I will ask myself countless times, I will repent and blame myself, perhaps because my parents' fate is closely linked with me, and I am always lost in my own life and world. Maybe I always thought I was trying to live and survive, and devoted my life to my family, but what I can give my parents is always limited, or pitiful. Maybe I have tried my best, but I know it is not enough. Based on this, based on my reverence for filial piety and benevolence in the world, I planned and wrote Twenty-four Filial Pieties.
The background, characters and events of each story in Twenty-four Filial Pieties are different, but they all contain the essence of filial piety. To this end, I consulted a lot of information and constantly speculated on the hearts and thoughts of the characters in the story. I have been distressed, troubled and helpless. Then I thought about why it was "illegal". Maybe it's because I'm not a filial person, so I'm scared. I began to worry that if I didn't write well, I would stain these stories.
In fact, at the beginning of writing, I was uneasy, worried that my cognition, knowledge and thoughts could not be written more correctly, that I could not express my words more accurately, and that I could not inject my true feelings into my thoughts and my life. I use it to express my love and filial piety to my parents. At the same time, it is used to express respect for human filial piety. I believe that the world with filial piety is a beautiful world. When I feel its beauty with my heart, I feel that my heart is connected with the world at this moment.
I don't know when it started, but the conversation with my parents seems to be a lot less cordial and a lot more alienated. I don't know why. Maybe it's just that with the growth of age and the change of their cognition of the world, their parents still haven't changed much, but they are getting older and older, and their thinking and themselves don't have much intersection. Including their conversations, including the names they involved, and the stories that happened around these people.
When I realize these obstacles, I will feel some sadness. This is the closest parents, there is such a gap. It seems that there is not much intersection with two different worlds and people's events. Perhaps this is what parents are proud of and gratified by. They finally separated their offspring from the world they lived in, which is a bitter and poor living condition. When I walked out of their world, I found that I could never go back. Obviously, even if I am not completely forgotten, I no longer belong to that kind of life.
At this time, my heart suddenly felt a lot empty, because my parents have paid too much in recent years. If the purpose is only these barriers, it would be too chilling. Of course, my parents have been by my side all these years, accompanying me through the trough of life, just as I accompanied them through the hardships of life. I think we can understand each other on some issues. Because to some extent, my life may be their repetition, something they don't want to see, and a process they have to go through.
When it comes to Twenty-four Filial Pieties, my heart is terrified, because in a sense, the structure of the story itself is not important, and its real essence is spiritual and difficult to control. When I made up my mind to write, I didn't write their stories and fate, and I didn't even want to get too personal. Instead, I want to analyze it layer by layer, and the connotation of bitterness and metaphor naturally emerges.
When discussing Twenty-four Filial Pieties, they didn't think it was addressed to them. Maybe they had a more thorough understanding of it. Of course, this is not to make the whole story more ups and downs or more philosophical and connotative, but to dedicate it entirely to those filial children and grandchildren and loving parents. Because family is such a combination, only the integrity and harmony of family is the true meaning of twenty-four filial piety.
People often say: all virtues and filial piety come first. Filial piety is highly respected in China and even in the world, especially in China. China's filial piety culture has been passed down for thousands of years, which can be seen from the story age of Twenty-four Filial Pieties. Filial piety lets us learn to respect our parents and elders and the world. If people's love suddenly surges at the moment when a child is born, then when parents suddenly get old, people's filial piety is a heartfelt, inexplicable and complicated emotion. Yes, their aging is in an instant, and when we feel it, we will feel dejected. "Lamb kneels and suckles" and "crow feeds back" are all true portraiture of "filial piety", but how much can it be done?
Of course, I also selfishly want to dedicate it to my parents, because from the moment I was born, I haven't dedicated anything to them today, but they have dedicated too much to this family, including sweat and tears, even hard work and even life. So I often fall into such a panic, because I know that everything I get today, even if it is just a family gathering to live a poor life, is a great gift and valuable. What scares me is that I haven't given them anything.
In my memory, my family is poor, because poverty makes me understand the meaning of hunger and what is real hunger, which is why there is such a dialogue in Hundred Miles of Negative Rice. When a family is branded with hunger, as the parents of this family, there will be many sighs in the face of the born baby. Life is like this. Only the truest life can make people know how to perceive life and appreciate it.
I know that there are still stars in the night sky. When I draw stars on the wall, I never think about how far the stars are from me. At that time, if I knew the stars were far enough away from me, I would be proud of my eyes. Maybe the night gave me black eyes, and it wanted me to see the stars clearly.
The deepest memory of childhood is my mother's eyes. At that time, my mother's eyes were sick, which lasted for many years. According to later accounts, it may be because of poverty, insufficient nutrition and heavy labor. After eye diseases, there are no good medical conditions. The most important thing is that there is no money to treat the disease, so the eye disease has been dragged on. This is one of the reasons why I decided to write Twenty-four Filial Pieties after I saw the story about Gu Sou and Deer Chest in Twenty-four Filial Pieties. )
Father's hearing is not good (later, the physical examination found that the tympanic membrane is perforated, which is deafness in the traditional sense and also hearing, and the speaker needs to speak loudly to hear clearly). Many working fathers can't do it because of deafness. Of course, there were no jobs in the countryside at that time, and everyone lived on 4 acres of land. But this will eventually affect life and work, so there are not many friends, and poverty is also a big reason. Because no one at home wants to associate with us, on the other hand, we have no money to pull some social relations. Of course, my father never left the village etiquette.
In the countryside at that time, the poor and families suffering from eye diseases were very sad. Especially if you can't get timely treatment, the taste will be even worse. Life may be like this. In the extension of time, people know a lot and have to pay a lot. When I was a child, I often saw erythromycin eye drops and chloramphenicol eye ointment at home, as well as many other drugs. Of course, these drugs are cheap and have little effect (I wonder if these drugs are not symptomatic at all).
Whenever the farm is busy, my mother has to wear glasses and sometimes eye protection bandages, which may become a way for others to laugh. At that time, I knew that when you really "can't get up", no one will sympathize with you, and more is watching how you fall, how you die, and how you rot quickly. I felt the same way at that time, but my heart was relieved.
For this reason, my mother often cries, but she can't cry because of eye diseases, and she can only be sad. According to my mother, at that time, sometimes my eyes were "broken" without a drop of oil at home for a month, and the situation became more and more serious. But there is no money to treat diseases, buy some nutrients, or even fruit, and sometimes it is consumed like this. It seems that I didn't know what a banana was when I was in the second grade of primary school.
My father was ridiculed as "deaf" because of his poor hearing. There is a saying in the village that "the deaf are three points stupid". Because of his high qualifications, no one calls him that in public. Moreover, his father's physical condition also determines that he can't do heavy physical labor. My father is very passive in the countryside where he lives by labor. There are five people in the family, one female suffers from eye disease, one male is deaf and three children. Every time I think about it, I feel sad, but this is life, a life that I can't escape anyway, and the living need to face it and face it with my life.
Sometimes I wonder, how did such a family survive in that kind of hardship? Due to lack of nutrition, I have always been thin, and I often had a stomachache when I was a child. As far as I can remember, I often drink a kind of "salty rice" (similar to porridge with salt) at home and then eat steamed bread. Of course, I have pickled turnip bumps, stinky beans and spicy vegetables (snow red) all year round. At that time, almost every family kept these things in vats, which contained white hairs (possibly a kind of bacteria) and sometimes maggots.
It may taste good when I eat these again today, but it's because of oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and other seasonings. If you take out a turnip knot in one's heart from the jar and cut it into pieces, it is a meal with steamed bread in it. What's it like to eat three meals a day for years? How does it feel? This has been a true portrayal of our family for a long time. For a long time, we saw others' ridicule, not numbness, but indifference.
If the deepest taste I have left in my life is the smell of turnip bumps, I will stir the soy sauce water in the big jar, pick out the maggots inside, wash off the white hairs on it, and cut a piece with a knife. The taste is "salty". At that time, there was a word in the countryside to describe "salty". It's disgusting to say so, but it was common at that time. Almost every pickle in the jar has maggots and long white hairs. )
At that time, life was repeated, eating was repeated, and mother's eye diseases were repeated. Mom said she wanted to eat roast chicken and pig's head when she was pregnant with me, and I didn't eat it until I was born. At that time, I could not sleep at night. Maybe every woman was like this at that time. I heard that the neighbor next door was greedy and took a sip of vinegar in the kitchen when she was pregnant.
I'm not talking about poverty at that time, but about my mother's greatness. Life may give them family walls, and may give them illness, poverty, even helplessness and despair. But they didn't give up hope of life. No one gave up their family in the life they gave birth to. Today, when we talk about "filial piety", we may feel very pale and shallow, because we haven't deeply felt the greatness of love and really understood the connotation of "filial piety". Filial piety is not reward.
Mother's eye disease is a lingering spell, which will accompany her all her life, just because of the poverty of life. Maybe at that time, a few drops of oil, a few pieces of meat and a few dollars could make her have bright eyes, but unfortunately she didn't. Maybe in this way, I can feel the truth of life. Because of this truth, when I write Twenty-four Filial Pieties, I will feel that there are stories to write, instead of making up stories for the sake of writing stories.
Life has taught more people to face bravely and live a strong life. Paul Cochakin has a saying that "people should live fast", and maybe people who really understand the original intention of life will understand this sentence. But even the family of "a woman with an eye disease and a deaf-mute man" has the same love, which is never lacking, because it makes us know how to respect our parents, life and life. Because I know it's hard to come by.
It's just that life goes on, no matter what it brings us, but when we face our parents, if we suddenly find that white hair has covered our temples and wrinkles have climbed up our foreheads, please sincerely express your "filial piety" to them, which is a respect for them and for ourselves.
Reality can't be erased, life won't be rewritten, but time goes on, no matter what you have to face. When I was in primary school, my mother's eyes still needed treatment. Maybe she never gave up treatment. The villagers don't know what persistence is, but they know that the disease can't be delayed. If your eyes are completely broken, your future life will be unimaginable. This is also the reason why I have to cure my eyes because I am worried about being overwhelmed.
I wrote in a poem, "Don't look for the best medicine, cure my eyes completely." . It's still early, and you're old. How can you hold your arms? I learned to walk along a bumpy road in confusion, running feverishly, running feverishly until I fell down. I think there will always be such a time when there are beautiful flowers and plants and butterflies dancing, and there will be no more troubles. "
When I was in the second grade of primary school, my parents took me to visit "dopted mother michel platini" whom my mother met when she was treating her eyes. I remember it was the rainy season, and they rode bicycles (one was for sale and the other was borrowed). That second-hand bike is still there. ) Carrying a bag of rice. After the rain, many paths were flooded, including roads in some villages (cycling has to go through many villages), so sometimes it is necessary to ride through the stagnant water, then wash feet and shoes with the pilot next door and continue on the road.
My mother has gone this way many times to cure her eyes. I really don't know. It takes about 1 hour to ride a bike on this road, and it takes longer if you walk. Sometimes my mother needs to go there on foot. I will also push a flatbed truck to pack a bag of rice and noodles for "dopted mother michel platini". That road has become the road of hope for our family, although it is rugged and paved with mud and coal gangue.
Hope, yes. The family saw hope. It is not only the hope of eye disease treatment, but also the channel to the outside world. The village is closed, and even though our parents have never restricted our freedom of activities, we seldom go out. In the outside world, we didn't have a TV set at that time, so we could go to a market to show off enough. "Godmother michel platini" (that is, my grandma and grandpa) didn't look down on us because we were poor. This is the first time I feel the kindness of human beings.
Kindness is precious, especially when you are desperate, which will rekindle your hope for the world and life. So today, I still cherish everyone who has helped me in my life. They are a kind of wealth that I can show off to the world. They can change a person's fate, I always think so.
They were literate and knowledgeable, and in my opinion at that time, they were enviable. So being with them also makes us envy. Others won't know what our family has suffered, because it doesn't need to complain to others. First, it is useless, but it will make "harmless people gossip after cooking, and let malicious people be the seeds of gossip." So what I'm talking about today is by no means a bitter complaint, but these memories will make me more integrated into every story when I write Twenty-four Filial Pieties. Perhaps the pain of life will make people more sensitive to stories and memories.
This road goes on year after year, so that the children next door greet my parents with "How are your eyes?" ? But at least there is hope, really. They will tell their mother many things, some things are beyond her understanding, but at least her mother is sincere and kind. Even after I recognized "dopted mother michel platini", I didn't complain to them. Poverty is not a shameful thing, but my mother doesn't want to. Occasionally, they will come to our house unexpectedly. At that time, our life should be improved, at least not for a month without a drop of oil. However, long-term malnutrition makes it easy for us to get angry, get blisters on our mouths and feel depressed.
When I got home, I saw five people huddled in a bed, and there were many others. Seeing that it seemed quite different from what I expected, I asked my mother. My parents are honest people, and I may be silently thinking about the hardships of so many years. Parents are not very good at expressing and telling stories about a woman with eye diseases and a deaf-mute man. None of this matters. What matters is that with their help, I regained my faith in my broken heart. Maybe life is not so bad, time, and some time, let people go through these difficult situations. It doesn't matter whether the suffering is short-lived or eternal.
It turns out that people can live like this. I still remember my grandfather's words, everyone has a bowl, and the key is what to eat in it. This made me determined to go out from the countryside and see the outside world. Although I have always felt that the countryside is quite good, I know that I have been eliminated there and I can't go back. Maybe it's the outside world I see through their eyes. I don't want my bowl to be full of "turnip bumps, stinky beans and mala Tang" in the future, and I certainly don't want my parents' bowls to be full of these. I know they have had enough for so many years, but life forced them to swallow this dish.
I often think that my mother wants to eat roast chicken pig's head when she is pregnant with me, and how to meet her requirements. Perhaps these two kinds of food have become symbols of memory for so many years, representing a state pursued at that time, but they are so far away. Maybe from the beginning to the end, my mother didn't take a bite, because of such family conditions, she no longer expected. It takes courage to accept poverty. If she accepts it, it means long-term struggle and hard work, which means paying several times of sweat and tears. Even so, you can't get rid of it. Even so, you are still persistent.
If roast chicken and pig's head meat are "luxuries" in her life, what is life? Life can't be verified, but time continues the course of life, and every step of us is a specific symbol, which is deeply imprinted on the trajectory of life. Today, when I was writing Twenty-four Filial Pieties, I once again uncovered the scars of these memories and peeped at the story that time tried to cover up. I know time has no intention of covering up these things.
Maybe people can choose to forget, which is the best excuse in life, but it is also a reason to explain themselves. When I finally realized that all my life is based on my fear of myself, but there is no way to overcome this fear, this fear has always existed. It's like a ghost floating around you. You can feel it, but you can't drive it away. Poverty is not the case. Perhaps from the moment I was born, a curse around this family was to pay back the debts.
I borrowed a lot of money to build a house (I don't have much memory of the previous house, except that it was a cold winter when I turned over the house. Because of the cold, I remember that day, which was also the year when I fell into the ice hole. Then the whole family lived in the kitchen. There is a smoking black light bulb in the kitchen. Every night, I look at this light bulb and fantasize about drinking brown sugar porridge.
It is even more worrying that three brothers and sisters go to school. At that time, the tuition fee for a year may be several hundred dollars, but the family can't earn these hundreds of dollars a year. I go to school and study badly, but I can't help it. Because of poor eye development caused by malnutrition, the eyes begin to be nearsighted, and glasses of several hundred degrees should be worn. Maybe I was the first student in that junior high school to wear glasses, so many people looked at me like monsters, and ridicule and various pranks followed. At that time, I had to wear glasses every time I went to class, and I was very uncomfortable.
Mothers get up early and get greedy, but even if they get up early and get greedy, they can't make money. I ride that second-hand bike to school, and it often leaks air, so I need to borrow someone else's pump. Sometimes it's just walking to school, which requires a period of time in advance. When my grandfather lived in our house (my grandmother died of illness), my mother cooked dinner every morning. The first wave of breakfast is for my brothers and sisters to go to school, then the second wave is for my parents, and then for my grandfather. Why not do it together? Because the food is different.
It is particularly cold in winter, and almost everyone in the village has frozen faces and hands. My toes froze at that time. Every night, my mother has to "pull the straw curtain", one dollar and one meter, and wisps of straw are woven with warp. It's midnight. Whenever it snows outside, under the dim light, my mother's figure of "mowing the grass curtain" will be branded on my heart. Father is also busy late at night. He has been a tailor for decades, all by hand. At that time, it was only one yuan and eighty cents to make a pair of pants.
In my memory, the cold in winter can only be described as cold. Because winter never feels warm, my heart is cold. Many years later, I wrote a poem about a child with frostbite all over his face. Actually, it's true. I don't want to talk too much about the story of Min Ziqian in Twenty-four Filial Pieties, because it can't be described in words. At that time, my father's practice was to put straw in a broken basin to make cigarettes (yes), so that the whole room was full of cigarettes. It may not be cold, but it is suffocating. We all curled up in the quilt (grandparents gave us some beds, bedding and clothes, which were much better than ours).
Time is out of touch, because winter will eventually pass and the world is still welcoming spring. Just like I finally knew that the skin of bananas was inedible (I felt sorry for it, because bananas were absolutely extravagant at that time, so I would eat them together). In spring, there will be many symbols. When I and others dig out the frostbite on my face, the world is still the real world. Parents will still worry about money, so my mother shed tears, because no one wants to borrow money in the end (there may be, but we didn't find it).
In the end, the poor have only dignity left. For the sake of dignity, this family is strong and alive. This means more hard work and more grievances. On the contrary, I think it is an elegant title, because it is not refined and unpretentious, because it is not servile, because it is not afraid of poverty. For a poor family, you can accept everything flatly. This is also the reason why I have always been more rational about the positioning of the protagonist in Twenty-four Filial Pieties. He is not ignorant, but indifferent.
Dignity is sometimes extravagant, because in my memory, my parents are always worried about money, but they are helpless and busy. This is not because they don't work hard, on the contrary, they have to pay more labor and effort. Because we have to study, we need tuition, and they have old people to support. The most difficult time is at the beginning of each semester. You have to borrow money from your relatives to pay your tuition. At that time, our family worked for a year and could not save hundreds of tuition fees. There is no way but to borrow money, but borrowing money is difficult!
Whenever I see my father frown because he can't borrow money, my mother cries red (in fact, my mother won't cry in front of us, but I still see it). My heart is like a stone. That's why I described the bluestone in the poetry collection "The Poetic Realm of Puji", which implies that there is a treasure buried below. ) I know everything will pass, because poverty has been too long and should pass, and life is short. What's the point of hanging over this family all the time?
We all want to study, because there is no other way out except reading, even if we study, there is no way out. But it gives us hope, just as persistent poverty gives us hope to get rid of poverty. It is because of hope that this family is full of strength, the power of change.
However, when the reality pulls back to hope, it will add a lot of gloomy colors. I envy many people who go to brick kilns to pull bricks or build bricks before graduating from junior high school. But I am short-sighted, and wearing glasses is despised in the countryside (maybe I can't even get a wife), just like my mother wearing glasses to work is despised. I have to leave here to make a living, or live without glasses.
In fact, I have no choice, because my parents' hopes are on my shoulders. If I live in the countryside with glasses, not only I but also my parents, the whole family will become a joke. Reality is cruel, but it teaches people how to deal with cruelty. In fact, I don't want to describe too many cruel scenes in Twenty-four Filial Pieties. What I want is warmth and peace, and people live comfortably and richly. Such "twenty-four filial piety" is beautiful. I know, I can write beautiful stories, but I can't write the essence of twenty-four filial piety.