Chapter 51 striking

In the cave, a storyteller. It was actually just a photo, but I was intimidated by it. It is a small island in the south of the Philippines, one of the archipelagos like falling flowers with thousands of petals. In 1971, it was accidentally discovered that there were residents living in the Stone Age on it.This little ignorant crowd also loves stories.In the photo, a group of people are sitting in the hole, maybe it is night, everyone is sitting on a stake, and the person who meets the line of sight is the storyteller.He sat a little higher than the others, with his hands half-raised at the level of his head, and there was a certain kind of enthusiasm in his eyes. The inscription next to him read:

—in the cave, a storyteller— What was it that made me freeze for a moment and couldn't look away?It's because of that look!The storyteller and the listener are the same. Their eyes have awe, fear, pity, anxiety, and helplessness. After a small story, all the vicissitudes and fears are played out one by one. ——The place where laughter and tears end is the end of the story. On a small island in the distance, in a comfortable cave, in a long summer night, those primitive people of the Stone Age are obsessed with a certain story. and I?I am neither obsessed with having a story to tell, nor obsessed with wanting to hear someone else's story—I am the quiet tourist, standing in a museum, obsessed with the shared obsession of speaker and listener.

— In the cave, a storyteller. "She must be getting older, more stooped, humbler, sadder and more poisonous..." That was the feeling I felt when I thought of her in the past few years, but in recent years I no longer think like this, what I think is: "She must be dead, I don't know how she died? Anyway, she must be dead. What was her expression when she was dying? Did she stop pursuing it? Can't she close her eyes until she dies?" I met her about twelve years ago. At that time, I happened to be in Hong Kong for a meeting. One very early winter morning, I was in a good mood because the meeting was over. I wandered along the street and bought an English copy of the South China Daily.Unfolding the newspaper, her name Tao grief came to my face, I was stunned by this face, and stood frozen by the side of the road for a moment, feeling like a child who urgently needed some kind of magician to calm me down.

Such a miserable misery and nothing to tell an old belly, with withered hair, hands picking at the heart, distorted facial features as if collapsed and deformed after a major earthquake, she burst out crying loudly, tearing out a child who hadn't woken up due to being too early. The transparent street was convulsed with crying. Who is she?What happened to her and why she was so sad?Over the years, the education of the Chinese Department has consciously or unintentionally agreed to "gentleness and honesty", which made me believe that it is a better state to complain but not to be sad but not to be hurt. However, the face of this old woman is not a melodious bell. Or the chords of harmony, she is the sound of smashing the copper bell and smashing the guqin, and it is a loud wail that makes people feel sad and hurts, like the harpsichord in a musical instrument, sharp and compelling, without a trace. But there is nothing to say, but just screaming like this can startle the world, ghosts and gods.

The newspaper wrote the story as follows: There is a "Debt Collection Society" in Hong Kong, which was initiated by some victims of the Sino-Japanese War. Every year, they make helpless demands to Japan, asking them to compensate for their losses. The woman was a peddler who sold rice dumplings at the Mong Kok train station. During the war, her son died. Every year, she cried and demanded to pay off the debt. Standing by the side of the road, I read word by word the difficult and difficult language for me, and the even more difficult and difficult message behind the language.I come from a college, and if such an incident is sent to the research institute, it will be a master’s or doctoral dissertation for the Institute of History. I also know the title, which is called "The Mentality of the Victims in East Asia after the Sino-Japanese War".Moreover, for the sake of objectivity, the person who wrote the thesis will soon publish another one titled "Research on the Pro-Japanese Mentality of the Asian People after the War", and the papers add up to form a thick book. As I expected, it was called "A Study of the Relations between the Asian People and Japan after the War".

Scholars sometimes have great compassion, but they are often almost cruel because of their calmness!At this moment, the reporter may be praised by the editor for capturing this masterpiece. The academicians in the research institute are asking their assistants to edit and file the materials, but who is willing to accompany the woman to cry?Who will pay the woman's son?Who is going to prevent the history of future generations from repeating itself, and stop another dying woman crying heartily for her son who died in the war? I can't, I can only walk away in tears.From now on, I will avoid going to Mong Kok. When I have to go, I will never go near the train station, and I will lower my head and look back to avoid seeing any hawkers. I am afraid of meeting that old woman.I can face the countless casualties recorded in the history of the Anti-Japanese War in history textbooks, but I can't face a dead mother, a living mother who is old and childless.

It was just a meeting on the newsstand, but she is always in my heart, and, like a real person, she is aging and shrinking day by day. I don’t know what happened to her later?In fact, she has no "later", the debt collection committee is doomed to be unable to collect the debt, and owes too much, making all the ancient temples in Nara, Kyoto, chanting scriptures for a hundred years, and making all the Panasonic, Suzuki, Toyota and other consortiums lose their money , and cannot compensate a woman's son!Even if a woman in the world is so bad that she falls into Abi Hell, like Mrs. Qingti in Tang Renbian, when she hears her son Mulian coming, she can't help but cry out with tears: "My sweet little one!"

The great debts in the world, no matter whether it is a big favor or a big hatred, cannot be repaid!Did the old woman selling rice dumplings in Mong Kok end up crying and dying?Emperor Hirohito cannot pay back your son!So he can only wander in the royal garden, meditating among the red pistils and green leaves, and finally became an insect expert, absurd!Tens of millions of Chinese dead have turned into sea of ​​blood and bones, hundreds of millions of Chinese living have wept into pillars of salt with tears, just for a name, and that name is now gracefully alive, connected with insects.Emperor, don't study insects, okay?Study creditors who are more insignificant than worms in your eyes!

For things in the world, it would be nice to be able to claim what can be compensated, but it can't!Not in one lifetime, not in lifetimes!Was the old woman finally released from grief?Or is she still thinking about her lost son?