushed from this side of the corridor to that side, I felt that you had done a terrible thing, and the feeling of humiliation was particularly vivid, and it still exists today. Although you are very strong now, you will remember the feeling of that year, can't look up, feel that it is finished, I can't live anymore. I cried for seven days and felt that I would never laugh again in my life, that I would never be able to face anyone again. But for the class teacher, he felt he had done a very right thing. He's thinking on another level, you can't do that, it's moral corruption to do it.
Liang Hong: From the ideological level, this kind of criticism of you is actually a huge discipline to let you know that this thing is wrong. While on the one hand you are very sad to be criticized, on the other hand you also accept this thing. So I think that's how discipline is formed. It made me realize that many words are not simply formed, they are formed through great movement. I think each of us needs to be wary of this movement. I also want to say that when I write this history and my moment, many times a certain moment is particularly important. In an instant, the essence of many things is formed. Teachers criticize you, educate you, hold conferences, and the impact it has may not have gone through yet. For example, my inferiority complex, easy to feel embarrassed, easy to be sensitive... Maybe it's all from the previous stuff, and you don't know how it will shape you later. Like I am now very scared when I see a particularly intense sound on TV, a voice that is forced on you.
Tagawa: You once shared a story about a fellow villager who lived in a certain urban village for many years.
Liang Hong: In the hot spring village.
Tagawa: But in the end, when he went to the village in the city, he couldn't buy a house, and his identity became very empty.
Liang Hong: Yes, this issue is highlighted. He actually felt that he was familiar with the village, and every time the village branch secretary went to him, he especially showed off. "I know everyone in the village, and we are all familiar with the village party secretary, and we drink together every day."
Tagawa: I felt that all of a sudden that sense of emptiness and levitation hit me.
Liang Hong: Even if you are never a hot spring village person. So when I heard him say that, I kept thinking that identity is always an issue for someone who has lived here for 20 years. I said you have been working for so many years, what kind of work are you doing?
Tagawa: Looking around, we have an abandoned railway.
Liang Hong: I actually like this very desolate feeling, it has a modern meaning, but at the same time it is something abandoned.
Tagawa: You once said that I would eventually leave Liangzhuang.
Liang Hong: This is a spatial feeling, because you live in the city, and it is also a kind of rebellion in your thinking. Another point is that in modern Chinese life, the village is bound to become a distant existence.
Tagawa: It's not just the countryside that's disappearing, but many people in the city can't find the city they were when they were kids, it's like a "home" that is slowly disappearing.
Liang Hong: The time of the antique street is a forgery, and although the original street is old, the time is real. Development is inevitable, but how we develop. My home may not be that important for development, but it's very, very important for me because maybe there's a chair here that my grandfather sat on. In fact, the meaning of man is constructed in this chair.
Tian Chuan: Does your son no longer remember the Henan dialect?
Liang Hong: He doesn't like to talk about it, he doesn't think Liang Zhuang has anything to do with him, he thinks it's my mother's home. My son said that I actually don't feel like home, if we must say hometown, in fact, hometown is a very homogeneous existence. There is no such personalized village as before, and there is no hometown.
Edits: 612
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