Wen | like water
"The blood of the original villagers must flow back to the original hometown before it stops boiling!"
- Zhong Li and "The Original Villagers"
In the winter of 1940, on a train bound for Taiwan's railway station, a young man and woman sat far away in chairs on either side of the aisle, their expressions melancholy. Looking at each other, the man smiled and blossomed, and the woman laughed with it, remembering the scene before getting into the car.
In the film "Original Villagers", Qin Han and Lin Fengjiao play Zhong Lihe and Zhong Pingmei
On that day, the woman got off work, and the old man saw the man waiting for him at the intersection. The man had just returned to Taiwan from the distant Shenyang, and this time he wanted to take the woman away from his hometown where he lived for 25 years and elope together.
Eloping, corrupting the court since ancient times, unless it is a last resort, who is willing to break with the family with filial piety and leave with their sweethearts?
Originally, the man's name was Zhong Lihe, nicknamed Ah Cheng, a Taiwanese writer, novelist, and one of the outstanding founders of Taiwanese vernacular literature, and had an important position in the history of modern Taiwanese literature. His talent and writing career were miserable, and it is reminiscent of the writer Lu Yao, who was called "a pen cultivator who fell in a pool of blood" by posterity.
The young Zhong Lihe falls in love with Zhong Pingmei, a woman who works on her farm. Because falling in love with the same surname violates local customs and is not tolerated by the family and society, he does not hesitate to fall out with his father and take pingmei across the ocean.
After arriving in Shenyang, they settled down in a large courtyard. In the courtyard, there are monkeys, cart pullers, fortune tellers, wood choppers... Among them, the neighbors surnamed Pei took good care of them.
Just arrived in Shenyang, Zhong Lihe made a living driving taxis. At that time, Shenyang was occupied by the Japanese, and the guests were more Japanese.
On this day, the hired car was two men and a woman, he pulled people to drive in the snow-covered forest path, only to hear the young woman on the car crying and crying, the old woman while using Japanese to compensate the man, while using Chinese to threaten the young woman must see the Japanese, the man saw the woman unwilling, raised her hand and scolded her.
Zhong Lihe is from Taiwan, Taiwan was occupied by Japan for more than 50 years, and the education promoted is Japanese, so Zhong can understand that this is the Chinese ji nv who is unwilling to serve the Japanese and is beaten. Extremely annoyed, he slammed on the brakes, opened the door to shake off his employer, and angrily scolded in Japanese, "Go down, Uncle is not waiting for you!" ”
Zhong Lihe angrily rebuked the Japanese
When he got home, Zhong Lihe told his wife that we had eloped here not only to fill our stomachs, but also to have more important things to do.
This morning, the landlord came to collect the rent, and she put her hands in her sleeves and scolded the people who owed money in the courtyard. Zhong Lihe realized something, turned around and went into the house to get a pen and paper, he told Ping Mei that he wanted to write down the landlord's scolding words.
If the landlady's words are vernacular and worth recording, the stimulation of his colleagues is the catalyst for his writing.
That night, colleagues chatted and said that there are two professions in the world that do not sleep at night and make money at night, one is a taxi driver, the other is a prostitute, and the driver and prostitute are actually peers, both serving the master.
The inadvertent words of his colleagues deeply stung Zhong Lihe's patriotic feelings, and he immediately resigned.
He had this conversation with his wife, Pingmei:
Riho: A person can do anything for three meals a day, but what does this mean? I find it pointless.
Pingmei: You don't drive, what do you want to do?
Rikazu: I want to write... I feel that our nation has suffered too much, and although I don't know her well enough, I hope to do more for her. I'm going to write down what I've seen and what I've experienced, and I'm going to start writing now.
This decision was a turning point in the fate of Zhong Lihe's life. Since then, he has been writing non-stop, appealing to the tip of his pen what he sees and thinks.
At the beginning of Zhong Lihe's writing, his wife Pingmei relied on a shoe box to maintain the life of the two, and even when life was extremely difficult, Zhong Lihe did not forget the national integrity and refused to translate for the Japanese.
Ping Mei told Lady Pei that Zhong Lihe was a young master when he was at home, and that there was a mountain in their family, and the whole mountain was a farm. He's wronged him by driving a taxi here, and now he's writing at home and determined to be a writer.
Zhong Lihe and Uncle Pei chatted in the wild and said that they wanted to see China. Uncle Pei told him that he wanted to see China in Chinese flavor and had to go to Tianjin and Beijing. Although Peiping was also occupied by the Japanese at this time, Uncle Pei firmly believed that Japanese rule was like snow melting, and China would one day end its occupation.
Zhong Lihe chatted with Uncle Pei
When he was worried about the cost of the trip to Beiping, the second brother who was working outside came to see him and brought cash, and Zhong Lihe's trip to Beiping was realized.
In Beiping, Pingmei opened a small shop selling firewood, zhong Li and full-time writing. This period of time was a relatively generous period of their lives.
In 1945, Under the pseudonym Jiang Liu, Zhong Lihe published his first collection of novels, Oleander, which was the only book published during his lifetime. This is his brainchild for several years. In this book, most of them write about the various things he saw in Beiping, and also about his hometown in Taiwan.
He told his wife that he would send the book to his friends in Taiwan, to his second brother, and to his father so that they would know what they had been doing all these years since they left their hometown.
When Ping Mei asked if anyone bought the book, Zhong Lihe firmly said that whether anyone bought it or not, he would write it. It was an ideal, a pursuit that would never stop unless he died.
At this time, Zhong Lihe's writing state is full of spirit and health.
In 1945, his Taiwan compatriots in Peiping told him that Taiwan, occupied by Japan, was bombed by the Us military in a mess, and that Japan, as a defeated country in World War II, withdrew from Taiwan and Taiwan was restored.
At this time, the eldest brother sent a telegram from Taiwan saying that his father had passed away. Zhong Lihe was very sad, remembering that his father had vigorously opposed his marriage with the same surname, so that the father and son broke up and ran away from home, but they did not think that it was the last side of the father and son.
Father and son break up
In 1946, Japan was defeated and surrendered, and as a Taiwanese living in Peiping, Zhong Lihe obviously felt that it was difficult for Taiwanese to live in Beiping after the war.
Homesick Zhong Lihe followed the advice of his second brother and returned to Taiwan in early 1946 with his pregnant sister Ping and his six-year-old son TieMin.
Stepping into the house, Zhong Lihe saw his elderly mother and sister-in-law weaving bamboo baskets.
It turned out that the family had been traumatized by years of war, and there was a lack of anything, not even white rice. Before my father died, the family business could not continue, the cloth shop, the brick kiln factory were not done, the harvest was not good in the drought, and the farm was sold. No one expected that the family would fall so quickly.
Although the days were sad, her mother was very happy about the return of Zhong Li and the family. She told her son that dad was no longer angry with them for eloping, and left them a few plots of land and rooms.
Taiwan, which has been ruled by Japan for half a century, faces a lack of Chinese when it returns to its motherland. At the behest of Zhong Bihe, the principal of Pingtung Neipu Junior High School, Zhong Lihe became a Chinese language teacher at the school and began his writing and teaching career.
Zhong Lihe teaches Mandarin
Soon, he developed a severe lung disease, often with a fever in the middle of the night, coughing all night and not being able to sleep well.
The principal saw Zhong Lihe writing with illness and tried to persuade him to take good care of his illness. Zhong Lihe said that when he first returned to his hometown, he felt a lot of feelings and had to write it down. Fearing that his lung disease would infect others, he resigned in March 1947 and returned to his hometown of Mt. Mino Kasa, where they had several old houses and a piece of land left by his father.
He said he was going home to recuperate, but his writing didn't stop.
During the day, when Pingmei works in the fields or works part-time to earn money, Zhong Lihe writes while taking care of the children. Ping Mei persuaded him to go to the hospital for treatment, but he was reluctant to let Ping Mei and the child. Ping Mei relieved him that there was no need to worry at home, as long as the disease was cured, our whole family had hope.
Zhong Lihe looked at Ping Mei affectionately, thoughtfully, and decided to take care of the illness first, otherwise he would be sorry for his wife who loved him deeply.
Zhong Lihe prepares to be admitted to the hospital for lung disease
He was admitted to Taipei Hospital, and this time, it was three years.
At the Taipei Hospital, Zhong Lihe personally saw the patients leave, and his family wailed. After being hospitalized for more than two years, his illness not only did not improve, but even because of the invasion of tuberculosis bacteria into the stomach and intestines, the digestive function was completely lost, and his condition turned critical. He and Pingmei mentioned the opening treatment of lung disease, which could cut off the broken part, but the operation was not 100% successful.
After more than two years of hospitalization, everything that the family could sell was sold, and for this operation, Pingmei sold the only remaining field in the family. Ping Mei did not want to leave regrets, the days are hard, she can work to earn money, even if her husband can not cure it well, he finally did his best.
In 1949, on the eve of the operation, Zhong Lihe wrote a letter to Pingmei from his hospital bed:
Ping Sister, dear Ping Sister, I am going to leave your mother and son and quietly leave... Over the years, I have suffered all my troubles and torments, and I only hope to recover my health sooner and live our poor but loving life, but in this life and this life I only owe you... Dear ones, you should also stand up bravely and live bravely so that you can live up to my death.
Happily, the operation was successful, and Zhong Lihe, who had 6 ribs removed, survived!
Zhong Lihe was discharged home
Zhong Lihe got on the train and returned with his luggage. He weakly got off the train with the armrest, staggering, hallucinating around, on the platform, he did not see Ping Sister, somewhat lost, continued to walk slowly, full of worries.
At this time, Ping Mei waited for him at home with two children. She didn't dare to pick him up at the train station, she was afraid that she couldn't control crying, after all, this operation was a gamble, and she was afraid that she would never see him again after losing.
Zhong Lihe returned, and he could write again.
This time, he felt that time was passing so quickly, and he wanted to make up for the time he had wasted in the hospital. He kept writing and submitting, but rejections were commonplace.
At this time, their daughter Tie Ying was also born, and he already had 3 children.
His wife, Pingmei, is still working hard, and he still can't support his family by writing.
For writing, Zhong Lihe also thought about giving up, thinking that he had been writing for many years, but in exchange for constantly rejecting manuscripts. When he heard that his eldest son also wanted to become a writer in the future, he warned him not to write even as a farmer.
Writing is so hard.
But he has a belief in his heart: life is not satisfactory, just like farming encounters drought, and gritting his teeth will pass. Writing is your duty and ideal, even if the work is not published, but the sweat flows into the field, and eventually grows crops.
In 1954, his second son Limin died unexpectedly, Zhong Lihe was physically and mentally exhausted, and he wrote his inner repentance and pain into "Wild Expanse". This work on the theme of the death of his son was published by Wild Wind magazine. This is the first submission to be adopted by the literary world after he returned home from illness.
In the difficult life, he struggled unremittingly, went deep into the countryside and neighbors, and wrote a series of works that expressed the voice of the peasants, such as "Hometown Neighbors" and "Original Villagers". His novel "Kasayama Farm" won the second prize for novels from the Taiwan Chinese Literature and Art Prize Committee.
But then his life came to an end.
On August 4, 1960, while revising his novella Rain, he relapsed from an old disease, heptysis on the manuscript, and died of exhaustion at the age of 45.
He closed his eyes forever, and he did not wait for his generous contributions.
<h1>postscript:</h1>
Zhong Lihe's representative works include "Oleander", "Hometown", "Poor Couple", "Rain", "Kasayama Farm", "Former Villagers" and so on. Most of his works were published in the "Lianhe Bao Supplement" edited by writer Lin Haiyin.
After Zhong Lihe's death, Lin Haiyin published "Tribute to Mr. Zhong Lihe", which attracted people from all corners of Taiwan Province to mourn and donate money.
Zhong Lihe's eldest son and writer Zhong Tiemin later recalled:
Through "Lian Vice", I found that my father, who almost lived a hermit life, had so many friends and readers who cared about him. Holding those articles, although I felt warm and comforted in my heart, I couldn't help but burst into tears.
After Zhong Lihe's death, his works were published and distributed with the help of Lin Haiyin and others:
At his Centennial Festival, his work "Rain" was published and distributed;
At the anniversary festival, his "Kasayama Farm" was published and distributed...
Stills from the film "The Original Villager"
20 years after Zhong Lihe's death, his autobiographical novel "Yuanxiangren" was made into a film of the same name by Taiwanese director Li Xing, starring qin Han and Lin Fengjiao, two of the most popular stars at the time, telling the life story of Zhong Lihe and his wife Zhong Pingmei.
With the release of the film, many readers and fans have a better understanding of Zhong Lihe's life, and many people run to his hometown of Mei Nong to know more about this writer and works.
This film was selected by Taiwan's "Chinese Filmmakers Association" as the first place in the top ten Chinese and foreign films in 1980.
In 1983, with the help of Lin Haiyin and other friends, Zhong Lihe Memorial Hall was completed in his hometown, which became a grand event in the literary circle at that time and the first memorial hall for Taiwanese writers.
Bells and sculptures
In August 2012, The Lulin Observatory of Taiwan's "Central University" named an asteroid discovered on October 23, 2008 "Zhong Lihe", the first asteroid in the world to be named after a modern Chinese writer.
What later people did is perhaps the best memorial to this impoverished and obscure writer before his death.
Life is about looking in the mirror and growing up in emotional stories.
"Trickle of ideas, eventually merge into a river"
#"Flashing Moments" Theme Essay Issue 2 # #心晴计划 #