During the Cultural Revolution, my Family was swept out of the house and moved into a new village near the outskirts of Shanghai, which was originally a piece of farmland. There are also film director Xie Jin living there. There are two buildings in the new village area that are different from the others, which were purchased with foreign exchange, and are Home to a group of Indonesian returnees to Huaqiao, who also have foreign exchange support for their families, of which my family is one.
The next door neighbor is a lonely old lady, big family origin, highly educated, when young did what women’s officer of the Kuomintang, seems to be a pretty big title, really in vain. It is thought that when the old lady was young, she was sharp, loved the limelight and liked to show her face, who could have anticipated what would happen later?After 49 years, she was sent to prison and sentenced to Life imprisonment. It is said that in prison, the old lady was an active member of the study of Chairman Mao’s writings, and her ideological reform was so good that her sentence was reduced to 20 years. The old lady was so grateful that she studied Chairman Mao’s writings more and more vigorously and talked about her experiences, so she was released early and designated as a historical counterrevolutionary. After her release from prison, the old lady lived in her daughter’s house in Beijing, where she was supposed to live with her grandchildren and enjoy the happiness of her family. However, the communist son-in-law, a seventh-ranking official, looked down on her and spoke coldly, as if he had taken advantage of her. The old lady could not hear it, but she had to swallow her anger and her daughter dared not speak out. The old lady also has a backbone, not to suffer from such a weakness, a bet, came to Shanghai. The old lady has a son in Canada, a chemical engineer, bought her mother a house in the new village, and since then, we have become good neighbors.
In the evening, I heard the soft sound of buttoning the door, the old lady came, a smile on her face, she came to get the “reference news”, I have “reference news” from my uncle’s house, the old lady likes to read. One day, she was confronted by a class-conscious neighbor upstairs, Xiao Chilao, who said that the old lady was a historical counter-revolutionary, a controlled person, and could not read the “reference news”. The little redneck went to the neighborhood committee and denounced the new trend of class struggle, which scared the old lady so much that she dared not come to get the “reference news” anymore. I had an idea and acted as a messenger. I hid the “reference news” in my arms, covered with my clothes, and sneaked past in the dark, gently snapping the door three times, which was the code. Close the door, tighten the curtains, turn the brightness of the small electric bulb, as if engaged in underground activities.
The three sisters who lived downstairs failed the high school entrance exams, refused to go to the factory, did not come to the top, did not seek the bottom, and stayed at home as social youth. Their Parents were divorced, and their mother went to France to buy a suite in the new village for her three daughters. These three sisters are all like a flower, fine skin, white flesh, delicate, whispering, permed hair, wearing foreign bougie, small pants, pointed leather shoes, neighbors? They were criticized for their “serious bourgeois thinking”. No wonder, in those days, the characters in the revolutionary propaganda posters were all stout-armed peasants and workers, one fist clenched in the chest, the other arm raised high, a face of anger, wearing clothing either all blue or all green, which was the most popular fashion.
Film director Xie Jin lives on the fourth floor of a building next door, and he has four children. The eldest daughter is mentally retarded, looks a little slow, but no different. The second was a boy, thank God, a bright child, tall and handsome, not only not half demented, but also inherited his father’s wisdom and inherited his trade, working in a cultural troupe. The third and fourth are both boys, one named San and one named Si, two mentally handicapped children. These two brothers look so much alike, twin-like, that outsiders can hardly tell who is San and who is Si. The Xie family hired a tutor, a middle-aged woman from the church, wearing Gold-rimmed glasses, a polite look, neighbors, seven aunts and eight women, behind her back, poking and prodding, saying she is very bad, I do not see any bad places she, why to damage her? There is a bit of indignation in my heart. Sometimes in the alleyway, you can see the governess with San-Asi, one in front of the other, San-Asi with slanted eyes, crooked mouth, drooling, mouth gibbering, not knowing what to say. Some immoral and savage brats, waiting at the entrance of the alcove, saw Ah San Ah Si walking over, they threw stones behind them, telling Ah San Ah Si to eat dirt and earthworms ……
The first thing you need to do is to get a good idea of what you are getting into. He was tall, upright, elegant, pang eyebrows white hair, leaning on a cane, just like a gentleman faction, tragically, he committed suicide by taking poison during the Cultural Revolution. Xie Jin’s mother usually lives in seclusion, occasionally see her, is also numb, gloomy, do not deal with people, but the face of those delicate contours remain, can not hide the beauty of the embryo. That day, she fell from the fourth floor balcony to her death, how could she fall down? There are various stories, some say it was suicide, some say it was pushed down by San Ah Si, it sounds really a bit unbelievable, but the neighbors said that people fell to the ground, San Ah Si clapped their hands on the fourth floor balcony, and told everyone to come and see! I can’t believe someone made up and sent such a sensational story, I don’t believe it. I saw with my own eyes the old lady face down, crouched on the ground, covered with a white cloth, I did not dare to look closer, just skimmed from afar, rushed to escape home. That night, the scene I saw during the day kept coming back to my mind, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I couldn’t eat dinner and wanted to vomit, and I ended up with a high fever.
One of the best directors of the new China, his parents, took poison and one fell off a building. Xie Jin rushed home to clean up the tragic situation. In front of the building were crowds of people watching, and I was crowded in. Xie Jin’s face was white, expressionless, no crying, no tears, no words. He finished his business in a hurry and left in a hurry with the funeral car. No one in the crowd to speak, but with tears stare, with handkerchiefs feel superfluous. Everyone saw the funeral car away, silently dispersed, dragging their slow feet away. That scene could not but touch me, could not but touch the most basic human conscience.
It is a painful logic that the person who is grieving is afraid to express his grief, and expressing it means a greater disaster. If the fascist atrocities left uncountable bloody corpses, then the havoc of the Cultural Revolution left uncountable bloody souls.
Every New Year’s Day, my father, the old lady next door, the cartoonist Le Xiaoying in No. 15, Xie Jin’s father (before he committed suicide), the “reactionary academic authority” in the front building, the “Kuomintang agent” in the back building… … Anyway, all of them have names, and they are all grouped in the queue of “cattle, ghosts, snakes and gods”. These white-haired, elegant and refined elderly, leaning on crutches, lofty and upside down to the neighborhood committee to gather to report, standing in a row in front of the statue of Chairman Mao, head down, bent over, maintaining a ninety-degree posture, listening. The Marxist-Leninist aunt, can’t read a few words, bitterness and hatred, the gods are alive and well, flaunting their authority, loud reprimand, serious warning: no nonsense, no sabotage.
I asked my father: Dad, why do you want to engage in vandalism?
My father replied: We are too old to do sabotage, and it is the Red Guards and the rebels who are doing it.
As long as the older generation in Shanghai has some memory of civilization, they must remember that their generation’s gentlemanly spirit and aristocratic Culture were once celebrated, revered, imitated, and became a tradition and a heredity. Sadly, during the Cultural Revolution, it was necessary to eradicate the culture from the smallest detail, to sweep it away from all the refined parts of civilization, and to replace it with a culture that we knew to be inferior. I grew up in the interplay of old culture and new age, the killing of the holy and the evil, the interstices of the noble and the inferior, and spent my life getting to know the world, digging for true gold on the rugged and difficult road, and searching for the truth in the midst of the storm and confusion.
Nowadays, the Shanghai Bund, the grudges and grievances of the past, the hardships and calamities of the past, have long since dissipated, and we can hardly see the kind of sadness, the kind of worry, the kind of fear that once remained on people’s faces. The Shanghai Bund is more prosperous and thriving than any other era. People are very happy, the wind of going abroad, buy and sell houses, the wind of stocks, the wind of the big mother speculation gold, corrupt officials speculation mistress wind, scholars speculation forgery wind, children speculation fight father wind …… people’s values and we used to pursue has been very different, we have become very realistic, very utilitarian, very mercenary, we are not too too forgetfulness?
Let the real facts have a chance to speak, dreaming, obsession, expectation, have gone with the wind, here, dig a small hole, bury the story.
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