Literary Master 1983

Chapter 298 Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the Chinese World

It was Yu Qie's turn to give the statement.

The venue where everyone was located was an ordinary club activity room at Boston University. It wasn't particularly grand, but often some big things happen in such small places.

Moved by this, Yu Qie remarked, "Everyone talks about the history of royalty and nobility; I'll tell you about the history of ordinary people. There's one of the earliest family letters in Chinese history, written by two common soldiers."

Yu Qie spoke and wrote on a piece of paper, showing it to the camera.

He circled a few words: "two thousand years", "soldier", and "family letter".

Upon hearing this, Yu Guangzhong and the others felt a pang in their hearts.

Yu Qie actually knew about this!
They are a group of writers who grew up in Taiwan, and their views on the keywords "Yu Qie" are very different.

While open communication is inevitable, why did the journey to thaw the ice first happen to veterans?

Why were veterans allowed to visit their families first?

Because this group of people are disillusioned individuals who have lost their identities, they are the group with the strongest desire to return to their hometowns on the island, and they have actually put up a fight.

Yu Guangzhong and others spent almost all of their childhood on the mainland before moving to Taiwan with their fathers after 49. Yu's words are actually a veiled reference to the trauma experienced by their parents' generation. This is a very special group of people who, after migrating to Taiwan, have the strongest longing for the mainland.

Historically, in order to maintain the fighting spirit of its soldiers, the Chiang family forbade them from intermarrying or integrating into the island's society, creating a "military utopia" unique to these million people. Later, realizing that a counterattack was hopeless, they abandoned them, leaving them to fend for themselves. As a result, various acts of resistance by veterans have consistently occurred on the island, forming part of the local collective memory.

Yu Guangzhong and Li Ao both wrote articles on the grievances of veterans. Li Ao was imprisoned for his work, while Yu Guangzhong's poem "Nostalgia" directly brought tears to the eyes of countless veterans after reading it.

An old soldier, nearly seventy years old, was returning to the mainland to visit his relatives. He carried a copy of "Nostalgia" in his arms and recited it to himself over and over again. However, when he returned home, he discovered that his parents had already died from excessive longing, his daughter had drowned, and his wife had died of depression. His entire family had long since died. After learning the truth, the man cried bitterly and soon died of depression himself.

Such tragedies are not isolated incidents.
How could Yu Qie understand this and even offer a message?

Yu Guangzhong and others were deeply moved.

All that could be heard was Yu Qie's calm and steady voice.

"Ten years ago, two family letters from the late Warring States period were unearthed in the mainland. The writers were two soldiers from the Qin state."

Yu Qie said, "One was named Hei Fu, and the other Jing. They wrote to ask for money and clothes. They said that this matter was a matter of life and death and repeatedly emphasized that it should not be sent to the wrong place. In the letter, they also expressed their grief, hoping that their mother would not worry and that their family would take care of them."

"Our impression of the Qin army is that they are invincible and unstoppable, like cold-blooded machines. But in reality, they are still ordinary people with their own parents, wives, and children. These two letters are buried in the tomb of the eldest brother, Zhong. We can infer that Hei Fu and Jing eventually died in the war. We can imagine that Zhong, their mother, and other family members will look back at these two letters again and again over the years, touching them and expressing their grief."

"What happened to the fame and fortune they gained? We know that the Qin Dynasty only lasted two generations, so the families of these two brothers probably didn't enjoy a few years of good fortune. The emperor probably didn't remember them either. All that was left were these two pitiful letters."

"Two thousand years have passed, but the tragedy continues to occur. Some people have lost their parents, are separated from their families, cannot fulfill their filial duties, and cannot recognize their ancestors... I have met some writers who think they have great love. They say, 'We don't want the rise of a great power, we only want the dignity of ordinary people,' yet they turn a blind eye to this tragedy that is right before their eyes!"

Yu Qie paused for a moment, then said, “Fortunately, we have many heroes and heroines here! We will strive to help these people achieve their happiness! We will do our part and add a little glory to their lives… If anyone dares to obstruct us, we must make them suffer the consequences.”

"Good!" Someone shouted, and soon everyone spontaneously cheered.

A mixed-race Chinese reporter from the World Journal excitedly said, "I also have an ancestor. My grandfather was German, and he was said to be a Junker nobleman! We have a history of four or five hundred years!"

“The surname Yu comes from the Ji clan or the Si clan!” Yu Qie laughed and held up three fingers: “My ancestors are at least three thousand years old.”

"Where is Mr. Qian?" the reporter asked.

Qian Zhongshu himself said: "I can trace my lineage back to Peng Zu, the seventh-generation descendant of the Yellow Emperor. That person was named Jian Keng, and he lived for 880 years! He lived as long as the Holy Roman Empire! The entire First German Empire is not as old as my ancestor. How can you compare to me! I am a superior race living under the sun!"

“And me!” Li Ao said, “I won’t talk about my history, I’ll just talk about the number of people in my family. There are at least 100 million people with the surname Li in the world. Even if you two Germans are combined, you don’t have as many people as my family! This shows that we once had a super figure among our ancestors, which is why a super family has emerged.”

The Chinese reporter immediately said, "You are all children of nobles, and so am I. I should take my mother's surname, and this has been the case for thousands of years—I have found my home."

"I want to go home, but I don't even know where my home is. I will recognize the Yellow River and the Yangtze River as my mother rivers, and the central region of China as my future burial place! I will erect a plaque so that God and Confucius may bless me."

The Chinese reporter's words were a mix of Chinese and foreign perspectives, and quite humorous, but in this situation, everyone quickly shed tears, even someone like Li Ao.

Qian Zhongshu never cried in his life and even hated crying, but he couldn't hold back his tears as they streamed down his cheeks... The same was true for the others.

This scene was recorded and transmitted via satellite to the island, where it was viewed by several key figures. The following morning, numerous newspapers on the island published articles about the "writers' exchange event" that took place at Boston University.

"Extra number! Extra number!"

"Cross-Strait Writers' Exchange Agreement Reached—Let's Prevent Families from Being Separated! Parents Must Not Be Seen!"

"Yu Zecheng's father addressed the compatriots of Taiwan!"

The newsboy was extremely excited, and every sentence he uttered was about exchanging information.

People on the early shift bought newspapers to read.

At that time, Taiwan had just completed eight major construction projects, and its transportation network was well-developed, traversing the entire island. With the help of advanced print media, the people on the island were able to quickly learn about major events happening on the other side of the ocean.

Most of the photos are of the two sides "victoriously meeting" or of everyone excitedly embracing each other.

The United Daily News wrote: "Some people believe that the earliest cultural exchange occurred in the writing exchange in 81. Nie Hualing said that she was the first to organize this event, but the communication results were very poor. The writers representing both sides of the strait were not recognized. As for Yu Guangzhong and Yu Qie, they undoubtedly met the major requirements of profession, age, intellectuals and officialdom."

“This is the real ‘first contact,’ this is a great contact.” The China Times described the journey as a “melting ice journey”: “More than 20,000 kilometers, crossing half the globe, three debates, a laugh, an excellence… I heard the sound of glaciers breaking apart.”

However, concerns were also expressed: "The visible volume on the glacier only accounts for 15 percent of the glacier's total volume, and we do not yet know how far it will develop."

The Sing Tao Daily, a newspaper that has always been a mouthpiece for the Chinese people, couldn't help but criticize Nie Hualing: "Both writers ultimately chose to focus on the well-known, homesick veterans on the island—the group most likely to make a breakthrough! They are disillusioned people, Chinese refugees! Nie Hualing's father was a veteran who couldn't go home, but she never felt sad about it!"

"Could it be that after she married Paul, she changed her name to Angell (Paul's surname) Hualing? She didn't really care how the Chinese were doing."

"She forgot she had a Chinese surname, Nie! She covered her ears, unable to hear a single word!"

Nie Hualing was criticized again, but of course, she didn't care about having too many lice. In her later years, Nie Hualing even considered her "three defections" as the proudest achievement of her life, calling it her three lives and three different existences.

Later that evening, news media on the island suddenly aired a program called "Finding Relatives," which featured people who, due to excessive longing, tried to travel to the mainland to visit their relatives.

One veteran, in order to return to his hometown and see his mother one last time, first traveled to Hong Kong to obtain a visa, and then flew to the mainland. He finally met his mother, who was over 70 years old... The two embraced and wept bitterly.

A captain, in order to go home and visit his parents, suddenly changed his flight route from Bangkok to Hong Kong and landed at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport.

In 65, a military officer asked a friend overseas to send a letter to his hometown. His mother received the letter and wrote back to him. However, the letter was intercepted by the authorities on the island. When he opened the letter again many years later, he discovered that it was his mother's last letter to him, in which she hoped that he could return home to visit her.

Now, twenty years have passed, and his mother has long since turned to bones.

……

The list of tragic events is endless; one terrible thing after another has happened.

Previously, these matters were kept strictly confidential and therefore not easily known. The broadcast of this program immediately stirred up a hornet's nest, and a huge wave of thought about returning to the mainland to visit relatives was brewing on the island. The works of the writers who participated in the talks were all brought up for review, and people selected the most memorable quotes from the novels, wrote them on banners, and promoted them to everyone.

Yu Qie's book "The Way Out" was widely quoted, and the ending, "Brother, you have finally returned," brought many people to tears. They dug out the documents they had taken with them when they left decades ago, which promised that one day they could use them to return to the mainland and confirm their identity. They began a large-scale propaganda campaign.

"We want to go home! We are Chinese!"

Yu Guangzhong's poem "Nostalgia" was also quoted, and veterans and their sympathizers shouted in the streets: "I am on this side, and the mainland is on the other side!"

In terms of technique alone, Yu Guangzhong's "Nostalgia" is not of high quality; the metaphors are not clever, and it has almost no aesthetic appeal. Many writers, both in Taiwan and mainland China, have questioned the value of this poem.

However, the value of literature is often not only judged by its technical aspects, but also by its impact.

"Nostalgia" was written during the most harsh era, when writing such a poem risked execution. Upon its creation, it immediately became a source of solace for countless people, its verses easily recited. The more times change, the more its significance becomes.

"I want to go back to the mainland to visit my relatives!"

"I am Chinese!"

The veterans' slogans are becoming increasingly straightforward.

To this end, they printed leaflets, gave speeches, and organized activities. Historically, this struggle and the cultural exchanges it sparked promoted each other and eventually opened the door to family visits, which was later fully opened in 87.

Now, the timeline has been moved forward by more than a year. Just three days later, a shocking piece of news arrived: the authorities are considering opening up family visits to the mainland and have prepared 100,000 application forms in advance.

Is 100,000 copies enough?

Two weeks later, all 100,000 application forms were snapped up. To secure a spot, many people resorted to bribery, and some even fought on the spot. The Kuomintang brought more than 600,000 soldiers from the mainland, and forty years later, the veterans still submitted their applications without hesitation, demonstrating their deep longing for home.

The news reported by the United Times is becoming increasingly positive:
“We will receive letters from our relatives and friends across the border, but the letters will have to go through Hong Kong and take more than a month to arrive.”

"Flowers, envelopes, photographic paper... are now in short supply."

“Mainlanders can also come to Taiwan through Hong Kong, but they need to prove their family status.”

"We saw many people on the street holding banners expressing their longing for home. They said they had been silent for forty years, knowing nothing of whether their parents or siblings were alive or dead. If they were dead, they asked that they be allowed to return home to offer incense; if they were alive, they asked that they be allowed to return home to offer a cup of tea, weep bitterly, and say, 'I'm sorry! We're too late!'"

"—How can 100,000 application forms be enough? How can one or two trips be sufficient? What we need is a true sense of belonging, a return to one's roots."

……

Until the very last point. "The draft has been released, and in principle, there will no longer be restrictions on travel for the purpose of visiting relatives."

A new era has begun.

The news was met with jubilation across the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong. It broke the previous isolation, and once the door was opened, everything else naturally followed.

As pioneers in "breaking the ice," the cross-strait writers' group was naturally reported by numerous Chinese media outlets. Several major events spurred this thawing, much like someone climbing five stories, each step of which unfolded in a clear and logical manner.

Many Kuomintang elders had repeatedly expressed their desire to return home, business people tried to persuade them and provide funding, and there were frequent exchanges between academics, with both sides expressing their willingness to exchange ideas... until the writers' delegation's direct visit, which marked the beginning of cultural understanding.

Everything the writers asked, said, or even chatted about in private... was taken as a source of online buzz, and people talked about it with great interest, generating many anecdotes in a short period of time.

Each of these debates has generated a huge ripple effect in the Chinese-speaking world. Cha Liangyong expressed his regret at not being able to participate, while Wen Ruian, far away in Hong Kong, laughed and said: "I don't need to go back to Taiwan, nor do I need to go back to Malaysia. I want to settle in Guangzhou; this is my home. I have returned to China!"
Writers became national heroes; the younger ones received numerous love letters, while the older ones were hailed as masters of various titles. Their academic achievements were elevated, their literary significance was engraved… Some people only realized later that this was the most splendid day of their lives.

(End of this chapter)