Chapter 17 After reading "The Unfinished Skirt"

After reading this "Unfinished Tunic"①, I feel as excited as watching a movie about the life of brothers and nationalities. It leads readers into the colorful environment and the rich and unrestrained life. "The Unfinished Uniform Skirt" is a collection of short stories about the life of the brothers in the Yunnan Province of the motherland written by a brother ethnic writer, Comrade Yang Su of the Bai nationality.This book has its own characteristics, and it can also be said that it is because the objects he describes and narrate have its own characteristics.The backgrounds of these stories are: green cliffs, green flowing water, deep forests, bright red flowers, and fertile fields... The characters in these stories are strong, simple, beautiful, rough, and passionate. Brothers and sisters from ethnic minorities who have broken free from feudal rule.The development of the story is gradually drawn out during their persistent struggle against their old customs and habits, and during the increasingly intimate and solidarity between them and their Han brothers, interspersed with the rich and colorful stories of many brothers and nationalities. The daily food, festive songs and dances, and the poetic and picturesque language commonly used by the extremely visualized brother nations.In this way, it makes every story look gorgeous and in full swing!And everything is summarized in the life of the brand-new frontier brothers and nationalities under the leadership of the party after liberation.I think, if these stories were written by a Han writer, if he hadn’t lived there. ——The author has been writing for many years, and may not be able to write such a detailed and intricate plot. Needless to say, the names of those flowers, plants, birds and animals are enough for people to explore and verify.

Among them, the one that impressed me the most is the article "As Close as Brothers".A Dai brother who has been bullied by Han landlords and local chieftains——Miaomen, has no confidence in the Han cooperative team that came to help them plant rice seedlings, and he was afraid that the Han people would "bully" his cattle, so he secretly sent the cattle He took them to the mountain and hid them, but when he saw the team leader Wang Li and other Han team members plowing the fields with their lives, and then jumped into the water to defend the dike when the river flooded, these living "brothers" In fact, he was completely moved by the trick, so he cut down a dragon bamboo in the blink of an eye, before he had time to cut off the branches, he jumped into the rapids to save Wang Li!

These passages are excellently written: No one straightened up to take a breath. The hearts of over forty Han and Dai men and women were hotter than the sun, and more than forty pairs of eyes watched Wang Li and the others step forward, stepped on the land of the Dai people, and listened to their " hang yo" The snort of "Hangyou" was only thinking about one thing, "Zi Ha, Zai Ha, grab the time to Zai Ha". While Wang Li and the others were plowing the fields for the oxen, Shuai Enxiang, the director of the club, came with a load of seedlings from the ridge: Blocking Wang Li and the others, he shouted excitedly:

"Zhou Nong Lao Wang, the cattle don't plow the fields in such a hot weather, it can't be like this, it can't be like this!" Sweat dripped from Wang Li's forehead into his eyes. He opened his eyes with difficulty and said, "It doesn't matter, director of the company. We are here to help the Dai brothers sow seedlings. No matter how hard it is, we will be happy!" Shuai Enxiang held the leash tightly, looked at the purple marks on their shoulders, and said with tears in his eyes: "Old Wang, you can't do this again, unless you rake past me!"

These conversations were painstaking and emotional conversations between Han brothers and Dai brothers sent by the Communist Party and Chairman Mao. These dialogues, together with tears of happiness, moistened the hearts of the Han and Dai peoples. The following paragraph about the feeling of being a meme is also powerful: Staggering to the field ridge, it seemed that all eyes were glaring at him, and those tears poured on his heart like boiling water.In this group, he is like a forgotten traveler, squatting alone in a corner, unable to enjoy brotherly care, nor the warm friendship of the group.He desperately pulled the weeds on the ridge of the field, crushed the torn weeds, and kneaded them desperately in his palms, as if this was the only way to relieve the heavy burden in his heart.well!These are the Han people taught by Chairman Mao of the Communist Party, and they are the brothers of the Dai family. How can we redeem our mistakes? !

Among the Dai brothers, the Han cooperative team showed that they are the embodiment of the great national policy of the Party and Chairman Mao, making the Han and Dai people harmonious and intimate. They vowed to turn this large wasteland into fertile land, "let the millet Grow like a plantain", "become better than the heaven in the scriptures". The few short stories in this book also gave me a clear and prominent impression, that is, the youths of our fraternal nation, after liberation, pushed aside the heavy clouds and mists, and saw the bright future of the sky and the sea, how they were full of energy , Young eagles and tigers want to fight vigorously to change the poor and white face of their hometown, and to defend their beautiful and free motherland.

Yu San, a Lisu youth in the image, traveled 130 miles to the city to shave his hair and beard, in order to avoid people saying that he was too old and not allow him to join the People's Liberation Army.Squad leader Wang of the border guards has used heroic actions to educate a new generation of brothers and nations. This generation will make the frontier of our great motherland as solid as an iron wall. This is an example.In addition, like Nameng, a young woman from Zaiwa in "The Unfinished Skirt", she did not listen to her mother's instructing, "Men can't wield knives and can't travel far; women can't weave traditional skirts and can't marry." to learn the meteorology of "controlling the sky, the earth, the wind and rain", and to weave "one of the most beautiful skirts, a skirt that Miss Zaiwa has never seen", because "Chairman Mao has already planted the eagle's wings on the mountain pheasant."There is no force of habit anymore, which can lock this girl full of lofty ideals in the hut to finish weaving the skirt with only birds, animals and flowers.

When it comes to old customs and habits, from these novels, we can also see how hard the young people of our brother ethnic groups are fighting against them in order to produce hard and create a new life: the Dai people in "Nenxi Festival" The young Iwagaho firmly and gently persuaded his bride, Mi Yuetuan, to give up the custom of the newlyweds going home to pay New Year's greetings because of the stress of childbirth. , Said, "Don't talk about the rules handed down by the grandparents, even the rules set by the Buddha must be changed." Muna, a Jingpo young woman in "Plagiarizing Cows", was panting for her grandfather who went to plagiarize cows to sacrifice ghosts when everyone in the village was giving birth in the fields. She ran to the branch secretary, Lao Ze, and said: "...I thought, the village has not plagiarized cattle to sacrifice to ghosts for two years, why did my grandfather take this lead! I was so anxious that my family was too late to go back, so I came to you quickly!" Jing Po in "Spring Rain Man Shanzhai" On the eve of their wedding, Mei Pu, a young man from the ethnic group, was stuck on the eve of his wedding, but because when the production team needed a backbone, his bride would have to delay her delivery if she went home for a year according to the old rules. He thought troubledly:

Chairman Mao led the liberation of the Jingpo National People's Congress, which has been renewed year by year and better every day.These changes cannot be described in all the languages ​​of the Jingpo people.Cough, but why do our old customs and habits become so slow? These ancient things entangle our brains like spider webs, and we can’t tear them apart, so that we can’t move forward... But, "There is nothing difficult in the world, as long as there is a heart." These ancient customs and habits that are not conducive to production and development, such as "Li Delang", "Plagiarism of cattle", and "Running away from one's mother's house", are all under the opposition of this group of young people. Also like a weak spider web, let a sharp young bamboo be picked apart at once.

Finally, it should be mentioned that in this book, those charming descriptions of the rich and gorgeous scenery and fragrance in the southwestern frontier, after reading those sentences, at least let us learn more about "the names of plants, trees, birds and beasts", at least let us who have never been there The people of the beautiful southwestern frontier also walked into this intoxicating picture! …Having walked halfway, the sky was already dark, and the road gradually became blurred. The big green trees on both sides of the road, the straight vine slopes, the palms, and the green plum trees all turned into huge black branches, wormwood, Lemongrass, freshly turned soil, and fresh cow and horse dung, mixed together give off a scent.The chirping of the earth dogs and tadpoles further sets off the tranquility in the field... The rain has indeed stopped, the sun has pierced through the dark clouds and cast golden light on the earth, and the raindrops on the banana leaves are shining brightly in the sun , the pink and white catalpa tree flowers, the fiery red panzhihua, and the light yellow camellia flowers are all full of spring rain and bloom more vividly in the sun.The blue green hills in the distance are extraordinarily clear and bright.Only the dense forest is covered with a layer of blue fog-like water vapor, and the green grass on the ground is emerald green and tender, like the fluff of green turtledove chicks. They all shake off the raindrops on their feathers, and fly up to the treetops in pairs, chirping, making everything after the rain look extraordinarily bright and beautiful...Out of the bamboo forest, the sun is coming out of the sky The blue mountain top rises, and the rising sun is like a ruby ​​plate, and the sunlight is like the flash of ruby, very soft.

Under the sunlight, the mountain slowly turns the color of indigo.Patches of lemongrass, clumps of sisal like iron lilies, tinted golden-green by the sun.Through the gaps between rubber forests and banyan trees, the sunlight is like golden arrows, projecting onto the ground covered with lemongrass.With the morning breeze, the scent of overripe pineapple drifted across the field.The dewdrops remaining on the cotton and bean leaves were still shining with silver light in the sun at first, but after a while, it turned into a faint blue smoke, drifting gracefully and gracefully towards the blue sky! Sentences like this full of field lyric flavor can be seen everywhere in these thirteen short stories, so they won't take up too much space here.In addition, there are many very vivid folk proverbs, such as: "Leaves can't be tobacco", "Old people's words are worth cutting with a knife", "An old tree has a hollow heart, and a person is old to the east", "There is a lot of salt It will be bitter, but too much talk will not be sweet", "There are no birds in the woods, and the cicada's cry is also pleasant" and so on, are all the wisdom that our brothers and peoples have learned from their daily lives.As for many unique figurative metaphors, such as comparing Panzhihua to a girl, a mountain eagle to a boy, saying "the ear is sharper than a deer", "dynamite is more violent than a wild boar and a leopard", etc., they all have a strong local flavor. Scenery cannot be learned by people who are not in an environment that is in close contact with nature. We earnestly hope that the writers of our fraternal nationalities will write us more works that reflect the life of the fraternal nationalities, not only to introduce us to some knowledge of new people and new things in the fraternal nationalities areas, but also to guide us to wander in the vivid and splendid frontier scenery, and to Add many colorful and fragrant flowers that will never fade to the big garden of our motherland's literature. (This article was originally published in the August 1962 issue of National Unity.)