Yuan Yuan: "My Children and My Daughters" focuses on the internal ecology of different families

Writer Yuan Yuan.

On April 29, nandu reading club invited writer Yuan Yuan to share her latest novel "My Children and My Daughter", as well as her writing, reading and life, which drew 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. He is the author of the novella collection "A Wall Apart", "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.

Yuan Yuan admitted that although the theme of "My Children and My Daughter" is a popular parent-child and educational theme, as a writer, what she wants to write is "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 talked 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."

The transcript of the lecture is the essence

Every child is born an independent person

Nandu: What was the motivation for writing "My Children and My Daughter" in the first place? 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. 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: "My Sons and Daughters" is a realistic novel that cuts to the current social focus and pain points. What issues in education and parent-child relationships are you trying to explore in your novels?

Yuan Yuan: First of all, I would like to state that I am not an education expert, I am just a fiction writer. I can only share with you some of the thoughts I made in the process of writing this novel.

Let me give you a comment on the problems that parents may face in general. The question is, what should parents do if the child is disobedient? 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 in any way, 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 it? Parents have responsibilities such as parenting, guardianship, companionship, guidance, and education, but parents are not the gods of their children. Each child is independent, has his own personality, thoughts, preferences, preferences, and has his own direction in life. If we agree with this 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: You used to be a journalist and editor, and now you are a full-time writer, how did you complete the transformation from a media person to a writer?

Yuan Yuan: Yes, I have only been writing at home for the past two years. I used to be a working woman, working mainly as an editor at a newspaper.

I've probably been writing novels for 20 years. My writing path seems to go a bit with nature. I remember going to a seminar about writing. There were many literary big names at the conference. Before, I mainly wrote essays in the newspaper, 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, have worked in different newspapers, and have a lot of experience. I remember working at one of the newspapers, the pace was very fast, and it exposed me to all kinds of interesting characters. They all came into my novels in different forms, which was really helpful for my writing.

Nandu: You live in Chengdu, are most of the novels also based on Chengdu as the background of the story? What aspects of the city do you think are particularly worthy of a writer to write about?

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. 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.

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 live according to your 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 famous 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 small streets and alleys, 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 joked with my husband that they ate a lot better than we did. I think Chengdu people will enjoy life as much as possible, and they are very good at many issues. Of course, Chengdu people also have many shortcomings that have been criticized, which does not need to be denied, such as not being too punctual, lazy and so on. Whether it is a group or a city, it has its many faces. This is the real Chengdu.

The next step focuses on the elderly

Nandu: Please talk about the writing plan for the next work.

Yuan Yuan: 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, the current family structure in China and the relationship between family members have also changed a lot compared with the past. In the past, it was a big family, and even paid attention to raising children and preventing the elderly, these things are being replaced or dissolved by newer concepts. 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.

Nandu: Please recommend a few books that you like.

Yuan Yuan: Of course, I like a lot of books. First of all, I would like to recommend Dostoevsky's "Brothers Karamazov" to you. This is a great work that touches the soul and explores the soul problem, and Dostoevsky's language is also very infectious and impactful. I recommend reading Russian literature.

In addition, I think it is better to read a wider range of books, and I should read some philosophical books. I recommend a book called The Story of Philosophy. By telling the stories of great philosophers from ancient times to the present, it sorts out the context of philosophical development for us and leads us into the world of philosophy. If you become interested, read the original works of the philosophers and explore them more deeply.

Moderator/Writer: Nandu reporter Huang Qian