Writer Yuan Yuan: I want to write about the internal ecology of different families

On April 29th, Nandu Book Club had the honor of inviting writer Yuan Yuanjinqun to share her latest novel "My Children and My Daughter", as well as her writing, reading and life. This is the fifth online lecture organized by "Nandu Reading Month", which has a down-to-earth topic, a cordial and easy-going discussion atmosphere, and the love of books and literature stirred up by writers and readers in the exchange, which has drawn a successful end to the "Nandu Reading Month" series of activities.

Yuan Yuan is a contracted writer of Ba Jin Literature College and Chengdu Literature College. There are many novels and novels published and published, and his works have been reprinted by many anthologies and selected for various annual anthologies. He is the author of the novella collection "A Wall Apart", "The Bachelor Dong Progress", "Pure Coincidence", and the novel "Family and Hatred".

The latest novel, "My Children and My Daughters", uses "Little Ascension" as the introduction to unfold the emotions and reactions of a class of students in the sixth grade of a school and their families in this incident. The work involves lady education, exam education, quality education, partial subjects, study abroad, bullying, school choice, single-parent families, full-time mothers, buying a house, early love, only children and other aspects of education and family problems, is a book close to reality, directly hit the pain points of current education, but also a warm and healing book.

At the online sharing meeting, Yuan Yuan admitted that although the theme of "My Children and My Daughter" is a popular parent-child and educational theme, as a writer, she wants to write about the "internal ecology of different families" and "the inner world of different parents and different children". She said that in family education and parent-child relationships, parents should first treat their children as an independent person, and with this premise, many conflicts will be solved. As a writer living in Chengdu, Yuan Yuan can hardly hide his love for the city. She happily talks about Chengdu's multifaceted nature, calling it a "resilient city": "Whether you have money or not, status or status, stable or unstable work, you can find your own 'cup of tea' in Chengdu." ”

Partial transcript of the webinar

Every child is born an independent person

Nandu: First of all, I would like to ask Teacher Yuan Yuan, what was your motivation for writing the novel "My Sons and My Daughters"? Do the main characters in the novel have archetypes in their lives?

Yuan Yuan: I have been paying attention to the theme of this novel for many years. The pressure and hard work of Chinese parents is one of the best in the world. In the process of becoming a parent, many people have many stories and many feelings about life. This is not just an educational experience and experience, but really a sense of life. So I want to write a story like this.

This theme is a parent-child theme and an educational theme, but as an author, what I want to write about is the internal ecology of different families, what kind of internal ecology there is, and what kind of educational environment there will be. In addition, I also want to write the inner world of different parents, and I also want to write about the inner world of children. That's why I wrote this novel.

Nandu: In terms of genre, "My Sons and Daughters" is a realistic novel, and it is also a novel that is very relevant to the current social focus and pain points. When you wrote this novel, what issues did you try to explore in terms of education and parent-child relationship? Can you share your thoughts on these issues?

Yuan Yuan: First of all, I would like to state that I am not an education expert, I am only a fiction writer, and I am not qualified to answer authoritative answers to various educational questions. I actually wrote this novel just to present different stories of different families. This question, I can only share with you some of the thoughts I made in the process of writing this novel.

Let me share my own views on the problems that parents may face in general. The question is, what should parents do if the child is disobedient? In fact, this problem is placed in different families, because the family background, the environment is different, and because the children are different individuals, the way of coping is definitely different. But no matter how you deal with it, there is a common premise, that is, every child is an independent individual. You can't deny his independent personality because they are still growing up and are not mature in terms of cognition, world view, and values of things. Every child is born an independent person.

A friend who did psychoanalysis once said to me that parents were only symbolic. How to understand this sentence? I think that everyone is in some sense brought into this world by God. Yes, parents have responsibilities for parenting, guardianship, companionship, guidance, education, etc., but in any case, parents are not gods for their children. Each child is independent, has his own personality, thoughts, preferences, preferences, and has his own direction in life. If we agree with such a premise, we will talk about how to get along with children, how to guide them, what we should do when they have problems, and there may be many conflicts, and we will find a suitable way to resolve them.

Chengdu is a resilient city

Nandu: Mr. Yuan Yuan used to be a journalist and editor, and is now a full-time writer. How did you make the transition from a media person to a writer? How has the experience of a journalist and editor influenced your writing?

Yuan Yuan: Yes, in the past two years, I have specifically stayed at home to write, as a "treasure of the town house". I used to be a working woman too. I worked mainly in the supplement of the newspaper as a newspaper editor.

In fact, I have been writing novels for a long time, probably 20 years. Every writer who goes down the path of writing probably has their own wonderful story, and my story seems to go with the flow. I remember going to a seminar about writing. At that meeting, there were many big names in the literary circles at that time, and there were many famous writers. I was the editor of the newspaper who was invited to audit. Before, I was mainly writing essays in newspapers, but after attending that symposium, I thought I could also write novels and tell stories. Then I started writing novels, publishing them in magazines, and publishing books when appropriate. Of course my writing is quite slow.

The profession of editing has exposed me to many different, diverse people. I live in Chengdu, and as you know, Chengdu is a city where the media is quite developed. I have worked in different newspapers and have a lot of experience. I remember when I was working at one of the newspapers, this newspaper was a very large newspaper in Chengdu, the rhythm was very large, and it also exposed me to a variety of interesting characters. They all came into my novels in different forms, which was a really helpful help to my writing.

Nandu: Teacher Yuan Yuan lives in Chengdu, do you most of the novels also use Chengdu as the background of the story? What do you think are the characteristics of the city of Chengdu and the people who live in Chengdu that are particularly worthy of being written by a writer?

Yuan Yuan: Yes, the city in my novel is called Bazhou, and its prototype is Chengdu. Some of the landscapes written in the novel and the human geography involved are all owned by Chengdu.

Now the city of Chengdu seems to be quite famous. I sometimes joke with my friends that it is because the media in Chengdu is developed, and Chengdu people are too good at praising themselves, so Chengdu is very famous. Of course, the characteristics of Chengdu are also very distinct, slow pace, fun, delicious, beautiful and so on.

I think Chengdu is actually a multi-faceted city, it has a slow side and a fast side. People say that Chengdu has two parallel worlds, slow is very slow, fast is very fast. Just like the newspaper I just mentioned, the pace is quite fast, the reporter is basically on standby 24 hours a day, running out in the middle of the night, and many things are done in succession. At that time, there was a female reporter in our department, who often slept in the office at night in order to catch up on the manuscript, squinted, and went out to interview again the next morning.

Chengdu also has a characteristic, it is a city full of resilience. Whether you have money or no money, no status, stable or unstable work, you can find your own "cup of tea" in Chengdu, and you can live according to your own better state. This is one aspect of chengdu that I prefer. Even if you are a person who is not very successful according to secular standards in Chengdu, you may live a very comfortable and self-sufficient life. He Duoling, a well-known painter in Chengdu, once said: "I like small wealth and peace." His words can very represent the characteristics of Chengdu people.

Sometimes my husband and I go out for a walk in the evening, and we often see people who open small shops on both sides of the alleys, and they take a small table and put it on the edge of the street, and bring out their own food to eat there. I found them to eat heartily. I also joked with my husband that they ate a lot better than we did. I think Chengdu people, they will enjoy life as much as possible, and they are also quite optimistic on many issues. Of course, Chengdu people also have many problems that have been criticized, and there is no need to hide this, such as not being punctual, being lazy and so on. I think whether it is a group or a city, there are many aspects. This is the real Chengdu.

Nandu: Tell us about your writing plan for your next work.

Yuan Yuan: After the small story of "My Sons and Daughters" was said, many people thought it was a hot topic. In fact, when I was writing, I didn't write because it was a hot topic. I thought it was a serious subject, I thought it was worth paying attention to, it was worth writing, and I wrote such a novel.

My next novel may also be considered a hot topic. But it is also because it is worth paying attention to and should be written, that I have written. This is the theme of old age. Now that China has entered the elderly society, the current elderly and the future stubble into the elderly are very different from the previous elderly. Moreover, at present, our family structure in China and the relationship between family members have also changed a lot compared with before. In the past, it was a big family, and even pay attention to raising children and preventing the elderly, these things are slowly being replaced or dissolved by newer things. Therefore, the old age life, the problems encountered by the elderly, their state, I think it is very worthy of the writer's attention. As for when to write it, I don't know, because I do write quite slowly.

Recommend "The Brothers Karamazov" and "The Story of Philosophy"

Readers' questions: Today's event is the last online lecture of "Nandu Reading Month", please ask Teacher Yuan Yuan to recommend us a few books that you like.

Yuan Yuan: I think reading is a particularly happy thing. I once told a friend that whenever I was tired of writing, or when it was difficult to write, I thought, if I don't write, I will be a reader, that is really a very happy thing. My ideal in life is to sit in a big room of books, like a library, and I want to read which books to read.

Of course, the books I like are really quite a lot. First of all, I would like to recommend Dostoevsky's "Brothers Karamazov" to you. It's really a great work, a work that touches on the soul, that explores the soul, and Dostoevsky's language is also very contagious and impactful. It should be said that Dostoevsky was a great writer, and the Brothers Karamazov is also a particularly weighty work.

When it comes to Russian writers, there must be more than just Dostoevsky, such as Tolstoy, Shohorov, Pasternak, etc., whose works are worth reading. I remember once chatting with a writer friend who admired Russian literature. He has an analogy that in the world of literature, Russian literature is the torso, and everything else is trivial. Whether or not this statement is appropriate, we must admit that Russian literature is a very important part of world literature. I recommend reading Russian literature.

In addition, I think it is better to read a wider range. I think Chinese should read some philosophical books. Some friends will think that philosophy is more advanced and profound to read. I recommend a book to everyone, it is beautiful, but also helps us to understand the entire history of philosophy, this book is called "The Story of Philosophy". It combs the veins of philosophical development for us by telling the stories of great philosophers from ancient times to the present. We can see that the philosophical world is as bright as the literary world, and philosophers have different personalities, and their living conditions are different from each other. This book can lead us into the world of philosophy, and if you become interested, read the original works of the philosophers and read and explore them in more depth.

Nandu reporter Huang Qian