1
In the summer of 2008, when I was a junior student, I was assigned to the language service team of a competition venue as an Olympic volunteer. The team consists of about a dozen people, mostly foreign language students from Universities in Beijing, covering six or seven languages, and is responsible for providing translation services during the competition.
On the first day, the group leader asked the students to introduce themselves and get familiar with each other. Everyone stands up in turn, everyone’s hobbies are similar, boys are nothing but football, basketball, playing games, girls are fashion, singing and dancing, watching American TV series.
At this moment, a shy boy stood up and said his name was Jiang Yong. He was a graduate student majoring in journalism. He liked to read commentaries on current affairs and was concerned about world affairs, especially the Southern Weekend.
There was a slightly exaggerated “tut and tut,” which seemed to be both admiration and a touch of mockery. After all, while it’s always safe to talk about reality in a semi-professional, semi-social setting, talking about ideals can feel a bit contrived. Hearing the boos, Jiang Yong lowered his head and blushed.
And yet, with a vague encouragement, I stood up and said, “I like literature, especially poetry.”
We all gave out similar laughter, only Jiang Yong looked up at me, eyes warm. At that moment, I knew we were going to be good friends — we both came from the same school, but in different majors, we had never met before.
About because the body is a little bit of the ideal temperament, Jiang Yong and I quickly get familiar with each other, MSN friends. Blogging was popular at the time, and we all liked to write in MSN Space. Mr. Jiang’s space is filled with dozens of commentaries on current events — a mild man who writes with a different look, wry irony and even a bit of venom. It’s just that none of these articles are long, and the prose is a little more casual, more like a personal pour. At that time, netizens visit each other’s space will leave “footprints”, so there is a “step on the blog” said. From the footprints, I also see, Jiang Yong read a lot of my poetry.
There was a fierce competition in one night, which was delayed until very late. Since our school was close to the stadium, the team leader left Jiang Yong and Me on duty. Busy after, has been nearly 12 o ‘clock, the last bus has long gone, we have no much money pocket, reluctant to take a taxi, I was worried, Jiang Yong said: “I come today by bike, I take you back.”
“Okay!” I tiptoed onto the back seat of his bike – padded with leather, usually reserved for girlfriends.
The street is full of orange lights, as if the night heart is still immersed in the excitement of the day, do not want to sleep. As the heat dissipated, I stretched my arms out, and the light evening wind blew, and cool little streams turned sweat from my skin. I feel that night is so beautiful, youth is so beautiful — and the future will be even better.
“My dream is to be a current affairs reporter — I think the best job is one where you can write without fear or favor — buy a house in Beijing, marry my girlfriend, and come back home proud,” Jiang said as he pedalized. How about you?”
I almost died laughing when I heard the phrase “Returning to my hometown in good condition”. I thought Jiang Yong was so lovely. I face the wind, as if singing: “My ideal is to become a famous poet.”
2
A year later, we graduated.
At that time, the great shock of the financial crisis was just beginning, and fresh graduates were struggling to find jobs, but we were both lucky.
Before the Spring Festival, I received an Offer from a large state-owned enterprise. In my mother’s words, “There is no use in studying for a doctor of Literature, since there is a curved tree growing on an ancestral grave with incense burning. Just go safely in and stay there.”
Jiang Yong temporarily decided to participate in the national civil servant examination, the naked examination results in the. The day the list was announced, he decided not to go to Shanghai for an interview with a newspaper.
“Congratulations! “I said sincerely. After all, it’s one thing to talk about your dreams and another to get a job.
‘You don’t think I’m an ideal traitor, do you? Jiang Yong asked seriously, afraid That I would not believe it, “I heard that the unit will work in three years will be divided into rooms, I plan to go out after the allocation of rooms, as a reporter.”
I believe Jiang Yong’s words — in 2009, the housing price in Beijing’s third Ring Road reached more than 20,000 yuan, which was totally sky-high for me, whose monthly living expenses were only 800 yuan. I felt I could not afford it in my life. And Jiang Yong is a boy, the pressure must be more than Me.
Before graduation, we had a farewell party. We didn’t have the money to eat out, so we ordered two dishes of small fry in the underground canteen of our school. Compared with the usual big-pot meal, this also had a sense of ceremony. During the meal, I couldn’t help asking for gossip. Jiang Yong told me his first love story.
Jiang Yong’s mother was a primary school teacher in a rural area of Hebei province. His father had a fragmented business and a younger brother.
Although Hebei is close to Beijing, there is no grass growing under the big trees. It is a completely different world. ‘Since I was a child, I felt like Beijing was a big ball of fire,’ Mr. Jiang says. ‘It was the most magnificent and shining city in my imagination, but the roasting was scary, as if all the soil in Hebei were going to be baked dry by Beijing.’ The fireball baked him hot and his throat tightened. Every morning when he ran, he would tell himself: I’m going to Beijing.
When script really hold a university admission notice, carrying luggage came to Beijing, despite psychological preparation early, but still the megalopolis he was shocked and dizzy, under its brilliance, yun yong ill at ease, feel humble like ant: their own in the soil, accent with pure flavor of hebei soil slag, after small compared to the classmate of living in a big city, and in addition to the textbook on what other what all don’t know, let alone talk, see, taste, these things, even have no money in my pocket than more let a person of inferiority and anxiety.
But he fell in love with a Shenzhen girl in his class who spoke perfect American English. When he wrote her a love letter, the girl did not pay any attention at first, but when he wrote the fifth letter, she was moved by Jiang Yong’s sincerity and came to talk to him in an arrogant tone: “I will never stay in Beijing, but will always go back to Shenzhen.”
When he graduated from the university, Jiang Yong’s girlfriend had already planned to go to graduate school, so it was not as important to accumulate work experience as early as possible, so he went to work directly. Jiang Yong in the mind is very clear, his girlfriend is willing to stay in Beijing, is to wait for him, but his girlfriend also said, to have a house to get married.
“We had several fights about the house. You say I am a poor student now, how can I get the money for the down payment? Should I rob a bank or buy lottery tickets?” Jiang Yong lamented.
“Then you can’t earn much by becoming a civil servant. You might as well go to work for a company. Maybe in a few years you’ll get a good salary.” I said.
Jiang Yong told me his little plan: if he and his girlfriend returned to Shenzhen, he was worried that he was unfamiliar with the region and would find it harder to establish himself. A civil servant can get a Beijing hukou, or household registration, so he can persuade his girlfriend to stay in Beijing.
“And I’ve heard of houses being divided for a few years.” He couldn’t help but describe his ideal middle-class life: “We had a house, and After work I drove to work to pick her up…” He looked forward as if a happy life were just around the corner.
I am a little strange, Jiang Yong so idealistic temperament of the people, why would like a so practical girl, shouldn’t it be the kind of people do not fireworks small fairy?
“What do you like about her?” I asked.
Jiang Yong thought for a moment: “She is the first girl I like. Don’t look at her snobbish mouth, but in fact her heart is very simple. Just together, I took her to the wild slope to see the stars, she was moved to tears are out. Over the years, she said she wanted to break up with me many times, but she never did.”
Jiang Yong immersed in good memories, mouth mouth slowly revealed a smile. All of a sudden, he thought of something wonderful and said excitedly, “She looks very nice in her clothes. In the dialect of our hometown, she is very foreign… You know how it feels, don’t you?”
3
In his first year on the job, Jiang yong’s MSN Space was noticeably slower to update and his content was much milder. When he was rated “excellent” at the annual review, he was not without pride: “Only 10% of the candidates were excellent. We only rated two people everywhere.” He also said that the evaluation on the excellent, mainly because the director appreciate him very much, think his pen is good, very thoughtful. Jiang Yong gushed, quite some met Bole feeling.
But what makes his career even more honorable is that he works with people in the media, including some well-known reporters and editors. Although he is a newcomer to the job market, he is still a “public man” and everyone treats him with courtesy.
Every time when it comes to the media, Jiang Yong seems very excited. Once, he listed four or five famous journalists’ names to me in the MSN chat box without stopping, commenting on their reporting features and gains and losses in a gushing speech. At last he said, with some satisfaction, “Now, I know them all privately. Last time I went to an annual meeting on SATELLITE TV and had a photo taken with a female reporter who often appeared in the camera. Their annual meeting was so grand, and the tapas were all French wine and cheese, which made my love for pancakes very sad.”
Jiang Yong’s self-mockery unconsciously shows off, but In my heart, I don’t think it is great to know journalists, it is true that you write good articles and let journalists really respect you. However, looking at jiang Yong excited appearance, I did not put out the words, just implicitly asked him: “Have you written any article recently?”
‘No,’ he says. ‘The endless supply of materials, reports, speeches from leaders and year-end reviews is enough for him.’ I had a vague feeling that Jiang Yong was beginning to be satisfied with his life. On second thought, this is actually quite good.
Half a year passed. Once, Jiang yong left me a message on MSN Space: “It’s probably ridiculous to write poetry these days.”
It sounded, at the same time, a bit self-deprecating, at the same time mocking me.
Will life be good if you resign from the system?
After a few words, he suddenly insisted on inviting me to dinner. We still don’t have much money, jia and a product it.
“Why are you treating me to dinner?” ‘I asked as soon as We met at the porridge house.
“Nothing, long time no see.” Dressed in a black jacket, broad camel trousers, a slight belly, and a black backpack, Jiang yong has the standard civil servant look.
After a few words, I knew why he wanted to invite me to dinner: he couldn’t find anyone to talk to in the office. He had been holding it in for so long that it was almost unbearable. As soon as he began to talk, the seemingly silent man turned into a chatterbox:
“The system is more meritocracy.The more competent you are, the more the leaders give you extra. At the beginning, I have not written day and night, the leadership think I am easy to use, everything comes to me, and those old, muddle along, the leadership also dare not put them how. I worked overtime every day and was always on call on weekends, like a puppet. Complain a few with the leadership, the leadership also feel very surprised: you are not last year just evaluated excellent, began to tail?
“Our leader, Director Li, he’s nice, but vice Director Wang is a real pain in the neck. Before is the time of section member, but a good old man, everyday volunteer take newspaper for everybody, whose favour all help, connect us these to compare his seniority young all never offend, let alone leadership. But since he became the deputy director, to the leadership or bow and bow, to these clerks below, completely changed the same person. He was correcting it the other day and he just said, ‘Hey, get me an eraser.’ The eraser was on the table opposite him. It was only two steps away. Didn’t you get feet? We are all colleagues. Is it necessary to give orders like this? I ignored him, got up and went to the bathroom.
“There are several women in the place, every time the bureau leadership to inspect, are warbling and dancing around the leadership around, ‘Are you hungry? Have some cookies! ‘ ‘Oh, look at you. You’ve been so tired lately. Take care of yourself. ‘I almost threw up. How can they say such disgusting words in such a natural way? I really don’t understand, this is also a kind of ability, like me, was not born.
“Now I am in the department, the business is ok, Director Li appreciated me, although tired, but generally the day is still pretty easy, people can ignore, not to do things, anyway they can not take me how. But what will happen in a few years is hard to say, in case director Li leaves? I don’t want to stay in the system and quit if I get the chance.”
Jiang Yong’s tone sometimes angry, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes disconsolate, and more is lost, I can only remind him: “people under the roof, how can not bow? You’re too outspoken. You write everything on your face. You’d better pull back.”
He paused, speaking to me or to himself. “Wait a minute,” he said. “I hope I can get an apartment soon, and I can get some business experience and contacts before I can quit.”
4
In 2011, Weibo exploded overnight and became the most popular way to socialize. 140 – word essay like hurtling little fly knife, cut our monologue, it turns out that we can in a can immediately get a response of the platform and all the people got behind a net, inundated with social events, the whole people to participate in an hot discussion, after the news before the waves over the wave – even write poetry I can find in here so many bulk kindred spirit. Comments, forwarding is always beating, exciting, for a time renren.com, Kaixin001 eclipsed, fragmented reading carnival era has come.
Jiang Yong also gave up writing blog, after all, in MSN Space, lonely nonsense, not many people pay attention to. He tweeted for a while, and when he woke up, he found that his followers had risen by hundreds, thanks to his sarcastic remarks.
Jiang Yong’s enthusiasm for news burst forth like lightning bolts of lightning. From the evacuation of Chinese citizens in Libya to the high-speed train crash, from the European debt crisis to the intensified efforts of the state to tighten the property market, he never gives up any opportunity to retweet hot topics and make comments. As always, he has a good sense of news and is extremely sensitive to all kinds of wind and grass. He can almost synchronize his microblog with some domestic news platforms. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and check my Weibo, only to find that he is still sending messages in the wee hours.
Occasionally, some of his big V friends would also repost his messages or comment on his messages, and Jiang would then repost the retweets or comment replies again. In the seemingly lighthearted conversation, I could feel a kind of ecstasy in Jiang Yong’s heart, as if through this form he was announcing to his 2,000 fans that he and his most admired peers were on the same path, talking and laughing with them, using their trade words, and sharing their professional glory.
However, the micro blog seems to have consumed all his enthusiasm for life, and the real Jiang Yong is becoming more and more silent. A few times When I texted him to ask how he was doing, he just said, “I’m ok.”
On the day of Obama’s re-election in November 2012, her girlfriend officially broke up with Jiang, leaving the overly dry and unrefined city to return to Shenzhen. Jiang Yong has been working for 3 years, has not divided the house, this time, he did not play careless eye muddle past.
Jiang yong began his efforts in an almost masochistic way. He believed that his girlfriend left him simply because he had no money and was not good enough. He can no longer settle for mediocrity; he must shine.
He realized that it was not possible to “tweet” as much as before. In the age of information explosion, only in-depth articles are valuable. He went to work during the day, went home at night and wrote desperately. In order to practice English, he fell asleep listening to THE BBC news every night. My salary was so small that I didn’t have much left in a month. I didn’t even eat jiahe any more. I lived on the canteen for three meals a day. The money he saved would be used to buy magazines and newspapers with a little influence on the market — he would learn to imitate the articles above, especially the Southern Weekend, a pile of which was stacked on a desk taller than he was in his chair.
Jiang Yong later told me that he woke up in the middle of the night one day and felt as if he was still in his hometown in Hebei province one second before hearing the English news on his mobile phone. In the darkness, each word was like a piece of floating ice, and he was like a man swimming on it. Hazy, as if there is a huge beautiful bubble in front of him, let him touch the rosy hope – he will eventually take off, one day, he will become a proficient in Both English and Chinese elite reporter.
After more than half a year of hard work, I also calculated and sent several articles, which, together, earned more than one thousand yuan.
5
Jiang Yong has not been rated as “excellent” in the unit for several years. At some point it felt like he was doing nothing: he was getting only five or six hours of sleep a night, but he was getting paid less than the people at work who were mucking about.
House prices are rising even faster. He’s almost 30. Is it too late to get back into the market and compete with fresh graduates? Anxiety about “not getting it” morphed into more anger-social injustice, bad news cases, bureaucratic procedures that made him furious.
Director Li was transferred to another bureau, the unit unified personnel deployment. Jiang Yong reluctant to director Li, in the farewell meeting, eyes are red, director Li patted his shoulder laughed: “The bottom of the river is good, continue to do well.
He looked down on the new director, “talent is not half as good as director Li, is a slicker by flattery up.” Finally one day, he and the new director big quarrel, slam the door and go, the new director pointed to his nose and said: “So you still want to stay in the system? Pack up and go!”
Interestingly, a few years later, Jiang Yong did not go, but the new director abandoned his wife, the sea after the shang, I heard that he later made a lot of money.
Jiang Yong was depressed for a long time. Once, he texted me: “I feel like I’m actually pretty mediocre. It’s so hard and so painful to admit, but it’s something that most of us have to accept.”
Later, at a lecture at one Way Street Bookstore, he met a girl, a cultural editor for a web portal. Like him, the girl comes from a small place, has a little idealistic feelings, and struggles hard in Beijing alone. At first, the girl worked as a reporter in the newspaper for two years, but the golden age of print media was over, and the days when she could make a decent living by collecting and editing were gone forever. She had a sense of crisis, so she changed her job to the website.
In Jiang Yong’s eyes, the girl was glowing all over — not the bright light that made him feel inferior like his ex-girlfriend, but a light, artistic and gentle like a firefly. They meet for dinner, the girl took Jiang Yong to a western restaurant, ordering, Jiang Yong said he did not eat western food, let her order. The girl whispers “Caesar salad,” “Santorini,” and “Tiramisu” for dessert. It is so natural for Jiang Yong to hear the exotic and beautiful names coming out of the girl’s mouth — even though they are of similar origins, many of the things that control Jiang Yong’s life, such as the “rustic” nature that he has been hard to shake off all his life, seem so easy to the girl, fluttering their wings lightly.
Most of the girl’s friends are in the media circle, some have been transformed, some are still struggling in the print media. Everyone when you eat, yun yong sat among them, listen to the gossip in the media, listen to them head-on view of current event hot spot of the debate, listen to how they speak common reporters because a story editor with red words, and even a person ask script ever watched TV drama “the newsroom” — all these, have made him feel very comfortable, very carefree, like the old man went home away from home.
He held his new girlfriend’s hand and felt their fates joined.
After marriage, he also seriously considered – resign, two people put all their eggs in one basket, stand together on the tail of youth crazy a. But that meant he could no longer give his wife a secure life. Also be in hesitate during, the unit has the opportunity that goes abroad to work, the leader asks him to be willing to go — the salary abroad compares domestic tall much.
Jiang Yong was thus sent to a country in South America to work. In order to be with him, his wife resigned and accompanied him to a foreign country. Since then, I can only get his information from a few words on Weibo.
He doesn’t seem to have a very happy life either. “Every day is a repeat of the past day,” he wrote on weibo at one point. Later, he started tweeting less and less, until early 2014, when he stopped tweeting altogether.
6
Goodbye Jiang Yong, it’s been five years. He came back from abroad, and financially, he seemed to be entering the middle class, buying me a place to eat instead of a boutique chain in a shopping mall.
Now a new era has dawned. Paper media is already dusk Xishan, jiang Yong unit west gate outside the newsstand has been removed stand, Jiang Yong read aloud, want to buy the “Southern weekend” that loves to see most, cannot find a place to buy however. The newspaper office where jiang yong’s wife first worked has been shut down. Weibo praying mantis catches cicadas without knowing the yellow sparrow is behind. WeChat dominates the world.
After years of working abroad, Jiang yong feels a bit out of step with his home country.
When he first came back, he didn’t scan the code for payment and carried cash in his wallet as he had done five years before. After working overtime in the evening, he stood by the side of the road and stopped the car. “Obviously it was empty, but the driver didn’t stop. Later, it was a post-90s girl in the office who taught him to take a taxi by didi. Everything is dazzling, dizzying, “not to mention what P2P, blockchain, people in South America, where to pay attention to these things?
The only thing that kept up with the pace of The Times was that two years earlier, when the couple went back to China for leave midway, they took out years of savings, plus gnaw at the old, and finally scraped together enough money to buy a house outside the East Fifth Ring Road. Soon after the purchase, the Beijing government announced it was moving to Tongzhou, and housing prices soared. After a wild ride in 2016, the total value of the home has nearly doubled.
Soaring housing prices — the thing Jiang Yongzeng hates most — have now become the most important part of his asset preservation and the biggest source of his life security.
As we chatted for a while about our lives over the years, his conversation naturally turned to the children. “My daughter is over two years old and very cute. My heart melts when I call papa.” He laughed as he spoke.
His WeChat profile picture is a picture of his daughter, and the content is mostly show MOE photos of her, life details, and the lovely appearance of a child without fear. He occasionally retweet some popular articles, but never makes comments — in the system for many years, he has been well aware of the truth that too much is lost, and never easily expresses his attitude towards public topics.
I already knew the answer to that question, but I asked, “Do you still want to be a journalist?”
“Of course. In fact, just back from South America, thinking that the house has been bought, I moved the idea, has written a letter of resignation – but the wife was pregnant. If I quit my job again, the risk is too high. If something goes wrong, I won’t be able to pay my mortgage. I’ll just have to put up with it. After her daughter was born, she had to think about the money for milk powder. Now she is going to work as a reporter and start all over again. She doesn’t earn as much as a civil servant, and she has to think about her child going to school…” His words were like a tangle of threads, one connecting more knots, more threads appearing, until the threads came together into a dense web.
“How was work?”
“More and more things, overtime every day.” Jiang Yongchang sighed, “But I feel I can’t go away. I intend to stay in the system for my whole life. I don’t want to be a big official, and of course I won’t fool around.
When I was a teenager, I said, I had a crush on The Russian writer Tugrev. I read “The Pavilion,” “The House of the Aristocracy” and other short stories in which the hero always had lofty ideals and fierce words, but was never able to make that leap in reality. Not to be sarcastic, but a little sad, like the feeling of sadness that comes when you finally see your hero disappear into a cold Russian fog.
Jiang Yong smiled: “Now I am surrounded by people who don’t read books, listen to you say these, a little like the feeling of a lifetime.”
7
That day, we talked a lot. Jiang Yong suddenly told me about his childhood.
During the two years his mother gave birth to his brother, his unreliable father ran a business and ran up a mountain of debt, unable to pay the family planning penalty. One day when he came home from school and saw the family planning officials and excavators in the village, he felt as if he had seen a ghost in the story of “Liaozhai”. How could his house still be fine in the morning, but when he came back, it turned into a pile of tiles?
The home dare not again house, also in order to avoid debt, the mother took him and the younger brother live east, west live a day. One night when my uncle was asleep at home, my mother suddenly woke him up: “Get up, get up quickly! Let’s hurry to grandma’s!”
Mother carried her little brother in front and he followed. He remembered the words in a book, “Fear is like a dog lost in a house.” I looked up and saw the huge stars in the night sky, like diamonds from another world far away. He felt drowsy, but suddenly he was awake, and even his whole mind was lit up. He suddenly realized that he must study hard in the future, and that there was no other way.
By the time he was admitted to a university in Beijing, Jiang Yong was known throughout the village. However, really let the home hold one’s head high, or he was admitted to the news of the civil servant. Father is working in the field, some people come over to light a cigarette, polite: “Elder brother, this but you in the middle of someone ah!”
The person who spoke was the family planning cadre who pushed his house.
“Maybe It never occurred to me, subconsciously, that I really wanted to leave. As a civil servant, the salary is not high, but I still feel safe.” Jiang Yong seemed to be talking to me, but he felt a sense of loss as if he were talking to himself.
He quickly changed the subject and began to tell me about his experiences in South America. South Americans are passionate, romantic and unrestrained, unlike the Chinese, who think so much and live so tired that they wish they were born with a funeral and a sense of security. In addition, there were green-roofed parrots and corolla parakeets, flying through the jungle.
As the night rises, the surreal multicolored apparitions Jiang Yong describes seem to be drifting across the glass Windows of my dining table, a world I long for but have never been to. I remember the year when Jiang Yong took me back to school on his bicycle late at night as an Olympic volunteer, and we all believed that we would have a bright future. The green cockatoo, the corolla and the flying skirt of the bicycle overlap at this moment.
I knew then that we must make choices in the midst of all these chaotic lights. The choices we make, or do not make, are ultimately our lives.
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