And then to Ili, Wang Meng's Xinjiang | Shan Sanya

Photo/ Xinhua News Agency

It's Ili again. This is the third time that I have returned with Wang Meng to his hometown, his unforgettable Bayandai.

In 2013, Bayandai Town built the "Wang Meng Book House", which has now become a tourist attraction and education base, and the publishing house often donates. In early July this year, Jiangsu Phoenix Publishing and Media Group donated another 1,300 copies of Wang Meng's works. On the day of the donation ceremony, under the pergola of the courtyard of Wang Meng's Bookstore, we met Withzi Amat and Khali Amat, as well as the Uzbek teacher Mansur, the Han Jin Guozhu and his wife Zhang Shuying. Old acquaintances from 56 years ago surrounded Wang Meng, shaking hands, hugging, greeting, crying, and laughing. Through the crowd, Wang Meng greeted me: "Come, introduce you, this is a group of friends I have written about." ”

In fact, we have seen it, and this time, I carefully examined it again. Wearing a white shirt and purple hat, Amati's face is dark and deeply tattooed, and he wears an epidemic mask in a formal manner, but he pulls it to his chin in order to speak. He is featured in Wang Meng's Oh, Muhammad Ahmed. The Muhammad Ahmed in the novel is such a complete person: clever and elegant, reading poetry and speaking Chinese, loving to flirt with female members, pouring out his bags to treat others kindly, using small chopped earth in the era of big pot rice, using large chopped earth in the era of remuneration for work, he defended himself by confronting cadres in person, and he almost became a "spy" when he longed for a better life. In short, he is not an honest man, but he is a good man, "no narrow local nationalism". At the end of the novel, Wang Meng wrote that Amed's wife returned to her mother's home in southern Xinjiang to visit her relatives, and he said sadly that if his wife did not return, he would go to the great motherland to "wander around." I asked Wang Meng, how is his fate so regrettable? Wang Meng said that there is this side of life! The meat in front of him, Amat, if he was affectionate when he was young, is now a mature and stable old man.

The bearded man who walked in front of him, tall and mighty, he was the militia captain of the year, Khali Amat, and he was a cheerful man at first glance. He is one of the prototypes of the militia company commander Elken in Wang Meng's "Border City Huacai". Although his family was not very wealthy, Elken did not often return to other members, but he was always the most popular person at the party, he "could drink, sing, and tell jokes... But it is by no means vulgar." "Elken" once had a proud hand, that is, to let Wang Meng assist in writing the critical draft, and won 30 tickets for the village to watch the "critical movie" "The Visitor on the Iceberg", and as a result, the members of the society were huge and happy, shouting "criticism and criticism" together with the militia, riding horses to the oasis theater in Yining City to watch movies, and spent a beautiful day.

Alas, this time I missed the old branch secretary Asim Yusufu, who passed away in 2019. I still remember the last time he and Wang Meng held hands for a long time. I often can't say the names of other ethnic groups, but the name of Assimu Yusufu, I remember it unambiguously, because Wang Meng did not mention him less, saying that he was an active member of the land reform, did not have much culture, but did things at a very high level, upright and clean. Wang Meng knew that he was sick and had difficulties in life, and after returning to Beijing last time, when it came to the New Year, he sent him 5,000 yuan, and the local comrades who helped us send money also pulled coal for him. The old branch secretary must have known that the Han boy he led in those years had always been thinking about him!

There were also some deceased people, and Wang Meng would never see them again. In his memoirs, he wrote that the landlord Mu Min and Ayi Muhan's mother, who lived together under one roof for six years, visited wang Meng when he returned to Ili in 1981, and then his mother died after she lost her sight in both eyes, and her father was no longer in the world ("The Hidden Mud House Courtyard"). There is also Ismaar, who can speak big and can, and died young many years ago ("Good Man Ismail").

Wang Meng's Xinjiang is far more than what we see and think of as a song and laughter, it is a full life of five flavors, yin and yang, spring, summer, autumn and winter. In the novel "Pale Gray Eyes", the carpenter Mark is bent on bringing his beautiful wife back to life, and he does not hesitate to ruin his family, and as a result, even the girl who loves him entrusted by his wife does not get his care in the end. In "The Love of The Girl of Emila", although the world believes that she did not have a good beginning and a good end, Wang Meng realized the happiness she had experienced from the price she paid. He wrote most emotionally about his landlord,"Mumin's father and Ayimuhan's mother:" I think they gave me so many things that I would never be able to use them for the rest of my life." I feel that if I have grown a little in twenty years, I should first of all owe it to them. They are not greedy, they are not lazy, they are not jealous, they are not tired or impetuous, they are not harsh or weak, they are not obscure or reckless. ("The Hidden Earthen House Courtyard") What a high evaluation and introspection this is.

In "This Side of the Landscape", Wang Meng portrays and mentions seventy or eighty characters, including the broad and wise Ilham Tohmu, the gentle and strong Snow Forest Guli girl, and the euphemistic and stoic Ur Khan who has been tempered by difficult days. In addition to the Uyghurs, he also wrote about the sons and daughters of Ili of various ethnic groups in Han, Kazakh, Xibe, and Russia. Wang Meng is in Xinjiang, not a cadre sinking, not experiencing life, he is a commune member in Ili, the masses of all ethnic groups do not hide from him, like to have a drink with him, like to pour out their hearts to this Han "old king", never hide their setbacks on the road of their lives. They have the advantages of simplicity, kindness, politeness, and friendship, and they find ways to make their lives better and think about difficult things. However, they also have the weakness of not paying attention to efficiency and moving their eyes carefully from time to time. Wang Meng can sympathize with their joys and sorrows, understand their simplicity and cunning, and know their happiness and hardships.

During his sixteen years in Xinjiang, Wang Meng spent eight years in Bayandai, Ili, during which time he served as the deputy captain of the brigade, that is, the deputy captain of the second brigade of the Bayandai Red Flag People's Commune in Yining County, Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Wang Meng said that Ili is a good place among good places. How to do a good Fa, Wang Meng deeply understood. Ili is a fertile river valley, an oasis on the Gobi desert, Wang Meng and the members of the community, four hours of farming busy, there is always no end to work. It is difficult to imagine how much labor The thin Wang Meng could have at that time, but he did benefit from physical labor exercises, his shoulders and arms and chest were quite thick, not thin, and he was still in his eighties, and there was little problem of shoulder pain and waist pain, which made me, a person in his sixties and seventies ashamed. He recalled the Battle of Longkou in The Great Huangqu, and wrote about raising the field, cutting wheat, planting trees, watering, hoeing, carrying water, carrying wheat, cutting alfalfa, and upper beams... He's done all this tough work!

On the map of China, Beijing goes to Xinjiang, one east and one west, I don't know how many thousands of miles. Yili, on the other hand, is in the tight west of Xinjiang, and the time difference with Beijing is two hours and forty minutes. Nowadays, from Beijing to Urumqi, it takes three and a half hours to fly, and then to Ili, it takes more than an hour to take a plane. Wang Meng said that the first time he went to Xinjiang, he first took a train from Beijing to Xi'an, along the way through Baoding, Shijiazhuang, Handan, Zhengzhou, and Sanmenxia, arrived in Xi'an to stay in Shangdian, swam the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, and then set off, passing through Tianshui, Lanzhou, Wuwei, Jiuquan, Wusheling, Jiayuguan, Hami, turpan, and finally arrived in Urumqi. Urumqi is 600 kilometers further west to Ili, next to the border. Every time I didn't know how to take a half-day plane to Xinjiang, I couldn't help but ask in my heart, how did Wang Meng make up his mind to take his whole family to Xinjiang? Of course, I know that he said that it was to strive for a larger space for writing, and also to go to a completely unfamiliar place and practice Chairman Mao's call to "weather the wind and rain and see the world." But after all, this is a major turning point from region to psychology, in a sense, it is also a major setback in life, and it is actually some active choice. It still has to be said that for Wang Meng, struggle is higher than retreat, and the pursuit of heart is greater than ordinary heart.

Starting from the topic of the relationship between Wang Meng and Ili, my curiosity expanded from point to point and expanded, enriching my understanding of Ili in Xinjiang.

When I arrived in Yili, I couldn't help but think of one person, that is, Lin Zexu. This Anti-Smoking Hero of the Qing Dynasty, who had a clear sense of national distress, was reused and degraded many times in his life, and was also sent to Yili to embark on a long journey. Yili Linzexu Memorial Hall is located in Yining Economic Cooperation Zone, covering a large area and an open area. National hero Lin Zexu statue in front of the pavilion, he did not wear an official hat, his face was slightly obliquely looking up into the distance, and his "Yijiang Chinese New Year's Eve Lyrical Four Songs" were engraved on the wall behind him. During the three years of Ili, while promoting advanced agricultural technology and helping the development of local production, he was keenly aware that the coveting of Our Xinjiang territory by External Forces in Britain and Russia was a major hidden danger. In the past, I only knew that Zuo Zongtang had raised funds to recover Xinjiang, but at the Lin Zexu Memorial Hall, I found the original motivation for Zuo Zongtang to recover Xinjiang. In 1849, Lin Zexu was re-elected, recuperating from illness, and on the way back to his hometown from Ili, Zuo Zongtang, who had heard of his name for a long time but had never met, met him on a boat on the Xiang River. One is a well-known 65-year-old Ichipin Heavy Minister, and the other is a 37-year-old post-student whose ambitions have not been unleashed. According to records, the long talk on January 3, 1850, family affairs, state affairs, and world affairs, all of them were agitated and echoed in unison, and finally Lin Zexu was entrusted with "Western Xinjiang, and the king is the only one". Less than a year later, Lin Zexu died of illness, and 28 years later, in 1878, Zuo Zongtang defeated the Anglo-Russian-supported invader Agubai and recaptured Xinjiang. When the narrator finished telling this story, I cried out in my heart, this is really a seamless transmission of ambition! Mission Docking! And this person who did not live up to the trust was just a cloth at that time!

Xinjiang has never been a quiet land. From the incorporation of the Han Dynasty into the territory of China, to the establishment of provinces after the recovery of Zuo Zongtang in the Qing Dynasty, to the period of the modern people's democratic revolution, this vast and diverse land has continuously interpreted the story of division, division, integration and struggle. Since the founding of New China, the Ili region of Xinjiang, as the western gate of the motherland, has been turbulent, and under the mainstream of national identity and Chinese cultural identity, there has always been an undercurrent of separatist forces. In "This Side of the Landscape", Wang Meng has a description of the Ita incident in the 1960s. But in recent years, when we returned to Xinjiang, we saw clean and tidy rural streets, small courtyards of villagers with flowers, and the voices of friendship among the people of all ethnic groups - Xinjiang and the motherland together towards a well-off life. Khorgos, the gateway where border people fled, is now a busy port of international trade.

Although it has been forty-two years since he was transferred back to Beijing from Xinjiang, although he has entered the old age, Wang Meng still keeps coming back, constantly returning to his blessed land in adversity, constantly picking up the memories of Xinjiang and reviewing the memories of Ili and the relatives of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang. The excitement of going back to the past when he saw them, the emotion of loving each other and tears in his eyes, and the flying eyebrow dance he spoke Uyghur, intoxicated and excited, made onlookers also moved. What he loves most is that difficult challenges are only temporary harassment, and the unity of the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang and the unity of the great motherland will never be overcome.

Break the steamed buns and drink tea and eat melons and fruits, everyone sits around a table, and there are always endless words. Mrs. Khali Amat kindly gave me a black flower shawl, which I wore with Wang Meng in front of the second brigade headquarters of the Bayandai Red Flag People's Commune.

Wang Meng was often satisfied with the choices that changed his life. Why not? Xinjiang is not a long journey of his suffering but a high ground of his life. The sun in Xinjiang gave him enough calcium and strength; the people of Xinjiang, who were as kind as mountains, gave him a warm life and emotions; the language and expression of xinjiang compatriots increased his feelings and rhetorical ability in different languages; and even the unremitting vigor of the Xinjiang people for self-improvement also gave him the inspiration for life. Sixteen years of wealth is enough to benefit a lifetime, and sixteen years of sharing weal and woe with the people have become his eternal thoughts.

Author: Shan Sanya

Editor: Qian Yutong