Going to the Peasants' Hearts and Minds- Reading Li Chunlei's Long Reportage "Peasant Academicians"

【Guangming Shushu】

Author: Wang Hongjia (Deputy Director of the Reportage Committee of the China Writers Association, Vice President of the China Reportage Literature Society)

Rural revitalization is on the way, consolidating the results of poverty alleviation and preventing the return to poverty is still a major task at present. Li Chunlei's long-form reportage "Peasant Academician" was published by the Yunnan People's Publishing House at this time.

The "peasant academician" written in the work is Zhu Youyong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. The work shows zhu Youyong's selfless spirit of being on the front line of poverty alleviation in Lancang County, Yunnan Province, after serving as the chairman of the Yunnan Science and Technology Association and the honorary president of Yunnan Agricultural University, and writing an agricultural scientist who "wrote papers on the ground".

Li Chunlei's reportage pays special attention to "beauty", emphasizing the conciseness of words, the beauty of rhetoric, and the rhythm that can be read and recited. Efforts to elevate the text from documentary to admirable have gradually formed his narrative style. This work, while writing that Zhu Youyong and the Lahu peasants on the banks of the Lancang River jointly overcome difficulties, also vividly depicts a colorful picture of ethnic customs -- Zhu Youyong is a Han Chinese, born in a minority settlement, and has been immersed in customs such as lusheng dance, cigarette box dance, bamboo pole dance, mountain songs, and grass-eating tobacco since he was a child, and has a deep childhood memory of colorful dances and costumes. The first half of this work, with Zhu Youyong's life details such as planting seedlings, cultivating land, collecting dung, drinking fire pond wine, and marrying his daughter-in-law to meet his relatives, depicts the customs, living customs, and spiritual outlook of the people here vividly, and outlines the picturesque and splendid scenes in the border areas of Yunnan.

It is worth mentioning that last year, I also visited Lancang Lahu Autonomous County, and I resonated with the life scene of the Lahu people described by Li Chunlei. Lancang County is the place where the story of the classic old movie "Lusheng Love Song" takes place. The "love song" in the film is so beautiful that it is not imagined by the film's writers. In the years of history, young men and women of many ethnic groups in the Lancang River Basin were free to communicate before marriage, and "Brothers and Sisters" gathered together to sing love songs, and after a period of exchanges, those who were willing to combine with each other told their parents, and the parents presided over the marriage for them. The Lahu have long lived in the mountains and make a living hunting. In New China, they directly transitioned from primitive society to socialist society, so they were called "straight over the nation".

They gained the status of masters in New China, but from the hunting era to the agricultural era, there are still many new knowledge and new technologies to learn. As a young man, Zhu Youyong worked hard to be admitted to Yunnan Agricultural University, and then went to the Department of Molecular Biology of the University of Sydney in Australia to study molecular plant pathology, and after returning to China, he served as the director of the "Key Laboratory of Agricultural Biodiversity and Pest Control" of the Ministry of Education. However, there is still a lot of agricultural science and technology knowledge in the rural areas of the hometown that needs to be popularized. In the middle and rear of his work, Li Chunlei focuses on Zhu Youyong's journey to the countryside to alleviate poverty.

Zhu Youyong first landed on the Artemisia Dam and walked into the village, pig dung and cow dung can be seen everywhere, and "a primitive breath" came to his nose. However, when he was about to leave, the isolated and backward Lahu people wore national costumes and sang hand in hand to bid him farewell, which made him ripple with poetry and emotion.

In the author's pen, a series of difficult poverty alleviation stories come to life.

For example, in the controversy over planting potatoes in winter, Li Nanu, Liu Zapi, Liu Zawa, etc. all believe that lancang cannot grow potatoes in winter. When Zhu Youyong's demonstration field began to harvest, a hoe went down, and the white, yellow and yellow potatoes rolled out, the suspicious villagers all turned dumb. Immediately, the mute turned into a trumpet again. For example, Li Nanu followed the training class to learn to plant linxia sanqi, overcame various difficulties, and invited Zhu Youyong to her house to eat pig-killing rice after earning money. Ribs were stewed in a large cauldron on the adobe stove, the husband was full of wine to have a drunken party with the academician, Li Nanu was invited to sing a mountain song, and the dog drilled through the crowd.

Liu Zapi's family lives in the middle of the mountain, fence house, breathable wind and rain. Zhu Youyong's training class in the middle of the mountain brought popularity, and Liu Zapi expanded the kitchen and set up a greenhouse in the open space in his backyard. Flowers and grass were planted around the greenhouses and fences were placed around them. The outside of the fence is full of vegetables, bunches of papayas, and beans full of branches. He also learned to make ten dishes with potatoes, and guests couldn't help but praise them when they ate them.

Li Chunlei is very attentive to the description of this frontier ethnic area, from the history, culture, customs and other aspects of the pen, the book is full of dense green vines of the log cabin, the roof of the golden gourd, the roaring bonfire, the man who blows the reeds, the hostess who steps on the dance, the melodious singing that echoes from time to time, it seems to bloom a colorful flower, filled with fragrance. The whole book not only truly describes academician Zhu Youyong's scientific poverty alleviation, but also richly depicts the integration and progress of many ethnic groups in modern society in this region.

With the help of the team led by the academician, Liu Zawa, who was poor and decadent in the past, changed her name to Liu Mingsheng, no longer smoked and drank, but studied technology with her heart. The author gives a very emotional depiction of this Lahu youth: "In the morning when the sun was shining, in the moonlit night, he sat on the roof, blew up the reeds, and sang joyful songs... Lusheng and singing, painted his affection and hope all over the mountains, like the rainbow in the sky, like the stars in the sky. ”

In the strong national customs, the book leads readers to see the various planting industries taking root, sprouting, blossoming and bearing fruit in the frontiers of the motherland. The former winter idle land has become the current golden field. "In this plateau pure land, all kinds of vegetables can be grown, potatoes are the leading big brothers, green peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, rapeseed, loofahs are brothers and sisters. Everyone is happy here, growing up and maturing..." At the end of the story, Lusheng blew again, and the love song of "Wedding Vow" swirled in the air. "That's the love of life, that's the romance of life." The whole Artemisia Dam, Hengduan Mountain, and Lancang River sang and danced. ”

Throughout the book, it can be found that Li Chunlei wrote "Peasant Academician" and also paid special attention to reporting the living conditions of ethnic minorities in Yunnan in the new era. Due to the problems left over from many factors of geography and history, the development of the eastern and western parts of the mainland is unbalanced, and at a time when common prosperity is becoming more and more important to the country and the people, how to help the western region develop rapidly requires industrial revitalization. Industrial revitalization needs the support of science and technology, and science and technology needs to be promoted to workers. This is the significance of Zhu Youyong, a peasant academician, and also the significance of Li Chunlei's enthusiastic writing of "Peasant Academician."

Guangming Daily ( 2022-05-02 07 edition)

Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily