Dai Lin: A scholar who is interested in searching for the past of camel transport
Author/Sun Shuheng
One
Once acquainted, they became confidants. I really got in touch with Mr. Dai Lin at a meeting, and later Mr. Dai Lin asked me to give me a few books.
It was a sunny day in May, and according to the appointed time, Mr. Dai Lin was already waiting at the door of the house.
Teacher Dai Lin is a Hui nationality, is an expert in Inner Mongolia literature and history, a famous scholar, he has a certain study of the Qing Dynasty Hohhot big business name Da Sheng Kui and camel transport, he and Ma Jing in 1959 and 1960 discussions, interviews and other original materials into a book, after 51 years in 2011 printed into a book, "Da Sheng Kui Wen Jianlu" high historical value can be seen. He is very interested in the study of Hui camel transport, and has put a lot of effort into the collection of camel roads. In recent years, he has studied and studied again, and he is "a real scholarly man".
He gave me three books he had published, one was "Hui Camel Transport" edited by him and two book collections, "The Fragrance of Books" and "Drunk in the Fragrance of Books". He originally planned to publish the "Scholarly Trilogy", "Let the Fragrance of Books Float for a While!" "Due to the impact of the epidemic for three years, I have never been able to calm down. The sunlight shines on the book, which is difficult to describe in words, and it is beautiful, exuding the fragrance of ink.
Just as Mr. Dai Lin inscribed on the title page of the book, "There is flavor in the book, and there is a heart outside the book". Mr. Dai Lin is a scholar with unique insights and profound cultural heritage. When talking about Hui camel transport, I am a descendant of a camel worker, and I have an indescribable complex. He said: "Excavating, rescuing, and sorting out historical materials starts from the first step, and sorting out historical materials is not exaggerated, exaggerated, or exaggerated, and according to the appearance of the narrator's narration, seeking truth from facts, and sorting out the historical materials objectively as they are, which is our work attitude." The compiler should insist on listening to the narrator's story, that is, listening to the narrator's story without bringing his own thoughts and opinions. Finding memories, keeping memories, our job is simple but difficult. We set out every day, and we walk on the road of collecting historical materials every day! ”
Teacher Dai Lin said emotionally that as a scholar, no matter when, we dare not forget our responsibilities, dare not forget the teachings of our cultural predecessors, and take Yu Dafu's "humble heart and let difficult things happen." ”
He talked about the past of the camel road, telling the story, like the wind blowing, he visited the old camel workers, recorded through oral narration, rescued from the dust of history, so vivid, detailed, and action, reflecting a scholar's sense of responsibility and rigorous attitude.
In the process of Mr. Dai Lin's narration, what frequently appeared in the picture in front of my eyes were those camel workers and camels, as if walking in the Gobi desert steppe, and the figures of those camel workers...... I suddenly realized that these natural and desolate things are almost the focus of Mr. Dai Lin in a sense.
Two
Mr. Dai Lin has a certain relationship with his father and grandfather who are camel drivers, and interviews with those old camel drivers are like a spiritual dialogue with his father and grandfather, and he has very similar feelings, like visiting an old neighbor and old friend.
His father, Dai Tingxiang, was born in June 1934 and died in June 2000. The nickname is Eryuan, and his grandparents call him "Binary". Many children of Hui families in Hohhot call their fathers Dada, and so do we. My father loves to help others, likes to do things, and is not good at expressing himself. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, in the early years of the founding of the People's Republic of China, he attended a literacy class and was coarse in literacy. He started working around early on, helping his parents and taking care of the family. Around the time of the founding of the People's Republic of China, he began to apprentice in the camel transport industry. In the 50s, he already had his own 3-legged camel. He usually goes to a single gang, and goes alone to places such as Guisui and Siziwang Banner and Darhan Mao Ming'an Banner (alias Damao Banner). In the past, there were also some people who returned to the Sui to run the single gang, which may be another phenomenon, an economic phenomenon between the camel caravan and the ordinary camel workers, or the so-called individual case. They are no longer satisfied with pulling camels for others, and they are not qualified to help with a large-scale camel team (Hui camel companies are called friends' houses). This may be one of the reasons for the "running gang". My father sometimes accompanied Ma Erkuan (commonly known as Erpian'er) and others of the Hui nationality and traveled back and forth between these places. My father mainly engaged in "Mongolian trading", that is, selling goods urgently needed by the Mongols from Guisui to the Mongols at their destinations and along the way, and sometimes to the neighboring villages to do business. He also bartered and sold the things he had in exchange. My father was a very shrewd and persistent man, and he slowly learned to speak Mongolian for the sake of business communication. There are many Hui camel workers in Hohhot City, especially those who lead the house (the Hui camel team leads the house, there are also Han, Mongolian, Manchu) and the gentlemen who can speak Mongolian, such as Cao Wanfu, Yin Fu, Fu Changbao, Liu Rui, Ma Wenming (commonly known as Sancunbao), Wang Youheng, Wang He, etc., like the camel workers Wang Yousheng and Ma Erkuan, who are all fluent in Mongolian. This may be another commercial cultural phenomenon worth exploring in depth, and it is also a new topic in the study of ethnic unity in Inner Mongolia.
Teacher Dai Lin unconsciously fell into contemplation at this time, and also felt inexplicably sad. Many things that I thought had been forgotten, those memories that had been precipitated in the depths, were salvaged again and bubbling up. Let him seem to return to his father's arms, with a pure state of mind and access to the unknown spiritual world. For him, the camel worker's father is closer to the reality of the camel road, which makes Mr. Dai Lin's nature inextricably linked to his father's experience.
Three
Teacher Dai Lin, who is sensitive by nature and likes to study history, should calmly tell the past of his father and the story of the camel driver like a bystander, and in the form of oral narration and recording, I am afraid that he has already "melted" into his words. Time and life are obviously quite broad and deep propositions, and Mr. Dai Lin said more than once that his father, who had worked as a camel worker, had several distress experiences. can always get out of the "tiger's mouth". When he calmly told those thrilling pasts like a bystander, he felt a little surprised by this, but also seemed to be reasonable, as if his father always thought silently in his heart, if he survived, he would have to live more well, love the ......people around him, and every time he rubbed shoulders with death, it was a rebirth, and it reminded him of the cherishing of life and daily life, so he valued some things more, and also looked down on some things imperceptibly infiltrated into life. Whenever Mr. Dai Lin felt lost and lost his direction, his father's image was like a beam of light, illuminating the way forward and giving him the courage to release his heart and challenge.
His father was married in June 1955 and still travels on the camel track.
His father started from scratch and finally had his own 3-peaked camel, which shows that the results of his struggle are not easy! Every time a camel is pulled home, the camel is tied to his yard. During this time, my father was planning where to go next, and began to prepare for the purchase of the next sale. In order to keep the camels from losing fat, he had to hire people to graze the camels in a nearby grass area during the day. It is said that the old man has a sense of responsibility for herding camels and understands the habits of this kind of livestock. In the later period, my father went to more places in Wulanhua Town, Daheihe Township, Baoli Banshen Village, Daheihe Township, and Baiyin Aobao Village, Dongba Township...... The reason is that the Hui people live in this area, it is relatively convenient to eat and drink, and they suffer less sin and reduce the manual labor when eating.
The father pulled the camel from home and ran north to Wuchuan, and then entered the Siziwang Banner or Damao Banner. When he came back, he returned the same way, and if he came back with not many things to carry on the camels, he always bought some noodles from Wuchuan, kept some for his own family, and gave some to his grandparents and grandparents.
My father is both a camel worker and a shopkeeper, and he takes care of everything by himself, no matter how big or small, he is not afraid of cumbersomeness, and he never gets tired of it. Those who dare to run a single gang on the camel road are generally all-round hands in the camel transportation industry. You have the final say, and you can do your own thing. They are familiar with the habits of camels, they are proficient in business transactions, they can take care of their own food and clothing, and most importantly, they are more courageous and adventurous than ordinary people. They must have sufficient ability and ability to overcome the natural environment, to overcome foreign invasions, such as bandits' cutting paths and predators, thieves' exploitation, and so on. Of course, after 1949, bandits were cracked down and suppressed less and less. In terms of life, there are also their own illnesses and camel diseases, and they must have countermeasures to solve them. Those formed camel caravans can barely say that there are certain rules in life, and the people who run the single gang live a disorderly life, hungry and full, often in a tired state, and hurriedly fill their stomachs day by day, living a minimalist life. Minimalism is not the kind of life that modern people say about the pursuit of the realm, but the helpless minimalism. In those days, my father pulled camels to trade, and it took a month to two months to walk through the grassland (i.e., to do business on the grassland), and half a month and 20 days to do business in the nearby countryside. Camel workers are a very hard and tiring profession, they have endless lonely and bumpy roads, lonely and helpless beyond them, and often endure hardships and trials in the wilderness. For safety, the camel pullers who run the single gang generally walk at sunrise and rest at sunset, and their lives are very monotonous and simple. This kind of living habit is that when my family's life is relatively good, I still leave a memory, and occasionally I see him sprinkling some salt on the bowl of noodles and eating it, which is incredible to ordinary people. His camels also carried fried rice and fried noodles for their own food, beans for camels, copper pots, kettles for boiling, drinking jars, and sauce baskets filled with meat sauce. The small pot is used for the father's hot water on the camel road, and the large pot is generally used for camels when they are sick or for camels to be given prophylactic medicine. I still have the large and small pots and copper pots used by my father, and the bone crochet needles used by my grandfather. In 1993, the Hohhot City Museum held an exhibition of Mongolian, Hui and Manchu ethnic folk customs, and with the consent of my parents, I put the copper turtle (according to Mr. Timur Buhe, an expert in Inner Mongolian folk culture research: the Mongolians in Alxa call it "Bao Ribu", and the Han people call it "turtle child"). Donated to the City Museum. After we donated, the city museum asked a staff member named Erzi to wash it under the water pipe for two days before seeing its "true face", which is a digression. Because I have kept these items on the camel road left by my father and grandfather for a long time, I have been induced to continue to plan to collect related utensils, which contains an indescribable complex.
In 1958, my father handed over the camel to the government and returned it to the camel transport society, and the government arranged for him to work as a salesperson in the cooperative store of the Hohhot Sugar Tobacco and Liquor Company. This was the complete end of his camel work career and the beginning of his official work.
There are so many risks from my father's short camel road, so the risks of going to places as far as Uriya Sutai, Bolshaya Kulun, Kobdo, and Kyakhta can be imagined. Every time I see the camel road equipment left by my father, I think of the days when my father went through suffering, pain, worry and fragility, and his desire to find camel transportation is becoming clearer and clearer, and even prompting him to move forward. I've been trying and accumulating, and I've been able to find historical materials that I'm satisfied with. Especially when he realized that those old camel workers had passed away one by one, he was worried that people would go to history and leave an eternal blank in history.
Four
In the history of camel transport, it is also a process of ethnic integration, which not only affects the attitude of camel workers towards life, but also shapes their souls with tenacious character. Human life is made up of thousands of subtle encounters, but only a few have captured them and created and sublimated them into moving stories.
Mr. Dai Lin said that because his father can speak Mongolian, he knows a lot about the life and customs of Mongolians, and he is meticulous in his observations, and the goods he imports are all needed by Mongolian villagers, and his business is better than ordinary people. Gradually, he made some Mongolian friends, sometimes returning from the meadows, and some Mongolian friends entrusted him with the goods he needed. When my father came back from a meadow walk, he always brought back a few Mongolian friends, and they rode back to Sui, and the first stop was our house, and my mother would entertain them to the best of her ability. My mother cooks, and my father sits cross-legged on the kang with his Mongolian friends, communicating freely. After eating good food and drinking good tea, my father would take them to buy things, including food and clothing, and grazing and milking. In the evening, my father's Mongolian friends wanted to stay at my house, and my mother had to go back to her parents' house for a few days after settling the guests. Fortunately, my grandfather's family lives in the Baijia Alley on the former Xincheng Road, and it is only about ten minutes walk from the Yingfang Road where we live on behalf of our family.
When he was sensible, his father also said from the bottom of his heart: The Mongolian people are a very good people, kind-hearted, easy to deal with, as a businessman, you have to talk to them about their reputation, one to say one, some to say two. We also have a few people here who don't stick to the fundamentals, deceive others, and after being discovered, there is no more trading! This is a summary of his pregnancy after the fact, and it should be enlightened for future generations. I remember that in the 80s of the 20th century, my father was the person in charge of a grocery shop in the cooperative store on Tai Nan Street. My brother and I took turns bringing him lunch. One day, just in time for me to deliver food, I saw my father communicating in Mongolian with a Mongolian grocery buyer. At this time, listening to my father speak in Mongolian, I felt that his expression was no longer fluent. The Mongolian customer bought the groceries and left, and my father looked back at me, as if to tell me, as if to say to himself: "It's useless for more than 30 years, forget it!" ”
On the camel road, it is an interconnected organic whole of various ethnic groups. They are part of each other's lives, and although everyone has their own way of facing it, they do not exist in isolation. Teacher Dai Lin and his Mongolian friends, which is a typical example of national unity, are deeply integrated into their lives, not deliberately but everywhere.
Five
As a descendant of camel workers, Mr. Dai Lin always has his father and camel workers in his mind, and many relatives belong to this camp. I don't expect to discover new insights, I just want to remember how they created social wealth and how they shaped their souls in the first place.
My father also talked about his second uncle Miao Run (from 1910 to 1979, his sons Miao Deyu, Miao Dekuan, and Miao Defa successively served as the director of the Democratic Management Committee of the Halal Mosque in Hohhot). He said that among the people who returned to Guisui to run the single gang, your second uncle Ba (referring to Miao Run) was a shrewd and capable camel breeder, with 8 camels, who had been going back and forth between Guisui and the vicinity of Siziwangqi for many years. He was very famous in Ulanhua, and he did a good job in trading, and bought a small courtyard with 7 main houses in Ulanhua, so that he could pull camels to live there conveniently. The old man "Ye Qini" (Arabic transliteration, meaning integrity, conviction, mostly refers to piety to the sect) is good, pulling camels to every place, insisting on worship, caring about the development of the sect, he and Ma Hanlin (1911-1994), Wang Kuizhen (1912-1995), who were imams near Wulanhua, became close friends, and he was "the best Dostair". Later, he gradually went to Wulan to have fewer flowers, and lent the house to his Hui friend Ma Zhanhai to live in, and Ma Zhanhai later opened a hotel. After the liberation, the hotel was taken over by a local catering company, and around 1983, the Miao brothers and sisters agreed to donate seven houses to the Ulanhua Mosque free of charge. After negotiations between the mosque and the catering company, the house is repossessed and the mosque is at its disposal. His father regarded his second uncle as a role model in life and praised him.
For Mr. Dai Lin, he was not familiar with camel roads before, and only knew that pulling camels was very hard, but more and more people from all walks of life joined the ranks of camel workers, and they are changing and influencing more people in a variety of ways. He admires people who enjoy the results through hard work and has always done it in his own way. As long as you keep doing it, it makes sense.
Six
Mr. Dai Lin felt that he was looking for memories of camel luck with his family as the object, because it was his familiar life and the real world spread out in front of him.
Teacher Dai Lin said that there is not much communication between fathers and children, and a few words are enough. However, he still talked a lot about the people and things that pulled the camels, and most of them started under my constant questioning and pestering: "I pulled the camels closer, and you Baba (that is, grandfather) walked through Xinjiang ......."
Dai Lin's grandfather, Dai Liu (1892-1981), was an old man with a very good story. Originally from Fugu, Shaanxi. Around the fourteenth year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty, my great-grandfather left his hometown and fled to Suiyuan. The great-grandfather carried the burden, two baskets in front and back, on one side of the grandfather, and on the other side of the aunt (grandfather's sister). The first foothold of the Dai family was Suletu Village in Daqingshan, northeast of Naturalization City, and later moved to Naturalization City. Grandpa is actually called Dai Sixty-two, because his grandfather was 62 years old when he was born. People called him Dai Liu for convenience, and slowly he got used to being called this way. Grandpa is very stubborn, and his strength is superhuman. He worked as a camel worker for several large camel caravans in the city of Naturalization. When setting off or resting, the camel had to be unloaded or put on the donkey (also known as a donkey), and everyone else was "a handful of people", but my grandfather did it alone. He organizes the pack neatly and cleanly, and the speed of unloading and loading the pack is fast, and he is the leader in this industry. In April 2002, Dai Lin excavated and sorted out the historical materials of camel transportation, and when he interviewed Wang Shiren, an old man of the Hui nationality, in the mosque, he also recalled Dai Lin's grandfather: "Your Baba belief is very deep! The Hui people generally do not fast when they encounter Ramadan on the camel road, only you Baba insist on fasting. Sometimes the other camel workers saw that he was tired and advised him to say a few words: 'Uncle Six, rest, don't fast.' He always replied resolutely: 'Do your business and leave me alone.' 'You're a first-class camel worker, and you're very strong! The people of the Dai family may have a lot of strength, and later your Baba's nephew Dai Dehai is also very energetic. ”
One year, the camel team followed by Grandpa Dai Lin encountered "thorn-headed bandits" (the name of the Uyghur and Kazakh bandits by the camel workers in Guisui) in Xinjiang, and saw that the bandits began to rob. His grandfather had just bought a gold ring for his grandmother to wear on his hand, and when he saw that the bandits were robbing the thin and soft, he took off the ring and put it in his mouth, quickly knelt down to the west, closed his eyes tightly, and held his hands together to make Du Ayi. When the bandit leader saw a Muslim here, they rode around his grandfather a few times to make sure it was a real Muslim and walked away. After that, when he returned to Guisui, his grandfather decided not to engage in the dangerous trade of camel labor, and insisted on praying at five o'clock every day, fasting for two months every year until he returned to the truth. I have consulted several Arin people about the two-month fast that Muslims are required to fast for two months a year, and they have not satisfied me. When Grandpa was in his old age, Dai Lin also asked the old man about this question, but he laughed it off and never gave a positive answer. I suspect that he may have made a promise to Allah when he met the bandits, and this is what he has kept with practical actions for more than 30 years. The believer keeps the word and keeps himself alone. Moreover, when the large camel caravans of Guisui set out, they were all escorted to Zhaohe by the local hired merchant groups. Because Zhaohe basically entered the sparsely populated area, it was relatively safe. But when you move forward, if you encounter a large number of people, you will either encounter other caravans or bandits. Bandits robbed caravans, usually with more than 10 people. They had guns on them (mostly muskets, some also rifles). There were also a few people in the caravan who had guns for self-defense. Under normal circumstances, neither side will use a gun. Bandits often carry a red willow stick on their horses, which is three feet long and the thickness of their thumbs. They first beat the camel workers with red willow sticks, and then they beat the camel workers in all directions, and then plundered. If the caravan is stubborn or resists with guns, the robbers will use guns against the caravans. As for the situation where the bandits besieged the camel caravan with guns as soon as they came up, the Hui caravan in Guisui had also encountered it, and this was a special case. After my grandfather finished his camel work, he sold buckwheat noodles and pushed a wheelbarrow to sell vegetables. As far back as I can remember, he devoted himself to his religious work every day. Unlike ordinary people, grandpa generally does not lie down to sleep during the day, often sits on the kang and sleeps against the wall, and the west wall he leans against slowly has a silhouette of the upper body rubbing down. I think it may have something to do with the habit of pulling camels in the past. I also saw that he was still able to crochet camel hair socks and camel hair vests for himself with crochet needles when he was over eight ranks, apparently the old man had been pulling camels for many years, and he had always had feelings for camels and never forgot them.
Seven
After the publication of "Hui Camel Transport", the influence of "Hui Camel Transport" was widespread, and the information that he worked hard to find and oral accounts was commendable.
He recounted the life he was going through during this period, the reading notes, the camel transport and camel road collection that should be adhered to, and so on.
Chatting with Mr. Dai Lin made me appreciate that Camel Road is really a magical land, with rich natural resources and cultural and historical relics. It is indeed a place of rich culture, and camel workers are role models for future generations. Although everyone's opportunity to embark on camel transportation is different, everyone has a story in their heart, and the courage to follow their dreams will always be a spiritual background of camels.
Now, in addition to maintaining the necessary daily walks, Mr. Dai Lin has developed the habit of reading, writing reading notes, and completing the "Scholarly Trilogy" as soon as possible, which fluctuates in my mind from time to time, and let me keep writing.
Finally, I want to say that although reading is only a small part of life, it really affects our attitude towards life and the world, and there are things that we can't complain about and have nothing to hope for, such as the topic of Hui camel luck, more people need to participate in excavating, rescuing, and sorting out historical materials, and jointly deeply feel the close connection between Hui camel luck and the Chinese nation, so as to provide strong spiritual power and strong value support for casting the sense of community of the Chinese nation and creating a good and harmonious atmosphere of social public opinion. Contribute unique oriental wisdom and effective ways of governing the world.
Mr. Dai Lin concluded with a sentence from Mr. Liang Rengong: "I often say that the cause of the world does not matter how big or small, and the relief of the world by the scholar is the same as the achievement of the farmer who governs his ten acres of land." As long as you do your best within your responsibility, you will be a first-class person. ”
(Author's file: Sun Shuheng, pen name Hengxin Yongzai, a native of Naiman Banner, Inner Mongolia.) Member of China Financial Writers Association, Member of China Essayists Association, Member of Inner Mongolia Writers Association, Member of Inner Mongolia Poetry Society, Member of Western Essayists Association, Deputy Secretary-General of Inner Mongolia Popular Literature and Art Research Association, Senior Researcher and Deputy Secretary-General of Inner Mongolia Poetry, Calligraphy and Painting Research Association)