Chapter 2 no regrets

I was born on June 4, 1942 in Yuyingtang Street, Chengdu City, Sichuan Province.Before my mother gave birth to me, she had three sons and one daughter, and the youngest daughter was 8 years old.At that time, the family life was difficult, and my mother didn't want to add more burdens, so she tried to get rid of me during the pregnancy, but all the remedies didn't work, so I had to give birth to me in the end. It was at the most difficult stage of the Anti-Japanese War.Out of patriotism, my father named me "Xinwu". "Xin" means ranking, and "Wu" means to expel the Japanese invaders by force.

Later, my mother took me back to my hometown, Anyue County.My ancestral home is Gaoshiti, Longtaichang, Anyue County, which is an extremely remote village.Although I went back to Anyue County not only once, but also to Longtaichang once, I never went back to that village.My hometown, Anyue County, can always evoke an indescribable sense of intimacy in my heart. I remember that in a barber shop there was a large fan made of 4 rows of 24 cattail fans connected together, and a mechanism was formed with pulleys and ropes. , when the barber cuts the customer's hair, he can use his feet to step on it to fan the wind up and down.Perhaps it has long been replaced by electric fans, but the special atmosphere of the hometown has been preserved in my heart, but it cannot be diluted by any novelty.  Later, my family settled in Chongqing.We live on the South Bank, across the river from Chongqing City.Opening the window of my house, the Yangtze River flows endlessly. On the opposite bank is densely packed "stilted buildings". Floating... There are few sunny days, and the fog often comes. At night, the lights of thousands of families on the other side seem to blink like countless eyes, which makes me feel very mysterious.

I spent my fantasy childhood in that foggy mountain city. In 1950, my father was transferred to work in Beijing, and our family went with him.Since then, I have been living in Beijing. When I first arrived in Beijing, I was a stubborn "Xiaochuan guy".Because I missed the start of the new semester, there was only one private elementary school near my home that was willing to accept me as a transfer student.After I got in, I insisted on speaking Sichuan dialect for a long time. In fact, I already knew Beijing dialect in my heart, but I was too embarrassed to speak, which made the teacher frown and my classmates made fun of me.I remember that one day a classmate in the same class talked back to the teacher for some reason, and the teacher got annoyed and dragged him from our third grade classroom to the second grade classroom, announcing his demotion on the spot.This incident gave me a strong stimulus.For the first time in my life experience, I experienced righteous indignation at injustice.I couldn't help but say to my classmates: "What are you doing?!" This was probably the first time I spoke Beijing dialect in public.

From the principal to the teachers in that private school, members of the same family were employed, and the atmosphere in the whole school was unbearable.Before the state could take over and reform it, my parents transferred me to another public school, where I wore a red scarf.I am a mediocre student, and the most memorable performance was that once the school held a story-telling competition, I was selected as one of the contestants in the class.After repeated previews and trial lectures, I finally stepped onto the stage in full view, but I lost my original inspiration and courage as soon as I stood still, and I stammered to the end of the story. In the midst of the discussion, he walked off the stage.Since then, I have understood that in the journey of life, if I want to succeed, I must pay more than others, because I am too stupid.

One afternoon, I ran to school after a nap and found that the seat next to me was empty—until the end of the afternoon.Later the teacher told everyone that my classmate went swimming in a cave outside the city at noon and drowned.The teacher solemnly announced the admonitions derived from it, but I didn't listen to a word, I just thought about the student's voice and smile that was still alive in front of my eyes in the morning.During class the previous afternoon, I used my nails to draw white marks on his dark arm, but he disappeared from then on.This was the first time I experienced vividly and concretely what death meant.  Later I went to middle school, and I didn't know how to work hard until the third grade of junior high school.In high school, my grades were better, but it was not easy for me to get good grades.When I was just in the first year of high school, the physics teacher asked me a question for the first time, and I got it wrong, and it was a very stupid mistake. I recorded that every 1 meter equals 3 shi chi, and every 1 meter equals 33 shi chi.The physics teacher naturally gave me a score of 2.Later, I studied physics more diligently than other subjects, but the physics teacher had a bad impression of me. After teaching for so many years, it seemed that I was the only student who couldn’t even remember how many feet are equal to 1 meter. , which hurt his self-esteem.He never asked me any more questions, but gradually he became surprised, because I scored 5 points in every test and term exam afterwards.The final exam was a lottery interview learned from the Soviet Union. The question lottery I got was the most difficult mechanics problem, and I had to explain the truth and calculate accurately. I was trembling but carefully completed all the requirements.The physics teacher stared at me with rounded eyes. He seemed to be very reluctant to give me a 5, but in the final semester general assessment, he still only gave me a 4.This incident made me further realize that I am not a bright person, that I will stumble on the simplest problems, and that I often have to exert the greatest efforts to recover the losses.  Of course, on the other hand I am full of fantasy.I think everything from breaking the world weightlifting record to becoming a famous director of the Beijing People's Art Theatre, from being an archaeologist to inventing a new type of building material is a no-brainer for me.Life seemed to offer me an infinite abundance of possibilities. But after graduating from high school, a situation that I had never expected appeared before.I encountered setbacks in the college entrance examination. It was not that I failed to pass the entrance examination, but that I was admitted to a Beijing Teachers College, which ranked last among all recruiting colleges.

A high school classmate who almost worshiped me was not only because I had better academic performance than him, but also because he knew that I often published articles in the "Beijing Evening News" and that a children's story was broadcast on the radio station during the college entrance examination. Allegro dramas were adapted by me, but like him, I only passed the Beijing Teachers College.We met when we reported to the Teachers College, and he unabashedly poured out his contempt for me in public—this strong stimulus gave me a deeper understanding of life. But I don't think that I must go to Peking University.I started to live independently from home when I went to the teacher college, and I gradually felt that it would be good to be an ordinary middle school teacher.I graduated from Beijing Teachers College with excellent academic performance and was assigned to teach Chinese in Beijing No. 13 Middle School.After I started working, my shortcomings and weaknesses were naturally exposed more clearly, but there is one advantage that everyone seems to recognize-I am at ease in teaching, preparing lessons carefully, and teaching vividly, and the students’ responses are always good .

I went to school earlier than my generation, so I was only 19 when I graduated from the teacher college.As soon as I arrived in Beijing No. 13 Middle School, I taught Chinese in the second year of junior high school. I was only 4 years older than my students.Now of course they have all come to life, and some of them can still meet now. They treat me as disciples, which makes me very embarrassed-because we are actually of the same generation. From working in the summer of 1961 to the outbreak of the "Cultural Revolution" in the summer of 1966, it was my youthful years from 19 to 24 years old.I am an obscure, inexperienced middle school teacher with an introverted personality, but I feel that I live with a clear conscience and are spiritually fulfilled.I have read a lot of books - not only literature books, but also a lot of books on philosophy, history, and natural science.I know a lot of people—not only the cadres, teachers, and students of the school, but also the workers who sweep the floor, the temporary workers who come to burn the boilers in winter, and the students who are at the bottom of Beijing’s social life. Parents—construction workers, tricycle drivers, tram conductors, cooks frying oil cakes in small restaurants, traffic policemen at unimportant intersections... and old men and women who make a living by picking up waste paper and guarding bicycles.I found many things in the world and people's hearts that shocked me from them, and I also found strong and lasting beauty.

At that stage my life was very small.The school is so big, and the areas of life that can be extended on weekdays are the Bell and Drum Towers and Shichahai area in Beicheng, Beijing.Middle school teachers hardly have the opportunity to go on business trips. Participating in an activity to learn Buddhist scriptures at a brother school in Tianjin is a major event in my life for me.But in those few years, I became an out-and-out Beijinger. I could speak Mandarin so that no one could hear the Sichuan accent, and I could talk to the school workers with a very delicious Beijing dialect.For example, when the weather is sweltering, I would say: "My God, it's covered! The old man smokes sorghum stalks, it's evil!" The language is still second, and I feel that I can already experience the special moods of "old Beijing" .I haven’t forgotten the ocher hills of Anyue, my ancestral home, the Berlin of Wuhou Temple in Chengdu, and the shadows of sails along the Jialing River, but I think I’ve become a Beijinger—until today I write novels, from conception to writing The use of Beijing dialect is proof.

When the storm of the "Cultural Revolution" hit in the summer of 1966, I was still completely ignorant of politics.Because of my young age, I never caught up with all the political activities before and after liberation. When I was in high school during the "anti-rightist movement" in 1957, I only knew that the principal, several directors, and more than a dozen teachers were classified as "rightists", and they disappeared one after another.But at that time, the teacher made exercise sheets and hung big-character posters and held criticism meetings in a big room where students were not allowed to enter, so my classmates and I still played leisurely, not knowing what happened in that big room.There was an "anti-rightist movement" in the party when I was in the teacher's college, but I was not even a member of the league, so naturally I was not touched.After I started working, I joined the Communist Youth League. However, after 1964, when the "Four Cleansing" movement was launched, although some people were selected from the school to participate, I stayed in the teaching position to teach my classes.

The "Cultural Revolution" came to our small school with a "swift and thunderous" momentum.I can't be a "revolutionary rebel", because although I am not a few years older than those "rebellious" high school third-year "teenagers", I am already a member of the group of teachers who should naturally be affected.It is also impossible for me to be the target of shock from the very beginning, because I am not qualified to be a "capitalist roader" or a "reactionary authority".I was really terrified - because within a few days, the "rebel" "teenage generals" killed several people on campus, including "stinky hooligans" they thought "damned", and some brought from outside the campus. The "reactionary capitalists" who were beaten to death, the party members and cadres of the school and some old teachers were extremely brutally trampled on in the fighting.In such an atmosphere of fanaticism and terror, my heart was filled with both admiration for theory and doubts for practice, and my soul was tortured.

Then the shock wave gradually approached me.Some of the "tofu cubes" I published in the "Beijing Evening News" were published next to Deng Tuo's "Yanshan Evening Chat".One of the articles believed that although the reform of Peking Opera is good, it is not appropriate to cancel the niche and other skills, such as sleeves, and what I said in class was recalled to be a lot of "poisonous" elements, so there appeared to expose my "reactionary words and deeds" "Long-form big-character poster.Then one day, the "Mass Dictatorship Group" posted a large notice inside the school gate: At 2:30 in the afternoon, a school-wide meeting was held in the playground to criticize Liu Xinwu.  That day at noon I went to the cafeteria to eat as usual.I don't have a great appetite, but I can still eat.Back in the dormitory, I lay on an old recliner, and I was surprised—why was I so calm? I didn’t have any thoughts of suicide, I just prayed that they wouldn’t kill me or maim me during the fight—the so-called The "Group Specialist Group" was able to do such a thing at the time.Then I heard someone knock on the door, and instinctively jumped up and opened it—a student I had taught was outside. This incident still makes me shudder when I recall it.The student who knocked on my door was a weak person to whom I had poured a lot of sympathy. His father was "repatriated" by the unit at the beginning of the movement, and it is said that he was beaten to death as soon as he arrived in the village.His mother, like me, was also a secondary school teacher, and was struggling because of her husband's problems.He himself was regarded as a "puppy" by his classmates. Not only was he not qualified to participate in the "rebellion", he was sometimes criticized.When his mother was at her lowest, I had the courage to visit his mother and their three brothers at his house, and I dissuaded him when the "five classes of red" classmates insulted him.But I never thought that it was he who knocked on my door at noon that day, and there was an unmistakable sense of malicious curiosity on his face, his expression was as if written in words, which I will never forget—— "Ah, I'm going to fight you this afternoon. What are you doing here at noon? I'm going to be xixi (Beijing dialect: "look at the excitement")..." Did I get it wrong? No, it turned out that he There are several "Red Five" with the same curiosity in the back, he doesn't seem to be forced to lead the battle, because his expression is relaxed and lively - as soon as I open the door, he looks at me and pretends to cough triumphantly . I slammed the door hard and fell down on the deck chair, feeling cool all over my body. Only then did I realize that there is a bigger and deeper tragedy in the world than my personal tragedy—the tragedy of the sinking of the soul. Later, the meeting to criticize me was dramatically postponed—just because the "head of the central government" delivered some new important speech, and the school had to go out for a parade to celebrate.And the school has a new "Workers Propaganda Team". It is said that the district headquarters of the "Workers Propaganda Team" read the materials about me reported by the "group special group" and believed that my "crime" was less than "the whole school's arrest." I was sent to the countryside to work lightly. Later, I experienced the entire "Cultural Revolution" quite peacefully.Personally, I have nothing to boast about, and not much to be particularly ashamed of.I'm really just the most ordinary person, going through the most ordinary experiences.