About the Author
Nie Zuoping, male, born in 1969 in Fushun, Sichuan. He is a member of the Chinese Writers Association. He now lives in Chengdu and is engaged in professional writing. He has published more than 40 works of various types.
A few days ago, I received a letter from Ren Yanjun, editor-in-chief of "Language Newspaper", and I learned that "Language Newspaper", as one of the well-known media in China, has now been established for 42 years. On the one hand, this shows that the "Language Newspaper" has a long history, and on the other hand, it also shows that the children of our generation who grew up reading the "Language Newspaper" are now more than half a hundred years old.
More than thirty years have passed since I became a reader of the Language Newspaper. Looking back at yesterday, the past is a burning love year related to youth and literature.
When I first met the "Language Newspaper", I was still in the third year of junior high school in a small town called Anxi on the shore of the Tuo River in southern Sichuan. At that time, the Language Newspaper was a tabloid with sixteen open, eight or sixteen editions. Of all the pages, the one I like most is "Publication Garden". In each issue, there are always two editions that publish several middle school students' work. At the time, I was learning to write—funny to say, I started with old-style poetry and historical fiction. I once wrote a tens of thousands of words of historical fiction about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in my homework book—of course, most of it was made up out of thin air. Seeing Xian Siqi, I also hope that my works will appear in the "Publication Garden", but I have submitted two or three drafts before and after, and they are all stone sinking into the sea - it is strange not to sink the sea. Those exercises make people blush when they think about it.
Soon, I went to high school in Zhao Hua, another town on the banks of the Tuo River, about ten miles from Anxi. That's when I started to get in touch with modern poetry. The miniature reading room of the school has a book of poems and stars. At the bookstore in the town, which mainly sold stationery and clothes, I bought the first collection of poems, and now I can't remember whether it was Gong Liu or Hu Di's work. All in all, since then, I have begun to learn to write modern poetry and began to read Kitajima and Shuting.
In the Spring Festival of the second year of high school, when I went home for the Chinese New Year, I met Cheng Shaobin and Chen Junbo, who were attending middle school in the county, three literary teenagers who were obsessed with poetry, and decided to set up a poetry club and start a journal.
One weekend two months later, Cheng and Chen suddenly jumped off the evening bus from the county seat to Zhao Hua and came to me, cheng holding a large bag in his hand. Walking to the secluded place, he opened the zipper and showed me: it was a mimeograph machine inside!
That evening, at my quarters (where my father worked, he found a house for me and my brother in the district office), we began to compile and print the magazine. The name of the magazine and the name of the poetry club were taken by me, from a poem by Psyllium: "Three Primary Colors".
It was a pleasant and busy night and we didn't sleep all night. At dawn, the journal was not finished. Therefore, he shifted his position (the district office was full of people, afraid that the adults would see and ask questions), and moved the machine and paper to Cheng Shaobin's aunt's house. It was a deep alley, and few people came. In the afternoon of the same day, the mimeographed 40-page magazine was finally bound into a book, and only about 30 copies were printed.
A few months later, one day, a senior classmate suddenly stopped me, and he said: Nie Zuoping, "Middle School Student Literature" published your poem. I was half-convinced of this, afraid that he would tease me. He was anxious and said: You wait, I will show you - at that time, the largest number of people in the school subscribed to the "Language Newspaper", followed by the "Literature for Middle School Students" sponsored by the "Language Newspaper". When he took a look at it, it turned out to be the July and August 1987 joint issue of "Poetry Extra Large". My two poems, "The Great Wall Puppet Pick" and "Loess Introduction", are really impressive. Seeing lead-printed self-name and lines of poetry, my head was a little dizzy, like I was drunk.
That's my debut. Two months later, I received thirty dollars in manuscript fees, which once again caused a sensation. At that time, the teachers who had just graduated and were assigned to the school had a monthly salary of thirty or forty yuan. My father often wrote some newsletters for the city newspaper and the provincial rural newspaper, and most of the manuscript fees were five yuan and six yuan. For this reason, my grandmother proudly pointed to my neighbor and said that he was better than his old man. His old man only got a few dollars, and he got thirty dollars.
Later, I learned that the reason why "Middle School Student Literature" published my poem was because Cheng Shaobin sent our "Three Primary Colors" to Zhao Jiangong, the editor-in-chief of "Middle School Student Literature".
For this reason, since then, my manuscripts have been sent to Teacher Zhao. What I remember deeply is that whether the manuscript is used or withdrawn, Teacher Zhao will reply to the letter. His credit brush is written on a kind of rice paper called Ming Ba xing, which is very elegant and beautiful.
From my sophomore year of high school to my junior year of high school, I published two poems in Middle School Student Literature (one of which was included in the Selected Poems of Young Boys and Girls after being commented on by poetry critic Huang Bangjun) and two reviews (one was "Essays on Western Poetry" and the other was "Literary Meditations"). My correspondence address is attached to these works, and I have received hundreds of letters from readers for this purpose. Among them, Zang Yanjun of Qingdao, Shandong Province, has always kept in touch and is still a very good friend until now. The flourishing of literature and the great influence of "Literature for Middle School Students" at that time can be seen from this.
In 1989, the college entrance examination failed, and I could not get to the county town to study cram schools, and continued to submit articles to "Middle School Student Literature". One day, I received a letter from Teacher Zhao Jiangong, which was also a dashing book, but the content made me very sad. He said that for various reasons, the Journal of Secondary School Students was discontinued. I read the letter again and again, and my heart was in a panic. When the class was over, the teacher didn't listen to a word of what he said.
Half a year later, when I entered college, my high school career ended. I also changed from a literary teenager to a literary youth. The road ahead is still very bumpy and long, but the initial support of "Middle School Student Literature" for me will always be remembered. I remember that because of the works published in the "Literature of Secondary School Students", the newspapers in the city also had a blue eye on me, and published several essays in a row, and it was almost no middle school students. Wang Xiaoqian, who was still a deputy township chief in a township at the time (now vice chairman of the Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a well-known writer of small novels), saw some of my works, took the initiative to write a letter to contact me, and wrote my first comment for me.
As a publication of the Language Newspaper, Middle School Student Literature only existed for a few short years, but it not only influenced a generation, but as far as I know, a large number of writers started from here. For example, Qiu Huadong, Ma Xiaoxiao, He Baoguo, Lu Qiaomei, Zuo Chunhe, An Wulin, Shi Yonggang, Jing Xufeng... Wait a minute. I think that although the print media is at a low ebb today, if the "Language Newspaper" re-establishes "Literature for Middle School Students", there must still be room for its development and existence value.
2020.11.5