Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
His book for me is like a dictionary to understanding the huge differences between life in the city and the countryside. Sometimes it feels like there is 500 years of difference. The problem is that the young people move to the city and learn so much and then when they go home it is very difficult to communicate with the older generation, who are often peasants who have never been educated or travelled to the next village.
他的著作于我而言是一部理解乡村与城市生活差异的辞典。有的时候你会感觉这种差异有500年之久，其中的问题就在于年轻人进城之后改变了太多，当他们回到乡村时已经无法和老一辈的那些没有受过教育，没有出过村子的农民们沟通。
Book number four is a collection of short stories, Explosions and Other Stories by the controversial modern writer Mo Yan, a pen name for Guan Moye.
Yes. There is a story in there which I particularly like, ‘A Letter to My Father’. In it he writes about what life was really like in the countryside from 1960 to 1980. I really admire his writing because he hardly uses adjectives and adverbs but he uses verbs perfectly. He paints amazing pictures through his descriptions. Reading his stories is like watching a film. His book for me is like a dictionary to understanding the huge differences between life in the city and the countryside. Sometimes it feels like there are 500 years of difference. The problem is that the young people move to the city and learn so much and then when they go home it is very difficult to communicate with the older generation, who are often peasants who have never been educated or travelled to the next village. That is what Moye’s parents are like. They will say things to their children like, ‘My children, when you go in an aeroplane don´t open the windows’ even though they have never seen an aeroplane!
Or in one story he wrote that one time he visited his home village and his neighbour’s daughter-in-law was having a baby but, because it was a girl and girls are so unwanted in China, the family paid more attention to the birth of the family donkey than the baby girl. The donkey got the midwife, not the woman giving birth. I have travelled all over China to research my books which focus on how women are treated and I can tell you that is the truth. He never talks in a political way but you can tell a lot about what is going on in China through his descriptions.
For example, in one description of a girlfriend in his dream she is wearing very cheap slippers and walking along a stone country path and in the winter the ground freezes her feet. And from that description you can tell how hard life is there. People have no money for proper shoes. His books really helped me with my own work which is how to represent other people’s lives through my own eyes not just my thinking. It is good to have other people who have seen what I saw and felt out in the countryside. These are people who are not often written about.
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Xinran is a Chinese writer, broadcaster and founder of The Mother’s Bridge of Love, an organisation reaching out to adopted Chinese children all over the world. She chooses five books on Chinese history and culture and says the birth of a donkey is more likely to be celebrated in rural China than that of a baby girl.
第四本书是一部短篇小说集《爆炸》，作者是极富争议的现代作家管谟业，笔名莫言。
是的，这里面有一篇短篇小说我特别喜欢：《给父亲的一封信》。莫言在这里描绘了1960至80年代的中国乡村生活。我很欣赏他的作品；他很少使用形容词和副词，却把动词用得惟妙惟肖，他描绘出了难以置信的画卷。阅读这些小说就好比看电影。他的著作于我而言是一部理解乡村与城市生活差异的辞典。有的时候你会感觉这种差异有500年之久，其中的问题就在于年轻人进城之后改变了太多，当他们回到乡村时已经无法和老一辈的那些没有受过教育，没有出过村子的农民们沟通。莫言自己的父母就是这样，他们会教导自己的孩子说：“坐飞机的时候千万别开窗”，虽然他们自己从来没坐过飞机。
有好比在另外一篇小说中他写到有一次他回到自己村里，邻居家的女婿正要生孩子，但是因为生的时女孩，在中国社会并不被接受。她的家人甚至对家里的一头驴子生的孩子更加重视。接生婆去帮驴子接生而不理会这个女婿。我走遍了中国为我的书做研究，可以说中国的女性很多时候就是这样的遭遇。莫言从来没有谈论政治，但是你可以从他的描写中看出中国的乡村到底在发生什么。
又譬如，在一个作者对梦中情人的描述中，女孩子穿着廉价的凉鞋，在冬季走过乡间的青石路，双脚被冰冷的地面冻僵。从这个描写中你可以看出生活的艰辛，人们连买一双鞋子的钱都没有。莫言的作品对我自己的写作也有很大的帮助，他的书告诉我要用自己的眼睛而非想象去见证他人的生活。我很乐意看到其他人也能看到我所感受到的中国乡村，这些都是书中经常描写的对象。
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Xinran is a Chinese writer, broadcaster and founder of The Mother’s Bridge of Love, an organisation reaching out to adopted Chinese children all over the world. She chooses five books on Chinese history and culture and says the birth of a donkey is more likely to be celebrated in rural China than that of a baby girl.
