Caffeine
1979年的时候国内有把死刑犯游街的事情么?
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2009-01-30 09:32:00
访问原文如下,摘自wall street journal:
Executioner Songs
-A debut novelist on her new book about political killings in China
Yiyun Li moved from Beijing to Iowa when she was 23 to pursue a Ph.D. in immunology. Her boyfriend remained in China, and she enrolled in a community writing course to pass the time and improve her English. Her stories soon appeared in the Paris Review and the New Yorker, and her 2005 short-story collection "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers" won the Guardian First Book Award. Her debut novel, "The Vagrants," which comes out on Tuesday, concerns a cast of outsiders in a newly industrialized Chinese city. The characters range from a disabled girl to a beautiful news announcer working for the Communist party. None of Muddy River's citizens are spared profound pain and suffering, which makes for a harrowing read. Ms. Li, now 36 and reunited with her college boyfriend (now husband), spoke with us from her house in Oakland, Calif.
WSJ: Why did you choose to set the book in 1979?
Ms. Li: It was a historical year for China. It was 2? years after the end of the Cultural Revolution and the year of the Democracy Wall movement in Beijing. All of a sudden there was the idea of opening the country to the rest of the world. And, selfishly, I was 6 and 7 in 1979 and I had a lot of memories of that change.
The novel is bookended by political executions. Did you witness counterrevolutionaries being executed?
Ms. Li:They were not executed in front of me but before the execution, they would parade people around from one neighborhood to the next. They would have a gathering and they would have a short ceremony and the police would announce their crimes. I went a couple times when I was 5 and 6.
Did these ceremonies trouble you?
Ms. Li:I don't think when you're young you're troubled by those things. You're just curious. You're in daycare and then all of a sudden the routine is interrupted and you take a field trip. It was a ritual and all the neighborhood people were there. Our gathering site was very near the building where my family lived. They'd set up a makeshift stage and parade the people up there. I remembered all the policemen had starched white uniforms.
You were made to spend a year in the Chinese re-education army before college. Tell me about that.
Ms. Li:I was in it from 18 to 19. I went to Peking University, which was really active in the Tiananmen protests, so the university ordered something they called "the changing of blood." That meant that for four years, the incoming class was sent to the army. After four years, the blood of the whole college was cleaned.
Were you against going?
Ms. Li:I was very much against it. I was very bad. I talked about the people who were killed in Tiananmen Square a lot. A lot of my fellow students did not believe that happened and I could not shut up about those things. But I also had a very memorable time. I learned more than any other year about human behavior.
For example?
Ms. Li:We had this squad leader who was also just a student among us. Once she was appointed squad leader she had all this power over other people and she was only 17. . . . She knew I could write and every week every squad had to submit a propaganda-ish article, and she made me write it every time. I said, "That's not fair," and she said, "If you don't write it, I'm going to assign you to clean the pig sty." I wish I'd acted rebellious and cleaned the pig sty, but I did not want to clean the pigsty, so I would write for her. I didn't pursue my idealism because I did not want to clean the pigsty. We all compromised.
Why did you decide to set "The Vagrants" in a fictional town?
Ms. Li:Muddy River is modeled after my husband's own town which is in the Northeast, on the border of China and North Korea, 16 or 17 hours from Beijing. I did not want to write about Beijing because it was the center of the action. I wanted to go into a provincial town and see how people changed or did not change.
Have any of your friends or family back in China told you they found the book offensive?
Not yet. It will happen, I am sure.
Was there any political killing in 1979? I would believe it if it was during the culture revolution, but in 1979 I don't think so.
I do remember those posters printed in bold black letters hanging aound to announce the verdicts to the crimials tho. Becuase it usually came with photos that's why i was so impressed.
确实曾经有,我80年代初还见过。。。。。。不过,又如何?
人家国家还不能曾经落后,现在进步啦?
再说了,土人俺咋觉得死刑犯游街相当有震慑作用呢。。。。。。
虽然我没有看过, 但是如果有不会惊讶。 这个是自古以来的传统。 文革的时候这种事还是满多的, 1979年was only a couple years after the Cultural Revolution was over. And also I remember even in early 80s there was something called "yan2da3" when many were prosecuted due to minor crimes and remembered people were telling me about this type of 公审大会。
83年严打期间还有呢。。
我小姑姑的初中同学,因为开了一个饭馆,挂了几张香港的三点照片,就给定流氓罪了。
赶上严打,就死刑了,还游街了。。。我奶奶和我姑姑现在还经常提起这件事呢,说那男孩长得帅人还聪明。。
到底了
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