Humanity / Nature / Life
Yinchuan Evening Newspaper Official Fang Wenhua WeChat Pingtai | No. 1060
Opening remarks
Visit all the heroes and listen to the stories of the listeners. Mental journey, social change, the footsteps of the times... It is better to hear than to see, the "one-sight" character interview column, take you and the long-known he (she) at first sight.
Notes on Xihaigu. Profile picture
In February this year, Ji Dongliang's long-form reportage "Notes on Xihaigu" was published, which is different from previous novels, which is a panoramic and multi-faceted work that expresses the vicissitudes of Xihaigu. Before that, Ji Dongliang had repeatedly aimed his brushstrokes at Xihaigu, where his hometown was his spiritual home and the source of inspiration for his creations.
Unconsciously has been writing for more than 30 years
When Ji Dongliang was a child, he lived in the village of Magaozhuang in Tongxin County, which was remote and not only poor, but also dozens of families in the village, and not a single reader. But at that time, intellectuals went to the mountains and went to the countryside, and from time to time a few outsiders came to the village, who had college students, professors, experts, and were real cultural people. Ji Dongliang also felt the difference between the cultural people and the peasants in the village, they loved to read, did not love gossip, they wrote well, better than the school teachers, the red and white chronicles wrote the post, the students wrote the book cover, they all looked for them, and the villagers respected them even more.
Out of the worship of culture, Ji Dongliang has always wanted to be a cultural person. He studied and studied at Guyuan Teachers' College, became a teacher in 1989 at Xinhuaqiao Middle School in Lingwu City, and then worked several times, worked in Ningxia Daily for many years, and was transferred to the Counselor's Office of the Autonomous Regional Government...
Writing is not only his work need, but also a must-do. "By writing, you build a world for yourself, and living in it, you will feel that it is a wonderful existence to live in this world again." 」 Ji Dongliang said. He began publishing in 1985 and has been writing for more than 30 years and accumulating millions of words. Most of them are related to Xihaigu in Ningxia, where the hardships of the people are transformed into spiritual motivation in the text and infect every reader.
Write about your hometown with mixed feelings
When he first started writing, he, like other Writers of Xihaigu, often wrote about the sufferings of people in the Xihaigu area. "At that time, when I wrote about poverty and suffering, my emotions were very complicated." Ji Dongliang said that the suffering in Xihaigu is the suffering that no matter how hard you work, you may not be able to eat a full meal, and you always feel that there is no end to this kind of hard life. When the child is young, he has to herd sheep, find grass, collect manure, feed donkeys, carry water, push and grind every day, and some heavy work does not even match his age, but he also has to do it, just to live. Therefore, when he wrote early, he would have a slight hatred for poverty.
Later, through education, Ji Dongliang had a decent job in the city, and his identity had long been transformed, becoming a cultural person he was careful to think about. But in the face of the busyness and complexity of the city, he also felt uncomfortable. "Life in the city is stressful, but I miss the simple life in the countryside before." Ji Dongliang said that writing at this time is also his comfort, through memory, he will pour his feelings into the text.
Because of this, in his early works, he can not only see the sigh of the harsh environment in the Xihaigu area, but also discover the idyllic poetry of rural life. And his characters are both the "I" who wants to escape from his hometown through examinations in the essay "Festival of Life", and the father who imagines that he will return to the garden one day in "Leaving Home".
Writing about the countryside is also about society
Ji Dongliang initially began to create poetry and prose, and then wrote short stories such as "I Feel Someone Pushed Me", "Small Things", "Roaring Night", etc., and later, a few pages could not satisfy his desire to write, and long novels such as "Shangzhuang Ji" and "Splendid Embroidery" were published one after another. These works are no longer personal experiences, but use plain language and complex stories to spread out the sociological problems of urbanization and new urbanization in front of the reader.
"Shangzhuang Chronicle". Profile picture
"In the 1960s and 1970s, rural and urban areas were basically distinct. After the reform and opening up, the city opened its doors to the countryside, and many peasants poured into the city. With the deepening of poverty alleviation work, the focus of construction is to the balance of rural areas, and then to today's rural revitalization. Rural development and rural urbanization have gone through several stages. At different stages, people's psychology and feelings are different. ”
Ji Dongliang said that the earliest memories of childhood are still in the era of tickets, when rural people went to the city and could not even eat without food stamps. At that time, rural people were completely inferior. Later, a large number of people in the village went to the city to work, but they took the rural hukou, did humble work, and were still marginal people in the city, and at this time, all kinds of injustices were even more obvious. These problems are reflected in the novels "Shangzhuang Ji" and "Splendid Embroidery".
Record one miracle after another
Sometimes, Ji Dongliang will feel that he is not only a writer, but also a recorder, recording miracles. He recorded the long history and culture of Xihaigu, where there are many Xiaoguan beacons, and the history here can be talked about from the "Great Wall Museum" to the "Silk Road Town", from the "Anxi Royal Palace" to the "Nine-Sided Town"... "Although there are thousands of years of history here, it is also poor for thousands of years." But now, it has also created a miracle - it has achieved a well-off in a few decades, you say, is it worth writing? He said.
Nowadays, the farmers in Xihaigu are already full of self-confidence, "Before outsiders came to ask what, the people in the village did not care, and now they are very generous in talking to anyone." Ji Dongliang said that from 1982, when the state launched the "Three West (Dingxi, Hexi, Xihaigu) poverty alleviation", to now 40 years, the changes in the rural areas of Xihaigu are amazing.
In the process of writing "Notes on Xihaigu", Ji Dongliang also recorded such a "miracle". He chose the original method, which is also the most familiar one, telling the story of the protagonist in an authentic way, capturing the most subtle social cells. "My biggest feeling is that these people who have suffered hardships in Xihaigu are not passive poverty alleviation and passive poverty alleviation, over the years, their cells seem to be activated, they will take the initiative to create a better life, and also lay the spiritual foundation for rural revitalization."
Ji Dongliang
Famous writer, vice chairman of Ningxia Writers Association. He has won the first prize of Ningxia Literature and Art Three times and won the title of "Virtue and Art Double Xin" literary and art worker in Ningxia. The novel "Shangzhuang Ji" won the 13th "Five One Project" Award for the Construction of Spiritual Civilization of the Central Propaganda Department and the "2014 China Good Book" and other awards. His works have won many awards such as the Selected Novels Award, the Beijing Literature Award, the Chinese Writers Literature Award, and the Shuofang Literature Award.
Wentu | Li Shang
Images courtesy of respondents
Editor| Seventh Floor Qi Yu
The head of the duty | Li Zhenwen
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