"Blind date corners are the least loveless places." Cao Zaifei has expressed this many times.
It's been four years since he broke into a blind date corner to read love poems. In four years, the epidemic began and the epidemic eased. The crowds are crowded and the flow of people is sparse, and the popularity has revived again. Like many places, Shanghai People's Park has a permanent immutability. Cao Zaifei, who is looking for a marriage for his children, meets in a small fan-shaped square on the weekend, they guard each other's boundaries, do not disturb each other, do not invade each other, and then meet again the next weekend.
On February 11, Cao Zaifei came here again, and there was a drizzle in Shanghai. This is the second time he has returned to the blind date "stage" after the new crown epidemic was released. Most parents or blind date agents for their children are concentrated in the sheds on both sides, and some people hold marriage billboards with umbrellas.
Marriage billboards are marked with height, age, annual salary, RV, hukou, and even the first few digits of the ID card to determine whether it is a native Shanghainese or a new Shanghainese. In the blind date market where people are quantified and objectified, no one talks about love. Shanghai girl Xiao Cake was the first post-90s to join Cao Zaifei's poetry reading camp, and she met three or five friends, wearing black cultural shirts, carrying a small bench, holding a megaphone, and reading North Island poems here.
As a marriageable woman with Shanghai nationality, Xiao Cake does not plan to cater to market standards, "The old people are like setting up a street stall, they feel terrible, they just want to stay away." ”
The seasons change, and in one corner is a reader who sings about ideal love, reading Yu Xiuhua's "I Love You", "telling you the difference between rice and tares, telling you a tares, and worrying about spring." More corners are clearly marked price of survival of the fittest, "How much is your son's annual salary?" "Have you bought a house?" "Height is not good!"
Different voices coexist here, seeking to understand each other, and the square seems to echo the permanent human question: What is love, and does marriage need love?
Cao Zaifei reads poetry and does not disturb each other with the old people on a blind date. Photo courtesy of interviewee
"Who listens to you read poetry?"
The blind date corner in Shanghai People's Park, which has existed for more than 20 years, and Cao Zaifei, who is married and has a baby, originally had no intersection.
Until the spring of 2019. In April, Cao Zaifei walked into People's Park, on the left hand side of entrance No. 5, a small fan-shaped square, covered with white A4 paper, people strolling around with the same market principles, household registration, income, real estate, one by one, and then matched with the scores in their hands to complete a round of "preliminary screening".
If it can't be placed on the ground, it hangs on a tree, and the plastic film is sealed with a resume, for example, "Northeast female 87 years 1.61 meters, full-time undergraduate unmarried, Ma Jia annual salary of 600,000 yuan, Hangzhou school district room, Pudong serviced apartment, two suites without loans." The six-line characters are arranged symmetrically on the A4 paper, and below are two lines of smaller characters, "Seeking: male bachelor degree or above 1.72 meters above 37 years old, annual salary of about 200,000 yuan," and the sentence at the end of "career civil servants can lower the requirements" is underlined. Finally, the phone number of the woman's father was left.
Blind date corner marriage advertisements are hung on branches or fences if they cannot be placed on the ground. Photo courtesy of interviewee
People's Park is the geographical center of Shanghai, and many people think of the People's Park as a blind date corner, which is like a lively market every weekend, with wedding advertisements placed on the ground, spread on umbrellas, hung on trees, and held in hands and hung on the chest. Advertisements are also zoned, "International Zone" (with overseas study background), "Local Area" and "Other Zone".
"Of course, none of this has anything to do with love." Surrounded by the crowd, onlooker Cao Zaifei had a sense of absurdity. If your own information is displayed here, it may not be cared for, or it may be a "defective product" that was eliminated in the first wave.
As an artist, he has a natural urge to respond, and he thinks of several ways to "intervene" in this space, sketching in this space? Not suitable, making a documentary here? will be excluded. In the end, he did this, he read poetry here. Integrate his voice into the blind date corner, "Let's perform on the same stage", and make his sincere different voice. He felt that this was the sound that had a temperature, and at the same time it was needed in this era.
It was April, and he was bearded, wearing a black shirt and jeans, standing on a 20-centimeter-high white wooden bench, holding Eliot's "The Wasteland" and reading aloud. "April is the cruelest month, and cloves grow on the wasteland, mixing memories and desires, and letting the spring rain urge those dull roots."
The first time he read aloud in public, Cao Zaifei was a little nervous, because he did not have a microphone, and his voice was easily drowned out in the noise. Coupled with the strange eyes of the people around him, he "ran" after reciting for half an hour. In half an hour, he finished reading nearly thirty pages of "The Wasteland", and sweat dripped wet the pages.
In April 2021, after the epidemic, Cao Zaifei returned to the blind date corner, and it was very appropriate to read Eliot's "Wasteland" in April, which fits the first sentence of the poem: April is the cruelest month. Photo courtesy of interviewee
In the past half hour, some people said whether he was mentally stimulated, whether he had a brain problem, and many people asked him if he used reading poetry to go on a blind date, and he replied no, "just reading poetry." A man of about thirty years old who passed by said: People only listen to you about houses and tickets, who listens to you read poetry. In the past half hour, Cao Zaifei had a feeling of "being mentally ill".
Later, he brought a bee megaphone, printed more than 50 classic love poems and made plastic seals, which is very similar to the production standards of marriage advertisements. These poems are arranged around a small white wooden bench, about seven or eight square meters.
So many "advertisements" in front of a person attracted onlookers. A few city managers came over, intending to take away the poems on the ground, and Cao Zaifei asked, why can the marriage advertisement be placed? Love poems can't?
Later, like blind dates, he only had a personal resume at his feet: "Artist Cao Zaifei has been reading classic love poems here every weekend and holiday since April 5, 2019. The remaining 50 or so love poems are stacked next to each other for people to read.
Complaints about him harassing people attracted park managers. Cao Zaifei explained that reading poetry is a beautiful cultural public welfare, and the other party said: Then your voice is a little quieter. There are also blind date agents who dislike him, "They think, we are talking about material things here, and you play elegant with me?" It's humiliating for them, or at least an offense. ”
Why recite love poems here, "in fact, everyone understands, it seems too pretending to say it." Cao Zaifei feels that the way of reading love poems is also simple, direct and crude, "I can't rule out that there is still a little warmth." In the beginning, his plan was to last a year.
Old people who broke the "enchantment"
Whether anyone is listening carefully, Cao Zaifei doesn't mind at all.
Blind date horns have existed spontaneously for more than 20 years and have their own stable ecology. Because the success rate is not so high, parents who come often become "familiar customers", and some elderly people are even seeking marriage for their children from 2019 to 2023.
Naturally, the blind date corner has another function - to become a social place for these elderly people. Cao Zaifei, like them, has different purposes and "goes out at the stall" every weekend. After the initial period of embarrassment and ridicule, blind dates and love poems ushered in peaceful coexistence here.
Cao Zaifei was reading the poem, and the two white-haired old men were browsing the manuscript of the poem on the ground. Photo courtesy of interviewee
Three or four months later, when the heat was over and autumn came, some uncles and aunts took the initiative to stand on the small bench and read their favorite poems.
Cao Zaifei remembers that three or four meters in front of his "booth". A neighbor surnamed Chen would carry a small bench and a teacup every weekend to go on a blind date for his daughter. Whenever they met, they would nod their heads to each other.
THE TALL, CLEAN UNCLE CHEN, WEARING WHITE PANTS AND STRIPED POLO SHIRT, WAS THE FIRST TO BREAK THE "ENCHANTMENT", AND WHEN NO ONE IN FRONT OF THE BOOTH KNEW ABOUT HIS DAUGHTER, HE OFFERED TO READ PUSHKIN'S "If Life Deceived You." "If life has deceived you, do not be sad, do not be anxious, and be calm on melancholy days." After reading, he stepped off the bench and hugged Cao Zaifei. The poems seemed to contain memories of Mr. Chen's youth, and he recommended that Cao fly to a book club in Shanghai.
Another one who impressed him was the enthusiastic Aunt Wang. She seems to be a retired middle school Chinese teacher who gave her son a blind date for 2 years in a blind date corner. Wearing a printed shawl and short carefully groomed brown hair, she read the song "Farewell to Cambridge" emotionally. Cao Zaifei recalled, "Read better than me. ”
The second time Aunt Wang read Dai Wangshu's "Rain Alley", "holding an oil-paper umbrella, wandering alone in the long, long and lonely rain alley." "Full of emotion and full of affection. After reading it, she said she was in a very good mood. Maybe she's been worried about her son for the past two years, but for those three or five minutes, she's just herself.
Cao Zaifei couldn't help but imagine that these knowledgeable uncles and aunts, who were also literary young when they were young, looked at the back of Tong Wei and read poetry with reading glasses, and his heart also surged with a different kind of emotion.
The uncles and aunts who did not stand on the bench were expressing their emotions in other ways. An aunt wearing glasses and a red coat, seeing her favorite poems, seriously took out a pen and paper and copied them on her knees, and she excerpted Wang Guozhen's "As Long as You Have Loved Each Other Once" and Milton's "Eve's Love". The blue ballpoint pen is on the back of a gray cardboard, leaving trembling handwriting. "Talk to you, I forgot all the time; Forget the seasons, and the changes of the seasons; I can't remember all the joy. ”
An aunt is copying Milton's The Love of Eve. Photo courtesy of interviewee
Another aunt put a mascot with the word "Fu" written on it on Gu Cheng's poem "Far and Near". The red mascot blocked the line of the poem: "You will look at me for a while, you will look at the clouds, I think, you look at me very far, you look at the clouds when you are very close." ”
Whether these familiar neighbors or passers-by on one side, Cao Zaifei does not add WeChat with the other party, nor does he seriously discuss love, he is afraid that the scrutinizing gaze and judgment will cause unhappiness on both sides. Reading a poem and excerpting a verse is their only connection and all the communication, and the rest of the time, they don't talk about the details and past of the marriage.
Later, many people, Cao Zaifei did not meet again.
Earthy artist
Cao Zaifei was born in the 70s of last century, a native of Suzhou, Anhui, and there was no "legendary" story in the process of studying, from a small-town youth all the way to an art student, and then to graduate school, and finally joined the Academy of Fine Arts of Shanghai University as a lecturer, with a Shanghai hukou, and became a new Shanghainese. But the ID number is still Anhui, "in the blind date corner this is a minus." ”
After 17 years since he came to Shanghai in 2006, he is still a lecturer. He did not want to meet the world's standards of success, hoping to be a teacher, give good lectures, and simply start a family in Shanghai.
And he did. After working for a few years, he bought a house in the suburbs that was not well located and not very expensive. The wife is trained in art, has a common language with each other, and neither has excessive desires for material things. He takes the normal salary of a university lecturer, and at the same time has a studio, a creative space of his own. Cao Zaifei feels that being an artist is a kind of spiritual expression, investing a lot of energy and gaining little wealth, "which in itself is not cost-effective."
The studio is also in a small room on the second floor of the logistics park, far from the busy suburbs. In addition to attending classes and raising children, he spent the rest of his time immersing himself in the studio and working diligently. Sell a few paintings a year to supplement your life.
He describes his creation as "earthy" and "half coffee, half garlic."
Last year, during the epidemic in Shanghai, during the home isolation, in addition to doing nucleic acid and antigens every day, the rest of the time was pondering "eating", "never been close to the kitchenware every day like this", the frame ran out, he painted on pots and pans.
So, in his home, a large tree grew on the cutting board, the pan was filled with blue sky, a piece of pork belly was depicted on the knife surface, and a cloud floated on the soup spoon and spatula.
During the epidemic in Shanghai, Cao Zaifei painted on a cutting board. Photo courtesy of interviewee
Cao Zaifei said that most of the artists living in Shanghai are relatively international, and their works are clean and foreign. Although he has lived in Shanghai for more than ten years, he still has the fun of the urban-rural junction of small town youth, and he is kind and cute.
In life, he is a simple and easy-going person, often accommodating, compromised, and even indisputable with the world, but always stumbling in art, and does not even care about the eyes of others. This time, he plans to spend a long time to complete the work of reading poetry in the blind date.
How young people want to love
In the blind date corner, young men and women are often absent, what do young people themselves want?
Cao Zaifei posted his behavior of reading poetry to his circle of friends, and many students were attracted.
Shanghai Girl Cake was the first to join. Born in 1992, Xiao Cake works for a cultural institution after graduating from art. Many years ago, she had visited People's Park and passed by the blind date corner, and this time, she also wanted to experience how this unchanging blind date angle would react under the influence of reading poets. So, one weekend, she invited four friends, including her boyfriend, to the blind date corner with their favorite poetry books.
She was also a little flustered. But standing on a small bench and immersing yourself in the purity of reading poetry ignores your surroundings. No one on the side of the road cares what they are doing, and after a long time, children will come to watch. The child crouches next to a small bench, looking up at the cover of the poem while eating bananas.
She expected some reaction from the old people, "Is it me as an enemy, or do you see me as a more interesting thing?" "The result was unresponsive. The expected in-depth communication did not appear, and the course of more than an hour was more curious and friendly, and then kept their distance from each other.
Little cake friends are reading poems, and there are onlookers eating bananas while reading the cover. Photo courtesy of interviewee
On the weekend of the second week, she went again, with a wooden heart's poem, and still nothing special happened.
When they packed up their things and left, they walked past the blind date stall owner and looked at the advertisements on the stall, but still no one spoke to them.
Compared with the marriage conditions on the billboard, as a Shanghainese woman, Xiao Cake felt that "it seems that it is not so difficult to achieve." But I think it's quite difficult to ask for men. Xiao Cake's parents live in the suburbs of Shanghai, which is not convenient for commuting, Xiao Cake, like many Shanghai Piao, rents a house in the city, half of her salary is spent on rent, and the other half is just enough to maintain daily expenses.
Her boyfriend is also an art student, the two have similar incomes, have similar three views, have the same spirit, trust each other, and usually share favorite poems. According to the marriage criteria on the blind date corner, Xiao Bao's boyfriend may only have education, height, and weight that can be pasted on A4 paper. He has no hukou, his annual salary is not high, and he does not have an RV, which may be a "three-nil product".
The boyfriend did not meet the market standards for blind dates, and Xiao Cake's parents did not make these requirements. "Even if they had, I would tell them that I thought it was a bit too much, and I didn't like it." Little Cake said.
Of course, they also face spiritual and material contradictions. Since last year, the topic of RVs has been discussed more frequently than before. Her understanding is that marriage needs to be managed together, even if these quantifiable conditions, the boyfriend cannot meet at present, and will eventually be obtained through the efforts of both parties in the future. "Shanghai housing prices are very high for locals, how can they ask foreigners to have a house immediately, and if it is true love, how can they be directly separated because they do not have these conditions, there is no need for this."
After the cake, another student, Wu Xiang, also joined the poetry reading. She was born in 1998, and the love she perceives from literature is sincere and romantic, but when she grows up, she feels some doubts in reality, "What kind of relationship is it, is it a transaction?" She hopes to go to the blind date corner to spread beautiful emotions and arouse "the understanding of love by uncles and aunts, and don't put so much pressure on their children." ”
She chose Baudelaire's "The Flower of Evil", which contains some bold descriptions and Wu Xiang is somewhat hesitant to read aloud in public. She asked the teacher, is this really readable? Cao Zaifei encouraged her that each poet has a different understanding of love, but it is still a pure expression of feelings. On the weekend afternoon she was reading poetry, three middle-aged men came to read poetry. Reading poetry is reading poetry, without in-depth communication.
Wu Xiang is still in graduate school in school, she feels that it doesn't matter if she is in love or not, it doesn't matter if she is married or not, and it is good to accompany each other with good friends. For the material requirements of the blind date, she feels the same as Xiao Cake, "Good work will not be too bad, there will always be." It's a pity, it's a pity that love has become a transaction. ”
Cao Zaifei's poetry reading activity attracted many college students to participate. Photo courtesy of interviewee
"Make some room for love"
What can such a reading change? Cao Zaifei said that nothing could change.
He does not interfere with others, he does not reason with reason, he does not have grand beliefs, he only wants to read love poems, he does not expect everyone to agree with idealistic love, he can understand the imprint of the era on the previous generation, the thirst for the necessary material things for stability, but he does not accept the exchange of pure materialization. His mantra is to be harmless, not offensive, but "try to make your voice heard and not paralyze yourself." ”
What the artist did, he said, may just be a hopeless romance.
He doesn't talk much about his real love, his wife doesn't read poetry, he hasn't written poetry for his wife, and life is always trivial and trivial. As an artist, Cao Zaifei reads love poems in public, and as a personal person, does Cao Zaifei have the ideal love he sings? He said, "Sometimes we sing the praises of love with a kind of lamentation, reality is always incomplete, and there is no need to seek perfection, but we try to leave some space for the heart and some space for love." ”
Since being interviewed and reported last October, Cao has become popular again. However, the idealism evoked online does not affect the continued popularity of the offline dating market, and the materialization standard remains unbreakable.
Except for the period when the epidemic was stagnant, on other weekends, Cao Zaifei took the subway from home for more than an hour and appeared in the fan-shaped small square as scheduled, rain or shine. He took the activity as a homework.
Suddenly rained, Cao Zaifei borrowed a blue umbrella, and it just so happened that Tagore's "If I Don't Meet You in This Life" poem collection is also blue. Photo courtesy of interviewee
On February 11, Cao Zaifei brought four books of love poetry. In the drizzle, he held his umbrella and spent an hour and a half, reading a dozen poems. Tsvetaeva's "I Want to Live with You", "In a small town, sharing endless dusk and endless bells." "I Am the Flower" by Stolny, "Your life is a great river, rushing with gust; On your shore, I grow beautifully, unseen. Yeats's When You Are Old, "How love dies, how it steps up the mountains, how it hides its face among the stars." ”
An uncle passing by came to look at his billboard, listened for a while, and in between one poem and the next, asked, "Have you been reading here?" Cao Zaifei replied "yes" briefly, and the other party nodded and gave a thumbs up.
Encountering some familiar "old neighbors", Cao Zaifei was still the same as before, nodding to each other and not talking.
He seems to have become part of the blind date.
Beijing News reporter Zhu Qinghua Editor Chen Xiaoshu Proofreader Wang Xin