Text/Yang Shengguo
On the wall of Shen Congwen's former residence, there is a black-and-white photograph that stands out.
In May 1982, on the fenghuang ancient city of Guanting Road, the middle was Shen Lao, and the front was cousin Tian Ruqin.
In the photo, Shen Lao walks in the middle of the front row, dressed in dark clothing, wearing a hat, with his hands behind his back, staring affectionately at the Tuojiang River on the right side, and at the same time seems to be asking something. It was followed by a dozen or so escorts. And the young man who walked in front of Elder Shen and led the way with a briefcase, his left hand holding his cheek, and his expression was my cousin Tian Ruqin.
It was in May 1982, Shen Congwen returned from Beijing to his hometown of Fenghuang Ancient City, walking on the guanting road to take a photo.
My cousin was born into a poor peasant family, and his aunt was my grandmother. When he was eleven, his father, my uncle, unfortunately died, and he dropped out of school and returned home to help his mother shoulder the burden of life. My cousin was diligent and studious from an early age, and when he was herding cattle, he used small stones as pens to write and paint on the rock slabs, coupled with his intelligence and self-mastery, he played and sang like a teacher, and was praised by the villagers as a small showman.
He successively served as a recorder, custodian, accountant, and militia battalion commander in the production team, drove a hand-held tractor at the agricultural technology station of the Ala Commune, and served as a peasant correspondent in Hunan Daily and Unity Daily. Because of his good articles, he was recommended to work in the Finance Bureau of Fenghuang County, and later transferred to the Propaganda Department of the Fenghuang County Party Committee as the leader of the communication reporting team. Therefore, when Shen Lao returned to his hometown in 1982, his cousin had the honor to accompany him throughout the whole process, participated in the interview for several days, witnessed the style of a generation of literary masters at close range, felt many anecdotes of Shen Lao on the spot, and ended his life "from the text" without affection.
When my cousin mentioned that past to me before I was alive, I was often excited and proud. He said that on the day Shen Returned to his hometown, he and Wu Zhijiang, Guo Qingyu, Huang Jichuan, Liu Hongzhou, and Tian Rulong ran to visit Elder Shen at the Huang Yongyu Wooden Ancestral House in Baiyangling. That year, Shen Lao was eighty years old, slightly fat, crane hair and childlike face, with gold-rimmed glasses, approachable, amiable, and chatting and laughing with old friends and new friends. When his cousin proposed that he wanted to take a photo with Elder Shen, he cheerfully agreed and brought his wife to sit in the courtyard dam. After taking pictures, he also asked his wife to write down everyone's names and work units, and encouraged his cousins and other descendants to be down-to-earth, eager to learn, and tempered in the "big book" of society to serve the people well.
Cousin (back row, first from right) and Shen Lao and his wife, taking a group photo in Phoenix.
The next day, accompanied by Huang Yongyu and others, Mr. and Mrs. Shen revisited their alma mater, Wenchangge Primary School. Under an ancient nan tree, Shen Lao stopped to stroke and feel nostalgic for a long time, evoking a little-known past: "When I was a child, I was very playful, especially like to watch plays. One day, the door of the road sang a wooden brain shell play, I ate breakfast and hid the book basket in the land temple, and watched the day's play. The next day at school, just after walking under this tree, I met Mr. Mao, the class teacher, who punished me to kneel under the tree and asked me why I skipped school. I honestly confessed to watching the play. Mr. Mao scolded me and said, Nanmu tree likes to grow taller, but do you like to get shorter under it? People study hard and you skip school to watch dramas, which is called self-insult and then insulted by others, self-contempt is bound to be self-deprecating, and self-esteem can be self-exalted. The old man's words made me wake up and understand that in the future life path, I always insist on being a self-respecting and self-reliant person. Elder Shen's recollection is undoubtedly a vivid ideological and political lesson, educating everyone to be proactive and optimistic.
On the third day, when the sun was shining, Shen and his wife walked to the Beimen Wharf, boarded a wooden boat, and roamed the clear Tuojiang River. From time to time, he told his wife Zhang Zhaohe about his childhood anecdotes such as bathing in the river, picking March bubbles on the magpie slope, picking up finches and eggs, racing dragon boats and grabbing ducks during the Dragon Boat Festival, as well as the legend of the ghost fans of Leopard Bay, which made the boat laugh. After landing ashore, the crowd returned along the foot of Tingtao Mountain, and Elder Shen introduced the "First Spring of the Phoenix", Li Yuanhong's inscription stone carving, and the allusion of the military attaché getting off the saddle of the military attaché on the official pavilion, and cordially shook hands with the old man who guarded the mill. Walking into the side street, Shen Lao tasted phoenix snacks such as spring rolls, dumplings and oranges, and even boasted that "the taste is good". When he arrived at Wenxing Street, he was very excited, and joked with an old man who was leaning against the door: "I am an old truant!" ”
One afternoon, a group of folk artists performed a hall play for Shen Lao in the Huang Family Compound. Although the female artist Liu Yuzhen is over fifty years old, she can sing melodiously and with great emotion, which deeply touched the elderly Shen who has been away from her hometown for many years. He listened intently and quietly, singing in a low voice, while he couldn't help but beat the beat with his hand and say to himself: "Chu Yin Chu Yin", while covering his face with his hands and tears, he kept taking out his handkerchief to wipe the tears. Huang Miaozi, who was sitting next to his cousin, said with great affection: "This scene is really sitting and crying the most, only Shen Laoqing's shirt is wet!" And wrote the words on the paper and handed them to Elder Shen. Xiao Li's elders present here were quite touched and gave poetry: "Listening to Chu Yin with the same concentration, Sir is a person in the song; the rain in the old garden is poured with deep and light green, and I am also emotional about the streams and mountains." Later, a folk opera group was invited to sing high-pitched opera, and Elder Shen was very excited to hear the long-lost rural music again, and repeatedly urged him to care about the development of national opera and do a good job in collecting and sorting, rescuing and protecting and inheriting and carrying forward the work.
Another time, Huang Miaozi wrote a plaque for Huang Yongyu's ancestral house "Ancient Chun Shu House". Before Mr. Miao Zi began to write, he first gave Shen Lao a lian: "Tuojiang Opens a picture, and the border city produces a phoenix", the upper link praises the phoenix landscape is picturesque, and the lower link praises Shen Lao and his representative work "Border City". When Elder Shen saw it, he waved his hand and said, "No, no!" He pondered a little, and immediately asked Miao Zi to change it to "Heaven opens the picture, and people come out of the phoenix." In this way, it not only praised the predecessors, but also inspired future generations, concise and concise, and won the applause of everyone present, and admired Shen Lao's quick thinking and low-key humility even more.
During the period, Shen Lao also revisited Qiliang Cave, went to the Alaying Market, ate mung bean flour and fried rice dumplings, visited the ancient city of Huangsiqiao, went to the county ethnic craft factory to see Tujia Miao costumes and hand-embroidered handicrafts such as wall hangings, silk pa, and tourist bags, and bought two ethnic tourism bags and a bundle of soil flower cloth to treasure and study.
Before leaving, Elder Shen was invited to give a lecture at Jishou University. He said modestly: "After decades of fighting a bad war, I am not a writer or archaeologist in my twilight years." After liberation, society has undergone great changes, mainly through study, and the eleven words we have learned are to serve the people, practice, and use the past for the present. His incisive exposition of the issue of local historical relics won warm applause from teachers and students present. After the lecture, he went to the dock of the Tonghe River again, and when he saw the scene of life on both sides of the river, he liked it so much that he could not bear to leave, and said happily: "It can be written as a new Xiangxing essay again." ”
The twenty-day trip ended quickly, and Shen Laoyou was not exhausted, returning to Beijing with permanent regrets. Soon after Shen Lao left his hometown, his cousin was also transferred from Phoenix to the Zhuzhou Municipal Government Department.
Regarding this precious experience, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Shen Congwen's birth in 2002, my cousin specially wrote a long reminiscence essay "The Hometown Of The Eighty-Year-Old Shen" which was published on the full page of the supplement of "Unity Daily", and created an article "Township Song Tear-inducing Green Shirt Wet" published in Guangming Daily.
The author (first from left) poses with his cousin in 2007.
Although his cousin and Elder Shen only had a relationship once, and there was no contact after that, he had a deep memory and deep feelings for Elder Shen. My cousin once told me that something had a great influence on him: in the seventies of the last century, his neighbor, Mr. Han Palm Tree, took the liberty of writing a letter and entrusting it to Shen Lao for advice along with a novel. Unexpectedly, Shen Lao, who had never met and was highly respected, seriously replied to the letter, and the neat fly head brush small cursive writing was enough to write four pages of paper, and many additions and changes were made with a ballpoint pen, and the beginning of the letter affectionately called Han "fellow countrymen", the letter pointed out the direction of creation, and the teachings were written from the short story first, and the words were full of Shen Lao's deep friendship for the younger generations. The cousin and the palm stick read Shen Lao's reply, and if they were treasured, they were greatly benefited, which increased the confidence and motivation of Congwen. Under the care of Elder Shen, Han Palm Tree walked out of the phoenix and became a reporter, writer and poet of China Culture Daily.
Although his cousin's life was bumpy and his fate was uncertain, he always took Shen Lao as an inspiration, low-key, dedicated to his work, hard work, and wrote and published a large number of press releases and literary works. Unfortunately, due to the misfortune of marriage and family, my cousin worked hard and could not concentrate on creation, and failed to go further on the road of congwen.
"For my uncle to come from the mountains, through ups and downs, fortunately, I remembered the teachings of Master Shen Congwen when he returned to his hometown in 1982, was willing to be indifferent, worked hard for his livelihood when he was young, and worried about his children when he became an adult, let me taste the brains of the disobedient children, but the obligations were not complete, I still had to call the prodigal son back, and it was difficult to predict where to develop, even so, I handled it calmly, there was suffering and happiness, and the sky was wide and wide." These are a passage from a letter from my cousin to me on October 7, 1993.
In 2005, when my cousin saw my article "Phoenix Elderly Opera Fan Beautiful Ancient City" published in Hunan Daily, he aroused his interest in Shen Lao's memories and puppet plays. He wrote to me: "I also want to choose the plot of your text, write a puppet opera article, focusing on the origin of puppet opera and when Shen Congwen returned to his hometown in 1982 to watch the performance of the puppet theater troupe, Huang Miaozi calligraphers and painters were present to chant poems, sitting and crying the most, only Shen Laoqing was wet." That emotion, unforgettable! ”
After retirement, my cousin was not in good health, but he still insisted on working hard. A year before his death in 2008, he was still lying on his hospital bed and composing the documentary reportage "Phoenix Famous Mountain Rolling Grass Slope", which was handed over to me for safekeeping. After reading it, I learned that the stone table and text of Dai Douyuan, a Kuomintang lieutenant general who was killed in the Wenjia City of Liuyang on August 20, 1930, are the "JingbianGuan", one of the Great Walls of the South, and the heroic martyrs and monuments of the Phoenix Uprising of the Xinhai Revolution, as well as the stone tables and texts of Dai Douyuan, a Kuomintang lieutenant general who was killed in the battle epidemic in Wenjia City, Liuyang, commanded by Chairman Mao on August 20, 1930, is a legendary and mysterious "Three Absolute Mountains", which the Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said. In the article, his cousin wrote that "Mr. Shen Congwen has mentioned the famous mountain Huangcao slope in many works, and the calligrapher and painter Huang Yongyu praised Huang Caopo in the article "Scenery Under the Sun": From the outside back down to the middle of the mountainside, you can smell the smell of fried rice in the city", and quoted the scene of Shen Lao's dialogue with his father at the age of nine in his "A Lesson of the Xinhai Revolution". The cousin actively called for the development and protection of the grass slope, which will be built into a red tourist attraction and a patriotic education base, adding luster to the development of Phoenix tourism.
The quietly flowing Tuo River.
Every time my cousin returned to Phoenix, he always had to talk to me about literature, asked me to read more of Shen Lao's works, and insisted on writing. Under his encouragement and influence, I also became fascinated with "Congwen" and created poems about shen lao, such as "Look at a Glance at Love for a Lifetime" and "Ink Stained Phoenix".
A small city, the water is beautiful and the mountains are green;
Hongqiao into a reflection, stilt house hook soul;
The paddles of the river are singing happily, and the sand bay is like a picture screen.
A faint person, persistent and affectionate;
Drifting from Rong, running into Beijing alone;
Read the life of the world's greatest people, and write "Border City" with a stroke of the pen.
The city is called Phoenix City, and the person is Shen Congwen;
The deep alleys look for dreams, and the lights are dimmed;
The most beautiful city in this life, the most beautiful person in acacia.
Smoke and rain phoenix world drunk, take a look at love for a lifetime!
Time has passed, and things are not people. This year marks the 120th anniversary of Shen Congwen's birth. Before the Qingming Festival, I walked into Shen Congwen's former residence again, and when I saw the photo of my cousin accompanying Shen Lao's hometown on the wall, many past events and feelings came to my mind, and Shen Lao and my cousin were gone, only the quiet Tuojiang River flowed with endless thoughts...