Chapter 4 grandfather, father and me
I once saw the article "Unforgettable Memory" written by Xiao Yu in the "Sunset" magazine published in Chengdu, Sichuan Province (sponsored by the Veteran Cadre Bureau of the Provincial Party Committee).This article recalls that after the failure of the Great Revolution in 1927, some Communists and anti-Chiang and anti-Wang people in the Kuomintang, as well as some people from other political groups with similar views, as well as people without party affiliation, fled to Shanghai from Wuhan and Sichuan. Find a place to stay.They met Mr. Liu Yunmen (also known as Liu Zhengya, whose pen name is Dioyushan) in Shanghai, a veteran of the 1911 Revolution.Mr. Liu is from Anyue, Sichuan (mistakenly named Guang'an in the magazine), the last imperial examination candidate in the late Qing Dynasty. He went to two universities when he was studying in Japan, and joined Sun Yat-sen's Tongmenghui in Tokyo.During the Great Revolution, he went to Guangzhou and served as a professor at Sun Yat-sen University. He organized the "Social Science Research Association" with Communist Party member Bi Lei and served as an officer. During the Northern Expedition, he rushed to Wuhan with the army as a military doctor.Wang Jingwei fled to Shanghai after announcing the "separation of the Communist Party". He wrote a long poem of 114 lines and 36 rhymes "Sorrowing Jiangnan", expressing his anger and sorrow after "April 12".It not only criticizes Jiang and Wang, but also satirizes and criticizes all kinds of butchers, cowards, Xiao Xiao, and informants who "sell human flesh buns" and other ghosts in the political turmoil.It is majestic, righteous, and artistically quite successful.It was self-printed and distributed under the name of "Weiwushe", and later a printed version of "Shenzhou Guoguangshe" was published.He used his prestige in the National Revolution in Shanghai to find Zhao Tieqiao (also a member of the Old League), the supervisor of the China Merchants Bureau, so Zhao handed over the China Merchants Public School to him, and he was the principal, so as to specially accommodate all walks of life. Wang joins the intellectuals who have no food and clothing.Xiao Yu was in his twenties at the time and was also sheltered here. In 1929, Xiao Yu and others spontaneously organized a branch of the Communist Party of China Merchants Public School, and Liu Yunmen participated in the activities of the branch as a non-Party person. In 1930, Zhao Tieqiao was assassinated to death, and the new supervisor sent by Nanjing ordered the closure of China Merchants Public School. In 1932, the "January 28 Incident" broke out in Shanghai, and the Japanese bombed Shanghai. Liu Yunmen died in the Japanese artillery fire. His manuscript "On the Destiny of Mankind" was also burned to the enemy together with the bombed Commercial Press on the same day. flame.
Liu Yunmen mentioned in Xiao Yu's old article is my grandfather.
I was born ten years after my grandfather died.Although my father often told our children stories about my grandfather, for example, when my grandfather was in Beijing in the 1920s, he specially took in all kinds of heroes from Sichuan who were temporarily down and who needed to hide for a while. Before Zhu De left for Germany, he lived with my grandfather. At home, and in order to avoid people's eyes and ears, Zhu De simply let Zhu De live in my father's bedroom, and so on.But we don't care much, especially me. I have never met my grandfather. How much do his honors and disgraces have anything to do with me? Later, our children learned that when my grandfather was alive, he didn't treat his father very much. Satisfied, there are many spiritual gaps and emotional conflicts between their father and son.My father loved and resented my grandfather, respected and strange to him.
Thinking back to my teenage years, I had several very serious conflicts with my father. I mercilessly said something that made him sad and ruined his reputation without any reason. Come.In the end, I resisted with all my strength, but his hand was numb and painful.These conflicts were carefully recorded by her mother in her diary, and they were recorded together with her family's oil, salt, firewood and rice accounts in those years.
Now my parents are both dead.It was only after I was over half a hundred years old that on a rainy evening or a clear night when everything was quiet, I suddenly felt heartbroken and recalled that I had hurt my father so uncompromisingly, and the scars extended to my mother's body. heart.
I don't know what my father thought when he was angry with me. He must have regarded me as a rebel who "killed his father and king" when he was furious.In fact, when I think about it carefully, I don't really want to hinder his continued existence, I just want to change a different way of living from him.
When I looked at my mother’s diary that has become a relic, I discovered that in fact, it is my father and mother who gave me the most affection in this world, the strongest and the longest, so that I could persist until the last moment of my life.It is not only the love of parents and children, nor the hatred of "failing steel", but also many complicated factors that exceed the limit of language expression.That is really inexplicable.
Now I realize that there is no way to do it, and there is no need to think of a way, and I shouldn’t think of a way—I have the blood that my father passed on to me, and of course, it was also passed on to me by my grandfather through him. .
I am a natural inheritance from my grandfather Liu Yunmen and my father Liu Tianyan.Like many Chinese, I have experienced many, sometimes violent intergenerational conflicts.Because of politics, because of economics, because of morality, because of divergent interests, because of differences in understanding, because of emotional fluctuations, because of personality changes, because of unreasonable irritability, because of one-way or two-way misunderstandings, and because of nothing... Sometimes it is Driven by the trend of the times and society, sometimes forced by specific situations, sometimes completely proactive, sometimes seems very sober, sometimes really muddle-headed, sometimes begins with rationality and ends with irrationality... The conflict between generations leads to a There is a live drama of sorrow and joy.
I am not religious.The vast majority of Chinese people, like me, have no religious beliefs.We don't feel like there is a supreme God above our bodies and souls, and we all face him and are therefore responsible to him.The infiltration of Western Christian culture makes most Westerners feel that there is a God above people, so everyone is equal before God, and the differences and conflicts between generations and individual lives are compared with the differences and conflicts between God and God. The difference is so trivial.Human relationships are parallels facing God.We Chinese, especially the Han people, for the vast majority of them, have a chain of kinship between people, and a person is just a link in this chain.Like me, I don't have God, I can only determine my position in this way: I am the grandson of my grandparents, the son of my parents, the husband of my wife, the father of my son, and so-and-so's friend, so-and-so's enemy, so-and-so neighbors, and so on.I am responsible for the above relationships.Now I understand very well the "benevolence" proposed by Confucius. When this word is taken apart, it means "two people".Yes, the essence of Confucianism is to make us always aware that we have no individual personal value, and our personal value is based on the relationship between at least two or more people.And in the chain of human beings we are in, the most important thing is: whose descendants are we? Do we satisfy them?
I wonder how my grandfather would feel if he could see me today.My father passed away before I could make my stride into the literary world, and he didn't necessarily want me to become a writer.I often feel dazed when I think about it, why is the conflict between father and son, even in the most loving family, often unavoidable?
The conflict between Jia Zheng and Jia Baoyu mentioned in the book is often characterized by commentators as a conflict between feudalism and anti-feudalism.This is indeed a very reasonable analysis, but in fact, does Jia Baoyu have the idea of "killing the father and the king"? Does he himself have a clear "
Anti-feudal" rationality? In recent years, some theorists have written articles saying that Jia Baoyu is a romantic poet. He wants to live in a poetic world, so he constantly conflicts with reality. His friendship with Jiang Yuhan and flirting with Jin Chuaner are not It is aimed at the king and father. Even if his "obscene dementia" develops to the extreme, he will not join the peasant uprising army and overthrow the dynasty and the noble mansion. Jia Zheng hated being able to "strangle him to death so as to avoid future troubles." But things have changed, and although the spiritual orientations between father and son are still different or even more divergent, Jia Zheng does not insist on "we must get rid of them quickly." The 33rd chapter wrote "Unworthy All Kinds of Great Promises and Attacks", but in the 78th chapter, there was another "Old Scholar's Leisurely Lyrics": Jia Zheng asked Baoyu to write a poem praising Lin Siniang who resisted the "rogue bandits", Baoyu Not only obeyed, but also actively wrote "a long poem". Jia Zheng's view of Baoyu at this time has been revised to: "Although I don't read books, I can understand it quite well, and it's not a big deal when I evaluate it carefully. Very dishonored the ancestors. "As the two links that are directly connected in the chain of interpersonal relationships, no matter how they conflict, in the end, it is still "one prospers and the other loses." According to Cao Xueqin's original idea, Jia's family was robbed, so Jia Zheng and Jia Baoyu were killed together. At that time, would their father and son "gloat" each other?
Without religion, we can only pay more attention to family affection.Confucianism is sometimes revered as "Confucianism", but it is not really a religion because there is no God in that teaching.Confucius is a "sage", not a god. "Down with Kong Lao Er" once gave the new youths of the "May 4th Movement" the enthusiasm for innovation and even revolution, but the ancient Chinese "family chain" still organized the Chinese people in the interpersonal chain. A "single person" is still difficult to exist, no matter what camp he is in. The "criticism of Confucius" in the 1970s was for the purpose of "criticism of Lin", and it was said that the "Cultural Revolution" was a creation of gods, but in fact its effect was still the worship of saints. Did "single people" appear in China in the 1980s? We can't see clearly, what about the 1990s? We see a lot of disorder that is out of the chain, and at the same time feel a general "cleaning and repairing" chain” social appeal.In fact, Western Christian culture also rejects chaos and disorder, and any kind of society does not allow a state of disunity to exist for a long time, or even a short-term existence.
No matter where human beings need the "rules of the game" of benign coexistence, I am not based on rationality but on intuition, declaring that the Chinese society will eventually use "straightening out the chain" to achieve national affinity, and the first step, It may be the reconciliation and compromise between the three generations of grandfather, father and son after conflict.
Suddenly I thought of Wang Shuo. Many people said that he was a "ruffian writer" who was out of shape and turned everything into a joke, but he also wrote.There is a kind of fatal sadness in this novel, and when I read it, I often think of other works.For us Chinese, who is my father, who is my son, grandson, or conversely, who is my father, who am I, is so important! The TV series mainly planned by Wang Shuo, It is full of ridicule of the previous generation and old rules, sometimes even to the point of meanness.But its theme song sings "The structure of herringbone is mutual support".This is a typical traditional Chinese consciousness, and only the "person" in Chinese characters can trigger such associations.I don't think this is necessarily the "cunning strategy" of the TV series' collaborators, it may be due to the inescapable cultural genes deep in their hearts.Then I suddenly thought of TV dramas, which are a drama that disappointed many Chinese people.Some people asked: Since New York is such a terrible "battlefield", why are there so many people who go there "persisting in fighting"? It can be seen that they are still reluctant in the end.What exactly is that? Can they get as much as they insist on fighting? Those Chinese who tried to break free from the Chinese chain, they still couldn't get rid of it in the end, or they thought they got rid of it, but they couldn't become a Western-style "parallel line". Or finally become "parallel lines", but not so comfortable.This kind of conflict between Chinese and Western cultures often constitutes a great tragedy for an individual or even a certain group.
The background of such tragedies is probably an eternal mystery.I don't have the ability to guess riddles, but for no reason, I thought of the mysterious chain that has held our Chinese ancestors, fathers, and grandchildren from generation to generation.This is not a matter of patriotism or patriotism. There is an invisible force in it that goes beyond politics, economics, and morality and ethics in general.
I read the old man Xiao Yu's article on remembering my grandfather, and my imagination ran wild.I was filled with an indescribably great compassion, for my grandfather, for my father, and for myself. Before the age of 50, I was also full of passion for "trial father". I cherish that feeling, and I don't want to regret it.I am now facing my son, and I try to be his friend, but I often cannot tolerate his disobedience, and I have had many rather heart-pounding conflicts with him.I think that my reprimands and even outbursts to him were mostly good for me and good for him.I don't expect him to show mercy to me when he is over fifty.But I am profoundly aware that just as my grandfather and father are tightly connected to each other, my son is also closely connected to me.This chain should continue, a link in the chain - this is the unavoidable and inescapable fate of us Chinese.