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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.
我觉得我爸妈真是把我保护得很好,游街我从来没有印象呢。不过看来也不是说是政治犯的。(根据一位id说政治犯都是秘密处决?)。
我倒是有个亲戚,年轻气盛帮哥们打架,给对方拍了一个板砖,伤乐人,就进监狱好多好多年。当年家里人总是和我说他去参军了,但是后来我才知道是吃了严打的亏。这种行为现在也就拘留几天。想来也很可惜。因为这个人可好了,但是出监狱以后就很难找工作,一辈子算是毁了。
我是不太喜欢wsj那篇文章的腔调的。游街既然出现过那也就算了。去军训还要上纲上线的说什么17,8岁的人就有权利欲望啊什么的实在是很无聊。6岁的一年级班长都有呢。有意思么?还猪圈什么的...就跟她是唯一的一个明白人似的。我觉得如果她写这个就是为了出名赚钱还真是够恶心的。家里父母知道还不给寒碜死。
至于说美国人对共产主义的态度,这两天看看华尔街时报评论就知道了。温家宝暗示了一下美国等国家要有责任感什么的,下面很多老美就在喊中国是共产主义国家啊,没人权啊,tainted milk一类的。racist comments都有。所以说啊,美国的洗脑真的是再成功不过得了。错误都是别人的,自己给摘得真是干净。华人还是要用钱买影响力啊。
哈哈。you are so funny.
一个80年后的,文革完全没有记忆。我的看法是,历史本来就是一种说话,一种回忆,不同的人有不同的记忆。很多时候,即使你很努力地想要记录什么,若干年后也会忘记。不要说一些你刻意忘记的,或者创伤记忆的。特别是小说家的记忆,专攻文字的人对自己的故事很敏感,很专注,有的时候故事来自经历,有的时候故事变成经历,说久了,可能自己都分不出来。记得顾城也有一段如此的经历,或说很小的时候站在窗口的他看到人的撕扯和批斗,很恐慌,然后就开始关入自己的世界。这件事情只有他一个人说到,没有人见证,也没有人知道是不是这样子的经历真的对他的创作人生有什么影响,或者只是一段梦,很逼真的变作了他的记忆。
上面的很多mm好激动,关于文革,很多事情都没有讲清楚,所以50年后的今天才有更多的人要不断地追溯,寻求说法。伤痕文学的年代没有经历过,不过80后期文学上面的记叙文革的方式有了变化,一方面你可以论究说世事变了,文学不再崇高,另一方面看这种变化也是一个隐喻。
最近的作品,mm们可以看看《往事并不如烟》(HK《最后的贵族》这个是全本)文字有些做作,不过也是历史的一种说法。王安忆对这个就气得很呢。=D
瞎掰的,一笑
文学那部分我都看不懂
文革部分么,我家是被抄的,所以家里什么都跟我讲了呵呵。
spaday mm怎么都能知道人家eb1的故事?
不过我觉得既然这人书都出了,离美国国籍也不远了。搞不好还是CIA funding .haha.开玩笑。
忘记过去就意味着背叛。其实无论文革也好,还是70年代的所谓严打,离我们都没有那么久远。如果我们连这些离我们如此之近的中国往事都没有记忆,甚至不愿触及的话,只能说是我们作为中国人的一种悲哀和失败。虽然上面的讨论都是在个人之间进行,但也许我们需要想想这种记忆所应该带来的反思的缺失(尤其对于80后的大多数人来说)是否是目前体制刻意造成的一种结果。除了几个大城市之外,我所去过的很多中国的地方依然充满了苦难和艰辛,也许我们自己可以先不着忙大唱赞歌,而是有意识地从我们国家的历史中多吸取一些东西吧。
可能我的说法会招来一些人的“理论”砖头,只是希望她们不要根据我以上所言上升到爱不爱国的高度就好。
记住了,政治老师!
到底了
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