& lt& lt A Letter to Mo Yan >> Ask the "composition" experts for advice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I've heard your name for a long time, and I've heard of masterpieces such as "Big Breasts and Fat Buttocks", but I've heard of them and haven't read them carefully. Since I read your prose collection a few years ago, to be honest, it has given me a lot of inspiration. For many years, I have been suffering from being unable to write. After listening to your words, my heart suddenly opened up, my thoughts were myriad and my writing was brilliant. The reason why I can concentrate on writing after 50 years old is not unrelated to reading your book.

You said it well! "Isn't a person pretending to be a ghost when writing a novel, writing prose and writing prose?" After listening to your words, my heart suddenly relaxed, and I felt that I had something to write. But it is written, and almost all the words on the paper are true, so I come to a conclusion: I can't write novels, I can only write essays or essays.

You said that you didn't leave the countryside where you were born and raised until you were twenty years old, and the countryside became the soul and content of your novel. I am ten years older than you. I came to the northern countryside when I was twenty years old. I have lived for nearly ten years. After graduating from college, I was assigned to work in the southern countryside for three or four years. It can be said that most of my youth was in the countryside. I still feel that my soul is wandering somewhere in the backcountry. I really want to take it back, type it into the computer screen in front of me with a keyboard, and then type it in Chinese, English or Japanese for a publication that values it, but so far I have gained little.

The countryside, or my second hometown, gives me an impression, just like a pattern carved on a board, which can't be washed away or erased. But once it is portrayed truthfully, it looks so pale and powerless. Now I understand that this is because there is no imagination, no creation, that is, no soul. Such an article can't attract editors.

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My first impression of the countryside is that it taught me the first lesson of adolescence.

I was almost twenty years old when I went to Heilongjiang. I am ashamed to say that after the unprecedented education of the Cultural Revolution, my understanding of the relationship between men and women is almost zero. Lying on the kang at night, listening to the educated youth in the city who I regard as hooligans talking about the girls of the Zhang family and the daughter-in-law of the Li family, I feel very embarrassed, not to mention the yellow jokes that the veterans are full of nonsense when they rest in the fields. One summer, in a big meadow, I just waved my sickle and ran with my head down. Suddenly, I saw a white ass flash sideways in the green tent, and one foot was confiscated and stepped in a bubble of shit, causing a burst of laughter behind me. A kannika nimtragol is swearing while lifting her pants in front. She probably ate something bad, so she squatted in the cornfield to relieve herself. I immediately made a big blush and returned to the company, but was interpreted as deliberately peeking at women going to the bathroom.

It's nothing. Because of the lack of cultural life, rural people always think about what to do at night when they work during the day, and don't tell people that they are unhappy. For example, if a man in a group looks listless at work, he becomes the object of ridicule. Someone will hypocritically say to him, "Big Brother, you are tired at night!" " Others immediately took it and said, "Yes, relax, or it will be empty!" "Immediately caused a burst of laughter from the men.

Our platoon leader's surname is Li, and his nickname is Ba. Although he is a demobilized soldier in party member, he speaks politics fluently in meetings, but he has one problem. He likes stabbing women and fighting with old ladies in the village. After distributing work in the field every day before weeding, he began to help women and tell them jokes, which made the old ladies laugh from ear to ear. A few men couldn't stand it, and shouted to him, "Big bastard, help us for a while!" " Li Paichang replied, "Yes, I will come as soon as I finish filming this paragraph." . "But he won't come until after work. When he came over, he came to find fault and criticized this hoe for being unclean and that hoe for being untidy. Finally, a demobilized soldier named Lu was annoyed. He privately made a bet with some of the best old ladies in the company: if they dared to feed Li Dawang, he and several others would take care of their troubles in the future. It's a deal.

Going out early and coming back late every day, in the scorching sun, a group of people are so busy that they are sweating, but as long as there is Li Paichang telling jokes there, everyone will not feel tired. This time seems to pass quickly. Women are happy to listen to jokes, and men are pregnant with ghosts waiting to see jokes, but the expected jokes have never happened. Lao Lu winked at the old ladies several times, but it was useless.

One day at noon, I brought rice and ate meat buns. Maybe it was a happy meal, and Li Paichang told jokes again. He smacked his lips and said, "I'm so thirsty. If only I had soup! " An old lady replied, "I have milk here." Do you want to drink? "Li Paichang replied without thinking:" Drink! " "Really?" "Really, what? Other old ladies also booed: "We also have milk for you here!" " ""Say that finish, a group of people jumped up and pushed Li Paichang to the ground together. The leading old ladies tore open their skirts, revealing white breasts and sticking them on his face. Li Paichang was blindsided at this time and shouted, "Don't make trouble!" "But no one listened to him. It happened that the old lady had just given birth to her third child, and she poured a lot of milk all over her mouth.

Although there were regulations restricting educated youth from falling in love at that time, there were still many scandals about the relationship between men and women in the company. Have a plenty of educated youth, finally get married, nothing to make a fuss about. However, something very bizarre happened. For example, a female educated youth is pregnant, dating back to a retired soldier with a family. Demobilized soldiers are tractor drivers and often work night shifts, so educated youth goes to his house to sleep with his wife, and something happens when she falls asleep. Later, the demobilized soldier was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. His wife stood at the door of the company crying, and no one in the company sympathized with her. What deserves sympathy is the educated youth, who has to work in the fields when she is pregnant. Fortunately, a childless family agreed with her, and the educated youth also agreed when the children gave birth to their demands. The family took her home and waited on her all day with eggs, milk noodles and honey water until the baby was born safely. However, if you really want to take the child away from the mother, you will be confused. The female educated youth cried like something, and the couple said that they had already held their children and immediately moved to another company to live.

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My second impression of the countryside is its natural scenery. Although the company I went to was as dull and poor as other villages in China, looking back now, it was colorful and beautiful. Perhaps because of the distance, I felt the beauty, but when I lived there, I just felt ugly and wanted to leave early. Looking back carefully, there are indeed many unsatisfactory places in the countryside, such as its closure, its backwardness and its filth. Compared with the city, its shortcomings are beyond doubt. Now I live in the largest and most modern city in China, but I can't tolerate that some of its shortcomings are nothing to others. For example, the suffocating exhaust gas emitted by mopeds on the road; For example, people who decorate houses throw broken bathtubs and broken glass; For example, thieves and pickpockets are everywhere in public places. Newspapers are always advertising: how many square meters of urban per capita green space has increased and how many percentage points of per capita GDP has increased. My feeling is that there are many green spaces per capita in rural areas, and rural people live freely. Although they don't have much money, they can support a large group of children. Living in a reinforced concrete forest for a long time will inevitably produce a sense of oppression in people's hearts, which reminds people of the comfort of living in a house built of wood, mud and thatch. Although there is air leakage in this house, there is no toilet in it, so it is necessary to fetch water from far away. There is no TV at home, so I can only listen to all the important events at home and abroad with a broken radio. For example, I heard from shortwave radio that the Gang of Four was crushed.

The forest in nature is the place I most yearn for now. The forest gave me a really colorful impression. I picked flowers in spring, honey in summer, hazelnuts and fungus in autumn, and firewood in winter, which not only tempered my hard life, but also had memories of endless fun.

That winter, I spent the whole winter in a hole in the mountain. This hole was dug in autumn, and it was covered with iron bars and soil, leaving only one hole for one person to enter and leave. The weather is very cold and covered with ice and snow. A diesel cylinder was set up in the cave, and a large piece of firewood was thrown into it, which made the furnace tube burn red. Our dozen youths only took off a pair of underwear and wrapped jiaozi in white flour, cabbage and pork. Occasionally go outside to pee, only wearing a coat, shivering with cold. During the day, trees are cut everywhere on the mountain. First, the branches are cut off with a big saw, then with an axe. Then, in groups of four, the wood is lifted up with a crowbar. Everyone is shouting songs, most of them are unhealthy, and women are mentioned in lewd words. For example, "big girl's pants-big Korean pine!" And so on. I go back to the underground hole after work every day, and my whole body is soaked with sweat. I quickly took off my clothes and baked them with fire. Looking at the bright moon hanging on the top of the tree at the mouth of the cave at night, I was extremely disappointed when I thought of my relatives far away. Sometimes I sleep until midnight and hear the sound of tractors at the foot of the mountain. It's people from the company who are transporting wood. I quickly got up and put on cotton-padded jacket and trousers, put on cotton gloves and climbed into the ice and snow along the wooden ladder. Qi Xin, many people, cooperated to put the wood on the sledge. Every tree was thrown on the sledge, which shook the whole valley with a bang and snowflakes fell from the treetops. After installing the sledge, tie it tightly with thick rope, tie it with a carrying stick, and start the tractor to drive away. At this time, the fish is white in the east. In a short time, the crimson morning glow filled the sky, and a red sun gradually rose to the snow-white Yuan Ye in the morning light. My friends and I are chewing the fruit of Ilex, a green parasitic plant, looking forward to a bright future in the new year. Holly grows on the branches at the top of tall Populus davidiana trees. It is said that everyone who has stood under holly will have love. But there are no women on the mountain except men. I spent the Spring Festival in the mountains this year, full of hardships and happiness. Many years later, I recalled that it was the most meaningful Spring Festival in my life.

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The third impression that the countryside gives me is the sincerity and friendship between people. Although there was class struggle and family background at that time, it was a topic of discussion among political classes and groups on the kang. At ordinary times, during the Chinese New Year holiday, the old staff of the family enthusiastically took the young people to play at home, played poker, bought jiaozi, and of course secretly drank. I often go to the home of a decentralized cadre named Wang. He used to be an accountant of Fuyuan County Transportation Bureau, and was demoted to work in the company because of suspected historical problems. He is Manchu, and his life is very interesting. In front of the double-glazed window at home, there is a plant that may be called a lantern flower. Until now, I have never seen this plant anywhere. Green leaves and rose flowers, like a string of small lanterns, decorate the dark hut with vitality. A few onions are planted in the broken bowl on the windowsill, and a cabbage heart and green leaves are soaked in the broken bowl, reflecting the thick snow outside the window, you will feel the spring in the house. Lao Wang has two men, one woman and three children. His wife doesn't work, and his life is enough for him. But because of his optimism, he lives happily. I remember shooting pheasants in the mountains and catching fish in blisters with him, and I learned a lot from him about the weather, geography, history and culture in Northeast China. Later, he was transferred back to work in the county. I also went to see him by boat along Heilongjiang and brought back some salmon when I came back. Now living in the city, wherever I move, I hardly talk to my next-door neighbor. Everyone cares about their own affairs, and there has never been any emotional communication between people. Maybe some people will exchange feelings online, but it will also be risky, because after all, they don't know each other like in the countryside.

When I was studying in Qiqihar that year, Lao Wang's son came on a business trip and said that his father missed me and asked me to go to Fuyuan for a holiday. However, I took a false light and thought about going back to Shanghai. I haven't been there until now. Twenty or thirty years have passed, I wonder how their family is?

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I read in the newspaper that you were invited to travel to Hokkaido, Japan at the end of last year, and unexpected feelings often appeared during your journey in the snowy area. You carefully weaved the feelings and imagination between Hokkaido and your hometown of Gaomi Northeast, and gave birth to the next novel about Liu Lianren. Looking at the photos you took in Hokkaido Snow Country, I can't help but think of the association between Beidahuang and the Japanese.

I once went to qinglong river, dozens of miles away from the company, to dig sand. I saw some old haystacks scattered among the large thatch between the hillside and the river. I kicked them, but they turned to ashes at once. According to the old people, this is the rice planted here by the Japanese Kanto Reclamation Group in the early years, and there are traces of dry bases where the Japanese lived in the distance. When I was young, I immediately thought of the image of a cruel and violent Japanese soldier, but I didn't know why I wanted to grow rice. Isn't the grain of the imperial army robbed? Many years later, I learned that some Japanese poor people came to the northeast of China to grow rice. They couldn't live in Japan, so they joined the Japanese Kanto Reclamation Corps and started a very arduous job. Many people died in the land of China because of the war, some died of illness and starved to death, and some even married people from China. After the war, most Japanese were moved back, but some Japanese did not return to Japan for various reasons and stayed in China.

Unexpectedly, there is such a Japanese descendant in our company. He is a native of Tianjin, gentle and fragile, with a big head and full of Tianjin flavor. When we learned that he was Japanese, he had gone through the formalities of returning to the city and was going to return to Japan with his mother. We watched him pack, both envious and disappointed; Envy is that he can return to cities, even big cities in Japan. Unfortunately, those of us who stay still have to farm in the Great Northern Wilderness. The night before he left, he secretly bought a bottle of sorghum, got the boys drunk and gave us a red light transistor radio.

The fate of another man is also linked with the Japanese, and he gave his life for it. I don't know his last name, but everyone calls him "old spy". When he heard that the Japanese had invaded the Northeast, he acted as an interpreter for them. But what is going on, no one can say clearly. It is said that he used to live in Tongjiang County, a small town near Heilongjiang. After the Cultural Revolution, it was designated as an "enemy spy" and transferred to our company for supervision and transformation. On a cold winter night, people found him dead in the shack where he was held. In fact, he was found dead for many days, and even his body was frozen stiff. Your company wants to bury him, but no one wants to go in and carry his body. Later, the company commander called a tractor, put the rope around his neck, dragged it out of the window, and pulled it all the way to the wilderness to dig a hole and bury it. Later, someone told the story of this "old spy": he loved learning since he was a child and could speak Russian and Japanese. Of course, at that time, Japanese was a compulsory course in schools under Japanese rule, but he unconsciously took it too seriously and was forced to work for the Japanese and the puppet regime as a career. When the Soviet Red Army was fighting in Heilongjiang, he translated for the Soviet Union. After liberation, he was assigned to the middle school in the town to teach Russian because he didn't find anything bad. Self-taught to master two foreign languages, I think he is a language genius. Unfortunately, his language talent did not bring him any benefits, but brought him bad luck, and even took his own life. When I learned this sad story, I went to his grave and presented a bunch of flowers with Yuan leaves. I was secretly reviewing my English at that time, and I was worried about how to improve my English. It is incredible that the story of an unknown pioneer who died tragically in another country can inspire me to learn a foreign language.

When I finally got into Qiqihar Teachers College and began to study foreign languages formally, another poor scholar gave me a lesson. It was a winter afternoon, and a middle-aged man with a unshaven beard stood at the door of our Foreign Languages Department Building and said that there were a batch of foreign documents to sell. Several classmates and I followed him cheerfully through the winding street and came to a low bungalow. The man took out several thick old books from the room, one is the English version of the Bible, and the other is the English version of War and Peace by Tolstoy, a great Russian writer, both of which are original books published by Oxford Press. He said that he would not be willing to sell the old books he read when he was young unless he was in a hurry to wait for money. One of our classmates sold both books without saying anything. On the way back, the figure of that man appeared in my mind repeatedly, and his words echoed in my ears. I think people who have read these foreign books have at least graduated from college. Why did he become so miserable? Until today, I finally understand that whether a person is poor or rich has nothing to do with academic qualifications. An illiterate lout can become a millionaire, and a college graduate can still beg in the street. Education is not everything!

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Brother Mo Yan, I know that no matter how I write, I can't catch up with a fraction of what you wrote. But I have an advantage. I can read original books, newspapers and magazines in English and Japanese. Reading the original is different from reading the translation. I think I can better understand the elegance and charm of the author's works. After reading it, Lenovo will naturally sprout the impulse to write about feelings. At present, I am most interested in the relationship between man and nature and the protection of ecological environment, which is also the concern of most people in the world, but their understanding of the depth of the problem is quite different. I read Japanese newspapers and periodicals carefully to find out the views of Japanese professionals and ordinary people on these issues, and then compare them with China, and come to the conclusion that our understanding of related issues is far from that of the Japanese. At present, there is a tendency to scold the Japanese devils at the mention of the Japanese, and turn a blind eye to many Japanese who have friendly feelings towards China and their advantages in some fields. I think this is very harmful.

I mentioned such a thing in an article Six or seven years ago, an old classmate who revisited Raohe County in Heilongjiang Province told me that the villagers there were making disposable chopsticks for the Japanese with birch trees cut from the forest. Hearing this, I was deeply moved. Why are the villagers so confused? A pair of chopsticks is only a penny, and a box of chopsticks is only a few tens of dollars. Cutting down a large forest can earn tens of thousands of yuan, but it takes hundreds of thousands or even millions of yuan and decades to rebuild a forest. Which do you think is cost-effective? In this matter, both economically and ecologically, we lost to the Japanese, or the Japanese are more patriotic than us. Some people in China may not accept this, but this is the truth when you think about it. A famous Japanese newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, has a column called "The Voice of Nature and People's Words". A famous critic named Hideo Aragaki once said: "When it comes to patriotism, it is not just to defend the country from foreign aggression. When we think of mountains, rivers, Yuan Ye and forests, and what a beautiful country we live in, we will deeply feel a kind of love for our motherland gushing out like spring water from our personal life. Let green cover the mountains, not only for the beauty of the country, but also for the farmland roads to be protected from floods and ensure the safety of daily life. If you want one more wood, you need one more tree to let the green seedlings take root in the soil. " It is precisely because the Japanese engaged in nationwide legislation on greening, tree planting and environmental protection 30 or 40 years earlier than us that the sky is bluer, the water is cleaner and the forest coverage rate exceeds the average level of many advanced countries. In recent years, China has also made great achievements in the field of ecological environment protection. Some provinces, such as Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, have made outstanding achievements in combating desertification. These achievements have also been noticed by the Japanese and are often reported. Some Japanese even donated money to the desert control project in China, and even volunteered to come to China to join the work at their own expense, such as the old man Masayoshi Toyama who died not long ago. He has a famous saying: "Do you know how to read in China?

I talked a lot at random, and I don't know if it makes sense. I sincerely hope to read more of your masterpieces. Regarding Gaomi Township and Hokkaido, solving environmental problems must be a chess piece in the world, and greening China Desert is also helping itself. "A Japanese, not far from Wan Li, came to the Inner Mongolia desert in China and devoted his life to the greening work in China. What is spirit? I think this goes far beyond narrow patriotism and is integrated into the ecological and environmental protection cause of all mankind. Isn't this spirit worthy of our feelings for China and Japan, for human beings and nature? ...