A third-grade junior high school student in Chengdu took a language test, and the test paper included a reading comprehension question from a novel published last year by a principal in Tangyin County, Henan Province, called "The Azalea Falls."
The principal's surname is Li, and he is the principal of Wenxing Middle School in Tangyin County. At the same time, he also holds the title of "senior teacher" in primary and secondary schools. In this way, the headmaster should be a man of both talents and virtues.
Then, the short novel created by this principal should also be "very level". However, when the principal's little novel appeared on the test paper of the third grade of junior high school somewhere in Chengdu, it immediately attracted angry scolding from all directions.
Almost everyone who has read this novel is accusing and angrily scolding this Principal Li, saying that "he is beautifying the Japanese army invading China" and "he is probably a traitor".
Subsequently, the Henan education department issued an announcement saying that Li Jiaqian had been dismissed, but netizens still didn't buy it. Some people began to suspect that the principal would either write such a novel as "500,000 walking" or have some other "ulterior purpose".
"Our education team has been 'eroded' by something", "China's education is finished", "China's cultural front is in crisis", these are the questions and worries of many netizens.
So, what did Li Jiaqian write about "Azalea Falling", and why did it arouse so much public indignation?
1. What exactly is written in "Azalea Falling".
Through searching, I read the full text of this short novel on a certain platform. The content of the story is actually very simple, the protagonist is the Japanese army Osaokada, and his son.
Gangda's son was a "top student" of Japan's "Tokyo Imperial University", and he came to China from Japan to visit relatives, but the military vehicle he was riding in was attacked by the Eighth Route Army, and he was captured.
Gangtian didn't know whether his son was alive or dead, but he thought in his heart that most of the Eighth Route Army had killed his son, so he wanted to avenge his son. In the ensuing battle, Gangda commanded the Japanese army and fiercely launched an attack on the guerrillas of the Eighth Route Army.
During the battle, a person on the opposite side raised a "white flag" towards Gangtian, but Gangtian refused to accept the "surrender" of the other party. In order to avenge his son, Gangtian wanted to "kill everything", and he decisively ordered his men to shoot at the opposite side, and the Japanese army won.
While cleaning the battlefield, Gangda found the body of his son, who was not wearing a shirt, in the trench opposite. Because his white shirt is the "white flag" that Gangtian saw before.
2. The author was dismissed from office and the author was punished, both of which were "deserved"
There are several controversial points in Li Jiaqian's novel, first of all, when he created this story, he used the perspective of the Japanese army Okata.
When explaining the relationship between the "enemy and us", as well as the cause and process of the incident, Li Jiaqian has always used the tone of an officer of the Japanese army that invaded China.
Because of this, the "Eighth Route Army" in his original text became the "Communist Army". When describing the retreat of the guerrillas of the Eighth Route Army, he used the dejorative term "fleeing".
In addition, Li Jiaqian also told readers through the inner monologue of the Japanese army that his son "never participated in military activities", which made Chinese readers very uncomfortable.
After reading this novel, many people think that Li Jiaqian is obviously "beautifying the Japanese army that invaded China", and there are still a large number of people in Japan who do not think that they are at fault, and there are also a group of "Jing-Japanese" elements in China who have been reversing black and white.
In the past, everyone has only seen such articles on the Internet. But it seems to be the first time that he has been on the third language test paper in a grand manner like "Azalea Falling".
Li Jiaqian is a senior teacher in primary and secondary schools, and is also the party secretary and principal. As a cadre on the national education front, didn't he want to "brainwash" middle school students by doing this?
There are also people on the Internet who have different opinions on this matter. Some people think that the original intention of Li Jiaqian's short novel was definitely not to beautify the Japanese army that invaded China, but he was obviously glorifying the "Japanese people" during World War II.
So, why do you say this? Because Li Jiaqian used the image of azaleas many times in this short novel to convey "anti-war messages."
What does the rhododendron symbolize in Chinese culture? China has the idiom "the cuckoo cries blood", and everyone knows that the cuckoo is the incarnation of Du Yu, the first king of ancient Shu, and it symbolizes love and kindness.
Because the cuckoo is fiery red, in the past anti-Japanese war literature, it was especially liked to use the cuckoo to praise the "heroes" and praise their "blood" and "loyalty".
When Li Jiaqian described azaleas in the second paragraph, he wrote at the end: "The continuous azaleas will be spreading, and there is no amazing feeling." In the end, it feels like a depressed late autumn, a muddy pond full of fallen flowers. ”
It is easy to think here that the author's death in the Eighth Route Army is compared to "falling flowers", and the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army died in "a muddy pond", which does not make people feel "amazing".
Of course, this idea is still the psychological activity of the characters belonging to the "Japanese Army Dazuo Gangtian", which does not mean that it is the real idea of Li Jiaqian, the author of this short novel.
In the following description, when the Japanese army killed the guerrillas of the Eighth Route Army in the battle, Li Jiaqian used cuckoos flying all over the sky, like a "flower scoop sacrifice sprinkled in the air", to describe the bloody scenes in the battle.
This kind of description is very reminiscent of the author Li Jiaqian's use of such a technique to deliberately downplay the various atrocities of the Japanese army invading China.
However, in the last paragraph of the article, when Li Jiaqian used the rhododendron imagery again, he used it to represent a mouthful of old blood spurted out by Gangtian under remorse and grief because he "killed his son by mistake". So, how should this be explained?
In fact, the reason for this result is that when Li Jiaqian wrote this article, he put aside his position as a "descendant of the victims of the war of aggression against China", and he tried to interpret human nature from the position of a "third person" that has nothing to do with this war.
There are many big directors in China, and they have done the same thing as Li Jiaqian. Most of them felt that in the anti-Japanese literary works we created in the past, the character of the Japanese army invading China was "too three-dimensional."
They believe that although the Japanese army invading China is an aggressor, they also have "human nature". It is unknown that Li Jiaqian is in line with Japan's invasion of China, but his short novel was not written to condemn the Japanese invasion of China.
Li Jiaqian's purpose is to show that all human beings in the world have a good side by nature. Gangtian's son came to China to visit relatives, and he was not wrong in himself, he died because of his father's mistake.
And the mouthful of blood that this Dazuo's father spurted out after seeing his son being killed by himself by mistake is also the same as the azalea, which is fiery red.
Under the constant guidance of the novel, it is easy to come to a conclusion: In Japan's war of aggression against China, the blood of the Japanese army was also red, and he was also the "hero" of their own country. And his sons, the Japanese people, like the Chinese people, are good, innocent people. However, there has been a lot of controversy about this conclusion.
In the case that Japan's right-wing is not dead, and Japan's high-ranking officials are still worshipping ghosts every year, the Chinese cultural "elite" has taken the initiative to explore the "humanity" of the "Japanese" through literary and artistic works.
This is just like Wang Qingwei's group at the beginning, always trying to "make peace" between China and Japan and seek a "balance." Because they are all the same, they have all voluntarily abandoned the "justice" position of right and wrong in black and white.
When director Lu Chuan made the movie "Nanjing Massacre" before, he also wanted to portray the invaders more three-dimensionally, so he deliberately showed the Japanese culture in the film, which caused controversy.
None of this was likely their original intention, but it is difficult not to cause such "consequences". Some literary elites always try to use the form of novels and films to convey a little bit of their "insight" in order to achieve the role of "educating" the people.
But this approach is fundamentally wrong. Personally, I think that if some literati plan to "enlighten" the people and convey some "universal values", it is recommended to write essays directly, or write argumentative essays, novels, and operas like Lu Xun.
The reason is: for a thousand people, there are a thousand Hamlets. The art form of the novel conveys ideas in an obscure way, and its ideological connotation will be limited by the reader's knowledge, experience, and personal life experience.
For example, in the "Water Margin" in the four famous novels, some people read it and think that the people in it are all heroes, while others think that it is all murderers and traitors.
What I saw was different, and the evaluation of this novel was naturally different. The azaleas that appear many times in "Azalea Falling" have fixed images of "loyalty" and "hero" in traditional Chinese culture and anti-Japanese culture.
When, at the end of the novel, "it" erupts from the mouth of the Japanese Osa Osa, how does the author convince everyone of his positive and negative attitude towards the aggressor?
In addition, after Li Jiaqian's short novel entered the test paper, there was a reading comprehension question at that time, which focused on the inner monologue of Japan's Osa, and the words "The baby son who never interfered in the military" were added with key symbols.
And then he said, "He only came here to see his old father," "Does his fate make you feel sorry?", and then the person who asked the question asked the students to express their opinions on this matter.
Most people who don't know about Japan's "Tokyo Imperial University" can only think that "he is an ordinary college student, and he has a good academic performance", and some people may empathize with this Japanese Dazuo.
But in fact, this university was built by Japan for the purpose of "enriching the country and strengthening the army", and most of the "top students" of their school were sent to the Chinese battlefield after graduation, and some of those who did not graduate also became members of the "kamikaze".
Therefore, Li Jiaqian was dismissed by the Henan Education Department because of the bad impact of this article, and he was not wronged at all, and the relevant questioners in Chengdu were punished for this, which is also "deserved".
epilogue
Personally, I think that some novelists and screenwriters in China should try not to write articles and scripts about their own national pain and sensitive themes. As a descendant of a victim, you are not qualified to show "magnanimity" for your deceased ancestors.
For things like Japan's invasion of China and the Nanjing Massacre, everyone knows that little Japan is still quibbling, how can you still desperately express the "humanity" of the Japanese by writing novels and making film and television dramas.
Do you want Chinese students to fall in love with the Japanese through "free association", and then muddy the waters of history so that future generations will not be able to know the truth of history?
Recently, Mo Yan has been criticized because of the details of the description of the Japanese in "Rich Breasts and Fat Buttocks", and some people say that they will launch a lawsuit against him for hundreds of millions of yuan on behalf of the people.
The readers of Mo Yan's novels are adults, and adults have their own judgments. Li Jiaqian's matter was even worse, because the school directly used his novel as a reading comprehension question to read to junior high school students.
Junior high school students are not yet adults, so how can they understand the "curved pen" in this novel? Moreover, in this reading comprehension question, there is a tendency to "guide" students to "pity" the Japanese son.
If the student has a sympathetic and sympathetic stance towards this son, then what should he think of this Japanese soldier? There must be a standard answer to all exams, because I learned about this relatively late, so I can no longer see the original test paper.
I don't know how to understand the 'regrettable' fate of Osa's son in the "standard answer" preset in that test paper.