The monthly rent is 350, and the brothers, confinement sisters, and delivery workers of the Beipiao factory have gathered in the urban village to write poems for ten years

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2024-05-09 16:50Posted in Anhui Life Field Creators

In 2017, a "I am Fan Yusu" was born

Let the public start to pay attention to the Picun Literary Group.

Confinement sisters, housekeeping workers, construction workers, welders and other bottom-level drifters

Gather in Beijing's urban village to read and write.

This year, the Picun Literary Group has been established for 10 years.

The members of the group come from all walks of life.

Someone waits for the employer's child to fall asleep,

Squeeze out time to write and draw;

Some people have been on the assembly line for more than ten years and can't see tomorrow.

Salvation is only attained after writing poetry;

There are also people who live in a house with a monthly rent of 350 yuan,

Suffering from cancer, but writing a long story of 200,000 words.

Writer Yuan Ling has been a tutor in the Picun Literature Group for 7 years.

Last year he moved to live in Pi Village,

It was decided to write a book for these dreamers.

In March, a film crew was in Pi Village

I met Yuan Ling and several workers who were active in the literary group.

"This utopia may end next year,

But at least for now, I can continue to live this dream. ”

Editor: Ma Shiyun

Editor-in-charge: Chen Ziwen

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Phi Village Gate

Pi Village, located outside the Fifth Ring Road, is the home of many low-level drifters in Beijing. There are a large number of confinement maids, domestic workers, construction workers, and masons living here. According to the bulletin board, the current population of Pi Village is nearly 20,000, and 90% of them are immigrants.

"My coordinates in Beijing are not Guomao, but Picun, even if it seems dirty and messy to outsiders." Xiaohai used to be an assembly line worker and wrote hundreds of poems in his spare time. In 2016, he joined the Picun Literary Group, when Fan Yusu was not yet well-known and the literary group was unknown, but Xiaohai felt that "I have never encountered such a good place".

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Pi Village Environment

The Pi Village Literary Group was formed in 2014 and was initially one of the interest groups under the Workers' Home. In 2017, an article "I Am Fan Yusu" was published, which made the public pay attention to the "literary group" in this urban village. Ten years on, while the other seemingly more meaningful groups in Pi Village have gradually ceased to be active, the literature group has survived, and almost every weekend it has been holding literature classes.

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The activities of the Picun Literature Group are sharing the roofmaker Xu Keduo and the child-rearing sister-in-law Mengyu

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The works of the group members have been published in literary magazines such as "Beijing Literature" and "Flower City". In 2022, the collection of works of the Picun Literary Group, "The Stars of Laborers", was published

"Writing poems on the clouds and living in the mud," said writer Yuan Ling, describing the Picun Literary Group. Among the members of the group, some people squeezed out time to write poems and paintings, some people insisted on reading despite cancer, a 350-yuan rental house filled with several large boxes of books, and a draft novel was written with 200,000 words.

Yuan Ling has been a tutor in the Picun Literature Group for 7 years, and often communicates with workers outside of the classroom. "I'm the same kind of person as they are. From the countryside, Beipiao, the working class - my brother and sister-in-law are all carrying big bags in the freight department, and I don't have a house, a car, or a stable social security. ”

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Left: Yuan Ling and Xiaohai by the Wenyu River

Right: Yuan Ling's new book "My Picun Brothers and Sisters"

When he felt lonely in Beijing, Yuan Ling often wanted to come to Pi Village, sit in the charity shop where Xiaohai worked, or go out to work with other workers. After the Spring Festival this year, group member Mengyu gave Yuan Ling a pair of insoles embroidered by himself. She is a domestic worker, likes to write poetry, paint, dance, and often send her manuscripts to Yuan Ling to read.

"They treat you very much as one of their own," Mr. Yuan said. In 2022, he began to write a new book "My Brothers and Sisters in Pi Village" with a group portrait of his co-workers, "Literature itself is a utopia, but often one person is building this utopia, and Pi Village has a group of people. ”

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Confinement sister-in-law Shi Yuqin has the habit of writing a diary

The first time he went to the worker's house, Yuan Ling was a little shocked by the condition of the house. "When I went in, I couldn't turn around at all, it was just a bed against it, there was no bathroom, no kitchen, black hole. This cramped living situation is not understood by them if they are not approached. ”

Last year, Yuan Ling rented a 650-yuan street-facing house in Pi Village, which has no air conditioning and heating, and the public toilet is in the corridor, which is very dirty. "I want to experience more realistically the living conditions of the workers in the literature group, how to rent a house, how to spend winter and summer, how to eat and bathe, how to go to the toilet."

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The residence of welder Ma Jiandong in Pi Village

Most of the workers chose to accept the difficult living conditions. "The rent here is very cheap, and the cost of eating is affordable, and it is affordable financially." Ma Jiandong is a member of the Picun drama group and often attends lectures in the literature group. The place he rented had no bathing space in the yard. In winter, he would spend about 10 yuan to go to the bathhouse, and in the summer, he would take a bucket to dry in the yard for noon, and heat the water into the house to wash. When the drama group went to perform in other places, he was very happy that he could take a comfortable bath in the hotel.

Shi Yuqin, the confinement sister-in-law, lives in Yingezhuang Village, across the river from Pi Village, with a monthly rent of 350 yuan. The room is small and dim, and a yard is shared with the neighbors. In addition to the cheap rent, Shi Yuqin is more concerned about living here to facilitate the literature group to attend classes.

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The long draft on Shi Yuqin's mobile phone has nearly 200,000 words

In 2017, she learned about the Picun Literature Group because of "I Am Fan Yusu", and she would come to class every weekend when she was free. At that time, she lived far away, and sometimes she was late after class, so she had to stay in a hotel in Pi Village, 80 yuan a night. Her husband was very dissatisfied with this, he was bedridden all the year round, and the family only relied on Shi Yuqin to earn money. After going to Pi Village to attend classes for two months, she didn't make any money, and only brought back a few books.

"No matter how much money I make, I've always kept the habit of reading." There are several large boxes of books piled up in the small rental house, all of which Shi Yuqin has read one after another over the years. She loves to read books that are more than 100 years old, and she has read many of the Mao Dun Literature Award winning works, and she also likes to read books by Osamu Dazai and Ryunosuke Akutagawa. There are two books that she takes with her wherever she moves, one is "Dream of Red Mansions" and the other is "One Hundred Years of Solitude". "It's good to like literature, it makes you less miserable. When I was in the most pain, I read books every day, and when I read them, I felt fine. ”

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Shi Yuqin's rental house is full of large boxes of books

As a confinement lady, once she goes into the house, Shi Yuqin can't look at her mobile phone, let alone talk about writing. When she was resting, she wrote on her phone, only typing word by word with one finger, and wrote very slowly. Yuan Ling found that many members of the Picun literary group were not very good at using computers, "Some people were not very good at using mobile phones, and they couldn't save them when they wrote and wrote, and they disappeared." ”

In 2020, Shi Yuqin was diagnosed with breast cancer, "The doctor said that the cancer cells have metastasized, and it is possible that they will only live for a few months. During the treatment, she had time to listen to the classes of the Picun Literature Group and write consciously. She started writing a long story last year, and the draft has reached nearly 200,000 words. "I didn't think it was good after the first draft, so I destroyed it, and this is the second draft."

"Life hits them hard, and they haven't given up yet." Yuan Ling said.

And Shi Yuqin thinks that if they don't write it down, will anyone still know about their lives 100 years or 200 years from now? "In the client's home, it is impossible for us to speak, and no one likes to listen, but everyone has the desire to express themselves in life."

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In January this year, Mengyu participated in the Guangzhou inD Art Book Fair as one of the representatives of the Picun Literary Group

Parenting sister-in-law Mengyu has a recent concern. Her daughter-in-law is pregnant, and her due date is in September, and she will have to go back to her hometown to take care of her, and she will probably never be able to go back to Beijing again. My current employer was introduced by Mr. Yuan Ling, who was his student. ”

Compared with the fact that she can't go back to Beijing to earn money, what makes Mengyu even more depressed is that she will no longer be able to go to the Picun Literary Group. "If I didn't have a literary group, I would feel very lost and lonely working alone in Beijing, and it was the literary group that saved me."

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In the Picun Literature Group under Mengyu's brush, teacher Zhang Huiyu is giving a lesson to the workers

In 2017, Mengyu began to attend classes in the Picun Literature Group. At that time, she lived in Haidian, and it was 12 o'clock when she returned to her employer's house after attending class. Several times, she took Zhang Huiyu's car back. Zhang Huiyu is a teacher at Peking University's School of Journalism and Communication, and was one of the first to come to Picun Literature Group to teach classes. Sometimes, when class was late, he would drive back to his co-workers who lived far away.

Today, there are 40 or 50 mentors and volunteers in the Picun Literary Group, including university teachers, editors, writers, and so on. Every weekend evening, the tutor chooses a book or an article to discuss with the workers, and also assigns the workers homework after class. "Teachers from outside come to class, workers come to learn. Everyone shared with each other, and slowly formed such an atmosphere. Yuan Ling said.

"I feel honored that those teachers are all teaching for free. I didn't study hard when I was in school, but now I'm very fulfilling to learn something. "Mengyu is an active member of the literary group, and he often takes the subway and bus to get fascinated by writing and take the station." At first, I thought that being a babysitter was inferior, but literature calmed my mind all at once. ”

Mengyu is the pen name she gave herself. She has loved the rain since she was a child, "Other children are wearing umbrellas, and I like to run in the rain." "She also likes to dream, and the strange pictures in her dreams are recorded by her with a brush." Mengyu seems to be another identity, a real me. It's my real name, and I don't like it very much. ”

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Dream Rain's painting

There isn't much time left for Mengyu to write, only when the employer's children fall asleep, or when the work is all done, is there a little free. Sometimes she couldn't sleep at night, so she got up and painted. "Our job is very special, when the employer has something, I can't rest for a day that I would have rested for." Yuan Ling remembers that once Mengyu worked at an employer's house until he went into shock.

It was the interaction with the Picun Literary Group that made Yuan Ling realize that "no matter how high-end the society develops, the bottom still depends on human labor." But he believes that everyone, regardless of social status, should have the opportunity and the right to develop themselves. A person who has not gone to college is not necessarily less thoughtful and impressed than someone who has gone to college. ”

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Xiaohai plays and sings the original song "My name is Hu Xiaohai"

In the winter of 2015, Xiaohai worked on the assembly line of Foxconn in Zhengzhou. At 4 o'clock in the morning, when he and the workers got off work together, thousands of people poured out of the factory gate, and he wrote a poem with feelings, "Under the bright galaxy, in the cold moonlight, the crowd is running masked, like a deep winter snow." ”

"At that time, I had been working for 12 years, and I was very confused and painful." Xiaohai said that in those years, he changed forty or fifty jobs, "none of which can let me see tomorrow." ”

Reading and writing poems is Xiaohai's way to resolve his boredom. When he was alone, he used poetry to talk to himself. In 2008, Xiaohai memorized three or four hundred Tang poems and wrote three or four hundred poems, "I was very young and full of pride. The life in the workshop, the difficult mood and the classical poetry have a magical chemical reaction, which is so good that it can resonate with the emotions of Li Bai and Su Shi. ”

Many of Xiao Hai's poems are about assembly line life, one of which is called "Writing the Assembly Line into Poems", "To feel the wind of the four seasons outside the workshop window, let yourself in the mechanical body, the blood of the industry deep in the bone marrow and the moon of the Tang Dynasty be resurrected together." ”

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The second-hand charity shop where Xiaohai works is covered with poems and paintings, and Yuan Ling named it "Poetry Store"

Today, Xiaohai has been away from the assembly line for many years and works in a second-hand clothing charity store near Pi Village. The salary is not high, but he is satisfied, "If I hadn't been here, I would have gone crazy if I continued to be angry at the factory now, so I was very reluctant to leave here." ”

But the influence of literature on him is not all positive, Xiaohai half-jokingly said, a little regretful that he only engaged in literature at that time, delayed his love, and is still single, "Every year I go home is very stressful, and there is no one to introduce to me at such an age." ”

Yuan Ling believes that it is difficult for literature to bring great changes to workers at the practical level. "For most workers, life is still life, and it is still hard work. After Fan Yusu became famous, he also had to work part-time jobs to maintain his daily life. If they take their literary dreams too seriously, they may even have an impact on their lives. Yuan Ling remembered that a person who studied Zhuangzi came to Pi Village before, and later studied his wife and children; There is also a literary young man who has written more than 10 million words, but he can't get them out.

"Literature, on the other hand, does open up a new world for them. In their humble lives and repetitive labor, there can be a place that brings some sense of value. ”

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A collection of works printed by the Picun Literary Group for Xiaohai and Mengyu

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Although Ma Jiandong's home is dim and cramped, he hangs a colorful windmill on the wall

Despite this, the future of the Picun Literary Group remains uncertain. "Next year, the classrooms of the literature group may be demolished, and the lease will expire." "This utopia has been going on for at least 10 years. If it can plant a seed in people's hearts, then without this, there will be other grassroots literature, such as Hu Anyan, Wang Jibing and Chen Nianxi, and the trend of workers' literature is irreversible. This is exactly why he wrote the book "My Brother and Sister in Pi Village".

"I hope that the Picun Literary Group can always exist, at least for now, and this dream can be carried out."

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