Xiao Hong, a talented woman in the Republic of China, is known as the Roselle in the literary history of the thirties.
"The Legend of the Hulan River" is her most prestigious novel, which caused a sensation in the literary world as soon as it was published.
Xiao Hong's stormy half of his life was treated coldly, but he was able to combine his sympathy, criticism and love for his hometown into a colorful terroir painting with a warm and delicate tone.
When Mao Dun once wrote the preface to this work, he said: "When I started reading, I felt relaxed, but the more I read, the more heavy my heart became. ”
When I was young, I read "The Legend of the Hulan River" and thought it was an ordinary small town story;
After the passage of time, I realized that these stories also gave birth to profound human truths.
The ups and downs of the book and the joys and sorrows of fate are not only the memories that the author Xiao Hong can't shake off in his heart, but also reflect the ups and downs of every ordinary person's life.
Reading the 5 hidden truths in "The Legend of the Hulan River" can make you live more and more sober.
In an ignorant language environment, it is difficult to produce a clear cognition
Xiao Hong's hometown, Hulan River, is a small border town in the northeast.
In the poor and isolated backward town, life is very monotonous, and people get up early and are busy every day.
They are always keen to talk about the gossip around them, and use gossip as a condiment to life.
The son of the widow's family drowned, the apprentices of the dyeing vat workshop fought for women, and even the donkey of the tofu workshop broke his leg, which can become a hot topic.
There is also a large mud puddle in the streets of the town, and when it rains, poultry, horse-drawn carts and even children can get stuck in it, which is very nerve-wracking.
But no one has ever proposed to fill in this mud pit, because it is the talk of the people of Hulan River after dinner.
Yesterday the child of the agricultural principal fell into a puddle, and today whose pig drowned in the pit, as if there was a big pit, there is always something new to talk about.
Unable to change their lives, they try to numb themselves with the misfortunes of others.
However, the big puddle could not fill the barrenness and hardship of life, but made the people of Hulan River fall into the mire of ignorant cognition.
In Xiao Hong's hometown, people are keen to pin their hopes on various celebrations of dancing gods, singing Yangge, and releasing river lanterns, and the theory of ghosts and gods is the highest belief.
Life seems to be noisy and lively, but it is full of decay and loneliness.
This kind of environment allows the vast majority of people there to have a similar cognitive system.
Material poverty has never been a constraint, but cognitive complacency is the death hole that binds them.
So Xiao Hong sighed: "The sky is full of stars, the house is full of moonlight, what is life, why is it so sad." ”
In this life, people are paying for cognition.
When the level of cognition is low, it is difficult to see the world in higher dimensions, and you always think that what you see is the whole world.
Only by changing cognition can we completely change our lives and see a higher level of scenery.
There is no real empathy between different classes
The big mud pit of the Hulan River is a lively gathering place, and it is also a mirror of human nature.
There was an unlucky driver who was passing by a large mud puddle and wanted to take a risk walking over it, but he ended up with a car and flipped in.
He struggled to crawl out of the mud, only to watch the horses die in the mud.
At this time, there are two types of passers-by:
One is to wear a long robe and a short gown, which is very neat.
The hands are also very clean, and the gentleman who will not reach out to help is top-notch.
They would just stand on the sidelines and watch the excitement, shouting a few words from time to time.
And the other kind of people are ordinary people like unlucky drivers, carrying green onions, selling vegetables, bricklayers, and coachmen......
Instead, they roll up their trouser legs, take off their shoes, and go down to the mud puddle to carry the horses out with ropes.
Human empathy can only arise from similar experiences.
It is difficult to have true empathy between different classes.
Never want someone who has experienced something different from you to understand you.
The interaction between people is about being evenly matched.
As Li Ka-shing said:
When you're not strong enough and good enough, don't spend too much time socializing and partying.
Elevate yourself so that your world can be bigger.
Many times, instead of going out of your way to broaden your network, you should strive to be someone who can stand side by side with them.
Their own super core competitiveness is the breaking point of the problem.
The love and warmth of relatives will be sweet for a person's life
Xiao Hong was born in a landlord family, her biological mother died when she was eight years old, her patriarchal father did not love her very much, and her grandmother also disliked her for being naughty.
Xiao Hong was brought up by her grandfather, but fortunately, her grandfather's tolerance and love were a good medicine, so that her childhood was not full of desolation and trauma.
My grandfather was gentle by nature and liked to be free and idle, so the big garden was a free world for both grandparents and grandchildren.
When his grandfather was planting flowers and weeding in the garden, Xiao Hong followed behind, catching dragonflies, grasshoppers, and picking melons and fruits.
Xiao Hong sometimes played tricks on his grandfather, secretly decorating his straw hat with a circle of roses, and when he was tired of playing, he lay down beside his grandfather and looked at the white clouds in the sky.
Her grandfather also taught her to recognize dogs' tails and ears of grain, told her stories, taught her ancient poems, and coaxed her with delicious food when she was unhappy.
The big garden is filled with too much laughter every day, and it also carries all the happy memories of Xiao Hong's childhood.
The nourishment of love in childhood gave Xiao Hong's life a warm background.
As she says in the book, "From my grandfather, I learned that in addition to coldness and hatred, there is warmth and love in life. I am looking forward to this aspect of warmth and love, with eternal longing and pursuit. ”
This courage and strength made her never give up hope even if she was adrift in the bleak days.
The reason why a person loves a place is because the place has relatives who love him.
I like a quote very much:
Relatives, no matter the trough or glory, will always stand by your side, accompany you to taste the ups and downs, and make you feel warm, free and relaxed.
They are the people in this world who love you unconditionally.
No matter how many ups and downs you have to endure outside, as long as you think of your loved ones, you always have the courage to move forward.
The family sits idly, the lights are amiable, and the warmth of the world is nothing more than that.
In groups, heterogeneous species are more vulnerable
In a group, the person who is different from others can easily become the target of everyone's attack.
The same is true in the Hulan River, where women need to abide by the rules and stay in their own identities.
In the book, the 12-year-old child daughter-in-law of the neighbor Hu family, the reunion daughter-in-law is an "outlier".
As a daughter-in-law, she doesn't have the honest appearance of a daughter-in-law.
Cheerful and outgoing, not timid at all.
The mother-in-law couldn't get used to it, so she began to pick and choose, disgusting her daughter-in-law for not being reserved, walking too fast, eating too much, and even laughing out loud felt that it was a shame for the family.
Her mother-in-law often beat and scolded her for no reason, hung her on the beam of the house in the middle of the night, beat her, and even burned her feet with a soldering iron.
The neighbors did not stop the evil deeds of the Hu family, but fanned the flames and said bad things about the reunion daughter-in-law.
The onlookers all agreed that this was what a daughter-in-law should bear.
A good girl, tortured and sick, not like a human being.
In the end, he was forced to take three hot baths, and then he was dying and died of illness at home.
The norms of most people in this society are determined by the collective culture, so many people always choose to safely follow the crowd.
is like a classic in "The Rabble":
Once a person arrives in a group, in order to gain recognition, individuals are willing to abandon right and wrong in exchange for a sense of belonging that makes people feel safe.
However, if you succumb to the choice of the majority, you will lose your thinking and rationality.
Being able to stick to being yourself is the beginning of strength.
In any era, only by not living for others can you live your own life well
In small towns, many people live a life of numbness and contentment day after day.
But not everyone is like this, Mo Qi Feng's crooked mouth is the person who crawls in the mire and still looks up at the stars.
In that era of matchmaking, Feng Crooked Mouth and Miss Wang fell in love freely and formed a family.
People always like to make vicious comments about the couple and spit on the marriage after dinner.
Miss Wang is diligent, capable, and powerful, and the neighbors arrange her to look like a wild woman.
Feng crooked his mouth but was not affected by them, he continued to love his wife, and asked her to eat more eggs and work less.
They resisted the rumors, lived hard in this small town with a mill, made the small family better and better with love, and gave birth to two children.
Later, Miss Wang died because of giving birth, and people's ridicule became even more unscrupulous, hoping that Feng would be poor and destitute.
The book says: "He didn't know how desperate people looked at him, and he didn't know what kind of hardship he was in. ”
But Feng didn't despair when he crooked his mouth, but still grinded, sold sticky cakes, and even greeted people with a smile.
He raised his two children slowly by himself.
Later, the eldest son was able to help him lead the donkey, and the second son also learned to clap his hands, and Feng's crooked mouth gave birth to some comfort in his heart: "Go your own way, let others say go!"
No matter how desolate this world is, you can still find a little warmth and live your own life. ”
Only when there is sunshine in the heart can we grow against the wind.
Others are just passers-by in life.
Living your life well is the wisdom of managing life.
Even if you can only bloom in the corner, you can have your own clear sky.
Write at the end
Life is a hard journey, just like the people of Hulan River who have experienced hardship, facing the same predicament, different people have completely different attitudes.
Some people give up resistance in the whirlpool of fate, but some people live as a light in the devastation.
People who are truly sober are people who strive to live.
Understanding these five sentences in the book can help you face the ups and downs of life and go against the wind.