As soon as Lu Xiaoya entered the newspaper office, he was stopped by the director of the reception office. "Someone left you a note, and he wiped his tears while writing."
She took the note and looked shocked. It says:
Telephone host of "Youth Hotline" of China Youth Club:
I suffered a lot because of my parents' arranged marriage and strong desire for success. I have my own pursuits and ideals, but real life is so cruel. I really didn't expect that it would be so difficult for a young man in the 1990s to break through the shadow of arranged marriage. For me, life has lost all its meaning.
A month ago, I left home and ran around with the support of a friend. I am eager to create a better life with my own hands. It's a pity that China is so big that there is no room for me. I don't even have the right to live with labor and sweat. Looking for friends, looking for labor agents, one hope after another in my hard balloon, in my hard waiting became a bubble. Why is life so unfair? Since I can't live honestly, let my life end here.
At this moment when my life is coming to an end, I have a request to appeal to the society through your newspaper. I hope that parents all over the country can understand and respect the feelings, ideals and pursuits of the next generation, so that they can truly become useful people to society. I don't want others to repeat my tragedy again. Let me be the last victim of China's arranged marriage and long-term success! I also call on the whole society to care for and care for all young people.
veteran
At first glance, I knew that the veteran was a rural youth working in Beijing. Although after the opening of the "Youth Hotline", I knew that this kind of thing would happen sooner or later, and I knew that I would help these young friends in a psychological state, at the last moment, Lu Xiaoya was still a little nervous and helpless.
She quickly asked, "Where are you?"
"I left, and I didn't say where to go."
She judged that since he left a note, he would definitely contact in some way. I can see from my heart that he still has something to say.
She hurried to the office and left a message on the automatic answering machine: "Old friends in the south, please come to the newspaper office at once, and we will wait for you."
At nine o'clock in the evening, he finally called. Here he comes. In order to escape marriage, he ran away from home, first in Guangdong, then in Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei and Henan, and hit a wall everywhere. He made his last stop in Beijing. He looks tired and has a sense of failure and despair.
During the conversation, they knew that he had lived under Jianguomen overpass for more than ten days, didn't sleep well and didn't eat a meal. How can you sleep under the overpass in the cold winter? I have to run to keep warm, and I have to run dozens of kilometers every night. First, run from the South Second Ring Road to Fengtai and then turn back, and then run on Chang 'an Street. He felt that all the people were looking at him strangely, and all the tall buildings were laughing at him along the way. He seems to be a floating dust in the air, a dust with a little heat. He wants to locate, but he can't; He wants to stop, but he can't. In the darkness, there came the music "Dongfanghong" played by Beijing Railway Station and the telegraph office building and the sound of telling the time. "When! -When? -When? -"The bell made him heartache! He looked forward to the disappearance of the night and the coming of the day, and was deeply afraid of the approach of a certain moment, and then an irresistible despair slowly emerged from the depths of his heart. He grew up singing Dongfanghong and Huer Hi Yo. "But who really works for our farmers?" He said. He wants to stop and have a rest, but he can't. He was wearing thin clothes, and the suffocating midnight chill in Beijing instantly took away the poor heat he had just given off-the heat saved by eating only three loaves of bread every day. When he was running, he passed the International Hotel, Beijing Hotel, VIP Building, national hotel and Yanjing Hotel. He knew that the rich people in it were spending a lot of money and the ladies were having sex. When he was running, he passed Tiananmen Square and xinhua gate. He knows, but he can't sleep. Of course, he also knows that Beijingers within the city walls will not and have no time to care about him, a wanderer who keeps warm by running. Is society really so unfair? It's not fair. Just like pictures in movies, Du Fu's poems. It is impossible to distinguish fiction from reality. When he was running, he probably didn't know that in other spaces, nearly 200 million rural young adults were forced to come out of the land and run in various forms. He's just one of them. Wandering for survival and wandering for spirit, he has no way out.
How lucky he is! Or god never shuts one door but he opens another! He found the "Youth Hotline" and got to know Lu Xiaoya.
She settled him down and let him have a good sleep in the newspaper guest house. She went to wake him up at noon the next day. He said, "I haven't slept in bed for half a month."
"Go, wash your hands for dinner. You must have not eaten for a long time. " She said.
When Lu Xiaoya came back from washing her hands, she grabbed her hand, "plopped" and cried, "Sister, if it weren't for you, I wouldn't be alive now!"
She has never experienced such a thing. Is she mentally prepared? She said: "I was shocked! Panic and embarrassment made my heart jump straight and hurriedly pulled him up. "
She mobilized him to go home. She turned and took some money out of her purse and said to him, "I know you have no money now, and you can't go home if you want." I'll lend you this money as a travel expense. " Say "borrow", "one is afraid of hurting his self-esteem, and the other is to let him care more and live well in this world." She said.
But her mood is as complicated as his. She clearly knew that he ran out to escape the arranged marriage. If he goes back, it means that the struggle against fate has failed, which means that he will face reluctant marriage and rural poverty, monotonous and boring life, as well as people's ridicule and contempt. She said: "I suddenly feel cruel, as if I were pushing him into a fire pit." After all, I didn't bear all the pain and pressure, but he did! However, there seems to be no other choice. No money, no place to live, no job, and despair. In the face of cruel fate, survival comes first. "
People say it's better to live than to die. Living, anything is possible. Otherwise, there is no chance. For ordinary people, death is meaningless to the dead and meaningless to the living. The latter requires all living people to dare to gamble on the whole life process and suffer. "So, what if you can't live well and you can't die?" I said. He is in this kind of embarrassment and contradiction.
When Lu Xiaoya and other colleagues at the Youth Hotline persuaded him to give up the idea of suicide, they learned that he liked literature and met a "pen pal" in a magazine. She was a disabled girl. He said that the girl was very kind and only she could understand him. The girl lent him 100 yuan to let him escape.
She noticed that there was a warmth in his eyes when he talked about the girl.
"like her?" She asked softly.
"I like it." He seems to be in a state of meditation and confusion.
"Why didn't you tell her?"
"impossible." His eyes are blurred.
"How is that possible?"
"I am from the countryside and she is from the city."
He gave a wry smile. "Love" is also about identity. Because of his status as a "farmer", he didn't even have the courage to propose! The other party is still a disabled young woman. Even if I go back, this situation will not change at all! So, what's the point of fighting? So his escape, his wandering, his despair, is not just to escape arranged marriage.
This is the meaning of "Zou Binzai".
The rural population is constantly expanding, and there are fewer people than people, forcing Zou Binzai to come out of the land and rural society. They can't just sit there for a fixed idea. They will not be satisfied with the good lifestyle left by their ancestors, they will pursue a new lifestyle, and they can't resist the temptation of material civilization and spiritual civilization in modern society. No one came back to pity them. To change the deteriorating living environment, we can only rely on ourselves. Therefore, in the process of human industrialization, the tragic historical landscape of hundreds of millions of rural surplus labor force shifting like non-agriculture is presented to us.
We are a little confused.
We're a little nervous.
What impact may this irresistible social trend have on our lives?
What is happening in the rural society of China, the birthplace of this trend?
This is all unknown.
So Zou Binzai came towards us.
2、
Zou Binzai deeply realized the difference between the city and the countryside. Now is not the time to run and keep warm on Chang 'an Avenue. What he saw at that time was just a phenomenon, an external symbol. Her despair comes from a sad love story.
There are probably only a few ways out for rural youth: taking exams, becoming soldiers, and obtaining urban hukou with commodity grain. Among them, being a soldier cannot solve the problem in one step. If you don't join the party or volunteer, you may still be demobilized and go home to be a farmer after the expiration of your service. Zou Binzai 1987 became a soldier. His fault is that he is not good at improvisation, not good at talking, not looking at his eyes, and naturally he is not very gregarious. Like most rural soldiers in the army, he has a vision and ideal for his future life and tries to get rid of his native land of birth. His family also worked hard for his future. During the slack season, my father went out early, visited the village, bought goose feathers and duck feathers, earned some money, and subsidized his family, all for emergency use. At that time, in order to be a volunteer, the family sent 500 yuan to let him act according to circumstances and manage all kinds of immortals. And in the letter, he said that as long as he can become a volunteer, he will throw caution to the wind. Meanwhile, I arranged a marriage for him at home. Parents have two main concerns about this marriage. One is that a relative of the woman is the director in charge of the placement of veterans in the city, and the other is that the woman has a strong relationship in the town, so Bin Zi can have a fixed job in the city in case of demobilization. For his own good, they put double insurance on him. After receiving the money, he really gave a wry smile, which was too heavy to return. Knowing that money is hard to come by, he thought about it, took out 360 yuan and signed up for a correspondence course in a literary magazine. However, when the family wrote to tell him that they had told him about their marriage in the neighboring village, it was up to the family to decide what to do with the woman. The news came as a bolt from the blue!
"Oh, my God! They never discussed it with me. Isn't this forcing me to accept a girl I've never met before? The letter also said that the family had paid the woman an engagement gift of 3,200 yuan. " Zou Binzai said, "I won't do it." Relatives and friends came to persuade. Some people even said that they should agree to this marriage for the sake of the 3200 yuan that may not be recovered. 3,200 yuan is definitely an astronomical figure in rural areas! Ordinary farmers can only earn it back in years!
Zou Xuchang, Zou Binzi's father, said to me: "Binzi was not at home at that time, and the woman asked us if we could be the master. We said we could be the master. This is good, all smashed. " When they informed Binzi of the news, they never expected that Binzi was already in a state of anxiety.
"She is really a good girl." Zou Bin said. When he told this love story, his face was full of nostalgia and warmth. This is a sentimental, self-respecting young man. This character not only supported him, but also hurt him. Kerosene lamps flashed on his dark face.
"Black-faced child, stand up and answer this question." The geography teacher in junior high school pointed at him.
From then on, his classmates called him "the hungry man in Africa". It was a great insult to him. In a rage, I stopped going to school. No one will listen to advice. He feels that no one in this world understands him. I feel lonely, and I don't know who I can talk to. When I was in the army, I saw a passage written by a young woman in Jiangxi in the "Looking for Friends" column of a magazine. The main meaning is that when a person encounters difficulties and setbacks, he should not lose confidence, have the courage to face life, become a strong person in life, and try to change the environment. These words touched his heart. He sent her a letter, a four-page letter, pouring out his inner pain and troubles. Although he doesn't know what the young woman looks like, what she does and how old she is. None of this seems important to him. It is important to have an object to tell the depression in his heart and find an understanding and a spiritual comfort. From the perspective of psychoanalysis, if depression is not vented, the consequences of physical and mental injury will be serious and even devastating. He found an exit. They have never met, and they don't know each other. Perhaps because of this, he felt a great sense of security. Besides, the other person is a young woman, and her words strongly convey a kind of female-specific information, a hint and encouragement that makes him open his heart, a vague expectation, and a * * * shock. What he said about these women's eyes was completely abstracted by him and rushed out.
After the letter was sent, he suddenly felt insecure and even regretted it. What will she think when she receives this unexpected letter from a stranger? Will she write back? She doesn't think it's idle and boring to tease this boring child, does she? He fidgeted and dared not hope. A heart hangs in mid-air.
"I got an unexpected return." He said to me. A few days later, she wrote back. A full eight-page reply is twice that of Thaksin! His heart was beating with excitement. The girl's enthusiastic answer made him very excited. Not long after, he received another postcard from the girl, which read: "When you are lonely, when you lose courage, when you build a boat and sail to the other side, when you are tired of the wind and waves, don't forget me as a friend."
The word "friend" at this time is so precious in his heart! "I Zou Binzi grow so big, never a friend who can speak from the bottom of my heart. I am so lucky! " Holding a postcard, he hid in a deserted place, sobbed gently, and then cried.
Since then, they have never interrupted their communication. Come and go, your heart is not less than ten pages, thick stack, heavy in your hand; Every letter is full of passion, as if it were endless words. Gradually, love came into being with each other. One day, he told her that he was going home. Want to see her. She said, you come. The young man and woman who have corresponded for two years finally met.
How much romantic imagination can lovers provide to writers when they meet for the first time in this background! It seems that the blue of happiness is everywhere, and the warmth of the world is everywhere, singing for happiness like a poem. Life lacks happiness, warmth and happiness, so when they come together, we are all willing to bless them. In essence, literature is the product of this blessing. However, we have to admit how far literature is from real life!
He is waiting for her at her home. Strangely, his mood is unusually calm. He came to a friend's home, a courageous lover's home, without any strange feeling. As soon as he entered the room, he saw her shadow and smelled her. Everything is comfortable and familiar. "I really want to go back to my home."
She came in. She walks in a stumbling way and is disabled.
"Hello." She held out her hand to him.
"Hello." He held her.
She looked for some kind of reaction from the other side with the unique sensitivity of the disabled. She looked at his passionate eyes and held his hand, feeling warm and practical. Zou Binzai said to me, "You may not believe it. Before I met this girl, I had a dream. This dream says that I must live with a disabled woman in the future, and I must take care of her and accompany her for the rest of my life. " When he said these words, he used to be by the Mengshui River crossing Huxia Village and under a row of willow trees in Changping County, Beijing. These words moved me.
I don't know if there is telepathy in the world, and if there is a super-life phenomenon that affects people's fate. In fact, he spent the most enjoyable three days in her house. That night, her parents cooked more than a dozen dishes and two bottles of wine and treated him warmly. They chat, walk and talk about their future plans and ambitions. She encouraged him to oppose arranged marriage and even break up with his family.
three
"Later, I realized that it was a mistake for us to meet. When we have dreams and expectations to realize, when we have to make judgments and choices about many specific things, we have contradictions and conflicts. For example, she hates my parents' high arranged marriage, and then she hates my parents. How to do this? In any case, parents are parents, and I must pay back the kindness I have raised for more than 20 years. Just when I was desperate, she suggested that I learn a trade, such as hairdressing, and she could open a hair salon with me to make a living. But I have no interest in learning a trade. I found a stable job in a large plastic factory in Pingxiang, and I did well in a short time. But I don't like many things in the factory, so I wrote her a letter. But she told me realistically,' it's good that you can keep your job and not starve yourself. How can you say such a thing? What's more, I feel the inequality of our conversation. She is a draftsman in the factory, shorter than me, but she always makes me sit up and take notice of her. How come... I am still a rural youth who has not got rid of the status of a farmer. I am still a poor man, but I am still a man. Men have men's self-esteem! "Zou Binzai said.
The conflict between two people's ideas contains very rich information.
One is a disabled urban young woman, and the other is a penniless rural young man who has repeatedly failed. Their common feature is that they all like literature. Holding a jumping dream, they all value and cherish the course of life, are unwilling to play with fate, and at the same time have innate sensitivity and inferiority. This innate sensitivity and inferiority has been strengthened and exaggerated under social choice and social competition. What would it be like to combine two extremely fragile souls without survival guarantee?
I am still dreaming. Why "Meeting is a mistake"? Everything will be fine. All shall be well, jack shall have Jill. Neither of us is happy-forever and ever, how can we not be in the same boat and live alone? How can we soar on the commanding heights of love without putting aside the worldly fetters? We can design countless brilliant roads for rebellious lovers as described in the novel. Why come to this? A step forward is another world. But you can't move your feet at all? It was like flying with wings, and suddenly it became so heavy.
For a girl with unlimited active thinking space and lack of self-care ability in life, she grew up under the protection of her parents. To create her own life, of course, she needs something powerful to carry all her dreams.
However, Zou Binzai cannot do it for the time being.
"Go learn a trade!" She made suggestions.
Zou Binzai felt embarrassed when they flew in a surreal space and had to face specific problems.
"Learning skills aside, I calculated that it needs at least $1,000. Where can I find a thousand dollars? Besides, when I finish learning, I will open a shop with her. I can't get it without 10 thousand yuan. " Zou Bin said.
If the first meeting is relaxed and pleasant, the second meeting a month later is a different state of mind. Zou Binzai returned home and had to run away. He is under pressure to get married, and there is no room for marriage. What fills my ears every day is endless persuasion and discussion.
He came to the girl's house with a depressed face. The girl and her family supported him to go out and make a break, and there might be a way out. She gave him one hundred dollars.
When she received his letter, it was a phone call from Lu Xiaoya.
"He wants to commit suicide? You must save him! " She cried on the phone. Crying so sad, crying so uncertain, crying so desperate. She once wrote on a postcard: "Don't forget, there are my friends."
I'm here anyway! Her despair is that "I" disappeared in his mind, forever.
"Love" lost its weight at this time.
She may not realize that after their second meeting, his mind was out of balance. When he spent the 100 yuan she gave him, and there was obviously no hope of paying back the money, he just said, "Will she forgive me for not returning the money to her? She knows that I am desperate! " They all need to be saved, however, he has no ability to save her, and she has no ability to save him. Tragedy is inevitable. He didn't realize that she was also desperate.
After I went to Huxia Village, she sent him a short message, trying not to reveal her emotions and telling him that she lost her painting job and that meager job in the optimized combination of factories.
four
He cried.
He knew she was crying.
He knows that in her mind, he is a weak person and a coward.
He treasures all her letters. Every time he went home, no matter what his state of mind was, he took pains to read her letter countless times. This letter is old and rotten. He can recite all the letters! Reading her letters has become a part of his life! "Why is this world so unfair! I feel sorry for her. I ruined her. " He always chants like this, like Sister Xianglin. "We shouldn't meet, our meeting is a mistake, an irreparable mistake. Why can't I understand that people like me are not qualified to fall in love with city people, and they are not qualified to marry city people! This is a mistake. When we met for the third and fourth time, we had nothing to say. There is no change in our life, and all specific problems should be discussed from the original starting point. We all want to rely on each other and build a new happy life, but we are separated by a huge gap of disappointment. Our letters are getting shorter and shorter, and there is no impulse to pour out loneliness in some long letters. What if we don't meet? We may live forever in a yearning and expectation, in a purity and imagination, and in mutual care and care. Great. Who do I have to talk to? I really regret it. We shouldn't meet, I was wrong. " He said.
"Are you all right. You can't always live with guilt. " I tried to comfort him.
But at this time, he doesn't seem to care much about my comfort. "My biggest mistake is to vote for the wrong baby. For this, the human body in your city will not have it! "
five
What else can I say?
On Zou Binzai's body, there are two "scarlet letters" of "farmers", which can never be erased!
My father was born as a farmer, my grandfather, grandmother, grandfather and grandmother were all farmers, my cousins were all farmers, and my nephews and nieces were all farmers. My parents used their power as much as possible, and even after they retired, they still used various relationships to provide convenience for them and tried to get rid of their status as farmers. At my dinner table, this is an eternal theme, an annoying theme. Even in order to realize a certain plan, it is necessary for the whole family to mobilize and disrupt the normal life procedure. "Farmers", even urban residents, are the unavoidable shadows of many families.
Even many rich and successful farmers, no matter what kind of occasion, just throwing out the word "farmer" contemptuously is enough to destroy their self-esteem and make their wealth and success meaningless. Therefore, "eating commodity grain" has become the supreme privilege in the minds of farmers and the goal to be achieved by risking one's life and forgetting one's death. After my cousin died, in order to reward his decades of teaching experience, the organization gave him two indicators of "from rural to non-rural", a family of seven people, two indicators, and five others continued to be "farmers".
This means that overnight, the situation has changed, and the seven people who eat in a pot are divided into two natures. As far as I know, there is a world of difference in the choice of who to ask for help and who not to ask for help. The bitterness is beyond words. Not to mention how to deal with these two indicators, it took several years to implement. Looking for this and that, looking for this but not that, looking for this and pushing that, looking for that and pushing this, let my cousin die unsatisfied. When I die, my eyes are full of tears of expectation!
After my cousin died, my hometown wrote that my organizational conscience finally achieved its goal. Expressing mourning for this primary school principal who appeared in rural education for decades, of course, reflects the organization's sunshine-like care for rural old corpses and encourages those living rural old corpses to work hard. Some time ago, the news media publicized how many farmers, entrepreneurs and outstanding young farmers in a certain city changed their urban hukou. Do these news convey social tragedy or social comedy? Or a kind of black humor?