Every year, the Changsha International Marathon sets its starting point at the Helong Gymnasium.
People should be familiar with this stadium named after the red general He Long.
Music lovers have listened to concerts here, and football lovers will not forget that the Chinese men's football team has beaten the Korean men's football team 1-0 here.
However, if you are not an old Changsha person, you may not really know that next to the Helong Gymnasium, there is also a Tianhan Grand Theater.
Tian Han is a Chinese who writes a legend of life, and his red story and his life experience of receiving influence and education from the Chinese Communist Party are worthy of our heartfelt feelings.
One day in September 2021, I finally had the opportunity to approach Tian Han's hometown and get to know Tian Han in an all-round way.
Our national anthem is the "March of the Volunteer Army", but compared to the composer of the national anthem, Nie Er, the popularity of Tian Han and the story of Tian Han have not been known by too many people.
I remember that when the Beijing Marathon was held in Tiananmen Square in 2016, I was touched by the fact that more than 30,000 runners sang the national anthem together.
Today, after watching the historical stage play "China in the Eyes of Tian Han" with friends in Tian Han's hometown, the music at the end sounded, and we and the actors on the stage involuntarily sang the national anthem.
This shock and emotion is exactly like what I experienced in the 2016 Beijing Marathon.
Tian Han is a native of Changsha, but in the six years since I came to Changsha, I have not met a person who told me the story of Tian Han.
Before going to Tian Han's hometown this time, my understanding of Tian Han only stopped at two sentences:
1 Tian Han is the lyricist of the national anthem.
2 Tian Han is a native of Guoyuan Town, Changsha County.
This time, I had the opportunity to go to Tian Han Cultural Park with my colleagues to learn more about Tian Han, and I felt very lucky.
The popularity of Tian Han Cultural Park is not bad, we first came to the Tian Han Life Story Exhibition Hall, through oil paintings and historical photos, to understand the legendary life of Tian Han.
In 1912, at the age of 14, Tian Han left his hometown and came to Changsha Normal School to study, where he heard the story of Teacher Xu Teli.
"Xu Teli has only nine fingers, and he is a patriot of flesh and blood." During his studies in Changsha, Tian Han learned that in 1908, the Qing government announced that nine years later, the National Assembly would be convened and the constitution would be formally established. Xu Teli, who was teaching at the Changsha Shuye School, found a kitchen knife, cut off the little finger of his left hand, and wrote eight words in blood: "Please open the Parliament, cut off the finger and send off", expressing his firm determination to support the petition.
In 1916, Tian Han was admitted to the Tokyo Higher Normal School in Japan, and then he established correspondence with Li Dazhao to learn about the Chinese Communist Party through Li Dazhao, and three years later (1919), Tian Han joined the Junior Chinese Society organized by Li Dazhao and other organizations in Tokyo.
Tian Han began writing in Young China, calling on Chinese students to rise up and save the motherland and nation that were suffering.
In 1924, Tian Han returned to China and founded the semi-monthly magazine "Southern Kingdom", which had his original works in the fields of drama and opera. Only at that time, the young Tian Han pursued romantic beauty and was far away from the people and reality.
In 1932, Tian Han joined the Communist Party of China. In 1934, in order to support the anti-Japanese salvation, Tian Han wrote a literary script called "The Rebirth of the Phoenix", which was later renamed "Children of the Wind and Clouds". In 1935, Tian Han was arrested and imprisoned, where he completed the lyrics of the March of the Volunteer Army. The original manuscript was sent out of prison by comrades visiting the prison. After Nie Er learned about it, he took the initiative to ask for the composition and made three revisions to the lyrics. Numerous tribulations have strengthened the mission of the literary and artistic revolutionary Tian Han to take the pen as the rong.
This true story about Tian Han has become clear and three-dimensional because of the stage play "China in the Eyes of Tian Han" and because of the explanation of oil paintings and historical photos in the exhibition hall of Tian Han's life and deeds.
In my heart, I finally sketched out a flesh-and-blood, incomparably real Mr. Tian Han.
Born in the countryside, studied in the city, studied overseas, and finally ushered in his own creative peak in the motherland. Tian Han, like every young person who has a pursuit and is willing to persevere, has finally achieved an extraordinary life in the test of society and under the repeated beating of the current reality.
After listening carefully to Tian Han's story, I suddenly found that those characters who were remembered by people actually had only a glorious side.
They threw themselves into the torrent of the times, felt and learned to the fullest, ren'er southeast and northwest wind, the persistence of the ideal in their hearts, in fact, never wavered.
Relive Tian Han's life again, see his pride in starting a journal when he was young, feel the "wall" of his first creative career, and finally witness him truly become a master... What I saw was the power of faith, and I understood how meaningful his persistence was.
Leaving the Tian Han Cultural Park, after experiencing a red baptism, I slowly calmed down my excited heart, I closed my eyes, but the picture from the stage play "China in the Eyes of Tian Han" was repeatedly played in my mind. In the resolute eyes of the male protagonist of the stage play, there is not a little impurity in sight.
Thank you for this stage play to let me see a real Tian Han, thank you for this red tour let me know such a valuable character.
Tian Han's life has been integrated with the history of resistance and artillery fire. After reading Tian Han, I may also understand that period of history from a certain side.
When I was a teenager, I loved to listen to the stories of those characters who were in the limelight, and longed to reproduce that success or greatness;
When people reach middle age, they love to read history and taste the persistence in the ordinary.
As the Internet buzzword said some time ago:
Changsha is a red hot land of "within ten steps, there will be herbs", and a heroic city that "worries about the world and dares to be the first".
Colleagues who listen to the heartbeat of Changsha look forward to meeting more red historical stories. After meeting each other again and again, I can make the ideal in my heart clearer.