*This article is the speech of Mao Award winner Zhou Daxin at the launch of the English edition of "It's Dark Slowly"
Dear friends,
Hello everyone!
Thank you very much for attending today's book launch for the English edition of "Dark Is Slow."
Anthropologists and medical scientists have the responsibility to observe and study the birth, growth, and end of the individual human life, and writers who describe and express human life should of course pay attention to it.
People from infancy, childhood, adolescence, youth, prime-age to old age, this is the whole process of life. I have written about the first five stages of life to a greater or lesser extent in the past, but I have never touched on people's old age. One of the reasons for not writing it is that it was far away from me at that time and did not perceive and understand it; the other is that it is resistant and disgusted from the heart, and feels that people are useless, so why write it? Unexpectedly, time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, I also entered the old world, and after retiring at the age of 60, I had the interest in observing the old age stage of life and the interest in writing about the life of the elderly. It was also at this time that I found that people's physiological aging and psychological aging have a time misalignment, most people have entered the old state physically, but they still think that they are young, resulting in them being mentally unprepared to face aging, and many elderly people are still ignorant of aging like children. It was in this context that I began the creation of "It's Getting Dark Slowly" in order to give myself a sense of relief, a reminder to my peers and seniors, and a wake-up call to the prime-aged and young.
Zhou Daxin's "Dark Is Slow" English version of the press conference
In this book, a lifetime is like a day.
The infancy stage of man, similar to the dawn of the day, is brilliant; the childhood stage, similar to the sunrise of the day, the golden light; the juvenile stage, similar to the three poles of the day, the heat appears; the youth stage, similar to the sun from nine o'clock to twelve o'clock, has infinite vitality; the prime-age stage, similar to the afternoon time of the day, the heat is exuberant; the old age stage, similar to the dusk of the day, the night is coming, and the darkness is in front of us.
When life reaches dusk, it is first asked to hand over things that have been obtained in the past, such as hearing, vision, biting, walking, swallowing, and even discernment and thinking. Secondly, the appearance begins to be forcibly changed, shortening your height, reducing the elasticity of your skin, increasing the wrinkles on your face, making your hair thin and white, making your waist slumped up, making you ugly. Then there is the distribution of things you do not want but must accept, such as loneliness, irritability, hyperlipidemia, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, osteoporosis, fatty liver and cancer, etc., how to refuse is not allowed.
People who have entered the twilight of life may act irrationally if they blindly resist and fear. Just like the protagonist of this book, retired judge Xiao Chengshan, who does not recognize old age and still treats himself according to the standards of a prime-age person, this will make him not care for his body. Then there is the tendency to be deceived, using non-scientific means to resist aging, believing in some crooked heresies, resulting in the rapid consumption of money. Xiao Chengshan told us with his behavior that old age is a necessary part of life's journey, and it is impossible for anyone to avoid it. Everyone should learn to face its arrival calmly. Learn to adapt to the gradual weakening of the function of body organs, learn to coexist peacefully with disease, learn to adapt to the loneliness of little company, learn to adapt to the loneliness that few people pay attention to, and learn to return to bed.
The reason why this book is called "Dark Is Slow" is to remind friends who have become old that it is dark slowly, and you still have some time to do something for the world, so that the love that still exists in your heart bursts out. At the same time, I also want to tell my friends who have become old that it is getting dark slowly, and you have to be prepared for difficulties, loneliness, and diseases. Of course, there is another layer of meaning, that is, to warn friends who have become old, it is dark very slowly, but the sky is going to be dark after all, you have to be ready to say goodbye to the world, nostalgia is not allowed to leave, and everything that should be prepared is ready, so that you can change to a new means of transportation at any time and go to another strange world. Finally, I would like to tell young people: the love you give will be the guarantee of the old man to walk the last part of life without pain!
Thank you!
Have you really thought about the day you were old?
Getting older is not a miserable thing, it's like getting dark slowly in the summer
Zhou Daxin: Getting old is not a tragic thing, it is like the summer dark is very slow
This matter is related to the second half of your life and mine
The "elderly" who are ignored and vilified
The terrible thing in life is not death, but death.
When you're old, what's not? When you die, what doesn't die?
Click on the image below to see the book purchase page
Zhou Daxin, "It's Dark Slowly"
Getting older isn't a miserable thing, it's like getting dark slowly in the summer.
This is the new work of the famous writer Zhou Daxin, and it is also the first novel in China to pay attention to the aging society, and at the same time writes the exuberance and death of life, love and pity.
The book is 200,000 words and is divided into seven chapters. The novel uses the method of "quasi-documentary" to arrange the structure of the whole book with the dusk cooling activities of Wanshou Park. From Monday to Thursday, it is the promotion activity of pension institutions, health care institutions, pension service institutions, and health experts, and from Friday to Sunday, it is the escort who tells the story of accompanying the elderly with personal experience. The last three chapters are the main part of the novel, through the observation of the escort, reflecting the various problems of China's aging society: pension, medical treatment, remarriage, children, etc., not only write about the process of gradual aging of the body after old age, slowly approaching death, but also write about the spiritual loneliness of the elderly, and at the same time, write about the true feelings in the world.
Personnel metabolism, ancient and modern, we live endlessly, because love is gentle and powerful.
Zhou Daxin's novel "Los Angeles Flowers Fall"
Life is very tiring, marriage is very expensive, but we can't help but love each other...
Married because of love, what about divorce?
The famous writer Zhou Daxin used the technique of "quasi-documentary" and used the faithful record of four court trials to tell the big and small problems that a marriage may face. Under the narrative of discussing love and marriage, the writer writes the "Guide to Rational Marriage" and even more writes the "Happy Tips for Love".
Marriage is like a flower, life is soil, what we need at all times, is the patience of love...
Zhou Daxin's "Requiem"
"Requiem" is a frank and heart-wrenching dialogue between the two souls of a father and son. The whole is composed of two parts: the first half recalls the growth of his son Zhou Ning before his death; the second half is the philosophical thought and spiritual exercise after his son Zhou Ning entered the kingdom of heaven. The father looks back at his life in dialogue, issuing a heart-wrenching confession; in the dialogue, the son details his experience of death and informs him of the strange picture of the kingdom of heaven. The intersection of reality and fiction, the helplessness of the moment and the bliss of imagination, make people feel heavy and liberated. The first half is partial to reality, the second half is partial to virtual, one virtual and one real, together present Zhou Daxin's deep thoughts about his son and deep thinking about the world.
Death is the end of life, a problem that everyone has to face. This book observes death from a distance and imagines the final destination of people, which is both a comfort to the dead and a relief to the living, and a requiem with a long and wide range of depression.
Mao Dun Literature Award-winning work "Lake Light and Mountain Color"
The novel is written about the common life events in the countryside at present, such as spring planting and autumn harvest, choosing a spouse to start a family, getting sick and divorcing, returning home from work, and rural tourism, but it shows a new reflection on the transmutation of human nature, historical heritage and the operation of power, and shows the shock and persistence of a noble soul in the context of rural upheavals. The five elements of Chinese culture are used to string together the veins of the story, and at the same time, the legends of the Chu state here are interspersed.
"China's Good Book" "Qu Finale"
The governor of Qinghe Province died, and his family asked Zhou Daxin to write a biography of him, so Zhou Daxin interviewed 26 people in his "circle of friends", including wives, secretaries, drivers, subordinates, colleagues, small hair, lovers, businessmen, intellectuals, first love girlfriends... Listening to them tell their true views on the governor, there is this "Qu Finale". The governor's lifelong experience in the official arena also jumped on the paper.
This is an official literature, but also a life novel. The book contains details that are not found in anti-corruption news, characters based on the "big tiger", and in-depth thinking about the cadre system and the ruling environment. This book has a pattern, grounded, it works with the people, calling for the wind to be clean...
Zhou Daxin's "Act 20"
Act 20 is one of Zhou Daxin's novels, which tells the history of the rise and fall of the Shangjili family throughout the 20th century and the history of the arduous struggle for ideals. The novel shows a re-examination of the national spirit reflected in the family will, and a kind of human interrogation with profound cultural implications, based on the bumpy course experienced by the "Shangjili" family, which represents the ups and downs of China's national industry and commerce.
The treasure of humanity, literary life beyond reading