Ai Wu
Ai Wu wrote this sentence in an essay in the 1940s, "Songs of the New Year": "Man should be like a river, flowing, flowing, flowing forward; like a river, singing, singing, rejoicing, bravely walking on this bumpy, thorny road." ”
In the decades that followed, the poet and writer Ai Wu, in his lifelong creative practice, like the "like a river, singing, singing" he wrote, went deep into life, fearless of hardships, and traveled south three times. Among the more than 5 million words he left behind, "The Record of the Southern Journey", "The Continuation of the Southern Journey", "The New Chapter of the Southern Journey" and so on have become the most popular works of the population, not only recorded in the annals of Chinese literature, but also translated into Japanese, Russian, English, German and other languages.
First southbound trip
Ai Wu, formerly known as Tang Daogeng, was born in 1904 to a family of rural teachers in Qingliu Township, Xinfan County, Sichuan Province (present-day Qingliu Township, Xindu District, Chengdu). In 1921, he was admitted to the free Chengdu Sichuan Provincial First Normal School. Influenced by New Youth and some progressive publications of the Creation Society.
In order to escape the arranged marriage at home, in the summer of 1925, Ai Wu left home and headed south. This trip to the south determined the literary career of this "wandering literary hero" after that. From Chengdu WangjiangLou to Yunnan, to Myanmar, this 21-year-old hot-blooded young man is full of confidence in the unentangled hardships, but full of confidence to dare to wander, to the south, all the way to drift, difficult to make a living. For the next six years, he trekked to Kunming and did miscellaneous labor; wandered in the Kachin Mountains of Burma as a horse shop guy; and wandered the exotic mountains of Southeast Asia to spend time with laborers. No matter how harsh the environment, along the way, Ai Wu always carried books, paper and pens, and an ink bottle hanging from a thin hemp rope, writing down what he saw, heard and felt under the oil lamp of the small guest house and on the wild hillside. Later, he went to Yangon, Myanmar, and fell ill in the streets, where he was taken in by a monk, Master Wan Hui, from Lezhi County, Sichuan. Later, Ai Wu worked as a newspaper proofreader, primary school teacher, and newspaper supplement editor in Yangon.
In the winter of 1930, Ai Wu was arrested for participating in the activities of the Burmese Communist Group against British colonial rule, and in the spring of 1931, he was escorted back to China via Hong Kong and Xiamen, and then to Shanghai in May of the same year. Soon, he happened to meet Yang Chaoxi, a friend of the first division in Chengdu, and the two had the same hobbies, so they became friends with Mo And on November 29 of that year, they jointly wrote a letter to Lu Xun to ask about the theme of the novel. On December 25, Lu Xun replied. Lu Xun's reply played an important role in navigating and guiding the growth of two outstanding writers in the history of modern literature. At the end of 1932, after Ai Wu joined the Chinese Left-Wing Writers' Union, he devoted his life to literary creation and began to publish novels.
When Ai Wu began to write, due to the influence of Hu Shi's proposition that "people should love the big me and love the small self", he took a pen name of "Ai Wu", which slowly evolved into the word "Ai Wu".
The first time he returned from his southbound journey, this writing career, known as "ink bottle hanging around his neck", led to Ai Wu's first influential book, "Journey to the South".
After the work was finished, Ai Wu began to hand over the manuscript to the Beiping Lida Book Company, which dragged on for two years and could not be published, and later Ai Wu gave the manuscript to Ba Jin, who was the editor-in-chief of the Shanghai Cultural Life Publishing House, which was published and soon caused a sensation.
"Journey to the South" is the first collection of novels written by Ai Wu, with a total of 25 articles, which is not only his debut work, but also his famous work and representative work. The book has both the customs of the Yunnan-Burmese border and South Asia, as well as the joys and sorrows of the people living in that land, and his own wandering life full of suffering. It can be said that Ai Wu was one of the first writers to bring the style of the lower class society in the southwest frontier region of China and the life of foreign people under colonial rule into modern literary creation, and made contributions to the development of the field of literary creation. The legendary story, the beautiful local colors, the frontier life and characters with a mysterious atmosphere make his works have a distinct lyrical style and romantic atmosphere.
Due to the influence of "Journey to the South", coupled with Aiwu's wandering career and early romantic novel style, there are many similarities with Gorky, and Aiwu was later called "China's Gorky".
In 1990, Emei Film Studio produced the film of the same name, "Journey to the South", based on Ai Wu's original work.
Second southbound
After the founding of New China, Ai Wu served as the director of the Chongqing Municipal Bureau of Culture, a director of the Chinese Writers Association, and a member of the All-China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and he went to Anshan, Daqing, Liangshan and other places to experience life. When he experienced life at Anshan Iron and Steel Company, he wrote a long novel "Hundred Refining into Steel", which is a representative work of Ai Wu reflecting the life of workers in the new era. It was published in 1957 in the journal Harvest, edited by Barkin.
In 1961, Ai Wu began his second southward journey. This trip to the south was arranged by the China Writers Association to implement the spirit of Mao Zedong at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art. In September of that year, Guo Xiaochuan, secretary of the party group of the China Writers Association, arranged for Ai Wu, Liu Zhen, and Lin Jinlan to go to Chengdu, Sichuan, to meet the old writer Sha Ting to visit Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan.
On the evening of September 27, Ai Wu and young writers Liu Zhen and Lin Jinlan left Beijing by train, arrived in Chengdu, and joined Sha Tong to start a trip to Chengdu, Chongqing, and Guiyang.
In Chengdu, Ai Wu's first stop was to return to his hometown and greet the villagers and understand their living conditions; in Chongqing, he visited the Gele Mountain Slag Cave and the White Mansion, which were once the prisons of the Kuomintang military command to persecute revolutionary volunteers; visited the Chongqing Iron and Steel Company, thinking of the scene of his experience of life in Anshan Iron and Steel Company in 1953, when he learned that the workers had created a lot of amateur literature and published many literary works, Ai Wu sincerely gave warm encouragement and talked with the literary and artistic workers in Chongqing. I gave detailed answers to some questions that everyone was concerned about.
In Guiyang for more than ten days, Ai Wu went to Huaxi, Huangguoshu, Holy Spring, Lingshan and other scenic spots to experience the Ethnic Customs of the Buyi ethnic group. After that, the group went to Kunming, Yunnan Province, and went deep into Xishuangbanna for interviews. This period of time is the longest, is the place where Ai Wu most wants to go, and it is also the place where Ai Wu later wrote the most ink and heart.
Ai Wu's second southbound journey began on September 27, 1961, and ended at the end of March 1962, lasting six months. After returning to Beijing, Ai Wu completed the "Continuation of the Journey to the South" in the form of the first person, with a compassionate and optimistic mood. With its singular ethnic characteristics and distinct regional characteristics, the "Continuation of the Journey to the South" is a witness to the social and historical development of Yunnan, and was published in 1964. Ai Wu once said: "The Continuation of the Journey to the South is written according to the reality of the society I have seen and the life I have experienced. But for this writer who has become famous, he always feels that it is his first obscure southbound journey, and he is most impressed. Ai Wu once wrote: "I always thought that the Southbound was my university, and I received a lot of social education and philosophy of life. In Ai Wu's memories, although the southbound has suffered a lot, every day life is very happy. On the contrary, when I got older, I had my own career and family, and my life was stable, but I no longer had the happiness of that time. Thinking about it carefully, it turned out that I was already old, "Although there was nothing at that time, I had youth!" He sighed.
The last southbound
In 1981, Ai Wu was invited by the Yunnan People's Publishing House to embark on his third southward journey. The wandering fascination, the attachment to wandering, and the desire to walk are Ai Wu's lifelong complexes.
This year, Ai Wu was already in his old age, and he was overwhelmed with courage, going deep into the Liangshan Mountains and returning to the frontier of Yunnan, accompanied by the Yunnan writer Gao Miao on ai Wu's southward journey. Ai Wu personally saw that after the Third Plenary Session of the Third Plenary Session, the people of Western Yunnan were bathed in the spring breeze of reform and opening up, and the changes made in all aspects were very fruitful. After returning, despite the fatigue of the journey, he worked tirelessly and wrote more than one million words such as "New Edition of the Journey to the South" and published it. It presents readers with a new outlook on China's frontiers after the reform and opening up.
In her life, Ai Wu traveled south three times. This is of great significance to Ai Wu's writing and even her life. The southbound is the main clue of Ai Wu's life, and it is a starting point of Ai Wu's writing, and he returns here again and again. The three southbound journeys, in terms of time distribution, run through three important time nodes in China's 20th century history: one is 1925-1931 in the first half of the century, one is 1961-1962 in the middle of the century, and the last one is the end of the century, and the beginning of the last 20 years of the 20th century, that is, 1981. After the first trip south, Ai Wu enriched the character gallery of modern Chinese literature through his portrayal of the people in the southwest frontier through works such as "The Journey to the South". Shortly after Ai Wu's second southward journey, despite his creations such as "Hundred Refining into Steel", he had in fact lost the right to write, and his unfortunate experience made him like a bird of fright, and if the wind blew, he had to quickly drop his pen shaft. Many of the works written after the third trip to the south depict a new construction and spiritual outlook of the border people.
As a writer, Ai Wu has been walking all his life, and three times he has gone south to observe and experience the vast life, it can be said that without walking, there would be no famous works of his "Southbound" series of novels. This passage concentrates on Ai Wu's view of literature and art, life and values.
On December 5, 1992, Ai Wu died at the age of 88. A year later, in the bamboo bushes of Xingui Lake Park on the banks of the Yinma River in xindu district, a wuwu cemetery was built. The "Tomb of Ai Wu" on the stele is a handwritten handwritten letter by Ba Jin, a fellow chinese literary figure and Ai Wu. Above the pedestal stands a bronze bust of Ai Wu, a thin face with a pair of deep eyes looking to the south. The passage he wrote in his famous essay" "Song of the New Year" became Ai Wu's epitaph, with a bouquet of copper camellias embedded underneath. A wave of young latecomers silently recited in front of the tomb, staring at the green mountains, pines, epitaphs, bronze statues, camellias, and feeling the extraordinary life of this southbound writer and wandering literary hero. (Xu Tinghua)
Source: Cover News
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