With this article, I would like to send it to you who are working hard and struggling to survive,
Life never "superstitiously" anything,
Shout "Hooray",
It is better to grit your teeth and run in the rain.
How many decades can there be in life?
Can you imagine that most of a person's life will experience more than 20 years of barrenness and suffering, 15 years of being separated from his family, and live every day in fear of being repatriated to China?
Following the documentary "Little International Student", Chinese director Zhang Liling won the "Japan Broadcasting Culture Fund Award" again for "Living with Tears".
(The following source: the documentary "Living with Tears")
This Douban 9.1 score shocked the State University of New York Chinese circle and the entire Japanese society.
The life situation of the protagonist Ding Shangbiao's family of three in the past 15 years is comparable to a twisted and bizarre novel.
In 2019, there may be opportunities to study abroad without money, loans, national bursaries, scholarships for foreign universities...
If, 30 years ago, is all this still possible?
In the 1980s, Ding Shangbiao and his lover, who had been in the queue for many years, returned to Shanghai.
But he was penniless, delayed learning, and without technology, he could only do tedious and fragmentary work at the bottom of the factory every day.
By chance, he bought a Japanese language school study material for 50 cents on the side of the road, and what he did not expect was that this information changed his entire life from then on.
However, if he wanted to study in Japan, he had to pay 420,000 yen in tuition to the Japanese language school, which was equivalent to the salary income of Ding Shangbiao and his wife for 15 years at that time.
In that era when no one was rich, Lao Ding ran around to raise money and finally made up enough tuition.
At that time, the Japanese government approved the establishment of Japanese language schools in the Ahan-cho area to recruit Chinese students to solve problems such as the local economic downturn.
As for Japan, Lao Ding didn't know anything, not even where Ahan was.
With only one visa, I was ready to leave my family to study and work in Japan, changing my fate, who had thought that this walk would be 15 years.
In the visa issued in Japan, it is clearly written "Fan Wai", which means "remote place" in Chinese.
(Ding Shangbiao visa)
In Ahan, it is difficult for even Local Japanese to find a job, let alone foreigners who are saddled with "one body of debt".
Late one night in June 1989, Lao Ding decided to "escape" from Ahan and go to Tokyo, thousands of kilometers away, to work to pay off debts.
This also means that since then, he has lost his qualifications as an international student, and without this "asylum" status, he has become a full-fledged "black household".
During his part-time job, he went to a Chinese restaurant every day during the day and at night.
Faced with endless work, he had an idea - to make money! Send her daughter Ding Xi, who is studying in Shanghai, to a first-class university in the United States to study.
Old Ding said:
"Our family has been poor for generations, and so have my parents, who didn't have the opportunity to go abroad, so I cherish this opportunity very much." It's like racing, I've got the baton, and I'm going to give it to my daughter now. ”
Because of the loss of the visa, Lao Ding cannot return to China, and once he returns, he will be detained by the customs and will be forbidden to go to Japan forever.
For the sake of his daughter's future, Lao Ding lives a life of worry and fear every day, for fear of being repatriated.
Old Ding, who is accustomed to a hard life, even if he earns money, does not know how to spend it, and he returns almost all his salary to China every month.
Compared with China, with the spirit of hard-working and hard-working, even if you do some low-level income, you can save some income every year for your daughter to study in the United States.
(Ding Shangbiao, source: "Living with Tears")
However, the family still does not understand, what is there to stay in Japan? Why not return home?
The wife even once suspected that Lao Ding had raised a "Japanese little three" outside.
(Ding Shangbiao and his wife's wedding photo)
Until the 18th birthday of his daughter Ding Xi, his father specially called the Shanghai Radio and Television Station and ordered a Su Rui's "Holding Hands" for his daughter.
Looking back, the daughter has grown from a primary school student to a generous high school student, and in the past eight years, Lao Ding has thousands of moods, but he does not know who to talk to.
After listening to Su Rui's "Holding Hands", the lovers and daughters who stayed in Shanghai have long been unable to cry, and the eight-year parting is all written in the lyrics:
"Maybe the hand that holds hands, the previous life is not necessarily good to go,
Maybe with the road of companionship, this life will be busier,
So I held hands and walked together in the next life. ”
Her daughter Ding Xi, who was far away in Shanghai, was a senior at the high school attached to Fudan University at the time, and Ding Xi also saw the hope of life from her father.
In 1997, Ding Xi lived up to expectations and was admitted to the State University of New York with excellent results in medicine.
On the phone, the mother and daughter who heard the admission news were relatively speechless, and the mother was so excited that shed tears.
(Daughter Ding Xi's admission letter)
Ding Xi's mother faced the camera and said with a bitter smile:
"When I used to go to the temple to offer incense, people told me that I wanted three incense sticks to grow as well, and as a result, I made three incense sticks that were not the same length. You see now, there is no way for all three of them to be reunited. ”
Old Ding is in Japan, his mother is in China, and his children are about to go to the United States to study.
As her daughter Ding Xi prepares to go to New York to study, the chance of the father and daughter seeing each other again after eight years is getting closer and closer.
Because Ding Xi can transit in Japan, the father and daughter have been looking forward to this day for eight years.
Since Lao Ding did not have a visa and identity and could not go near the airport, the father and daughter met at the subway station.
After eight years of separation, the father and daughter did not hug each other and cry, and tried to restrain their emotions in front of the camera.
The father looked at his daughter's hair and said in Shanghainese:
"How did the hair go white?" You're going to go outside and lose weight. ”
After that, Lao Ding stared at his daughter up and down the whole time, cherishing every second of time together, as if he wanted to imprint his daughter's appearance in his mind.
The meeting was always short-lived, and seeing that the brief meeting time between the father and daughter was about to end, the two finally couldn't hold back.
Old Ding and his daughter don't know what to say at this moment? What to ask? Each other was caught up in the sad and hard memories of more than eight years.
At the airport, her daughter Ding Xi cried and said:
"After all these years, it may have been strange, anyway he is still my dad, and he has paid so much for me. You see when he was taking me out, he always had to carry his luggage, such a high step, he climbed up step by step, and he was old, and he didn't let me help him. ”
Ding Xi repeatedly persuaded him that he could get a scholarship, work in the United States, and let Lao Ding rest assured that he could return to China, but Lao Ding was unwilling and wanted to leave a back road for his daughter.
Kung Fu pays off, and the old Ding family of three who want to change the "intergenerational poverty" through themselves finally see the hope of reunion.
In 2004, at the age of 25, Ding Xi finally received an undergraduate degree from the State University of New York and successfully interned at a large hospital to begin pursuing a doctorate in medicine.
Lao Ding also left the "Japan" that had trapped him for 15 years and decided to return to China.
On the plane back, Old Ding folded his hands and silently prayed for safety.
For him, this was an important end to his life.
At the beginning of the documentary "Living with Tears", there is this narration:
"The number of suicides in Japan has exceeded 30,000 per year for 8 consecutive years, which is about 5 times the number of traffic accident deaths. In this Japan, where the eyes are full of endless nights, I would like to dedicate this film to all those who live with tears. ”
In his 15 years in Japan, Lao Ding has seen countless life and death parts, experienced setbacks and helplessness in life, and he is willing to put himself in this predicament.
Ding Shangbiao's family represents a typical Chinese family:
Parents are patient, reserved, hard-working, and despite their shyness, they can sacrifice everything for their children. No regrets, no resentments, no swearing.
Although today, this practice may also attract some public opinion as a disguised selfishness, such as adding ideas to children.
But more than that, it's about the greatness of parents.
(Source; Weibo)
This reminds the editor of a sentence that Yu Hua said in "Alive":
"As a word, 'alive' is full of power in the Chinese language. Its power does not come from shouting or attacking, but from enduring. To endure the responsibilities that life gives us, to endure the happiness and suffering that reality gives us, boredom and mediocrity. ”