The "best fighter painter in China", the only professor with the highest primary school degree at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, is gone

At 3:43 a.m. on June 13, 2023, Huang Yongyu passed away at the age of 99. From now on, we can no longer listen to Beethoven with him, we can no longer listen to him talk about how Monet understood light, the boxing match at night has one less spectator, and the jokes he has saved up all his life can no longer tell. On the day of his death, the evening in Beijing was a charming sunset, but unfortunately, no one will explain to us what the "parallelogram sunset" looks like in the future.

After a year of interviews, People published Huang Yongyu's cover story in 2022. In the days since the publication of the manuscript, I still think of him often. I think of every goodbye to Huang Yongyu. Because he was inconvenient to walk, he could only stay on the living room sofa every time and wave at the guests. Once after watching a boxing match together, before leaving, I turned my head to look at Huang Yongyu, who was still in the living room, and he suddenly smiled, raised his right hand high, and waved it like a boxer entered. This later became our way of greeting, like two boxers who agreed to fight next time, reunion and farewell, both waving arms and passing strength. This is the Huang Yongyu I know, a man who laughs when saying goodbye, clenched fists and full of strength.

I am thankful that I had the opportunity to witness the power of a person at the age of 99. On his 99th birthday, Huang Yongyu had just fallen seriously ill, but sitting down to chat, he also sang, he wanted to paint, he wanted to write about the river without worry. The morning after the age of 99, I received a message that he wanted to listen to Beethoven's "Pastoral". This is Huang Yongyu, an inexhaustible vitality. I hope that this power can live in more people, love those partners who give their hearts to you, hate all the bastards who have hurt you, do not believe the lies told by anyone, do not forgive, do not forgive, concentrate on walking your own path, live like a flower, open when you want, defeat if you want, disobey anyone's orders, bloom wantonly under the sun, and live your own life.

Below is an article published in the June 2022 issue of People magazine. This is an article that he loved during his lifetime. When I met him after the publication, he said that I had given him a cradle, and as he said it, he gestured happily, saying that the manuscript turned him into a little baby, which attracted many people to come and see him. This metaphor made us laugh all afternoon, singing "Shake, shake, shake to Grandma's Bridge", talk about hometown, rivers, childhood home, and mother. This is a moment that I have always wanted to share with my readers, because of your kind presence, an old man feels the warmth of childhood at the age of 99.

Today, we republish this article to commemorate Huang Yongyu, who lived with us in this era, and hope that the strength in him and the warmth in you can survive forever.

Text | Li Feiran

Editor|Huai Yang

Photography|Yin Xiyuan (except special marks)

I'll beat him up

Huang Yongyu was the last Chinese warrior, and this statement almost came true. There is a boxing dojo in the courtyard of his hometown, where he learned kung fu from a teacher at the age of 5, skipped school since he was a child, hit a teacher, fought a bully, beat a policeman, and read "The Legend of Jianghu Qixia" in class. When he was 12 years old, he stood under the sandbag shelf and made a decision - Huang Yongyu, a man from Xiangxi, wants to be a knight in this life and wander the world.

However, life took a turn that afternoon when he wanted to be a warrior. Mom suddenly announced that there were too many children in the house, and he had to leave the house, pack his bags, and leave tomorrow. This is a mother's helpless decision and the fate of an era. The family was defeated, his parents lost his job, he left home with his father, and a few months later, the Anti-Japanese War broke out, and later he defected to his uncle, he got out of school in a fight in middle school, and he lost contact with his family and began to wander.

Now he is a painter, author, poet, sculptor, occasional recipe creator and long-time boxing enthusiast. One of the words he hated the most in his life was called "historical inevitability", which he called "fart historical inevitability". The best evidence is himself, and the following two very different life resumes belong to Huang Yongyu:

Huang Yongyu, a native of Phoenix, Hunan Province, is a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Painting, a former vice chairman of the Chinese Artists Association, and three times an official recipient of the Italian government's official order, including the highest rank of the Grand Cross Knighthood. Representative works include woodcut works "Spring Tide" and "Ashima", ink paintings "Mohe" and "Tianwen", the huge mural "Motherland and the Motherland" in Chairman Mao's Memorial Hall, and many works that cannot be classified, the first zodiac stamp monkey stamp of the Republic, the design of Xiangquan wine and drunkard wine bottles, and the character prototype of the movie "Bitter Love".

Huang Yongyu, a homeless man in Xiangxi, loves fighting, skipping school, stealing the quail braincase made by his father, repeating a grade 5 times in junior high school, dropping out of school because of beatings, burning porcelain, making coffins, working as a teacher in elementary school, middle school, and university, painting posters in the AFS during the Anti-Japanese War, writing movie scripts in Hong Kong, hunting, making pipes, and subduing three robbery boys in front of the zoo in his 60s. At the age of 80, he said that he still wanted to organize a team of warriors, rob the rich and help the poor, and seek justice, "better than solving the problem through lawsuits."

Huang Yongyu, born in 1924, is another century-old history of China that is not written in textbooks. He is the most combat-savvy painter in China, the only professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts who graduated from primary school with the highest education, and Chinese the artist with the highest frequency of words "fuck", "bastard", "mongrel" and "little rabbit" in his public works. He said that he had no academic qualifications, so he did not believe in historical periodization in books, and he only recognized two historical periods, one was the new era and the other was the old era. The days that make people safe and happy are called the new era, and the times when people are hungry and afraid are called the old era, "not about the Tang and Han dynasties, not about the chronology."

Huang Yongyu believes in ancient Chinese principles, believes in cause and effect, attaches importance to love and righteousness, pays attention to etiquette and exchanges, and knows the picture of grace, he lives by concrete life experience, and no acquired concept or doctrine is greater than this simple law of life. He has only shouted long live when eating beef in his life, and saw that the supreme leader said "I wish you health". To this day, he still lives like a knight a hundred years ago in his bones, living according to the rules of the rivers and lakes, treating friends sincerely, seeing the humility of the elders, making friends with the three religions and nine streams, admiring the capable, fearing the learned, rescuing the in distress, there is only one kind of person he does not interact with, "it is not okay to harm me", this is the bottom line problem of breaking into the rivers and lakes, "I will beat him".

In two months, Huang Yongyu will be 99 years old, and he should have the appearance of an old man, but he does not. A boxing sandbag hung in front of his studio, and on the writing table lay a pen, a stack of scratch paper, and a dagger. He wakes up early to draw, writes at noon, sees friends in the afternoon, curls up on the couch after dinner, holds a kitten, and watches boxing matches on TV.

People interviewed the old man over the past year, documenting a man approaching 99. The biggest feeling of this year is that Huang Yongyu has always been Huang Yongyu, he has a strong inner strength, greater than the times, greater than fate, greater than pain, big enough for him to reverse the ending, write tragedy into comedy, and turn bitterness into jokes. Huang Yongyu dreamed of encountering ghosts, and he always ran after ghosts, scared ghosts everywhere. His dream is to catch the ghost one day, tickle him, and see if the ghost laughs. Such Huang Yongyu has no kind, he is a Qi Tian Great Sage who can draw, a Monkey King who occasionally participates in the life of the organization.

At the beginning of my acquaintance, Huang Yongyu gave me a business card that he printed himself. He heard that business cards were a symbol of status, and the greater the title, the greater the power, and he was not convinced. He has no phone, no unit, no official position on his business card, only a title he created:

Huang Yongyu

Enjoy free treatment of state-paid toilets

(Not available in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan)

In fact, he could have had many real titles, but he was willing to be famous and willing to earn money, but he didn't want to be a leader. He could not drink, hated meetings, hated people playing cards and mahjong, spoke on stage at conferences, and described the "four modernizations" as "three modernizations." After retiring, the junior wanted to apply for a national honorary status for him, but he refused on the spot and disciplined him fiercely. Someone wanted to set him up a "Huang Yongyu School", he called people back from thousands of miles abroad, scolded him for not showing up, "only wolves need to form a party", and Huang Yongyu thinks that he is a lion, a lion does his own thing, and a person can also be king.

Chatting with such Huang Yongyu is a pleasant trip with absolute freedom. We listened to different versions of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony "Pastoral", bet on who would win a boxing match, listened to Beatles discuss "The World Speaks New Words", and studied how spiders lived. During that time, he was preparing a new painting, in which a tiny black spider caught a butterfly with folded wings, called "Value Judgment". In addition to preparing paint and drawing paper, Huang Yongyu also had to answer questions before starting to write: How did a spider win when it was so small that it could eat butterflies, catch sparrows, and defeat opponents far larger than himself?

The painter's answer is time, "The spider does not defeat the opponent by attack, it cannot be beaten, it has patience, etc." Create a dense net, wait for the prey to fall into the net, bind it with the net, prick it with a poisonous needle, and wait until the opponent has exhausted his strength before submitting. This conclusion made us all laugh: it turned out that the spider still understood "Sun Tzu's Art of War", knew that a strong enemy is invincible, and the only way to win is to hide and live, and wait for the enemy to perish on its own.

Sometimes, we also talk about fear. I told him that my greatest fear was that the bitterness would come again. He asked me to remember two sentences: the first is that history does not repeat itself, because change often happens in ways we cannot imagine; The second sentence is that everything will pass, "You have to remember that any suffering will perish, but there is a matter of time before this matter." I can't see that day anymore, but you can, you have to live well, eat well, do your own thing, and live until that day. You may encounter difficulties in this process, encounter a lot of absurdity and ridiculousness... You take it as an observation, what else can people do? How else could there be such a thing? You have to remember them as jokes, write them out in the future, and tell them to people, how interesting it is to live like this! ”

Huang Yongyu does not think about "why", why people do evil, where hatred comes from, people in the rivers and lakes do not ponder this, people's hearts are sinister, right and wrong are changeable, this is the background of the rivers and lakes. Huang Yongyu believes in a philosophy of fighting: there is no need to analyze why the fist is thrown, the focus is on coping, seeing the move, and surviving. Finding a way to laugh at every difficulty, turning pain into a joke, this is his way of living, a methodology for laughing.

When he came home from school as a child, he watched his younger brother fight, and the situation was fierce for a while, and his younger brother was hit with a lot of punches and kicks. In fact, fights are always like this, punched and kicked back, injured while winning. In the end, the younger brother hit his face full of injuries, and finally won, crushing his opponent to the ground, but he didn't know why, he was still punching when he won, crying while fighting. Speaking of this, Huang Yongyu appeared, and the story finally turned into a joke - the older brother pulled away the sad brother and whispered to him the rules of the winner: "Those who win do not cry." ”

This is Huang Yongyu's joke, perhaps, and his belief. Huang Yongyu is a person who "laughs last" in the true sense, and his life may be a reminder that no matter what you encounter, as long as you survive, all the difficulties, despair, and irreversible defeats you experience will become jokes when you live to be 99 years old. As long as people laugh, they do not lose. Huang Yongyu's existence proves an indelible truth of human nature - life is suffering, but people are greater than suffering.

Who came

Seeing that Huang Yongyu only needs to bring his ears, he has prepared a lot of excitement waiting for you. On the day of their first meeting, he had just handed in the latest chapter of his serialized novel "The Wandering Man of the Troubleless River" and walked out of his study holding a walker. Huang Yongyu was very busy. On the living room cabinet was a new painting whose paint had not yet dried, a new poem that was still being changed in circles on the scratch paper on the table, and a hill of books on the side of the sofa, and a bookmark made of paper towels in the middle of the top book, half read. Every sentence he talks has allusions, like a dazzling history lesson. See that little portrait on the wall? That was Zhou Lingzhao's twenty-three-year-old Huang Yongyu, and now the painting is called "Little Fresh Meat". The green onion I ate tonight is Wang Shixiang's method, and the painting of Qu Yuan's "Nine Songs" at the table, pay attention to the final payment: He was eighty years old at the time of the text.

Huang Yongyu's three major hobbies in life are reading, fighting, and Kan Dashan. In the past, when his legs and feet could still run, he liked to ride a small motorcycle to visit the Panjiayuan Market and go to the crowd. He likes to buy things, but he can't haggle, and happily carries a pile of deceived evidence to his house all day: vases with inflated prices, thrushes missing an eye, old calligraphy paintings that are not worthy of their name. Laiko was his young friend, who came to visit him at home, and when he entered the house, he saw strange faces, and he sat in his house drinking tea, watching paintings, and talking about the mountains, each with one of his cigars in his hand. After a lively and lively hospitality, I sent people away only to know that they were all passers-by who bought birds in the official garden in the afternoon.

"You know them?"

"I don't know."

"So what are they doing here?"

"Fun!"

Later fell and injured, chat escalated to an old man's greatest entertainment. He sometimes speaks Cantonese, sometimes Phoenix, and he is fluent in Hokkien and English from Monday to Sunday, which are all language skills he learned while wandering. In other languages he can only use one or two words, such as tamago in Japanese, because it is used to tell jokes, "fuck".

History becomes a concrete joke in his telling. Qi Baishi's snacks for entertaining guests were mooncakes that had been placed for many years, Li Keran practiced writing and practiced a pit in the blanket underneath, and the mural at the entrance of Chairman Mao's Memorial Hall was "The Land of the Motherland" painted by him, and the draft was drawn on waste manuscript paper. At that time, several plans were not passed, and finally found Huang Yongyu, who casually picked up other people's manuscript paper and drew large rivers and mountains on the back, which means "ask the vast earth, who is the lord of ups and downs".

He likes to tell stories of his hometown, the water, lakes, mountains of Xiangxi, and his cousin Shen Congwen. When I was a child, I met only once in my hometown, and when I was wandering, I had no contact, he carved woodcuts, and my cousin saw illustrations in a book of poems and found him. The cousin was always unhurried, and behind the thick spectacle lenses were smiling eyes. After the founding of New China, his cousin wrote to him to persuade him to go north, and he moved from Hong Kong with his wife and seven-month-old son to Beijing to work as a teacher at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Everyone laughed when they met, it was February in Beijing, and a pair of young parents who grew up in the south had no concept of the north and did not wear socks for their children. They later joked that they were incompatible with the north, probably characteristic of the Xiangxi people.

Huang Yongyu and cousin Shen Congwen

Another type of story that I like to tell is my experience at the Academy of Fine Arts. Huang Yongyu's family lived for a long time at No. 2 Dayabao Hutong, a faculty dormitory for the Central Academy of Fine Arts, where painters lived in a courtyard, including two of Qi Baishi's disciples, Li Keran and Li Kuchan, and Dong Xiwen, an oil painter who painted the Founding Ceremony. The children of Dayabao called him Uncle Huang. Other fathers taught the children to sketch, sketch, and adjust colors, and only Uncle Huang played with the children, fighting clams, dancing lions, and holding small flags to take the twenty or thirty children in the courtyard to the zoo.

Huang Dagang is Huang Miaozi's youngest son, when he was a child, he followed his father to Huang Yongyu's house as a guest, and the adults always gathered to watch Huang Yongyu paint together, discuss artistic issues that he couldn't understand at that time, why Laocoön expressed tragedy with extreme beauty, and Rodin's "Gates of Hell" was still superficial compared with reality. But what he remembers is the party between Huang Yongyu and the children, and the boys in the alley all surround Huang Yongyu and learn moves from him one by one. Huang Dagang was also pulled to learn two tricks, on the grounds that school would start immediately, and he would fight to go to school properly. Huang Yongyu went to the school for a parent-teacher meeting, his son went to school and fought, and the first thing he said when he met was: "Did you win the fight?" ”

At that time, Wang Zengqi was also partyed, and he always came to eat at home alone. The dried tofu tied with a rope at home was given wine to Wang Zengqi. The children also know that good food can only be eaten when Uncle Wang comes. Huang Yongyu called Wang Zengqi and asked him to come to his home for dinner, and the person who answered the phone told him that Wang Zengqi was now being branded as a rightist, and Huang Yongyu still said the same thing, let him come to the house to eat. However, Wang Zengqi's story can only be told here, and after that, Huang Yongyu will wave his hand, "Don't say it." ”

At half past nine in the evening, the guests said goodbye to Huang Yongyu. He could no longer stand up to see them off, so he could only wave from afar. The room fell silent, and the kitten jumped on the couch and curled up next to him to watch the evening boxing match with him. Turning off the TV, he sometimes goes straight to sleep, and sometimes he has to write articles by himself for a while. There was only an old man left at the desk, and memories that had been tumbling through the afternoon.

The past gave him a complex feeling, with a lot of feelings in it and a lot of emotional mud. There are many things in the story that he can't understand, and he still doesn't understand it, such as fate. When Shen Congwen discovered Huang Yongyu, he wrote an essay for him, "A Legendary Skill", which predicted the fate he saw in Huang Yongyu, "from strong persistence, self-confidence, intentional obstruction and eternal naivety, together to create an inevitable tragic future."

Shen Congwen wrote at the time that this was their common destiny. Huang Yongyu did not understand this pessimism, at that time it was easier to feel the joy of the new era, he watched the parade in Tiananmen Square, cried so that his eyes could not see the road, and when he saw uniformed police on the street, he felt as cordial as the People's Liberation Army, and he would go to shake hands with people. He engraved joy in his work, and the revolutionaries in the woodcuts were like angels, able to fly. When his cousin persuaded him to go north, he did not realize that his cousin had just experienced a suicide attempt. Every time he saw Shen Congwen, what he saw was the calmness of an old man, life was indeed hard, living in a small house, food and clothing were very tight, but he always responded to everything with a smile and silence. On the evening of 1967, Shen Congwen was still listening to Beethoven.

Gradually, however, new feelings began to be added to his life, starting with joy, confusion, conflict, anger, fear, and a taste of garcinia. This is a color used to paint flower stamens, and it is also a deadly poison. When he was most desperate, Huang Yongyu said that it was better to boil a pot of beef, put garcinia in it, eat it, and life would no longer be bitter.

The daughter came over and whispered: "Dad, don't kill yourself, I haven't been to the orphanage, what should I do?" ”

Huang Yongyu began to say another sentence, "Before death, there are still many ways. ”

Complex emotions accumulate in an old man, the most typical example is "The Wandering Man of the Worry-Free River" (hereinafter referred to as "Worry-free River"), joy, pain, sadness, hope, all emotions coexist in the same work. He likes to write "Worry-free River", at the beginning of the writing in the room laughed, scared his daughter ran to visit him, later while writing while sighing, seventy or eighty years ago, some remember very clearly, some have become completely blurred, recently, writing "Worry-free River" is becoming more and more uncomfortable, his daughter measured his blood oxygen, and when he wrote about the past, the blood oxygen value kept falling. Later, Huang Yongyu fell ill and was admitted to the hospital, and after being discharged from the hospital, he found that the novel could not be delivered. "No Worry River" is about his own experience, and the chapter that has just been published has written about his wandering days, and then he starts writing, and Huang Yongyu will take his family to Beijing. It is at this juncture that the story cannot be written.

When he couldn't write, Huang Yongyu went to paint. The painting is Huang Yongyu's emotional expression, and all emotions are splashed on the drawing paper. His paintings contain sincere joy, innocent hope, and sometimes hatred comes suddenly. The lotus flowers bloom in the nascent sun, and a pool of ink behind them reflects the blazing red of the lotus. Huang Yongyu likes to paint flowers, flowers are the freest self-expression, want to bloom, want to lose, do not have to obey any orders.

When the pen is dropped, the emotions accumulated in the heart are released at the same time, and there is a fierce Huang Yongyu inside, with a quick temper, a strong temperament, a gangster, wanting to fight, wanting revenge, and having a hand. But at times like these, other calming forces emerge. The most common thing that comes to mind is that Huang Yongyu saw Shen Congwen in the alley from a distance, the two people were like strangers, no one greeted, walked towards them, only in a few seconds of staggered sidewalking, the cousin suddenly spoke, in non-standard Mandarin, calmly left an old man's advice: "Be calm." ”

The stars are in the dark

Huang Yongyu plans to hold a 100-year-old painting exhibition in the year of 100, all with new paintings. For this matter, he got up early every day and diligently painted.

He has held such exhibitions twice, 80 Paintings Exhibition and 90 Painting Exhibition, and each exhibition is also using new paintings in the past 10 years. Wang Mingming, the former president of the Beijing Painting Academy, participated in painting competitions with the Hei Man Heini brothers and sisters when he was a child, he sometimes called Huang Yongyu an old man, sometimes called him Uncle Huang, until he also became a painter, and today he is also 70 years old, he understands the uniqueness of Uncle Huang's painting.

"I analyzed many senior painters, but in their later years they were inaccurate. When Huang Yi was in his 60s, he couldn't stand and draw, his health was not good, he was painting on the case, the perspective angle of the painting was not right, and the people who painted were biased. When Cheng Shifa was in his 70s, he couldn't even draw deformed things accurately. Qi Baishi's decay method, but when he was really in his 90s, he was also ineffective, and he was confused in his final work, but he was still painting. Wang Mingming said. Huang Lao challenged a limit of life years, he painted such a large white drawing, and he was able to draw so finely and accurately, he created a miracle for the art world. Painting now is the realm of his life. ”

Huang Yongyu made a draft

There is an unpublished work in the Centennial Art Exhibition that depicts a lonely goose. Huang Yongyu's inscription was like a question to himself, "Yan ah Yan, why did you stay?" ”

He recently published a book of poems from his lifetime, and he illustrated each poem. One of them is called "The Skinned Victor," and "This is my self-portrait." ”

This poem is written in a Greek mythological story, the protagonist is a little shepherd boy who loves to sing, everyone likes to listen to the little shepherd boy sing, Apollo knows, to compete with the little shepherd boy. The little shepherd boy agreed, he forgot that his opponent was God, and Apollo could not lose. The little shepherd boy's singing touched people's hearts, but he was judged to have lost, and the loser was skinned, but he woke up and was still singing.

Hong Kong director Yang Fan saw Wong Wing-yuk's painting for the first time, and "my eyes suddenly seemed to open another door." It was 1979, and he had traveled from Hong Kong to Guangzhou for the first time to see an exhibition of Huang Yongyu's paintings. "At that time, the 'Cultural Revolution' had just passed, everything was gray, and you saw his color, lotus, cherry blossoms, all the flowers, it was equivalent to a hundred flowers blooming, all the colors came out! I was amazed at how a Chinese painter could have so many Western colors in it. ”

"Huang Yongyu's art is completely developed according to his own personality. No matter what period, the anti-rightist period and the "Cultural Revolution" period, he retained his personality. No amount of change has worn away his most fundamental things. You look at the others, some things can't work, then I will be hidden, but Huang Yongyu belongs to those who do not believe in evil. Some things can't work, I'll change it for you, even if I can't change it, you live yours, I live mine, Huang Yongyu is always Huang Yongyu. ”

"Huang Yongyu is an unclassifiable person, he is not of any school, he is himself. He has been wandering in the rivers and lakes, and finally returned to the Academy of Fine Arts, and he did not create according to the routine of the Academy of Fine Arts. Nothing tied Huang Yongyu, and Huang Yongyu was always Huang Yongyu. His artistic achievements are like a big tree, the shape of the tree is very large, some branches are not necessarily beautiful, but it has grown into such a big tree, others have hardly ever seen. Wang Mingming said.

Huang Yongyu still does not know how many works he has, he has not counted, and he does not remember. He just worked every day, creating all kinds of works, he carved woodcuts in the first half of his life, ink paintings in the seventies, line drawings in the eighties, oil paintings and sculptures in Italy in the nineties, and after returning to China he made ceramics and painted purple clay pots, and at the same time, he also wrote poetry, essays, and novels every year. He wrote to his son saying that he had shoveled half of his life one by one, and after the Cultural Revolution, he was drawing one by one, and later, he was writing word by word. That's how it is for the rest of my life.

In 1962, in the dormitory of the Captain's Camp Academy of Fine Arts, Huang Yongyu was carving "flowers" Courtesy of the interviewee

Because of this, he has many forgotten works. Lei Feng's most famous portrait is a woodblock print, which has been widely reprinted as propaganda since its publication, but few people know that its author is Huang Yongyu. His biggest work should be the mural "The Land of the Motherland" in the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall. This velvet embroidered mural is 24 meters wide and 7 meters high, but the audience who enters here rarely pays special attention to the mural, and it is even more difficult to read the work with the intention of reading.

There is another little shepherd boy in Huang Yongyu's house, and another forgotten work. Zhang Meixi used to be a children's writer, but for decades, she was unable to write and took on a lot of concrete life. Their small room did not have a faucet, and she carried a bucket out every day to fetch water, cook, wash clothes, boil the needle in a pot to disinfect, and go to give Shen Congwen injections at fixed points. She loves to sing, loves flowers, and loves beautiful things. Zhang Meixi likes rainy days the most, Huang Heini remembers that every rainy day is like a festival, this mother from the south takes her children to the street, goes to Daoxiang Village to buy two or two rows of forks, eat sweet snacks together, tread water together, and celebrate a rainy day together.

Daughter Huang Heini said that at that time, she always felt that her parents were out of touch with the world. They know the chaos outside, and the whole family still has to dress up and go out on the street together. They don't seem to know how to be sad, they give the children a candy on weekend nights, the two of them go to the Great Hall to dance hand in hand, and they go on dates and watch movies together every week like young people fall in love. Since she can remember, there have always been flowers at home, her mother is always singing at home, and the days outside are turbulent, but as soon as she comes home, she feels that every day is good no matter what.

Sadness only survived in this family for a short time. Shen Congwen went to visit Huang Yongyu, the soil slag fell from the ceiling, the walls were also fallen off the masonry, the room had no windows, and it was dark during the day, Huang Yongyu painted a window on the wall, and the window in the painting was full blooming flowers. Zhang Meixi brought water home from outside, the winter in Beijing was too cold, when she brought it back, the water had frozen into ice, and she couldn't use it at all, but she was still happy, lit a candle, buckled the ice, and the family laughed around it excitedly, "Look, ice lantern!" ”

In 1961, Huang Yongyu's family and kitten Dabai, each with their own joy Photo courtesy of interviewee

For decades, the young parents didn't have a masterpiece, but they were working together on a work. Huang Heiman is 70 years old this year, and he remembers his childhood as books, music and movies at that time, "Have you read "Lonely Raft Across the Pacific"? It was just translated at that time, it was very good-looking, you must read it! And "People, Years, Life", Ehrenburg's, is so well written that we all love to read it. At that time, the albums released by the Beatles, I found them for my father, which was very good..." Later, my daughter brought home the most popular songs in the world from Hong Kong, and Huang Yongyu hid the tape at home. Lock the door, close the window, and the family listens with their ears up. One of their favorite songs is called "Bridge over troubled water."

This work also remained on the students. The painter Guangjun was a student of Huang Yongyu at the Academy of Fine Arts, and to this day, he remembers a phrase that Huang Yongyu taught him. It was 1963, and before graduating to "experience life" in the forest area, Huang Yongyu told him: "You will definitely encounter a lot of difficulties, and then you think, hey, such a difficult thing has happened to me, how interesting this is!" You see how I solved it! Remember, you have to think that way. ”

The books recommended by Huang Heiman tell many stories from different times, different countries, and different backgrounds, but their core is a common theme - the world is extremely simple, and the stars are in the dark.

This is the same vein as cousin Shen Congwen. When Huang Yongyu was discovered, Shen Congwen made a tragic prediction about Huang Yongyu's fate in the article, and his personality would be regarded as distinct in one era and out of place in another. However, he also wrote down how to deal with it:

"You may as well live bravely, without having to be familiar with worldly philosophy, without having to be exhausted to achieve success, without scruples accepting setbacks, without considering gains and losses, and without having to save yourself without effect."

This is the experience left by Shen Congwen when he was 50 years old, and Huang Yongyu's later writing, woodcuts, paintings, sculptures, and all life decisions practiced this unified rule. The novel pays attention to the beginning and the end, his articles are like flowing water, never write an outline, write wherever he wants, and have not even used a "but" in millions of words; Chinese painting pays attention to the use of ink, he directly takes the loofah to brush the color, the brightest white is not tuned, using correction liquid. During the Cultural Revolution, the rebels asked him how to draw the waves dynamically, and his answer was to take a rag, dip it in color, and roll it up. Writing skills, pen and ink are exquisite, he is not unaware of the existence of rules, but he does not care, in Huang Yongyu's works, every line is called Huang Yongyu, living wantonly, they are a new rule: I care about it!

In 1982, Huang Yongyu and Shen Congwen returned to their hometown of Phoenix together. Shen Congwen lived in his uncle's old house and drank soy milk against the mountain. Two people gave lectures at Jishou University. Shen Congwen first came to the stage to say that he had no achievements, that he was not a writer, that he was not an archaeologist, that he was a "fake intellectual", that his greatest talent was that he "wore a single coat for the winter and was not afraid of the cold", and that he could not say anything strong. "I have a habit that I go forward and I don't look back". The second speaker was Huang Yongyu, who waved his hand, "Craftsman, can't speak."

This year, Shen Congwen was 80 years old and Huang Yongyu was 58 years old. In the rainy spring, Huang Yongyu found a friend to listen to the Xiang opera "White Rabbit" together, the protagonist Li Sanniang appeared, and several old people in the yard cried, because the song was, "I don't believe in Fangchun and hate the elderly." ”

This was Shen Congwen's last return to his hometown, and 5 years later, Shen Congwen died. At the end of his life, he revised his prophecy. In the revised edition of A Legendary Skill, he attributes his failures to "everything is unexpected," while Huang's tragic prophecy is "everything is close to overthought." Before dying, Huang Yongyu listened to him reason with his juniors, as long as he did his own thing, "Anything else, time and history will send it away..."

Money, liveliness, quacks

Common keywords for commenting on Huang Yongyu's paintings are: playful, novel, bold, and colorful, but perhaps the most popular achievement of art is money.

Huang Yongyu does not hate poverty, he is poor when he wanders, and he also lives happily. But he also likes to make money, and a lot of his happiness also needs money to achieve, he likes to invite friends to dinner, likes to buy new clothes for Zhang Meixi, he also wants a lot of new things, he has a record player in the fifties, he can wear jeans in the late seventies, and his studio has countless new books and records, all of which require money. This problem was easy to handle when he was young, he had endless strength, and when his salary ran out, he stayed up late and worked overtime to carve woodcuts, earning manuscript fees and continuing to spend. Later, back in Hong Kong, where he lived many years ago, Huang Yongyu worked in the studio from morning to night, and no longer had the strength to carve wood, so he painted. Hong Kong loves colorful paintings, so they are colorful. Hong Kong people like to buy big paintings, the bigger the more valuable they are, so they paint big paintings, and the bigger the paintings.

Wing Po Zhai artistic director Lui Zhenfang met Huang Yongyu in Hong Kong in the 90s, a hardworking new painter who was almost 70 years old. During this period, he painted many works, the most famous of which is "Mountain Ghost", which is very different from his previous works, with bold colors and huge paintings. They give people a strong sense of impact and produce a subversive understanding of Chinese painting: can painting be painted like this?

More bold works signed by Huang Yongyu appeared. The little monkey at home died, and he painted the little monkey on the first zodiac stamp of the Republic, initially worth 8 cents, and later became the most expensive work in the history of stamps, once realizing "one monkey ticket, one car, one monkey ticket and one suite". The winery in his hometown approached him for ideas, and he used the manuscript fee earned from the monkey ticket to give them the design of the bottle, and the most famous wine later was the popular "drunkard wine".

Money, fame, art, and human favor are the boundaries of chaos in Huang Yongyu. The artist paints diligently, but he also sincerely loves money, loves big gems, loves the latest sports cars. One of the signs of being his friend is that he will enthusiastically pull you to the study to see his baby. Inside the drawer was a ruby ring, a watch, and a wad of envelopes that read "Huang Yongyu Receive," the fee sent after each publication, all in cash. But his happiness is limited to showing, closing the drawer, Huang Yongyu is still Huang Yongyu, wearing a trench coat he bought 70 years ago, using a woodcut knife made for him by a small carpenter, and likes to eat pickled cucumbers made by his daughter.

The pinnacle of this chaos is Wanhe Hall. This is Vanity Fair, which has been full of quacks and lakes since its birth. In 1995, Huang Yongyu returned to Beijing again. Before that, he used the money he earned from painting to buy houses in his hometown, Hong Kong, China, and Italy. This time he didn't want to buy it, he wanted to build his own house.

So, Huang Yongyu created a building in the way of Huang Yongyu. He told me that he designed the Wanhe Hall himself, and that he had drawn the original blueprint. I found this blueprint, a doodle drawn on the back of a tape measure box. Liu Yunpet, who is in charge of building the house, still remembers the pain when he received the task, "just a cardboard box with a big palm", Huang Yongyu's request is unquestionable, "just build this house".

The final completion of Wanhe Hall covers an area of 8 acres, which has a 12-meter-wide large studio, 3 acres of lotus pond is planted with all kinds of lotus flowers, one corner of the yard has been equipped with a whole troupe to perform, the other corner can entertain 500 people at the same time to party, the kitchen oven has roasted whole sheep, roasted deer, the parking lot next to it is parked in turn different styles of sports cars, his other means of transportation parked at the door of the studio, is a carriage brought back from Germany, Huang Yongyu occasionally drives the horse around in a carriage.

Wanhe Hall has the following characteristics: freedom, burning money, three teachings and nine streams. Among them, freedom is the most important, the artist pursues freedom in this building, the flowers in the lotus pond are not allowed to be pruned, the weeds are not allowed to be pulled, the dogs in the yard are not leashed, and they can run as they want. The house in the courtyard of the lotus pond is not allowed to use a single nail, everything should be in the most natural way, what the tree grows, and what is used when building the house. The only protesters against this freedom were the construction teams. The foreman quarreled with Huang Yongyu again and again, and they reasoned with him with experience, building a house cannot pursue pure nature, the trees cut down do not have a standard size, one is big and one is small, use them as beams, and the house will collapse.

Huang Yongyu has his own rules in Wanhe Hall. He has a yard of dogs, two of them, one called Science and the other called Democracy. Here, selling paintings does not haggle, bargain and release dogs.

"He has his domineering side, and ordinary painters are embarrassed to talk about money, but he just generously tells you that you can't give him less." Wang Mingming said. "He's in contact with more people, and this is him telling people in his own way, I'm not short of money, I drive a Rolls-Royce over there, you can't take less money to buy my paintings, understand?" To these worldly people, he can only be like this. He knows how to deal with different people, and he is absolutely sincere with many old friends, and there is no money in the work. This is his wisdom. ”

It is a place to witness the most prosperous bustle of Beijing at the beginning of the 21st century. Huang Yongyu likes to party, and people of different identities come and go in and out of Wanhe Hall, painters, officials, businessmen, scholars, cooks, waiters, opera teams, lion dance teams, string bands... Wang Mingming is a person who has seen big scenes, and the words given to him by Huang Yongyu are "lift weights lightly". Throughout the interview, he only couldn't bear it when he recalled the grand occasion of Wanhe Hall: "Hundreds of people came in Wanhe Hall, and I was really troubled when I went for an afternoon." ”

"Like we think so many people, the first day or two of their hearts are messy, but he is happy. Huang Lao is a man, can put and receive. He was overjoyed, the excitement was over, the next morning he still did his own thing, did not delay anything, immediately sank, and the next day he still wrote and painted the same, I think this is his greatest place. Everyone saw him glamorous, but did not see him work hard, did not pass that level in art, and no matter how smart people are, it is impossible for people to reach that realm. He remembered it vividly, but it didn't become a burden. Wang Mingming said.

Many of the works were painted the day after the excitement. His studio had a lift with huge canvases nailed to the wall, and he often painted against one wall from morning to night. He liked to paint large paintings, the studio can hold up to 5 meters of canvas, he has more and more 5 meters high works, 5 meters high lotus flowers, 5 meters high lotus pond, 5 meters high "Spring River Flower and Moon Night".

Huang Yongyu in Wanhe Hall is the most complex moment of an artist - ten art, ten rivers and lakes, ten yellow Yongyu. He only invited the florist who sent him flowers during the Cultural Revolution to cut the ribbon for the exhibition, and since then there has been no ribbon-cutting ceremony, and the invitation card for the eighty paintings exhibition is marked with the words "Greeting Flower Basket". The writer Kitajima couldn't raise money for a magazine, and when he was a guest at Huang Yongyu's house, he talked about how he hit a wall, and Huang Yongyu turned around and went to his room to get a freshly painted painting for him, asking him to sell it for money. In this way, he was also deceived, donating to his hometown, designing a winery, donating money to build a school, the money was gone, and things were not done. He gets angry, paints, curses, then forgets and continues to be deceived.

The most lively place in Wanhe Hall used to be the pavilion at the door, named "Kan Pavilion", where fathers and old folks could come to chat with him, the sea and the sky, and talk. This kind of interpersonal utopia only existed for a short time when no one recognized him, and later learned that the old man who lived here was Huang Yongyu, and Wan Hetang began to be thieved every three or five times, stealing his paintings, stealing his decorations, and finally stealing the plaque he inscribed on Kan Ting. Later, Huang Yongyu became ruthless and carved the words "Kanting" on a large stone. He proudly told me that no one could steal his words again. At the gate of Wanhe Hall, I saw Kanting without a plaque, and indeed no one could steal his work, but next to Huang Yongyu's inscription, there was a bunch of strangers' signatures - "××× visit here".

He also knew that his paintings were no longer just an artistic expression. Now I see an old friend, I miss it so much, I want to send him a painting, sometimes I just agreed to send one, the color has not yet been adjusted, and the old friend standing next to the painting speaks, "Oh, my family is two children." ”

At the age of 80, he rewrote the words of Confucius, "Thirty and standing, forty without confusion, fifty knowing the destiny of heaven, sixty and obedient, seventy doing whatever you want, eighty too thick skin to be invulnerable." At the age of 90, on the three-meter scroll was his emotion: "The world has grown up, and I am old." ”

Two old men

Huang Yongyu painted a picture on the New Year, painted it and tore it, tore it and painted it again, back and forth five times. He invited many people to see it, and every time he got praise, only he disagreed, the colors were bad, the proportions were bad, the details were not good. He couldn't find an artistically equal friend to give him advice, and only the old man was left to make his own judgment before drawing the paper, and a person shaking his head in front of the painting, not good, not good enough.

In the past, his first reader was usually Zhang Meixi, who carved woodcuts at night, and the two of them made coffee and read the works while eating snacks. Next, he would invite friends to look at the paintings at home and give him ideas, and the list was getting shorter and shorter.

There used to be Wang Zengqi on the list, and when he carved "Story by the Sea", Wang Zengqi was not satisfied with it, and Huang Yongyu changed the upturned little boy in it back and forth five times. But he disappeared from the list long ago.

In 1997, Wang Zengqi died. At that time, Huang Yongyu was living in Italy, and his daughter ran upstairs, "Uncle Wang has died!" "He didn't cry or speak. Later, he published a book and wrote about all his old friends, except for Wang Zengqi. Writer Li Hui asked him why, "His weight in my heart is too heavy, and it is difficult to write." ”

He only knew Wang Zengqi from the first half of his life, knew this friend well, met his father, and survived the difficult days together. This used to be the most familiar name for him, looking for Zeng Qi to see paintings, looking for Zeng Qi to eat, chatting with Zeng Qi, looking for Zeng Qi to read his articles. Later, this friendship gradually turned into "heard", heard that he went to the Tiananmen City Tower, heard that he was now a cadre, and Cousin Wen was afraid that Wang Zengqi would not find a job, and wrote a letter to Ba Jin, only to learn later that he was already determined to devote himself to the revolutionary cause at that time.

In this lifelong friendship, Wang Zengqi gradually disappeared. Huang Yongyu was classified as a black painter, and his friends secretly came to visit him in the middle of the night, and the florist also sent him flowers to relax his heart, but he did not see Wang Zengqi. Huang Yongyu was beaten and did not see Wang Zengqi. In the end, the name becomes the loneliest memory of an old man, a puzzle that cannot be asked: Why did his best friend disappear in his darkest days?

They were each other's earliest confidants, and Wang Zengqi wrote to Shen Congwen, who discovered a little genius, "I guarantee with my wealth", and asked the teacher to help find someone to recommend Huang Yongyu's woodcuts. Huang Yongyu wanted to return to his hometown, but Wang Zengqi stopped him and encouraged him to stay and "do fairy-like things in a dog-like life." When he was wronged, Wang Zengqi gave Shen Congwen's teaching to Huang Yongyu: "Do your own thing." You have a pen, what to be afraid of! ”

In their later years, they had no intersection, and Wang Zengqi's letters to friends often mentioned Huang Yongyu, "listening to Wu Zuguang", "listening to Wang Shixiang", and "listening to people". Huang Yongyu's letter reads, "I really miss him", "You miss him, he doesn't miss you, it's also in vain."

Wang Lang is the son of Wang Zengqi, he knew an uncle Huang since he was a child, painted him as a child, and was hung in the room by his father, but he did not meet Huang Yongyu for the first time until a few years ago. Almost everyone said that Huang Yongyu was lively, only Wang Lang said that he was "lonely", "The old man is quite bored now, he has no friends, the people who can talk to him are gone, and no one really chats with him." ”

Huang Yongyu in the bustle is very much like his father. In his later years, Wang Zengqi was very popular, and there were many social activities, including attending pen meetings today, going out to collect wind tomorrow, and endless entertainment, thanksgiving, eating, drinking and eating. "When he is old, he likes to be held, but he also knows how many pounds he has." Lively, but really lonely in the bones.

He also referred to his father as "the old man," "The old man has always had Huang Yongyu in his heart," Wang Lang said, "It's just... For various reasons, he was not able to be as close as in the past, and he also felt quite sorry for this (estrangement). "He has always paid attention to Huang Yongyu's things, and has always affirmed," "But this matter, he can't explain it to Huang Yongyu." ”

After the black painting incident, Wang Zengqi was very anxious and wanted to see Huang Yongyu, but his wife did not agree. She is a careful person, afraid of accidents, and does not allow Wang Zengqi to interact with such people. This is not the only time Wang Zengqi has been weak. The son returned from the countryside to help persecuted friends, and the parents' first reaction was also to fear accidents. Wang Zengqi later wrote that it was his son who taught him what righteousness is. He also tried to make amends, in the 80s, he came to look for him, and on the day of the visit, Zhang Meixi closed the door and was unwilling to come out to see him. Later, Wang Zengqi responded to the relationship with silence, at the crossroads of fate, it was himself who bowed his head, it was himself who retreated, and the loss of this friendship was his own punishment.

When I went to see Huang Yongyu again, I saw the negative qi of another old man. He can recite articles written by Wang Zengqi, including unpublished works, but he hates Wang Zengqi's later works, "He is a person who writes novels and essays, always writes about eating, drinking, stir-frying and cooking, and he has not played many abilities!" He became angry when he said it, "What Zeng Qi wrote later, I don't read anymore!" His voice raised and he began to lose his temper, "My article, Zeng Qi has not read it!" After speaking, he hesitated, thought about it and said, "The later article, (he) should not have read it, and the system has not read it." After another moment of silence, he asked me, "Has Zeng Qi seen it?" ”

But Wang Zengqi has seen it. This is a detail that Wang Lang remembers very well, and in his father's bookcase, there is an old copy of "Along the Seine to the Jade Cold Jade". It was Huang Yongyu's first prose travelogue in Italy.

The absurd days passed, leaving the two old men alone alone. What Huang Yongyu didn't know was that Wang Zengqi went to see almost every art exhibition after he returned to China again. As a general audience, silently buy tickets to go in and see the new works of old friends. After reading it, he was full of emotion, no one shared it, so he could only go home and pour it to his son, teach his son to appreciate Huang Yongyu's lotus flowers, teach him to understand the pen of an old friend, "one stroke to the end, enough to see the skill". He specially went to the memorial hall to see "The Land of the Motherland", and at a glance he saw the intention of the painting, "It is not easy to paint on this occasion, such a painting can completely suppress this kind of scene, atmosphere!" Writing a letter to a friend, I couldn't help but praise "The Land of the Motherland", "This duke has been very sad in recent years. In Wang Zengqi's study, there has always been a woodcut "Gorky" carved to him by Huang Yongyu.

After Huang Yongyu heard this, he stopped talking. Only the sound of running water in the pool in the room. I visited again a few days later, and as soon as I met him, he asked me to see a new painting, which was a light ink lotus flower, entitled "A Dream to the Cave Court". He pointed to the lotus flowers on it, "Zeng Qi will be happy when he sees it." ”

This is an inky lotus flower, and it is also a kind of subject that Wang Zengqi often paints. Many of his works are inky because he only has a box of colored paints. "He won't use ink to thicken it, if this one is shown to Zeng Qi, he will open up." His painting is not open, if he paints if I am there, tell him two words, he will be liberated, this is true. Huang Yongyu said, "If he masters this, he will be happy." ”

"A Dream to the Cave Court"

This pale ink lotus is probably a reply letter to Wang Zengqi. In 1954, Huang Yongyu, who had just arrived in Beijing, visited Qi Baishi and carved a woodcut of Qi Baishi that has been passed down to this day. This woodcut is difficult to start with, Huang Yongyu was 30 years old at the time, he had never carved such a figure, and he did not know how to understand Qi Baishi. Wang Zengqi wrote a special article for him, "A Swarm of Bees", which was never published, and the reader was only Huang Yongyu, and his good friend used words to teach him to understand the painter.

The Wang Zengqi Memorial Hall was completed, and book fans proposed to ask Huang Yongyu to inscribe the Wang Zengqi Memorial Hall, and Huang Yongyu agreed, calling the descendants of the Wang family to the house to get the words. As it was more than 50 years ago, the first thing Huang Yongyu said when he sat down three days in advance was, "Which one is the little tiger?" Wang Lang smiled and replied to Uncle Huang, who he saw for the first time, "It's a tiger now!" ”

Seeing Huang Yongyu, Wang Lang felt that his father's life had many answers. Wang Zengqi only smoked cigarettes, but he had a pipe that he put away as a treasure, and now he finally knew that it was a gift from Huang Yongyu. They went to see Huang Yongyu's woodcut exhibition and looked for the woodcut that Wang Zengqi had changed five times. They took passages from "Worryless River" and made newspaper clippings of Wang Zengqi, which they did not know about their father's past.

It's a friendship bordering on nostalgia. For Huang Yongyu, many names have become complicated over time. An old artist died in Shanghai, and the TV station asked Huang Yongyu to come out and say a few words. The scratch paper left a complicated trace of an old man's revision: "×× was my friend at the Central Academy of Fine Arts", cross out "friend", change it to "colleague", and then cross it out and change it to "peer". The formal reply that ended up on the paper was only a few short sentences, to the effect that the acquaintance was too shallow to talk about.

Many names come back, and a common reason is, "It's all gone." "It's all gone, and now everyone is old. When Wanhe Hall held a party, her daughter took the list of students, one by one to discuss with Huang Yongyu, this person has moved, that person has smashed things at home, but the list can't be counted like this, and finally Huang Yongyu said, let them come, they have beaten me in the past, but these people are not bad.

In his later years, Ding Cong spoke less and less, always sitting in the crowd with a smile, looking at his friends around him, and sitting all afternoon. Everyone laughed at him, "Why don't you talk? Why is it so quiet? Sitting next to his lifelong friend, Ding Cong was old, squinting his eyes and not answering, until the end he slowly explained his silence, "This is life." ”

Life is so long, Huang Yongyu and Wang Zengqi finally did not have the opportunity to sit together and enjoy this silence.

Don't help, don't obey

The Wanhe Hall in 2021 is empty, and the courtyard lives with the elderly "science", and "democracy" has died. The studio door is locked, there is no large canvas in front of the elevator inside, the outer layer of the boxing sandbag at the door has peeled off, and the metal chain that hangs the sandbag has developed a thick rust. The lotus flowers in the lotus pond were all defeated, Liu Yunpet occasionally explained to the new guests how lively it used to be, and the precious lotus flowers that can be counted were originally planted here, the lotus flowers of Daming Lake, the lotus flowers of the Summer Palace, and the lotus flowers of Dongting Lake, but in the end, the nameless wild lotus survived.

Huang Yongyu is still sitting at the big table in the Guyu Hall, and now he needs to put an oxygen inhaler next to him.

The bustle of Wanhe Hall disappeared little by little. In 2002, Zhang Meixi moved back to Hong Kong to live with her son's family, and in the days since, sometimes in the mountains, sometimes in the hospital. There are also more and more friends who are absent from parties, citing old age, illness, and death. In 2009, Ding Cong passed away. At the end of the year, Wang Shixiang died. The following year, Hua Junwu died. Huang Miaozi was discharged from the hospital to find Huang Yongyu to eat, and the two faced the quiet Wanhe Hall, and Huang Yongyu told his old friend, "Now there are only two of us left." "That was the last time they ate at Wanhe Hall. In 2012, Huang Miaozi passed away.

There was only one old man left in the entire Wanhe Hall. Life began to become inconvenient, the stone road in the yard could not push the wheelchair, and the threshold at the door of the studio became an obstacle. The daughter found a new house, and after the age of 90, they moved to a new place to live.

When setting up his new home, his daughter decided to install a wheelchair that could go up and down stairs, and his first reaction was that he didn't need it. After being hospitalized with injuries, his daughter was asked for night care, and he got angry and protested the decision. He walked unsteadily, and others stretched out their hands to help him, he would glar, and while trembling and majestic, he resisted loudly, "Don't help!" Don't help! ”

Huang Yongyu and daughter Huang Heini

The new home still had to hold parties, and every day at half past three in the afternoon, guests sat across from him and listened to him tell jokes. He likes to talk about a handsome form of aging, the most common example being his younger brother. The story goes like this: he returned to his hometown in Phoenix, his brother took him to dinner, the two were waiting for a taxi on the side of the road, and a young man rushed out on a motorcycle and recklessly knocked over his brother. Please note that the younger brother was 80 years old at the time, was hit by a motorcycle, ejected more than one person high, fell, the person was fine, got up on his own, walked over viciously, punched the left and right, beat the young man hard, and taught him to watch the road carefully in the future. After the fight was relieved, he didn't ask for a dime, let the young man go, and the two brothers continued to take a taxi. After getting on the car, even the driver admired his brother, 80 years old is still so dashing, the driver inquired with the brothers all the way, are you really 80? I won't take your money today, I'm going to go back and tell my buddies how 80's teach the little young.

The joke was told many times and won a lot of laughs. Liu Yunpet witnessed this traffic accident, the story is generally true, only some details are the problem: the old man did not get up by himself after falling, many people helped him to stand up, he did swing his fist, but every punch was empty, after all, he is 80 years old. A hot-blooded old man does exist, but his aging is not handsome.

True aging is an increasingly concrete pathos. An old friend who lives in Shanghai, called Huang Yongyu on his deathbed, wanting to see him again for the last time, and his phone in Beijing was anxious, "You must not die, if you want to die, you will die when I come." He flew to Shanghai, but his old friend was already at the crematorium, and there was only one farewell ceremony left in his life. Huang Yongyu did not go to the ceremony, ran to the morgue alone and saw him for the last time.

Obviously, Huang Yongyu does not like the aging story of this ending. Aging should not be like this, he and his friends discussed, when the old friends are still alive, death is a topic they have discussed specifically, and everyone has gathered specifically for this to talk about what to do after death. Ding Cong, Huang Miaozi, and Hua Junwu all spoke. Some of them said to take the ashes to plant flowers, some said to scatter the ashes back to the sea, and some proposed that the ashes be flushed directly into the toilet, and it was a hundred. Zhang Meixi disagreed, disgusted that the ashes would block the sewers. Huang Yongyu said, then wrap it into dumplings.

He has seen the aging of his friends, the old with backbone, the old calmly, just like Huang Miaozi. At that time, he was sick, Huang Yongyu went to visit in the hospital, lying in the hospital for several years, but he was still always smiling, writing in the ward, reading books, reading poems with friends, finding someone to eat fat sausages after dialysis, and eating shabu mutton in front of the hospital bed to celebrate his birthday. Huang Yongyu has always admired Huang Miaozi's calmness, calm personality, pampering and not being shocked, and enjoying himself, "even the disease is so calm."

In the last days of his life, Huang Dagang was afraid that he could not stand the gossip, so he unplugged the network cable at home to prevent him from seeing the slander outside. It was not until after his father died that he knew that the old man had found someone to connect the network cable early, and he saw all the statements. But every day since then, he has lived calmly, slept well, eaten, and how to live. He pointed in the direction where his son lived and told the people around him, "They underestimate me." ”

Once when he came back from a critical illness, the first thing Huang Miaozi said when he woke up was, take a pen and write. Huang Dagang had to put together two tables in the nurses' lounge, spread rice paper, and study ink. He found that his father could not stand, but the hand holding the pen never trembled, "not at all like a patient's writing, very domineering", and the words written in the ward of Chaoyang Hospital were the most powerful work in his life - "Thousands of purples and thousands of reds".

This is the aging that Huang Yongyu can accept. The little shepherd boy is old, sick, and skinned by pain, but he still has to sing and in hell.

This time, it was Huang Yongyu's turn to get old. The doctor talked to him, and he didn't listen to a word. The gallbladder is broken, the lungs are broken, the blood vessels are broken, and a small cap on the heart is broken. He couldn't breathe, the doctor hospitalized him, and he moved in with books, paints, brushes, and paper. After a few days he got angry, how can there be so many prohibitions in the hospital - no staying up late, no fatigue, no eating chili, no permission everywhere.

His body became less like Huang Yongyu. If you fall down, you will be hospitalized, if you have a cold, you will be hospitalized, just eat an extra meal of shabu tripe, gout will be committed, or you will be hospitalized. He didn't like hospitals, doctors spoke unfairly, only said "full recovery" to young patients, and old people could only hear "this is fine" when they were sick, as if healing was a privilege that belonged only to young people, and an old man always got another truth about life - it can't be done, it can no longer be done.

Back home, Huang Yongyu got angry. He doesn't like aging, not at all. There are still many things to do in this life, to be a knight, to carve woodcuts, to paint, to write "No Worry River", finally get through the hard life, how can you get old? God it's not fair.

Huang Yongyu is old, and he does not agree with this. He began to oppose his aging in Huang Yongyu's way. He fell and injured his bone, was hospitalized for surgery, and nailed the bone. The doctor comforted him that it is normal for people to be old and unable to walk, if they still want to walk after this operation, they will have to practice in three days, this is something that young people can do, it hurts so much to practice in the ground, the old man does not have to force it. However, three days later, Huang Yongyu stood up, he didn't care if he was old or not, he wanted to walk again.

A couplet hangs at the dinner table at home, and he writes in the inscription, "People are not afraid of old age, but they are afraid of decadence and depression." See how energized we are today! So today I am writing this wrong couplet to grow the ambition of our old man and old lady, what bastard words that do not stay overnight in seventy and do not leave food in eighty! ”

This couplet reads:

People say eighty does not leave food

Show them

Densely packed with signatures from old friends with an average age of 80, all of them were old artists who came to Wanhe Hall to eat at Beijing Renyi, including Zheng Rong, then 88, Lan Tianye (deceased), 85, Zhu Xu (deceased), 82, Zhang Manling, 77, Lv Zhong and Xu Xiulin, 72, and Lu Yan, who returned from the United States, who was also 85 years old at the time.

He almost gambled to prove that aging can be handsome. An old man can also live as he did when he was young, and there is love, and friendship, and works, and hope.

The painting made by Huang Yongyu when he was 98 years old is inscribed "I am ninety-eight, I deserve to invite you to Wanhe Hall for a drink."

As a result, Huang Yongyu became the youngest old man in Beijing. He loves to go out in a roadster. In the middle of the night when he woke up from hospitalization, he insisted on drinking a bottle of Sprite. He also had to call Zhang Meixi, but when his ears couldn't hear it, they wrote a letter. Two people in their 90s still want to fall in love. They wrote down their words to each other in the same notebook, with cartoons in the corners and a puppy and a kitten smiling and holding hands. The daughter flew between Hong Kong and Beijing, responsible for delivering love letters to two elderly people.

In his later years, Zhang Meixi forgot a lot of things, and Huang Yongyu wrote their stories into his novels. Her daughter read "Worry-free River" to her at her hospital bed, writing about their 19th year old and about their first acquaintance, and when this time came, Zhang Meixi would wake up and remember the details of the same period. She could no longer hold the pen, the words in the book were crooked, and the different paragraphs often overlapped:

My dearest good dad: I miss you so much... I miss you so much, you're here to stay, okay? ...... Your painting is very good, I can see it is my father, dad, you must like me well! We all love you very much, we miss you! Here you go!! I stir-fry for you every day. It's raining today, I like heavy rain, it's fun! Kiss hello dad. Your big-headed girl, Meixi

However, aging is a narrower and narrower road, and there are few smooth roads ahead, and there are too many to be able to do anything. In 2019, traffic at Hong Kong Airport was blocked, and Huang Yongyu was stranded in Beijing. He can only write back to his lover like this-

Meimei's mother: Do you say the world is funny? Hong Kong has become so chaotic today, I originally wanted to come back to see you, but I couldn't do it, so I had to wait for Hong Kong to be safe one day sooner, so that these two ninety-year-olds could meet each other. Since I fell that fall, people are completely different from before, and people who are alive and vigorous, walking slowly limp to the ground. Is there any way to do it? But the brain and hands are still flexible. Otherwise, the article and the drawing will not be done. Thank God. I still pray that God will restore normal order in Hong Kong as soon as possible so that I can return to Hong Kong to see you as soon as possible. Kiss you! Dad, Beijing

There was no reply to the letter. Two months later, the new crown epidemic broke out around the world, and after another two months, the Hong Kong government imposed entry restrictions, and two months later, Wong received a message from Hong Kong. The home in Beijing is quiet, old pipes are neatly arranged on cabinets, kittens nest on sofas basking in the sun, and rooms are filled with flowers, just as the hostess likes. When he was alone, Huang Yongyu neatly wrote a note with a formal worker, which was the last letter he wrote about Zhang Meixi:

Mui Xi passed away at Gleneagles Hong Kong Hospital at 6:33 this morning at the age of 98. After many years of friendship, due to the current travel restrictions, please forgive us for telling you in this way.

The people around him could see that he was sad, but no one saw him cry. He asked someone to put Zhang Meixi's 15-year-old photo in a frame and put it in a place where he could see it every day. The rest of the time, his days are still the same, painting in the morning, writing at noon, holding a kitten in the evening, watching TV alone.

The pace of chatting with him is getting slower and slower, and he often stops halfway through the story. He still likes to tell jokes, telling Meixi when he meets a punk, and the two go to teach them a lesson together, scaring people away and laughing. He likes to talk about Mei Xi for the first time, she is wearing a white dress, with her back to herself, singing Ave Maria (Ode to the Virgin) in her room with the piano accompaniment...

This is a story that he did not finish, because at this point, he stopped, looked up at the ceiling, stared at the light in a daze, he stopped talking, all wrinkles gradually stretched, probably in the memory of who he saw, the last person smiled to himself, "Hehe! ”

I'm running 10,000 meters

Huang Yongyu recently re-read "The Great Gatsby," but the version he watched was "The Tycoon's Little Biography," which he read when he was younger. He turned over the issue of Vientiane magazine and reread Hu Shi. He began to look for past music to listen to, the mobile phone charts are full of old songs, then I played him a song, he turned sideways to listen to it with ears that could still be heard, and he heard that it was "Bridge on the River of Sorrow", and his first reaction was to excitedly greet his daughter over, "Sister! Younger sister! The two of them huddled together to listen to the melody of the past, and to this day, he can sing "Bridge over troubled water":

When evening falls so hard,

I will comfort you.

I’ll take your part.

When darkness comes,

And pain is around,

Like a bridge over troubled waters,

I will lay me down.

Huang Yongyu has many treasures, and he is happy to share. He said he carved one of his favorite poems in the Book of Poetry into wood. In the studio of Wanhetang, I saw these six large pieces of wood, which were golden silk nan wood sent by a friend from Yunnan, and Huang Miaozi also appreciated this poem, climbed the ladder and inscribed him directly on the wood:

The Pass of the Birthday, the Ox and Sheep Word.

The flat forest of birth, will cut down the flat forest.

The cold ice of birth, the wings of birds.

This is the story of Houji in "Daya Shengmin". Houji was abandoned as soon as he was born, but fortunately he was saved every time, abandoned in a narrow alley, cattle and sheep avoided him and did not hurt him, and then he was thrown into the woods, the woodcutter rescued him, and finally put it on the ice, and the big bird covered the child with feathers to protect him from growing up.

What seems to resonate with him is the story of "abandonment". Beethoven's music is strong but the background is sad, Chopin has a hatred of leaving his country, Rachmaninoff's background is sad, and Paganini is not a happy person. "Aster Grass" tells a kind of underlying reality: even though you try to fight fate, you still bear the helplessness and heaviness of life.

Huang Yongyu said that he has a lot to tell me, some things can be said now, some things can be said after a long time, and he does not say it for publication or to be famous. When he said this, his eyes were red, and he said that what he hoped was that in another 100 years, at least one person would know what kind of person Huang Yongyu was, "a man without servility", "a person who did not bow his head".

I asked Huang Yongyu why he likes to draw lotus flowers. He obviously did not paint all his life for the purity of lotuses. "Out of the mud and not clean", he retorted to Zhou Dunyi in the inscription over and over again in the painting, "Without silt, how can the lotus survive?" ”

Regarding lotus flowers, he once explained that when he was a child, he lived at his grandmother's house, and after breaking into trouble, he often hid in the lotus pond, hiding for an afternoon, and also watching the lotus flowers for an afternoon. He found that the lotus flowers were not as clean as the gentlemen painted, the real lotus flowers had mud moss in them, and the surrounding area was also very lively, frogs, water snakes, snails, snails, dragonflies, all in one place. He loves this kind of excitement, it's a wonderful life.

But this time, he reinterpreted the lotus. He drew an anatomical diagram of the flower in his notebook, the lotus stem was hollow, but it was enough to hold up a large lotus flower in bloom. The inner slice of the lotus rod is countless small tubes, a whole round tube gathered together, the storm comes, the lotus rod is soft and slender, but it will neither break nor fall. Its character is not indisputable, but indestructible. It is like a small boat that Shen Congwen painted to himself, and it is also turbulent in small waves, but it will not sink in big waves. Tenacious and raging in silence, this is Huang Yongyu's lotus.

"I can endure the kind of grievances you can't imagine, that kind of pain, I can endure it. Not one thing, how many of them. I don't tell others about this, it's something I'm proud of. Those problems between people and people are a little wronged, they suffer, they are very bitter. I felt a little bad that day, and the next day I did something else and didn't think much about it. It's really hard to think that it is of no use at all, but in this life, this kind of suffering cannot be compared with my efforts and my hard work. Huang Yongyu said, "I'm running 10,000 meters, not as good as running 100 meters." Those who run 10,000 meters in circles are not very watched. I'm a person who runs 10,000 meters, and if someone says I'm not good-looking, I run slowly, and you don't have to stop and reason, it's a waste. It is our purpose to make this life a little farther away and run to the end. ”

There is a painting of a Gongbi lotus hanging in front of Huang Yongyu's house

The last time I visited Huang Yongyu, the sun was full outside the window, and there was no sign of rain. The sunlight shone through the stained glass, the big yellow dog and the kitten nestled under the table to take a nap, and Huang Yongyu was still telling jokes.

"The 'Gang of Four' collapsed, and I was painting a mural in the Mao Zedong Memorial Hall and living in the Overseas Chinese Mansion. Someone told me that there was a man who followed you all the way in Nanjing, and it was Jiang Qing, who reported that he is now living in the Overseas Chinese Mansion and living with us. I said, great! Find a few people to hit him! ”

At this time, his daughter brought a box of throat candy, he took out one and handed it to the joke guest, "You eat a candy, this candy is my home candy, my favorite food." Chewing sugar in his mouth, he was very happy, and continued with a smile, "This thing will not happen now, and I will do it when I have the opportunity." He Jingzhi was in charge of cultural matters, he called Hua Junwu and said, Huang Yongyu beat someone in the Overseas Chinese Hotel, do you know?" Hua Junwu said, I don't know, how can I beat someone? He imitated the leader's serious tone, "Hua Junwu called me and said that you beat someone, is there such a thing?" I said yes, he said, Mr. He said not to fight again in the future, this is not good. I said, got it. The tone suddenly changed here, and the joke came," and then he asked, "Hey, how did you fight, tell me about it." ”

After speaking, the living room broke out laughing, and Huang Yongyu looked at the guests laughing together.

The first time I met Huang Yongyu, during the chat, he suddenly stopped and asked me: "What if one day it doesn't make you laugh?" ”

He said that he had already written the method into a poem, but his temper was getting angry and he wanted to tell me many ways: hide a British encyclopedia at home, put my favorite records behind the cabinet, wrap up beautiful books and hide them under the bed, and take them out when I was alone, read, draw, and listen to music. He also spent 10 minutes explaining how to cook the best mung beans, slowly boiling them in a small pot and straining the mung bean skin out with cold water, which was the method he found when he put it down. Shen Congwen in the alley once again appeared in the story, and when he talked about the moment he passed by wrong, he repeated the experience passed down from generation to generation word by word: "Be calm." ”

Later, I found a way for him to stay in the poem, which was written at the age of 85 -

Dig a hole, bury the laughter in the soil,

By spring, the seeds germinate,

Grow into a big tree,

Like a tall bell tower,

The wind is coming,

There was a sound all over the trees

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

On the first day of the new year in 2022, he finished tearing up the painting that he painted five times. The painting hangs in the living room, dotting the stars under the clear blue sky, every household is lit up, guarding a calm lake, and the flowers are blooming, entitled "Tonight". The inscription before the painting reads:

"May heaven give everyone on earth a beautiful tonight, every day, the moon and the moon, every year, ten years, a hundred years, tell your descendants that people should have the right to live this night, and live a peaceful life this night... For example, archaeologists cite it to the audience one day and night in the future and say that this painting was painted by an old man in his nineties and nearly a hundred years old, although the level is not high, it can at least give future generations a little joy and tell us how people passed their days at that time. ”

He also wanted to write "Worry-Free River", and fate always seemed to have a resistance that prevented him from writing this novel. The first time I started writing was in 1945, I stopped writing during the war and turmoil, and the second time I continued to write in the late 80s, after a year of writing. At the age of 86, he started writing again, this time there were still many forces that made him unable to write, sick, hospitalized, aging, parting, hurt, but he continued to write this time, writing 2.62 million words in 13 years, and kept the story until 1949.

Many of the stories in the book have appeared in his other works, but each story here is written in great detail. Writing that when he saw Li Shutong when he was a teenager, in the past he only talked about how to pick magnolia flowers in front of him, but this time he wrote that after seeing Master Hongyi pass away, he cried silently on the way back.

His heart is not without waves, but people are old, and sadness is a secret. Like when he was young, he would cry when he listened to old songs, cried when he read poetry, cried when he thought of his friends, was inexplicably sad when he saw the news, did not dare to let his daughter know, and hid in the bed and cried secretly. He could only draw these unspeakable feelings into paintings and write them in books.

He even thought of the last details of his life, when the time comes, send it to the crematorium, send it over, don't think about receiving the ashes back, "not good, weird", he plans to live with the lonely soul and wild ghost, everyone is lively together. He only has one requirement for death, "When the time comes, arm me, see if I smile or not," this is his standard of life and death, "laugh, I will still be alive." ”

Having lived all his life, Huang Yongyu is just Huang Yongyu. This is his favorite phrase in "The World Speaks New Words": "I have been with me for a long time, rather than be me." ”

In two months, this person will be 99 years old, and his life will be another hundred years, and the outcome may still be the same - heaven and earth are not benevolent, Baiyun Cangdog, but what about it, I have been with me for a lifetime, Huang Yongyu will always be Huang Yongyu.

(Wang Yifang, Zhang Xinxin, Wu Hongliang, Li Geng, Yang Chao, Meng Feixuan, Chaoren, Wang Chao, Qi Fang also contributed to this article, thank you Qu Zhonghua for your help in this article)