Chapter 11 The Realistic Structure and Theme Consciousness of "Huaqiao Rongji"

A major principle of writing modern short stories is the way to express the meaning of the story, instead of "telling", use "presentation".Bai Xianyong strictly abides by this principle.However, the way of "presentation" is different in lightness and darkness.In the novel, such as "Forever Yin Xueyan", "The Rhododendron as Red as Blood", "Reminiscing the Old Fu", etc., because the author often uses hints and metaphors to express the purpose of the story, it is quite difficult to understand.In addition, there are several chapters, because most of the ways of expressing the will are express and simile, so we think it is easier to understand. "A Hand of Green" is one of them. "Huaqiao Rongji" is another one.

In fact, "Huaqiao Rongji" and "A Handful of Green" have some similarities.The two stories also use the first-person narrative method; the two stories also use the narrator's point of view and tone to tell the story of the protagonist of the novel. The narrator of "Huaqiao Rongji" is a restaurant proprietress who has already entered middle age and may be approaching old age.Her grandfather used to open a rice noodle shop called "Huaqiao Rongji" in Huaqiaotou, outside Shuidongmen, Guilin. The business was prosperous and it became a household name.Later, she married a soldier and worked as the battalion commander's wife for several years. Unexpectedly, the battle in northern Jiangsu left her husband missing. She evacuated to Taiwan with the military family and lived in Taipei. Opened a small food shop, also called "Huaqiao Rongji".

Most of the customers who patronize this small restaurant are fellow villagers from Guangxi, but there is only one person, Mr. Lu, who is also from Guilin like her. Mr. Lu is a Chinese teacher at Changchun National School. Thin and pale, with a gentle and polite manner, it can be seen from the profile that he used to be very handsome and decent, but his hair has already turned gray, and there are wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, which makes him look old.During the conversation, the narrator learned that he was originally a son of a famous family, and that Wen Peidao Middle School outside Guilin Shuidong Gate was run by his grandfather.The narrator sees that he is a fellow from Guilin, who is knowledgeable about etiquette and numerology, and that he lives a very well-behaved life. Besides teaching, he raises chickens to make money by himself. . (Xiuhua's military husband also disappeared on the mainland.) Unexpectedly, Mr. Lu flatly refused, saying that he had already been engaged on the mainland.It turned out that his fiancée was the daughter of Luo's family, a brocade merchant in Guilin, and he was a classmate of Pei Dao, so he did not escape.

Soon, for a while, Mr. Lu suddenly looked beaming.After inquiring, the narrator learns that his cousin in Hong Kong finally got in touch with Ms. Luo. She has already arrived in Guangzhou, and only waiting for Mr. Lu to send ten gold bars, she will be able to escape to Taiwan and marry him.Mr. Lu has accumulated savings for fifteen years, which is exactly worth ten gold bars.So he was excited and looking forward to it, and he was out of his mind, day and night longing to be reunited with Miss Luo.Unexpectedly, his cousin turned out to be a liar and swallowed the money, so he said he didn't know about it.The dream of a reunion, together with the hard savings of fifteen years, was all in vain.Not long after this incident, Mr. Lu suddenly became a different person.He fell in love with a slutty washerwoman, Ah Chun, who indulged in the gratification of her sexual desires all day long, dyed her gray hair black, and smeared white cream on her face.He humbled and toiled himself, bowing down to serve this "arrogant" and "bouncy" shrew, walking behind her ass.But not long after, Ah Chun started stealing people from Mr. Lu's room.He went back to catch him, but was kicked to the ground by Hao Fu, and Ah Chun "teared and pulled him, and bit off half of Mr. Lu's ear in one bite".He recuperated on the bed for a long time, and after recovering from his injury, a handful of bones remained in his body.One day, as usual, he led a group of elementary school students who had just finished school to walk on the street.Because of the noise and laughter of the students, he suddenly lost his temper, grabbed a little girl to vent his anger, slapped her, and yelled and cursed, causing a big disturbance in the street.

The next day, he died.He fell on the desk in his own room and died quietly.The coroner found nothing wrong, so he entered "cardiac paralysis" as the cause of death.Since Mr. Lu still owed a sum of money for meals, the narrator went to his rented room and wanted to take some of his belongings as collateral.But unexpectedly saw several photos hanging on the wall of his room, the largest one in the middle was the Flower Bridge outside Guilin Shuidong Gate!There is a man and a woman standing at the end of the bridge, the man is Mr. Lu, and the woman must be a girl from the Luo family.Both of them looked very delicate and pure, smiling and leaning on each other, they were only eighteen or nineteen years old.There was nothing valuable in Mr. Lu’s room, so the narrator took this photo away, intending to hang it in the restaurant and show it off to fellow villagers in Guangxi in the future. The Huaqiao Rongji opened by her grandfather is at the head of Huaqiao bridge , on that intersection.

The proprietress in "Flower Bridge" is comparable to the old lady Qin in "A Handful of Green". She also uses the identity of a bystander to tell the story of another person she saw with her own eyes.The characters described in the two articles, Zhu Qing and Mr. Lu, are also completely different.In addition, another similarity between the two novels is that the experiences of the two narrators themselves are basically similar to those of the characters they describe: Mrs. Qin, like Zhu Qing, died of her husband; Just as Mr. Lu longed to be reunited with Miss Luo, he dreamed of reuniting with her missing husband.But according to these two narratives, although I have a secret pain in my heart and miss the past, I can make a compromise with my fate and accept the reality to live, so I don’t suddenly become like two people, and the result is either like Zhu Qing, who dies spiritually, or like Mr. Lu, who dies unexpectedly. .

However, there are quite a few differences in the author's approach to the two novels.One of them, the turning point in the fate of the two protagonists, has a different timing. Zhu Qing's change originated from the death of her husband during the war between the National Army and the Communist Army.So her changes coincided with the current situation.Mr. Lu's change stemmed from the disillusionment of his reunion with Ms. Luo, not from the parting with her at that time.In the fifteen years since he came to Taiwan, he always thought that the separation was temporary, and he clung to the past with one heart, full of hope and patience, waiting to return to the good old days.Therefore, as far as Mr. Lu is concerned, the boundary between "present" and "past" lies in the time when ideals are shattered fifteen years later.

Another difference in the way these two novels are handled is that the author's presentation and characterization of the characters are different in emphasis. The weight is much heavier.This is not to say that the narrator of "Hua Qiao Rong Ji" has a relatively close relationship with the protagonist.On the contrary, the relationship between Mrs. Qin and Zhu Qing is much closer than that between the proprietress and Mr. Lu.However, in "A Handful of Green", the role of Qin Boss is completely subordinate; Zhu Qing is the obvious and only protagonist in the novel.All the things that Mrs. Qin mentioned about herself in her narration were all used by the author as the background of Zhu Qing's story.Therefore, although we can also get a glimpse of what kind of person Qin Boss is from the content and tone of her narrative, the author has no intention to describe her personality and character. The status of "subsidiary" has its own importance of independence.Some parts of her narrative have absolutely nothing to do with Mr. Lu.But from the beginning to the end, whether she is talking about trivial matters in her own life circle or Mr. Lu's story, she still reveals her own personality very much.And we can feel that this is the intention of the author.Therefore, from this point of view, we can also regard the proprietress as the protagonist of this novel.

After reading "Huaqiao Rongji" carefully, we can't help admiring Bai Xianyong's amazing writing ability again.The characters inside, no matter how big or small, are all lifelike and ready to come out.But the most intriguing thing is the speaker herself, because, from her gossip about others, from the way and tone of her telling the story, from her reaction and evaluation of people and things, we not only see the real life Mr. Lu, and the same group of real small people in society, we see her even more - a good-hearted, proud of her past, likes to strike up conversations with others, has vanity, is also a bit snobby, quite vulgar, quite funny, loving A lower-middle-class hotel proprietress who listens to other people's affairs, is humane, but cares more about her current livelihood.

What a flesh and blood, lifelike woman!She seemed to have all the traits, prejudices and ailments common to women her age: 1. I like to reminisce and boast about my demeanor back then.She recounted that when she was young, in Guilin, she and her grandma delivered rice noodles to people in the mansion, and the rich ladies "seeing that I am pretty and talkative" gave her a handful of rewards.Also, she said to the old bare poles who patronized her restaurant: "You don't misunderstand me as a spring dreamer. Back then in Guilin, I was a famous beauty outside the Shuidong Gate! I was the shopkeeper for our grandfather, and I was in Guilin. Soldiers, crowds gathered around the door of our rice noodle shop, like flies that cannot be driven away after seeing blood, that's how my husband set me up."

2. I like to be a matchmaker, and I am upset if I can't do it.Xiuhua had no intention of remarrying at first, but because "Xiuhua and Mr. Lu are both from Guilin, if they match up, it will be an excellent marriage", so the proprietress tried her best to persuade her, and on the other hand, she went to inquire about Mr. Lu's " "Family belongings", after finding out the money he earned from raising chickens, the profit was increased, "at least 40,000 to 50,000, my wife can afford it", so he happily cooked a table of Guilin dishes, and invited the two to eat as a matchmaker.Mr. Lu's refusal, "I was so angry that I trembled all over and couldn't speak for a long time. There are such unlucky men in the world! He still wants to eat the hot rice noodles I made!" Third, regional concepts and snobbery.The proprietress only loves her hometown and looks down on other places.For rice noodles, of course, only Huaqiao Rongji in Guilin is the best. "What kind of fine noodles from crossing the bridge in Yunnan!" Mrs. Gu, who loves to spy on people's private affairs, is "that Hubei lady".The pungent and dissolute Ah Chun is "that Taiwanese woman".Similarly, if my fellow countrymen from Guangxi ran out from the corners of "Rongxian County and Wuning", they grinned their teeth one by one. They were full of scrambled dialect, and I think they always carried some seedlings. Where can we spell it out for us Guilin people? One stop Come out, men and women, who doesn't have a bit of the aura of mountains and rivers?" Xiuhua finally got married, and married a wealthy businessman, so the proprietress forgave Mr. Lu. "In the end, he is from Guilin, if he is a countryman from outside!" The proprietress not only has a "snobbish eye" on people's birthplace, she also treats people from wealthy families differently.She firmly remembered the characters in those "big mansions" in Guilin, and said: "Can you blame me for being partial to Mr. Lu? He was not a good family and house in the past, and he also fell into trouble." 4. Nagging, meddling.The proprietress is obviously an extrovert, and she likes to meet people and strike up a conversation. No wonder "the residents in the Changchun Road area can be called by their names with my eyes closed."She brags to customers how beautiful she used to be, which is one of the proofs of her "talkativeness".She is well aware of the family backgrounds and private affairs of those fellow villagers in Guangxi, and she likes to comment on people's right and wrong.Her rambling comments on old man Li and epileptic Qin are good examples.The proprietress made fun of Mrs. Gu (Mr. Lu's landlord): "This Hubei nine-headed bird likes to spy on people's private affairs."She herself likes to talk about other people's "secrets": what kind of epilepsy Qin "goed to touch the milk of a vegetable seller", "I think it's probably a nympho", and criticized Ah Chun for "two winter melon milk , up and down, like a drumstick, when seeing a man, crooked mouth, squinting eyes" and so on, the examples are too numerous to enumerate.When Mrs. Gu told her how Mr. Lu had sex with Ah Chun, and how the two of them had sex in broad daylight, although she blamed Mrs. Gu for "just asking, if someone's daughter-in-law steals a man, she seems to guard the other's bed." It looks like it's underneath", but I was very interested in hearing it. In addition to the above-mentioned "common problems" that middle-aged and elderly women in Chinese society often make, and because the proprietress is a small businessman, she knows that it is not easy to make a living. She has a very realistic vision and style, and always takes "making money to live" as her goal First priority.She complained that the small civil servants who came to eat in her restaurant, "all of them have shriveled purses... trying to extract a few more drops of oil from them is more difficult than an old cow pushing a mill."After old man Li hanged himself, "I asked his son for the money he owed for the meal, and the one who was stabbed severely robbed me of it."So he complained: "We open a restaurant to do business, not to open an almshouse."It’s so rare to meet Mr. Lu, a fellow from Guilin, who comes to the restaurant to pack a meal. Of course, she needs to add special ingredients: the beef is fishy meat, and the pork is lean.Once a week, I cook myself again, and specially make a bowl of free hot rice noodles for him, so kind!So humane!But that's not quite the case. "I married him this way, but actually it's not because of Xiuhua." It turned out that I wanted to be a matchmaker for her husband's niece!Mr. Lu's refusal made her furious: "He still wants to eat the steaming hot rice noodles I made! Who doesn't have three hundred and fifty a month's food money? It's all fatty pork!" In this way, the proprietress often has realistic motives in doing things. of.After Mr. Lu passed away, she went to his residence—not to shed tears for him, but to take some of Mr. Lu's things to mortgage the two hundred and fifty yuan he owed the hotel.In the end, she decided to take away the photo of the Flower Bridge outside the Shuidong Gate in Guilin, because "nothing of value was found in Mr. Lu's room"! We also noticed that Mrs. Lu’s landlord, Mrs. Gu, was usually the proprietress’s mahjong partner.But when the proprietress went to Mr. Lu's room to look for things to mortgage the food, Mrs. Gu's original "smile" turned into a "sneer", and said: "You still have your share? He owes me the rent, who do I owe?" Do you want to ask?" He turned around and walked away indifferently.As for the proprietress, looking around at Mr. Lu's empty room, she thought to herself: "I don't know how many things that Hubei woman has secretly bought!" This is often the case with people, especially businessmen.We usually play and laugh together, but when interests conflict, we talk sarcasticly and become suspicious of each other.This is really realistic and realistic! However, regardless of real life, the proprietress also has a warm heart and a human touch.After Mr. Lu was deceived by his cousin and his ideals were shattered, "I saw that his face was so thin that it was as big as a palm, so he resumed the bowl of steaming rice noodles that I gave him for toothache sacrifice."After the death of old man Li, Mr. Qin, and Mr. Lu, the proprietress burned money papers for them. Although this is to get back the auspiciousness of her own store, it cannot be said that there is no element of human kindness.One day, Mr. Lu's face was ashen, and he only took a bite of food before going out. She "hurriedly chased him to stop him" and asked what happened.Later, Mr. Lu didn't come to the restaurant for dinner for two weeks, "I thought he was sick, and I was going to see him", only to find out that he had fallen in love with Ah Chun.Her concern is always mixed with nosy elements, but it can always give people a warm feeling. Even so, among the six sections of the novel, only one section really shows a little bit of "tenderness" hidden in her real personality.That was when she went to enjoy the cool air in the small park at the entrance of the alley, and happened to meet Mr. Lu sitting alone on a stone bench and pulling the strings. Since Mr. Lu was playing Guilin opera, the proprietress, who was once a "big opera fan", suddenly felt nostalgic.She begged and begged, and Mr. Lu finally tuned the strings and sang "Xue Pinggui Returns to the Kiln".This Osmanthus opera tells the story of Xue Pinggui, a general of the Tang Dynasty who conquered Fanbang and was captured. He married a princess in Fanbang. His first wife Wang Baochuan stayed in the cold kiln for eighteen years before waiting for Pinggui to return to the kiln.The proprietress heard Mr. Lu sing "Eighteen Years Old Wang Baochuan" with a clear voice, and suddenly "can't help but feel a little bit stabbing". Her feeling of "stinging heart", of course, is because of the association of her own fate.She thinks of herself as Wang Baochuan, who sticks to it until she grows old, but she feels that even Wang Baochuan is worse, because after all, Xue Pinggui is waiting for her, and her husband, whose whereabouts are unknown after the war, may never come back.She and Mr. Lu sat on the stone bench for a long time, listening to him playing the string casually, and fell asleep in a daze.In a dream, she saw "then Xue Pinggui became my husband again, and ran over on a horse." It can be seen from this that although the proprietress had dreamed of her husband covered in blood at night many years ago, she knew that "he had already left first"; I'll make another idea," but she still kept an illusion in her heart, secretly hoping that one day her husband would come back to her.Although she lives in reality every day and is always joking and nagging, there is an unspeakable sadness hidden deep in her heart.When she was accidentally touched by this sadness because of Mr. Lu's La Gui opera, suddenly her personality seemed to change completely, she became serious, noble, no longer nagging, no longer laughing (the author mainly relied on the narrative "tone" convey this impression).This is exactly the same meaning as Jin Taipan's memory of the scene where the moon was like a virgin at the beginning.In this short moment, the proprietress's daily vulgarity is washed away, and her impetuousness completely disappears.So she asked Mr. Lu about his fiancée with real sympathy and sincere concern (not meddling). In addition to the meaning explained above, this section of Mr. Lu's Lagui opera (the third section, which is the shortest of the six sections in the full text), has another important function, which is to combine the story of the proprietress herself with Lu Mister story encounters, do fit in a sense.In this way, Third Sister Wang waits for Xue Pinggui, not only implying that the proprietress is waiting for her missing husband in her dream, but also implying that Mr. Lu patiently waits for the Luo family girl whom he loves wholeheartedly. (Of course, it can also be extended to insinuate the feelings of ordinary people from other provinces living in Taiwan.) Wang Sanjie waited for eighteen years, and finally waited for Xue Pinggui.But Mr. Lu, the proprietress and others waited in vain.This, of course, is ironic. The tragic protagonist of "Huaqiao Rongji" is of course Mr. Lu.From the trivial narration and description of the proprietress, we can conclude that he was originally a refined, gentle, patient, self-respecting, clean and kind-hearted middle-aged man who was unswerving. The narrator usually sees He was on the street, carefully protecting a group of elementary school students from crossing the intersection. For some reason, seeing his very patient appearance always reminded me: the big docile rooster I raised before, that rooster would bring chicks, it often spread its wings, A flock of chicks hatched under the wings. Comparing Mr. Lu to a docile rooster with chicks, it can be seen that he is a man with a feminine and gentle temperament.Later he sang Osmanthus opera, "I didn't expect that he could also sing Danjiao, his voice was very clear and moist, and he had the taste of a little golden phoenix."This also implies that he is somewhat feminine. During the fifteen years he lived in Taiwan, he firmly embraced the ideal of being able to reunite with Ms. Luo one day. With his extraordinary patience, he remained steadfast and full of hope, never complaining, and never feeling sorry for himself. Ai.For example, after he sang "Returning to the Kiln", the proprietress would "heave a sigh of relief" and exclaimed: "My third sister Wang waited for eighteen years, but she finally waited for Xue Pinggui—" But Mr. Lu didn't even sigh. No post, just "smiled and didn't make a sound". The "good news" passed to him by his cousin from Hong Kong raised his long-awaited hopes to the climax.He "clutched the letter tightly with both hands and refused to let it go, as if he was grabbing his lifeblood."It is worth noting that this letter he thought was written by a girl from the Luo family was actually forged by his cousin.The author hints in this way that Mr. Lu's ideal, which Mr. Lu clings to as if he is holding on to his life, is actually a fantasy that has no substance and cannot be realized. When he finally realized that he was deceived, the weight of this reality shattered his ideals to pieces.He lost the savings that he had accumulated for fifteen years, which implied that he lost the expectation that he had accumulated for fifteen years.And his loss was not due to any fault or guilt of his own, but was due to being "deceived" which was completely beyond the power of self-control.So he was deceived by his cousin, which means he was deceived by fate.Interpreted in symbolic meaning, the cousin is the "god" or "demon" of the treacherous and unpredictable destiny.No wonder Mr. Lu cried, "He's not human!" After his ideal was shattered, Mr. Lu became a completely opposite person.He became self-defeating, insulting his clean body, and having sex with the "bomby" Ah Chun in broad daylight.The role of Ah Chun alludes to Mr. Lu's long-repressed "fleshness".When he bowed his head and succumbed to Ah Chun's female power, allowing her to act arrogantly, it meant that his "flesh" subdued and annihilated the "spirit" by arousing his "flesh".After the change, Mr. Lu has lost his gentleness (caught and slapped Ah Chun in the face), lost his patience (take out his anger on the elementary school student), and stopped pulling the strings ("the strings are still hanging on the wall, covered with dust").He became self-pitying, trying in vain to recapture his lost youth, dyed his gray hair black indiscriminately, and painted his face white with cream.This kind of pitiful and useless attempt reminded the proprietress of an old opera singer in her fifties who sang fan music and performed "Baoyu Crying Spirit" in disguise, but it couldn't cover up her old self, and it made people feel sad to watch. The death of the "spirit" is the loss of human dignity.Mr. Lu was caught well, but he was beaten and bitten, which means that the author used the cruelty of the body to insinuate the cruelty of the soul and the shattering of human dignity.After Mr. Lu recovered from his injury, the earlobe of his left ear disappeared. Part of his hair was black and part of it was gray. "I don't know how funny it looks."Facing such a man who has lost his dignity, it is no wonder that "when he came in, all the Guangxi guys who paid for the meal in our shop all winked and smiled at him." Since this novel is written from the proprietress' point of view, of course the author never probed into Mr. Lu's ideology.But we can imagine how much Mr. Lu hates and hates this changed self in his heart.Leading elementary school students to walk on the street, a girl Gu Lu Gu Lu laughed, and he decided that she was laughing at him.He felt that everyone was laughing at him and looking down on him, because he himself looked down on himself.He vented his anger on this girl, but he was actually venting his anger on himself. When someone dragged her away, he waved his hands, foamed from his mouth, and shouted loudly: "I'm going to kill her! I'm going to kill her! "However, what he really wanted to kill was himself who had lost his human dignity. And he finally got his wish - the next day, he died quietly.It was not any disease that brought his physical death, but his wronged soul.No wonder "the coroner's examination took a long time, but they couldn't find anything wrong with it".Mr. Lu died of heart failure, so the coroner did not make a mistake in writing "cardiac paralysis" on the cause of death column. This is the tragic story of Mr. Lu's soul and flesh.Because he was originally such a gentle, noble, and chaste person, his sudden linear decline and the mutual destruction of body and soul are even more shocking, more terrifying and pitiful.And the contrast between the beautiful past and the ugly present is the theme of this short story. I have already mentioned that if we read this novel carefully, we will be amazed at the author's realistic ability.The big and small characters in it are all vividly jumping on the paper, and the description of the story background is also very realistic and powerful.Let's take an example at random to see how the author introduces and describes the laundry woman Ah Chun: That woman, before you see her, a pair of tits hit your face first, and it's only twenty o'clock, and her buttocks are bulging long ago.Rubbing up the clothes, the whole body is bouncy.Two wax gourd milk, up and down, like a drumstick, when they saw a man, they crooked their mouths and squinted their eyes.I do remember that time in the vegetable market, a young man selling vegetables offended her for some reason. Her pair of big tits bullied him first, causing the young man to stagger back a few times, slapping , A few times of saliva, spit up people's heads and faces, and shouted loudly: Fuck you old hen!That kind of aggressiveness, that kind of wave. Such a lively and vivid description not only draws the characters vividly, but also creates a slightly exaggerated and funny tone, reflecting the narrator's daily life attitude. Bai Xianyong is such a master of realism, but he does not just paint for the purpose of realism.Some writers, even very great writers, such as the French master of realism Balzac, the characters and scenes in his works are lifelike, majestic and breathtaking.However, a large number of description parts can be separated from the story and exist independently, not related to the plot action or the theme of the novel.This is a big taboo in modern novel writing. If we interpret the novel "Huaqiao Rongji" as the story of Mr. Lu, the author asks the proprietress to tell the trivial details of her life, and introduces and describes the old man Li, Qin Duzi and other Guangxi fellow customers. It seems to have committed Balzac's fault.The first of the six sections of the novel actually has nothing to do with Mr. Lu.But these seemingly meaningless and purposeless nagging by the proprietress are actually useful. What connects the details of this novel and makes it an organic whole is the theme awareness of "this is not what it used to be".This theme awareness flows from the beginning of the novel to the end of the novel.Take a look at the opening sentences of the novel: When it comes to our Huaqiao Rongji, the signboard is very famous.Of course, I am referring to the rice noodle shop opened by our grandfather in the Huaqiaotou outside Shuidongmen, Guilin. Look at the end of the novel: I would like to point out (photos) to them. The Huaqiao Rongji that my grandfather opened in the past is on the side of the Lijiang River, at the head of the Huaqiao bridge, at the intersection. In this way, the novel begins with Grandpa's Huaqiao Rongji and ends with Grandpa's Huaqiao Rongji.Both the beginning and the end are descriptions of Huaqiao's glorious past. No wonder the author named it "Huaqiao Rongji".The starting point and the ending point of the novel seem to be combined in such a way, such as going around a circle and returning to the original place.And following the circumference of the plot, what is hidden in it is the sense of emotion and nostalgia of "thinking about the past". Indeed, this theme consciousness, that is, the feeling of "the present is not as good as the past", appears again and again in the novel.As I mentioned at the beginning of this thesis, "Huaqiao Rongji" presents the theme in a more obvious way.We can indeed easily pick up a large number of clear examples of the contrast between the present and the past from the text.At the beginning of the novel, after introducing the grandpa’s “Who doesn’t know? Who doesn’t know?” Huaqiao Rongji, the narrator quickly pointed out: “The Huaqiao Rongji I opened by myself doesn’t have that kind of scenery.”And the "Chun Meng Po" she is now is certainly no better than the "famous beauty" in Guilin.Old man Li, who came to the restaurant to pack a meal, "used to do a large timber business in Liuzhou, and people called him 'Li Bancheng', saying that he occupied half of the houses in the city."But now living in Taipei, old and sick, abandoned by his son, and finally hanged to death, another Qin epilepsy, "when he was the county magistrate in Rongxian County, Guangxi, he also begged for two concubines", but now, molesting girls in the city government The clerk, who was fired, went to touch the milk of a vegetable seller, ate a heavy stick, and beat his forehead until his forehead blossomed, and finally fell into the gutter and drowned.The proprietress yearns for Guilin, which represents the "past", and looks down on Taipei, which represents the "now": In our place, there are green mountains and green water everywhere, people's eyes are brightened, and their skin is whitened.How often have you seen a place like Taipei?This year's typhoon, next year's earthquake, even if you are a beautiful fetus, you can't stand the torment of these wind and rain! I have already mentioned that, as far as Mr. Lu is concerned, the boundary between "present" and "past" is the disillusionment of his ideals after he came to Taiwan fifteen years ago.And I have discussed in detail how he was different before and after his disillusionment.Let’s compare the present with the same incident of him leading the students across the street: in the past, he was very patient, like a docile rooster that would lead a chick; later he became irritable and even beat people.Mr. Lu is a different person before and after, which of course is the most powerful presentation of the theme of contrast between the past and the present in this novel. At the end of the novel, the landlady accidentally sees a photo of Mr. Lu and Ms. Luo when they were young. "Mr. Lu is still wearing a student uniform, clean and neat, and wearing a student duckbill cap." Such a young and pure appearance is the same as "a head of gray hair first... ...the corners of his eyes are deeply wrinkled, and there is already a big gap between them. If we compare him with the clown with dyed hair and cream after his fall, this sharp contrast is poignant.In the past, the girl from the Luo family, whom Mr. Lu fell in love with, was "sleek all over, with a pair of brilliant phoenix eyes, which is really pitiful to look at."There is a world of difference between such a girl from the past and the "meatball" slutty woman that his body has finally met today. All in all, in this novel, the author expresses the theme of "comparison between the past and the present" in many ways: 1. Use the story of Mr. Lu to present the theme. Second, present the theme with the help of the narrator's own life experience. 3. Present the theme through the encounters of supporting characters such as Old Man Li and Epilepsy Qin. Fourth, present the theme through the narrator's nagging and her subjective comments on people and things. The contrast between the present and the past is the contrast between the flesh and the spirit, and the contrast between the mundane and the pure.As time goes by and refuses to stop, no one can keep youth forever, free from the corrosion and pollution of age. Huaqiao Rongji is located at the bottom of "Changchun" road.Mr. Lu's teaching in the "Changchun" national school is of course the author's intentional irony. Another point, also by the way.Such an ending content of this novel, which is to use a photo of youth to arouse the sense of the past and the present, if it is not handled well, it will easily become "sentimentality".Bai Xianyong avoided this trap very skillfully.His clever way of avoiding it is to use the narrator's realistic attitude to neutralize the sentimentality of the subject matter. As I said, the motive of the proprietress coming to Mr. Lu's residence is completely realistic. Meal money.It was all by chance that she saw this picture.She had no intention of looking for "souvenirs" at all.And she became interested in this photo only because the background of the photo happened to be the Flower Bridge outside Guilin Shuidong Gate.Although she carefully inspected the two young people in the photo (so that we can see Mr. Lu's appearance as a teenager and compare the present and the present), she "can't help secretly applauding the appearance of this pair of young men and women from Guilin. Come", but her interest in the characters in the photos is temporary, appreciative, and irrelevant.If it weren't for the background inside, which would allow her to show off her past to her fellow countrymen in Guangxi in the future, and boast of her grandfather's "famous" Huaqiao Rongji, then Mr. Lu's room is really "nothing of value can be searched". out", she would never think of taking this photo away. In fact, speaking of it, it is not only the end of the novel, but Mr. Lu's entire tragic story, which is too sentimental and too melodramatic in terms of the subject matter itself.However, Bai Xianyong very skillfully resists these two tendencies by controlling the narrator's realistic, relaxed and funny "tone" or "tone".Generally speaking, for a novelist, the main key to the success or failure of writing is not what kind of subject matter he chooses, but how he handles the subject matter he chooses.