Jiang Xun looked back at the 70s of his life, from his youth longing for the brilliant life of Van Gogh's meteors, to the realization of the year of Hua Jia, each life stage has the good of each stage. (Photographer. Guo Hanling)
Text/Luo Tingling
Jiang Xun, a writer who was originally full of overseas travel plans, canceled his plans due to the epidemic, and in May this year, he suffered a heart attack in Taitung and experienced the impermanence of life and death. He looked back at the 70s of life, from his youth longing for the brilliant life of Van Gogh's meteors, to the realization of the year of the flower armor, what the East pursues is that every life stage has the good of each stage.
When he was young, he liked Li Bai, who came and went, and hated Du Fu, who was nagging, but now Jiang Xun said that it didn't matter if he didn't like Du Fu when he was young, he would wait for you to apologize to him when he was 50 years old.
Q: Although Taiwan has done a good job in epidemic prevention, many people are still facing the survival challenges, separation and uneasiness of their careers this year.
A: Everyone is affected by the epidemic. Like the old dessert shop in Paris, Fauchon, also broke the news of bankruptcy a while ago, and a century-old brand like this, if it can still be maintained, will definitely not close its doors. I think I'm afraid that in 3 or 5 years, all industries will face a huge transformation.
I had a lot of plans this year, to see art exhibitions, dances, and I was supposed to come back from London in mid-May. Now it was time to leave for the United States, follow the Cloud Gate performance to New York, and then to Brazil. Now all canceled....
When I was still thinking about how long cloud gate had not performed at the Kennedy Center; the exhibition and performance were cancelled, it was a pity, but I saw that there were 400 corpses in Bolivia on the side of the road, and these countries could not do anything about the epidemic... I quickly read the Diamond Sutra, and I also felt that what I had just thought was not very selfish, upside down dreams, and I could not distinguish between what was important and what was not.
On May 22, I was in Zhiben, recording commentaries for the Taijingnong Collection Exhibition, recording for 2 consecutive days, suddenly angina pectoris, sent to the hospital in Taitung, but due to insufficient equipment, the doctor could only prescribe painkillers. Later, I contacted the attending physician in Taipei, fortunately took the first flight the next day, returned to Taipei for examination, and immediately entered the icu (intensive care unit) for surgery.
Escaping this disaster also allowed me to see the lack of medical resources in the east. After the operation, I remembered to call a few entrepreneur friends, hoping to set up some public welfare funds and vow to help Dr. Xu Chaobin, who was born in Nanhui Hospital.
Whether it is the epidemic or the pain, I think it is a warning from God, much like pain. I read a book that says that all living things survive, and the most important thing to be thankful for is pain, because painless children, bleeding and being burned, have no idea at all.
When the epidemic was at its worst, relatives passed away and could not say goodbye in person. Just watching the film, I feel pain. When the funeral procession passed, someone opened the balcony and sent off with the Italian opera bel canto, which was really moving! I think that's faith.
A few days ago, a pilot from Taiwan took a picture of me, and there were no passengers in the Boeing 777, all of which were equipped with iPhones.
A pair of wings for the development of civilization: science and technology on one side, faith on the other, this epidemic may be a punishment. When humans come here, are they flying only with one wing? If the exploitation of natural resources reaches the point where you can't brake, in the end, you have to let the virus help you brake.
But this epidemic, if you can make everyone slow down, reflect, check themselves, think about the order of life, I think it is a better attitude, but also a good turnaround.
Q: Looking back at the 70 years of life, from youth and middle age to the present, what are the transitions that are important to you?
A: In different civilizations and eras, the definition of age is also changing. I remember that people in the past, when they were 2 or 30 years old, had to be independent in society. But now people are very afraid of old age, and youth has been continuing to retreat.
At the age of 35, I took over as the head of the Fine Arts Department at Tunghai University. On my 40th birthday, the student made a big cake to help me celebrate my birthday, and later the student said that the photo I took that day looked so smelly.
Because that was the first time I felt that life had come to 40 years old?
However, 60 years old is different. The students helped me hold a big birthday party, and some students carved a seal for me with gold and wrote the word "flower nails", and I was very happy that day.
I suddenly thought these two words were beautiful. In the year of the flower armor, it may be gray hair and old eyes, but Du Fu wrote a poem: "The old flower looks like a fog", and the old man looks at the flower like a flower in the fog, which is actually more beautiful. The old civilization of the East is very interesting, it actually tells us that every stage of life, there is a good stage of each stage.
Just like the painter Qi Baishi, when he was young, he would deliberately use his pen to outline the wings of dragonflies and butterflies, and the lines were so thin that they were frightening, but his best paintings were painted after the age of 90. That big stroke, it's so beautiful!
In his later years, he most often painted a lamp moth to put out a fire, painting the oil lamp spewing out fire, and then a lamp moth pounced on it. There is a kind of touch that the elderly will understand.
Looking back, why is the mood of 60 years old different from that of 40 years old? I think it is because if a person lives for 60 years, the peaks and valleys of life, the separation of life and death, love, hate, sorrow and joy have all been experienced, and it is a very important stage of life.
The so-called perfection is not without regrets, but it has been experienced and surpassed.
When I was a child, Chinese textbooks wrote poems of immortals, poems, and Buddhas, and I thought that they were poets with three different personalities. When he was young, he hated Du Fu a lot, nagging, what "Zhumen wine smells of meat, the road has frozen bones", I feel so annoyed. At that time, of course, I liked Li Bai, "a pot of wine between flowers, drinking alone without blind dates", dashing and romantic.
But I will now say that it doesn't matter if you don't like Du Fu when you are young, he will wait for you to apologize to him when you are 50 years old.
At the age of 50, when you see your elders sick and some people in the world suffering, you can understand Du Fu's humanitarian care; after reading Wang Wei after the age of 70, you can also understand that "in your old age, you can only be quiet and quiet, and you don't care about everything", and your life has entered another stage.
Like I want to help Dr. Xu Chaobin Doctor Gai Nan return to the hospital in the east, but I know that after caring, I must read a few more Diamond Sutras at night, because bearing love and hate and anger, I need to be calm and have strength.
But as soon as I heard the student say that he had won the design award in Italy, I still had to drink with him to celebrate (laughs), and there was still a part of Li Bai in my heart, which was actually not a conflict.
Shi Xian, Shi Sheng, and Shi Fo are not 3 people, but they are the 3 stages in our lives and the lessons of a lifetime. When should I be a immortal, a saint, a Buddha, and how should I be measured? How fortunately, our culture has these three to balance.
Now, I will indulge young people a little more Li Bai, heroic and wild, to make all the mistakes that should be made, and not to talk to him about the sense of responsibility at the age of 20. Anyway, after the age of 50, get married and have children, take on mortgages, and get sick relatives... It was all things that could happen at that time, and there was naturally a sense of responsibility. At this age, if you have faith, you will be more at ease.
When we were young, we all liked Van Gogh, and at the age of 37 we committed suicide after painting all the paintings, but that was Western,a life as brilliant as a shooting star, not what the East was looking for.
Every time I look at Van Gogh's paintings, I have tears in my eyes, but if you love a talented student, you don't want him to be Van Gogh, you always want the child to go farther. Sprinting is to win at the starting point, but running a marathon is to know how to tone up, not to compete with others.
I feel like I'm getting better and better right now. Recently, the students carved a seal of "do not exceed the rules from the heart" with lapis lazuli, and I had flower armor and I also had what I wanted from the heart.
It is a happy thing that the elderly can do what they want without fouling, and I hope that I can have the opportunity to see the world that Qi Baishi saw at the age of 80 and 90.
Q: What are the books that have always been with you? What does it mean to you in particular?
A: I think it was my father who originally gave me the Diamond Sutra. When my father died, I took a plane to go, read carefully on the plane for more than 10 hours, and have been with me ever since.
"Why should the cloud live?" How does the cloud subdue its heart? "Now many friends say that I can't read the Diamond Sutra, I can't read it... I said don't worry, it will always be there, and it will only appear when your life feels "pain".
For thousands of years, the Diamond Sutra has been translated from Sanskrit in India into Thai, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, French, English, etc. The most famous of these is the edition of the Nine Years of the Buddha's Festival in the British Museum, which is recognized as the oldest woodblock print.
It was a man named Wang Jiu who made a wish to engrave this sutra for his deceased parents, hoping to popularize it to the public. Later, the Mongol Expedition to the West spread to Europe and brought it to Germania, influencing the first printed book in the West, the German Gutenberg Bible.
The development of printing in both the East and the West is related to faith, I think it is because of the needs of the masses, and it has also contributed to the popularization of education. In fact, we are all recipients of printing, but we usually don't necessarily have feelings.
I have always been very opposed, people who like art only run art museums, people who like science and technology only run science museums, I think the development of human civilization has never been divided into two.
In the 21st century, this span is becoming more and more obvious, so I especially hope to talk to you about the 20th anniversary of the literary season.
![You have to believe that there will always be someone waiting for you in this world[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)