The root of a woman's happiness is never because she has been able to meet a perfect man, but her own down-to-earth self-reliance @ four good reading notes
"Red Pink" is Su Tong's novella, which was put on the screen by director Li Shaohong in 1995. The film of the same name is written by Ni Zhen, Li Shaohong and Su Tong, and co-starred Wang Ji, Wang Zhiwen and He Saifei. The film was nominated for the Golden Bear Award at the 45th Berlin International Film Festival and the Best Director Award at the 3rd Beijing University Student Film Festival.
The novel tells the story of two women in the Red Mansion and a prostitute in the Xihong Building in Suzhou in the early 1950s. After liberation, at the beginning of the Suzhou prostitute reform movement, the prostitute Qiu Yi refused to run away from the car in the middle of the labor reform and defected to her old lover Lao Pu, and soon, because Lao Pu was forced by the rich family to let Qiu Yi leave under family pressure and interests, Qiu Yi wanted to go home, but when she passed by the door and remembered the past, if the family could accommodate her, she would not go on this road, so she became a nun in desperation.
The good sister Xiaocai was forced to accept the transformation, did not want to form a connection with Qiuyi's favorite man Lao Pu, the betrayal of both girlfriend and lover, let the lonely and helpless QiuYi feel pain, returned home from the nunnery but was not accepted by her aunt and cousin, and married Feng Laowu with a chicken breast hunchback in despair. The small calyx who coveted pleasure forced Lao Pu to a dead end, and he embezzled a huge amount of public funds and was executed by shooting. Xiao Calyx lost her dependence again, she gave the child to Qiu Yi, and then followed a northern man on the train.
Qiu Yi refused to reform, and Xiao Calyx was forced to accept the transformation, but in the end none of them could get rid of the fate of continuing to be attached to men. Liberation was made, the sky dawned, and the landlords and old bustards who had oppressed the people were overthrown, but Qiu Yi and Xiao Calyx did not get a real new life. Today I will analyze why they were redeemed but not liberated and the practical significance that the film shows us, in my opinion, their encounters can be divided into two aspects of their own and social reasons to analyze.
In my opinion, the factors that caused the tragedy of Qiu Yi and Xiao Calyx are manifold, and feudal ideas and the persecution of the old society are the main aspects, but the reason why they are still difficult to get out of the mud when the new era comes, first of all, they are inseparable from their own limitations.
(1) The consciousness of attachment that has been reduced to the bones has led to a series of disastrous consequences
First, self-contempt
At the labor camp, Xiao Calyx wanted to hang himself because he could not complete the task of sewing thirty sacks a day. The next day, a female cadre with short hair cut from her ears came to talk to Xiao Calyx. Their main purpose is on the one hand to find out the truth that Xiao Calyx is going to commit suicide, on the other hand, they also want to help her truly reborn, and Xiao Calyx's backwardness and escape have also made her naturally become an obvious model of transformation. Female cadres subjectively speculate that Xiaocao wants to seek death because she has a bitter vendetta against the old society and the old forces and is powerless to resist, and is extremely afraid.
But the terrified calyx was very confused and confused about everything. To people's surprise, Xiao Calyx's sixteen-year-old father died marrying, and then she took the initiative to take this road, she could have chosen to go to the screw factory like other sisters, but she was afraid of hardship; in the brothel she was not beaten or scolded, because all the life in the brothel she adapted well, the exploitation and oppression of the old bustard, the hypocrisy of the men, the jealousy of the sisters, everything she could not think deeply about, she only knew that life here was not worrying, the work was simple. Xiao Calyx finally concluded cryingly that he was born a slut.
Those who listened felt a deep sorrow, but for a moment they could not find the true source of this sorrow. Calyx is like a vine that cannot stand on its own, she must rely on the power of others to survive, and this almost becomes an instinct, an unconscious nature carved into her bones. And this nature and instinct also make them deeply superstitious about others and men, while despising themselves, they feel from the bottom of their hearts that unless they rely on and rely on external and men's strength, they will never survive on their own.
Second, the same sex competes and destroys each other
At the same time, this nature of attachment naturally leads to another problem. Because they think that they must rely on men to survive well, men are like water to them, like air, is the basic "means of life", so everyone is eager to get and possess more, this kind of mutual competition between women makes men smell happy, but also let women become competitors to each other, after all, life and death, other such as sisterhood is not worth mentioning in the face of this competition.
Therefore, we can see that after Qiu Yi became a nun, Lao Pu and Xiao Cai almost colluded in betraying Qiu Yi. After Qiu Yi had just become a nun, Lao Pu went to the labor training camp to find Xiao Cai, and Lao Pu used the pretext of wanting Xiao Cai to persuade Qiu Yi to turn back, so that his heart that had hurt face in Qiu Yi was gradually transferred. After coming out of the training camp, Xiao Calyx also took the opportunity to let Lao Pu take her to see Qiu Yi, and let her empty heart be filled by another inappropriate man. In the end, Xiao Calyx did not persuade Qiu Yi to turn back, and Lao Pu did not take Xiao Cai to visit Qiu Yi. When Xiao Calyx went to eat Western food with Lao Pu, who was swollen and fat, while crusading lao Pu with the embodiment of justice, saying that he was weak and widowed Qiu Yi would be forced to be a sister-in-law, Lao Pu said that she hated me, who do I hate? I'm also bitter now and don't deserve her anymore.
At this point, Lao Pu and Xiao Calyx have reached some kind of potential tacit understanding, and Lao Pu's excuse is also Xiao Calyx's excuse, and now in the extraordinary period, no one can take care of anyone, so they have to take care of themselves for the time being. They are all anxious to find a grand excuse to save themselves from self-blame. Xiao Cai did not forget that even after Qiu Yi jumped out of the car and escaped, Qiu Yi asked Lao Pu to bring a bag of things, soap, alabaster, stockings and toffee to Xiao Cai, who was struggling alone in the labor training camp, and at that time she also affirmed that "the vast world is fickle, and the sisterhood between Qiu Yi and Xiao Cai is difficult to change." But now, she felt that forgetting was the same thing, and now it was the old thing she wanted to put behind for a while.
Finally, it is difficult to rely on oneself
The invisible and omnipresent attachment consciousness in Qiu Yi and Xiao Calyx's hearts finally made it difficult for them to rise up the courage to rely on themselves. Qiu Yi found that the car was about to take them out of the city to do hard work, and she chose to jump down without even thinking about it. She didn't want to do hard work, the first way out she thought of was to go to her old lover Lao Pu, the rich and handsome rich man she had carefully chosen, and she carefully dedicated her virginity to him, so in Qiu Yi's heart, Lao Pu was always different from ordinary prostitutes, because Lao Pu had an infatuation that a prostitute might not have had.
However, this love was not as deep as Qiu Yi's ideal, and when she came out of Lao Pu's house and passed by the nunnery, she gambled to become a sister-in-law. When the old nun discovered Qiu Yi's true identity, she felt that she had defiled the Sacred Place of Buddhism, so she drove her away. Back at home, the blind father was dead, and both the aunt and the cousin felt that she was an obstructive and superfluous wandering woman, the aunt was afraid that she would attract gossip from the neighbors for the family, and the cousin directly blamed her for letting him get married without a house. Qiu Yidong hid in Tibet, and now she felt that it was better to go with Xiao Calyx to accept the transformation and do hard work, perhaps not so desperate, and then she broke the jar and quickly married herself to Feng Laowu, who was hunched over with chicken breasts in the same village.
Although Xiao Calyx passed the transformation in a confused way, she could not be better than Qiu Yi. Calyx has been looking for new dependencies along the way. Even if the government helped her find a new job, she would rather quit her job and rely on lao Pu to raise her at home. Xiao Calyx was not willing to rely on herself at all, and she never thought that women could still rely on themselves, and without relying on her, she felt that she could not do it, and really could not live. However, she felt that the plain and bitter life was not interesting, and the delicious and lazy and vain made her unconsciously force Lao Pu to a dead end. Losing the only Lao Pu, she dragged a child alone, and she felt even more unable to live. She returned to work in the factory with her child on her back, but her weak determination was soon defeated by this hopeless life, and finally she gave the child to Qiu Yi, and she embarked on the northbound train with a northern man who collected bottles.
(2) The indifference, rejection and rejection of knowledge, new cultures and new things make them potentially reject the most solid way out
Qiu Yi simply refused, and thus missed the real way out
Perhaps from the moment Qiu Yi jumped out of the car and refused to change, she had already secretly rejected the most solid way out she could have encountered. At first, Qiu Yi felt that she didn't believe that men wouldn't like to visit the kiln, nor that the world would be made cleaner by scattering them. But she did not make it clear that men may always have the heart to visit the kiln, but women who make a living from men are always passive and sad. Finally she regretted it. Marrying Feng Laowu, who has a hunched breast but is honest and responsible, is the only bit of luck in the tragedy. Qiu Yi, who has been dependent on her blind father since she was a child, has never had the opportunity to receive a proper education, and she has no time to understand the world, too late to understand it, and she hastily embarked on a road that is difficult to turn back.
The only prostitute who can calmly eat the burnt cake before being caught in the car is probably Qiu Yi, and she can only rely on the kindness, strength and pungency in her own personality to support herself all the way to the present. But what's going on in the outside world, she doesn't pay attention and doesn't want to. Liberated, the government wanted to take them into reform, but she missed it because of her ignorance and rejection of the new world. When people are flocking to the new world, she wants to go against the direction of the crowd, and it is also the road that she thinks is most likely to work in her cognition. The result is just a roundabout way out. No one can refuse the tide of the times, and those who refuse to change, progress and learning will eventually be left behind by the times.
Xiao Calyx was forced to accept, but remained indifferent inside
What is impressive is that when the labor reform is about to be completed, the female cadres ask Xiaocao what work she wants to do in the future, and they will be introduced to the factory, and many factories are recruiting workers. The great ideal of building the motherland is too far away from her, and she is finally mixed up enough to leave this ghost place, but she still doesn't care what to do, she said indifferently, as long as she is not too tired to do anything. "The women cadres sighed and said, it seems that the thinking of these people is not well transformed, so you should go to the glass bottle processing factory, you are delicious and lazy, go and pick the glass bottle."
When I came to the glass bottle processing factory, the simple and repetitive labor of the small calyx was bored, and he also hated the low wage, thinking that he could not do anything for fourteen yuan a month. The female factory director educated her that this is of course not as good as your previous income, but this money comes clean and is used steadily. But she did not want to listen to these piercing words, and in turn cursed others. Finally, when she leaned on Lao Pu, she couldn't wait to tell Lao Pu that she didn't want to work in the glass factory for a long time, and she was willing to let Lao Pu raise her in her heart, and at the same time, she was proud that she had finally found a backer by relying on her own wisdom and beauty.
Xiao Calyx, who has a similar origin to Qiu Yi, cannot be protected by her family and parents, so she comes out to make a living on her own. It's just that she is weaker and more dependent than Qiu Yi, and more ignorant and ignorant. She was wrapped up in a surging crowd and came to the new world, but after a roundabout, it was just a new bottle of old wine, and her essence did not change at all. If it weren't for the soldier firing a shot into the air in time, thirty sacks would have forced her to hang herself. Relying on her own strength, she always felt that she could not survive, and even if she had a job to survive, she still felt helpless inside. She must rely on Qiu Yi, or Lao Pu, or someone else, to have the courage to live.
On the one hand, thousands of years of feudal thinking are not only engraved in the hearts of men, but also have long been integrated into the bones and blood of many women, male superiority and female inferiority, male strength and female weakness, male and female subordinate, patriarchal preference, including their own kiln sister life, they never think about why, in the end who persecuted them. Just go and automatically pass it on and obey it. On the other hand, they have not learned to think independently, to accept new things, and to learn new cultures. First refusing to think about the causes of their own tragedy, then forgetting their own sorrows, and then rejecting progress and change, they are fooled by feudal ideas, and at the same time they are deeply fooled by themselves, which is an intrinsic factor in their inability to walk out of the tragic fate.
The immersion of an idea does not happen overnight, and changing the ideas that people have already acquiesced to is doomed to a protracted battle, whether for the reformed or the vast number of bystanders.
(1) It has transformed their external life state, but it is difficult to change their thinking and psychological state
Xiao Calyx, who was taken away for examination, cut his hair short, changed his dress, learned to work, and had a proper job to make ends meet. However, compared with her previous life, she hated both the tiredness of work and the fact that the job made less money. The two-year transformation only changed her appearance, and did not touch her stubborn heart at all, she still had to continue to be attached to others and refused to be independent. Once upon a time in the brothel, her main heart was Qiu Yi, and in the labor camp she lost the big tree of Qiu Yi, and gradually became attached to Qiu Yi's old friend Lao Pu, who was forced by her to be cornered, and she was also weak and easy to adapt to a new life, so she stole public funds and was finally shot. Even so, the small calyx is still difficult to move, and the landlord who leans on the comment bomb is knocked out of the house by the landlady with a shocked wood, and finally the child is also given to Qiu Yi, leaning on the northern man who collects the bottle.
Xiao Calyx finally said, I don't understand what is going on with herself, she was determined not to marry alone with the eldest child, but after only a year of widowhood, she changed her mind. On the platform where Qiu Yi sent her to the train, she even looked back at the archway of Cuiyunfang, and after experiencing so much, she still missed that place the most. Perhaps in some places beyond the reach of the eye, some things are easily and difficult to wash white, once a person falls into some terrible situation, even after the redemption of her psychology is difficult to be changed quickly, along the way she seems to make mistakes every step, and it seems that every step is caused by a helpless fate, which really cannot but make people feel a suffocating sadness and helplessness.
(2) Transforming them, but not changing the prejudice and discrimination that are deeply rooted in people's marrow
Most people in the city were aware of the prostitute reform campaign and had attended or heard about the old bustards, who had told the calyx that it was not their fault, because many of them were forced to sell themselves. But will this indictment of the old bustards of the old society really change anything? Can it wash away their past history? Can it change the prejudices in everyone's mind?
Qiu Yi, from beginning to end, was not accepted by the people around her. Lao Pu has status and status mother Mrs. Pu is like this, nunnery claims to be compassionate old nuns, so is the case of relatives and cousins who return home, unrelated neighbors are also like this, soldiers with guns will grit their teeth and curse a fucking stinky bitch after she escapes, and even the workers' brothers and sisters who march on the street will tiptoe up and spit on the car pulling the Cuiyunfang sisters. But she did not allow herself to degenerate at first, relying on her blind father for her life, and when she reached the age of 16, her life was unsustainable and she was forced to embark on this path.
Xiao Calyx, afraid of hardship, voluntarily entered the Xihong Building. At the labor camp, because of the hanging incident, she was regarded as a tool and a typical figure of the class struggle, and "it was okay to exaggerate a little", as long as she could speak at the indictment of the old society. Entering the factory makes the little character anxious the female factory director or expose her old bottom to scold her for dirty maggots underneath. Even if she lived with Lao Pu, she was also wary of Lao Pu for fear that she would make old mistakes.
Reform of people's minds has never been achieved overnight, whether it is for Qiu Yi and XiaoCao, who have been squeezed, trampled and fooled by the old world without knowing it, or for all others. On the one hand, Qiu Yi and Xiao Calyx are addicted to the mud because of their wrong cognition, and the short transformation is difficult to touch their souls and transform their cognition, on the other hand, people's deep prejudices also make them resist in the process of finding other ways out. This is the external factor that makes it difficult for them to get out of their tragic fate.
At the end of the story, I don't know whether to feel lucky or unfortunate for Qiu Yi and Xiao Calyx, they still found men who can be relied on temporarily, Qiu Yi has an honest Feng Laowu, and Xiao Calyx has a black and strong northern man. But no matter what, it seems as if they still have to sweat for them, and they always feel that this happiness that is completely dependent on a man in their hearts is like a castle in the air, because even if they are built high, they are still unstable.
Mr. Gu Rong's film "Red Dust" may bring us more imagination space, and the story is also about prostitutes after liberation. Dezi married a good-looking woman, and when everyone around him did not know the details of this woman, the honest Dezi did not know how many people in the neighborhood were envious, and he himself used a foreign car all day to pull his daughter-in-law and smile tightly. But when Sister-in-law Ard accidentally told her history of being a prostitute in the past, everyone changed their faces and avoided them everywhere. Even the honest Tokuko has changed, he knew about Ade's sister-in-law's experience at the beginning, and felt that he didn't mind at the time, but now he wrestled and scolded all day, and finally left Ade's sister-in-law and left by herself, and Ade's sister-in-law finally drank sleeping pills in despair. In fact, whether a man can earn money or be honest and reliable is not the basis that can guarantee a woman a happy life.
If a woman cannot learn to be self-reliant, does not understand the importance of self-reliance, it will always be difficult to obtain truly simple and down-to-earth happiness, and can only hope for the conscience of men all day long, because the root of a woman's happiness is never what kind of man she marries, but whether she herself has the ability to create a happy life alone. And human nature is also very interesting, the more capable of independent and happy women, the more men are reluctant to leave them. But even at the end of the story, Qiu Yi and Xiao Calyx could not understand this truth.
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