Excess words -
In Fang Fang's diary, there was a special section dedicated to responding to that "high school student." Fang Fang specifically mentioned a poet, Bai Hua, who had the greatest influence on her. The following is an excerpt from Fang Fang's original text:
I have to say, child, you write well, full of the doubts of someone your age. Your thoughts are suitable for you, and your doubts are given to you by your educators. However, what I want to tell you is: I cannot answer your doubts. Seeing your words reminds me of a poem I read many years ago. This poem was written by Bai Hua, I don't know if you have heard of him: a talented poet and playwright. I read this poem when I was about 12 years old, during the "Cultural Revolution" in 1967. At that time, the whole summer in Wuhan was filled with violent struggles. It was in this year that I, a fifth-grade elementary school student, received a poetry collection by Bai Hua, titled "Pamphlets Scattered by Iron Spears." The first poem in it was "I Have Also Experienced Youth Like Yours." The first line of the poem is, "I have also experienced youth like yours, at that time, we were just like you today." When I read this poem, I was very excited and I have always remembered it.
Bai Hua is also a famous film screenwriter. In fact, he has an article online that has had a profound impact. The people who are attacking Fang Fang the most should read this article, with the original title: Bai Hua: Convicted for Words, Destroying the Integrity in the Hearts of Most Chinese People.
Convicted for Words, Destroying the Integrity in the Hearts of Most Chinese People
By Bai Hua
In 1938, the iron hooves of the Japanese invading army were advancing from North China to the Central Plains, and at the age of eight, I followed my parents to live in Wuhan.
The musician Xian Xinghai was launching a song movement on the river, and the banks of the river were filled with people singing the same song "China Will Not Perish." - I believe!
In the autumn, my hometown was occupied, and my father was buried alive by the Japanese invaders, which determined my future path. A life of sorrow, passion, sacrifice, and relentless pursuit, I firmly believed that "revolution" was the only noble pursuit, and "revolutionary ideals" became my everything, my future. So, by all means, without hesitation, sacrificing my life, I joined the battlefield.
Young Bai Hua
One winter day in early 1948, on the way to the Huaihai Plain, there were endless small carts and our army marching side by side. I asked a peasant sister who was pushing a cart, "What are you pushing on the cart?" "Flour." "Do you still have food stored at home?" "Yes, not in the cellar." "Where is it?" "In the ground." "In the ground? What crop?" "Wheat."
Looking at the Central Plains covered in white snow, the wheat seedlings had not yet sprouted! I couldn't help but cry. I remembered a story from the Warring States period, when King Goujian of Yue led his revenge army to the river after ten years of gathering and ten years of lessons. An old man from Yue offered the king a jar of wine that had been stored for ten years, and Goujian did not enjoy it alone, but poured it into the river and ordered the whole army to drink from it. Throughout history, such an army will surely win. - I believe!
In the early 1950s, the barrels of the soldiers' guns gradually cooled down, and the smoke of war disappeared from most of the territory. People of all ethnic groups in China were joyfully heading towards the "ideal paradise." - I believe!
For me, the fierce anti-rightist movement in the spring of 1957 was like a bolt from the blue. The result was that tens of thousands of intellectuals were labeled as rightists. Convicted for words, convicted for speaking the truth. Objectively, it destroyed the integrity in the hearts of most Chinese people. I never dreamed that I, as one of them, would be labeled as a "bourgeois rightist."
In those days, the label of rightist was not a joke. An idealist was abandoned by "ideals." At the same time, being abandoned by society, abandoned by the crowd, my intellectual inventory was instantly wiped out, and the foundation for survival and purpose collapsed. How could I bear such a situation? Just the humiliation brought to my loved ones could crush a person.
Unable to bear this great humiliation, many people chose to end their lives or divorce. Even old comrades who were once close friends avoided me. It was like a custom in the Dai ethnic history. If someone is identified as a "ghost of the pipa" by a sorcerer or the crowd, they immediately become a pig or a dog living among the crowd until death.
My family was a newlywed couple, and my wife Wang Bei was a young actress. How would she view the great humiliation we faced? She used to cherish and love herself so much. Could she still walk on the street with her "counterrevolutionary" husband?
When I returned home, her first glance was still full of warmth. When some people organized elementary school students to sing "Socialism is good, socialism is good, the rightists are running away with their tails between their legs" in front of my window to humiliate me, she dared to go out and persuade the children to leave. Moreover, she went to the place where I was undergoing labor reform several times to accompany me and work overtime.
At that time, I realized how much I had underestimated her. Not only did I underestimate her, but I also underestimated my mother. During the eight years of the War of Resistance, my mother raised the five of us, who were young children, by picking up wheat ears and peeling tree bark. An illiterate woman from the mountains, kind-hearted and weak, had to face the ferocious interrogators in the Japanese military police station.
In the summer of 1958, she traveled a long distance to visit me. As soon as my mother got off the ship, she immediately noticed my extreme frustration on my face. She whispered in my ear, "Tell your mother the truth, are you really wrong?"
I shook my head. After a pause, she asked again, "...do they still give you food coupons?" "Yes." "As long as they give you food coupons, ask your wife to have a son."
Two years later, after my wife had surgery for cancer, she ignored the doctor's advice and risked giving birth to a son for us. My two closest women, in the face of great difficulties, never complained or comforted me. - I believe!
A young and popular movie star suddenly became listed in the "restricted use" list because of her husband. She accepted it naturally, without any resentment.
I was undergoing labor reform in a factory, and I could only go home once every two weeks. One weekend, my wife was working the night shift at the studio and hadn't come home yet. Exhausted, I came back and fell asleep immediately. When I woke up at dawn, I found that my wife had not returned and went to the window to see her sitting on the porch steps, dozing off, with lilac flowers falling above her head. I asked her when she came back, and she said she had come back at midnight but was afraid of waking me up, so she sat outside waiting for the morning light.
It has been many years since I had the opportunity to revisit our old home. Is the lilac still like snow under the porch? - I believe!
In 1964, in order to live a more decent life, I returned to the army, and the light of "ideals" was reignited in my heart. Willingly separated from my wife and children, meeting once a year, they were once again placed in a secondary and neglected position.
The "Cultural Revolution" began, and the rebels found a letter from my family in my dormitory. My wife only mentioned my situation in the letter with a few words of grievance and anxiety. They subjected her to brutal struggles, kicking her off the ground several times, almost killing her. Then, for seven years, she was not allowed to see me or our children.
After the "Cultural Revolution," I became busy with things related to "ideals" again, and my wife and children were still in a secondary and neglected position. I didn't know how my son survived, how he grew up, and how he got into college. As a father, I knew nothing. It can be imagined how much hardship she endured. - I believe!
A French writer once asked me:
"Are you still guarding your ideals?"
I replied:
"I am only left with one bottom line to guard."
"What kind of bottom line is that?"
"That good-hearted people will no longer be wronged, humiliated, or deceived."
"That bottom line doesn't seem very high!"
"But I think, in some places, that bottom line is still unreachable."
- I believe!
Now, two elderly people who depend on each other should finally calm down, right? No! Five years ago, my wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and the sky of her old age immediately became gloomy. I used to think that having Alzheimer's meant losing the past, as well as the present and the future, in the patient's consciousness. There would be no joy, and of course, no pain.
Soon, I discovered that it wasn't that simple. She seemed to have returned to childhood and started to recognize this "strange" world again. "What is a bathroom?" "What is orange juice?" "What is a remote control?" When it was raining on the TV screen, she would shout, "Take in the clothes! It's raining! After the rain, the sun will come out!" Occasionally, she would have moments of clarity and quietly blame herself, "It's my fault, it must be my fault."
Many friends know that she is a rare actress who is indifferent to fame and fortune. The old movie stills have long been lost. Recently, she has been abnormally putting some pictures cut from books and newspapers into a glass bookcase, even though sometimes she doesn't even recognize herself in the pictures.
Now she calls all young people "big brother" or "big sister," and sometimes mistakes me for her late father, more precisely, a combination of her father and husband, calling me "dad" or "old man."
As far as I know, she has always lacked paternal love since she was young. Her father was a man too busy to take care of his family, always busy in his small bank. Since she took over a small suitcase from her father at the age of seventeen and left home to Shanghai with the film director Sun Yu, she has never seen her father again. When her father passed away, the war prevented her from returning home, and she couldn't say goodbye to him.
It can be said that she is now living in another unfamiliar space, with almost nothing, but she still retains a "habit" from the era of poverty, although I don't know if it should be called a "habit." That is, in the era when even toothpaste tubes could be exchanged for money, she would flatten and collect every piece of scrap paper picked up from the ground. Her "safe" is her own bed. If I don't help her clean up, her bed will quickly become a pile of garbage.
I found that if I said she had completely lost her mind, it would be wrong. There is still a string that has not been cut between us, and that is the string between me and her. I am the only person she recognizes, and she needs my approval for taking medication, eating, and drinking. "Dad! Can I eat this? Can I drink this?"
Whenever I have to go out alone, I ask her, "You rest at home, okay?" She always answers me like a child, "Don't I always follow you?" I can only take her with me, even if it's a meeting. She sits quietly on the side, smiling and nodding, not saying a word. No one would treat her as a patient.
When I absolutely have to go out alone, she shouts, "Think about it, can I stay alone!" She vaguely realizes that she doesn't feel safe when she is alone. Yes, if I have to leave her side, it will not be my personal disaster. - I believe!
Recently, my eight-year-old granddaughter, who is intelligent, unintentionally heard the sound of her grandfather reciting poems in a DVD. She immediately became quiet, sitting on a small stool, bowing her head, not moving at all.
When she looked up, I noticed that her face was full of tears. She is so young, yet she understands her grandfather. - I believe!
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