The railroad tracks are used as pens to write the world, and the earth is paper to remember the heartfelt feelings - the preface to the essay collection "Unforgettable Black Pearl".

The railroad tracks are used as pens to write the world, and the earth is paper to remember the heartfelt feelings - the preface to the essay collection "Unforgettable Black Pearl".

Author: Zhang Bingji

After departing west from Beijing Railway Station, the train soon enters the Yanshan Mountains and then heads to Badaling. Badaling is a majestic and deep ravine, and the train either travels in the valley or in the tunnel, always seems to be caught in a cramped alley, and its speed of 35 kilometers per hour makes the impatient people repeatedly feel the urge to abandon the car and hike. As soon as I passed Badaling, the window was instantly cheerful, and a huge mountain flat land flew into view, but just when I wanted to relax the tired retina, the announcer on the train spoke: "Shacheng Station has arrived......"

This is a memory of when I went to Huailai County many times at the beginning of this century. Shacheng is the seat of Huailai County. At that time, although I went in and out of Shacheng Railway Station many times, I didn't know that there was a writer dormant in this railway station, and I didn't expect that we would become friends in the literary world 20 years later. This writer is the author of this book, Ren Zhizhu.

In 2014, I initiated the establishment of the Hebei Provincial Wind Collecting Society, and when I reviewed the materials of the first batch of applicants, the name "Ren Zhizhu" first entered my field of vision. The materials show that he served in the army as a soldier, squad leader, clerk, cultural teacher, and after retiring from the army, he worked as a Xi mobilization, propaganda officer, workshop director, and chairman of the trade union at the Shacheng Railway Station, and is now the party secretary of the station. Ren Zhizhu loved literature when he was young, and has always insisted on writing, writing more than 500,000 words of news articles and literary works, which have been published in newspapers and periodicals such as "People's Railway News", "Beijing Railway News", "Zhangjiakou Daily", and "Evening Love". More than 30 articles he wrote have won various awards, and his lyrics "Being a Soldier is Like This" also won the silver medal of "Hong Kong 2014 Asian International Music Festival Lyrics Evaluation", and he himself was judged by "China Village" magazine as "China's Outstanding Rural Writer", and was absorbed as a member by Hebei Prose Literature Association, Hebei Music and Literature Association, Zhangjiakou Writers Association, and Huailai County Writers Association. Such an excellent writer, of course, we approved his application for membership. After joining the club, Ren Zhizhu and I had more contacts, and then we became very good friends in the literary world.

This summer, Ren Zhizhu told me that he was going to publish a book, asked me to write a preface, and sent me the manuscript of the book titled "Unforgettable Black Pearl." When I opened this collection of 150,000 words of essays on my computer, I found that Ren Zhizhu divided it into four parts: the first part is "Family Affairs and Family Style", in which the author describes the bits and pieces between himself and his parents, wife, and children, and the sincere family affection between the lines is vividly displayed on the page; the second part is "Nostalgia for the Past", which is the author's memories of some experiences in his youth, when he served in the army, and when he worked at the station; and the third part is "Mortal Everything" Of course, the people in these articles are not ordinary people, not "mortals", but people with characteristics, personalities, and influences and touches on the author; the fourth part is "Wandering in the Four Seas", and the collected articles are all some of the author's observations and feelings when he went out to travel. If you want to use a line to string together the whole book, then it is a vertical line - it shows the reader a series of experiences of the author from childhood, adolescence, youth, middle age, to old age, the poverty, confusion, and happiness experienced in his hometown during his childhood and adolescence, the vitality of his service in the army, his conscientiousness when he was the leader of the railway station, and his indifference and leisurely after retirement. In other words, this book is a microcosm of the author's life experience, in which you can find his footprints in various periods, songs and sorrows in various periods, and it can also be said that this book is a short biography of his artistic style. If you want to focus on the whole book and find a focus, then this focus is the railway-Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway. The author worked for 42 years from the time he joined the work to the time he retired, of which 34 years were spent at the Shacheng Railway Station on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway Line. As the author wrote: "The Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway has gone through a hundred years of ups and downs, and in this long one hundred years, three generations of my family and six people have fought on this railway line for nearly 70 years. Under the influence of "railway love", the author bent two straight railways into a circle, or compressed them into a point, and most of his articles were written around this circle and this point; writing about the railway, the people on the railway, and the things on the railway became the theme of his subconscious creation.

An article written with love is an article that can move oneself, and the author can only move the reader if he is moved first. The 76 essays in "Unforgettable Black Pearl" gave me the same feeling, that is, "love through the back of the paper". I feel that every article of the author comes from the heart and is inspired by feelings, and the author always writes with affection and voice from the bottom of his heart. The author was born in the countryside in the fifties of the last century, where the material life was not rich, experienced hunger and cold, experienced the tranquility and joy of the countryside under the moon, and experienced everything that rural children in that era experienced. When we read his articles such as "Stirring Cake in Memory", "A Nest Story", "Unforgettable Black Pearl" and "Rolling Iron Ring Reminiscing the Years", we can clearly perceive that his words are infiltrated with deep emotions and nostalgia for his hometown, he wrote: "The joy of childhood is like a beautiful picture, deeply engraved in my mind, never forgotten, lingering. "Ren Zhizhu has been in the army for 6 years, but his 6-year military career has left a lifelong mark on him, when we read his articles related to the army, it seems to see Ren Zhizhu wearing military uniforms, high spirits, and walking to the shooting range; we see him and his comrades-in-arms learning Xi, training, and life together; Ren Zhizhu's feelings for the army are also reflected in his articles when he reunites with his old comrades-in-arms decades after leaving the army:" Whenever we get together in the rising sun, it seems that we have all walked into the green barracks again, and the loud sound of rushing and fighting sounded in our ears, as if we have all returned to the era of the dragon and tiger. Ren Zhizhu has worked in the railway department, specifically in the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, for the longest time, so he has the deepest feelings for him and the fullest dedication to it. "Three Generations of Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway", "Remembering My Father", "Youyou Baked Cakes", "Mutual Aid Association in Memory", "Taking the First Beijing-Zhangjiakou High-speed Railway", "Feeling of Riding the Beijing-Zhangjiakou High-speed Railway", etc., are all written about his stories related to this railway; I found that he wrote and wrote, and it seemed that he was always inseparable from the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, and could not do without this period of people and things that haunted him, so that 67 of the 76 essays in the book were related to this railway. A writer in Huailai County, where Ren Zhizhu is located, joked: "Don't talk about writing articles, Ren Zhizhu dreams of sleeping on two railroad tracks!"

The famous literary critic Lei Lei said that literary works need both internal and external beauty, both content and language, and only works that are both beautiful are perfect works. While showing the readers the inner beauty of his works, Ren Zhizhu uses elegant sentences, vivid metaphors, and provocative words to present us with beautiful works; reading them is like drinking sweet springs, visiting beautiful scenery, and listening to moving stories: "The afterglow of the setting sun sprinkled all over the earth and hills, clothed the undulating Guanglu Mountain in golden costumes, and looked even more beautiful and magnificent under the reflection of the sunset." I stand on the top of the high mountain and look into the distance, thousands of thoughts, Guanglu Mountain is not only a beautiful mountain, but also an immortal red mountain, hero mountain, she will always inspire people to persevere, brave forward!" "Pingquan Sheep Soup is finely selected, the cooking skills are unique, the taste is fragrant and mellow, the color is moist and attractive, the nutrition is rich, it is easy to digest and absorb, and it is full of praise after eating. "The four seasons of Mohe are picturesque, the contrast is distinct, the spring flowers bloom all over the field, intoxicating; in the summer solstice, the sunset and the dawn are together, the midnight is like day, you can read books and newspapers outdoors; in autumn, the forest is dyed, the wild fruits and mountains are beautiful; the winter night is long and more poetic, everywhere is covered with snow, thousands of miles of ice, thousands of miles of snow drifting, a northern scenery. ”

Ren Zhizhu is over the age of six, and he is almost old, but he has the foot board that he has practiced running in the countryside, and the body that he has practiced in the barracks. I sincerely wish him the best of luck in writing and writing as always, and create more and better works to satisfy our increasingly difficult literary taste buds.

August 28, 2022

(Zhang Bingji, pen name: Zan Yang, member of the Chinese Writers Association, former deputy director of the Confidential Bureau of the Hebei Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, and executive chairman of the Hebei Provincial Wind Collection Society)

Produced from Gyeonggi Cultural Perspectives

Text / Picture Zhang Bingji

Editor: Li Jie