Kill melons
His name is Chen Cao, an honest melon farmer. Growing and selling melons takes up most of his life, but his income throughout the year is only 18,000 yuan. The eldest daughter is married and does not need any more money from him. But his younger son is studying in college in the city, and his income is not enough to support his son's studies, so he has to borrow some money from relatives and neighbors from time to time.
The head of Chen Cao's village is Wang Daqiang. Wang Daqiang would come to Chen Cao from time to time to get some watermelons. Most of the time, he said it was to entertain the cadres inspected by his superiors. And every time Wang Daqiang would give Chen Cao a note, which now almost filled Chen Cao's black artificial leather handbag.
On this day, a man of the same age as Chen Cao got off the bus traveling between villages and towns and hurriedly came to his melon shed. This person talked little and was straightforward, and did not bargain. He found and killed the melons by himself, and finished the melons in less than five minutes.
Then he stood up and took out a few bills from his trouser pocket behind his buttocks. There were one hundred, fifty and ten yuan bills. He took out a ten yuan bill and handed it to Chen Cao. The melon originally cost seven or eight yuan, but Chen Cao was determined not to charge more. He chased it for more than ten meters and got three yuan back.
When he returned to the melon shed, Chen Cao, who felt a little tired, smoked a cigarette and took a rest. Then he got up and cleaned the table where the man was eating melon. He saw a hundred yuan on the ground - he was sure that the man just now was not Be careful of what he dropped, so he quickly took the money and chased him out in the direction where the person just walked.
Chen Cao seemed to be able to see a small black dot moving in the distance. Maybe it was because it was too far away. No matter how much Chen Cao shouted, he still couldn't see the person stop. After chasing for about five or six hundred meters, as the terrain undulated, the small black spot was no longer visible, so Chen Cao could only give up and come back.
was about to walk to the melon shed when Chen Cao saw an off-road vehicle twisting like a snake and crashing into the melon shed he built with a clang. The people who got out of the car were very polite and said that the leader was practicing driving and that as long as Chen Cao kept quiet, he would lose money. Chen Cao estimated the loss and asked for 600 yuan in compensation. Upon hearing this, the other party directly gave him 1,000 yuan and left quickly, as if he was afraid that Chen Cao would say anything else.
Chen Cao did a lot of tidying up and restored the melon shed to its original state in less than two hours. Looking at the watermelons rolling around, most of them were not damaged. Chen Cao felt a little uneasy holding the 1,000 yuan in his hand. . After a while, Chen Cao realized that if it wasn't for the repayment of the 100 yuan, then it might not have been Xigua but himself who had been disemboweled. No wonder the other party was so generous.
And isn’t the person who lost 100 yuan equivalent to his savior?
On the afternoon of this day, several more police officers came to Chen Cao's melon shed. They took a photo and asked Chen Cao if they had seen it, and that person was the person who lost money here in the morning. Chen Cao pointed the direction of the man's departure to the police, and the police said that if they caught the man, they would reward Chen Cao. Chen Cao asked the man what was wrong, but the police did not answer and asked him to read the newspaper.
Later, Chen Cao saw a report about this person in the newspaper:
This person's name is Liu Hongguo, a villager from a certain village in a certain township in a certain county. Because he did not vote for the village chief when voting for the village chief, he also said that the village chief Not qualified to be a village chief. This word was spread to the village chief's ears, and he took revenge on Liu Hongguo.
No matter what happens, Liu Hongguo is stuck in the village. For example, when it's time to water the crops, his family is always the last to do it. During the electricity shortage season, he restricted electricity use and always turned on his home's power switch first. He has never had a share in government subsidies or consolation payments. Not to mention, the village chief's teenage son is always bullying his teenage daughter. He always stops her on the way to and from school, asks for money and things from her, and even touches her. His daughter was so angry that she came back and told him that she would not go to school. Liu Hongguo went to the village chief to argue. The village chief not only ignored his son, but also said that his daughter was not serious. Liu Hongguo went to the village and county to sue him. Instead of suing him, he asked the village chief to find a few people and almost beat him to death.
So on a dark and windy night, Liu Hongguo took a butcher's knife to the village chief's house and killed all eight members of the village chief's family.The youngest child is only three years old.
In fact, the village chief was a village bully. His death made many people very happy. They even signed a letter asking for Liu Hongguo to be punished leniently.
Liu Hongguo, who was arrested and brought to justice, has always been smiling without any regret or anxiety. When the prosecutor asked him why he did not let such a small child go, he smiled and said, if I let him go, he will still bully my children when he grows up.
Later, Chen Cao wanted to visit Liu Hongguo and pay him back 100 yuan, but he was not allowed.
Later, Liu Hongguo was sentenced to death.
Later, Chen Cao donated the 10,000 yuan bonus to the disaster area.
Later, on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month, Chen Cao burned the 100 yuan on the roadside of Guapeng.
Later, Wang Daqiang came to get melons with white slips again. Chen Cao stood up the melon knife, took out all the white slips and asked him to pay back the money, indicating that he would not pay on credit in the future.
"Killing a Melon" is neither a criticism nor a smear
The above is the main plot of the original Dong Libo's short story "Killing a Melon". There is also a movie version of "Killing Melon" directed by Gao Zehao, in which the positioning of the main characters is quite different from the original work.
In the original work, Wang Daqiang is the target of criticism and can be regarded as a projection or mirror image of the "village tyrant" killed by Liu Hongguo. However, in the movie, Wang Daqiang is more comprehensively portrayed as a grassroots cadre who struggles between leaders and villagers, dealing with situations up and down, and suffering all the grievances.
Chen Cao, who "awakened" in the original work, is as responsible as ever in the movie. Liu Hongguo in the
movie is portrayed as a "wise man": in the melon shed, he lectured Chen Caoda about the differences between artificially cultivated melons and wild melons, and even told a story similar to Wang Xiaobo's "A Maverick" "Pig" has almost the same story... Of course, from the perspective of movie review, this is acceptable. Therefore, Liu Hongguo did not kill anyone in the movie, but after severely injuring the village bully, the whole village jointly petitioned for him, and was eventually given a light sentence of two years, allowing the audience to see the justice and tenderness of the law more directly.
Some commentators connected "Killing Melon" with another film "The Witness" directed by Gao Zehao, believing that both "show profound humanistic care and thinking about life." But I saw more shadows of Kurosawa Akira "Rashomon" - the uncomplicated plot and the unsplendid statements are the desires, entanglements, cowardice, bravery and helplessness of human nature.
I hope that the readers here will stop mindlessly thinking of "smearing". The portraits of rural areas shown in "Killing Melon" are almost a common phenomenon in rural China during a period. The difference is only in degree, so there is no talk of smearing. ?
I don't even think "Killing Melon" is critical, he is just trying to present, he is just trying to give you an observation perspective, an opportunity to observe, he is just giving people a space to reflect.
Jia Pingwa once said affectionately in his postscript to "Qinqiang": "My writing is full of contradictions and pain. I don't know whether to praise reality or curse reality, whether to rejoice or mourn for the folks on Dihua Street. ..." In my opinion, Jia Pingwa finally chose to compromise. There is no clear emotion of praise or criticism in "Qin Opera", but only confusion and contradictory expressions.
But even so, Jia Pingwa still did not escape the fate of being criticized for allegedly "smearing" his hometown just because the so-called "bad habit" of "having lice on his face" was recorded in the article. And in my opinion, although this "criticism" only originated from a corner at the time, the pressure it brought to Jia Pingwa was far greater than the overwhelming crusade against and Mo Yan on the Internet today.
In fact, in my opinion, most of the criticisms about "smear" are just because they don't understand what "smear" is.When someone tells you a tragic history that you don’t know or have never experienced, is it just making things up out of thin air? When others create literary and artistic creations based on this "tragic history" and have a wide impact, is it "smearing"?
Dihua Street in Jia Pingwa's "Qin Opera" has become a tourist attraction, and all villagers and local governments have benefited; Gaomi Northeast Township written by Mo Yan is also famous for Mo Yan and has become a place for many people to "explore the secrets". So what are the disadvantages of this "smear"?
is just like the legal concept of " mental damage compensation ". It does not mean that if someone scolds you, you can file for "mental damage compensation". You need to prove that this person's "swearing" has actually caused "damage" to you before you can file a relevant claim for "compensation".
There are always people saying that so-and-so has "smeared" someone. Why do you think he has "smeared" him? What are the consequences of "smearing"? What is your evidence?
If the consequence of this "smear" is to get rid of poverty and become rich, do you think the people are willing to be "smeared"? Based on his simple "patriotic consciousness",
"dances with the wind" on the Internet, interpreting his "booing" as patriotism, which is the actual state of most people. Just like Cai Yang in 2012, he thought that smashing Japanese cars was patriotic, but he was used by hostile forces to harm others and himself.
"Killing Melon" is not a comedy
Lu Xun said, Tragedy destroys the valuable things in life for people to watch, while comedy tears up the worthless things for people to watch. The original work of "Killing Melon" should be a tragedy, right? But not the movie version. As for what is valuable and what is worthless, I won’t expand on it, just taste it yourself!
And if you like literature, you will also find that there are more tragedies in literary works than comedies; if you have a little understanding of authors of this generation such as Mo Yan and Jia Pingwa, you will find that there is far more pain than joy in their works.
Why? Is it a deliberate attempt to smear someone? In my opinion, of course not, it’s just because the life background of their generation is like this.
is like coffee. , Luyao, , etc. are just artificially added sugar, and the sweetness overwhelms the bitterness; while Mo Yan and others have no sugar added, and are mainly bitter. If you can't calm down and taste it slowly, you won't be able to drink it. A taste of life and humanity itself.
I always see people saying on the Internet that they never went hungry when they were children! I believe this is true. Nie Weiping said that when he was a child, he went to Mr. Chen’s house to play Go and got drunk after drinking soda... This shows that not everyone had the conditions to drink soda at that time, but some people could.
For example, there is an Internet celebrity named Yu whose father is a farm leader in Northeast China. How could he have eaten coal and suffered from hunger when he was a child? In the late 1970s, when a normal employee earned only a dozen yuan a month, the subsidy provided by the school when he was in school could reach 21 yuan a month, and he could work in the Ministry of Commerce after graduating from college. How could he not miss such an era? In his subconscious, everyone in that era was as happy as he was. Some people actually said that at that time, there was not enough food to eat, but they still ate coal, sold cabbage, and stole wheat? What is this if not "smearing"?
And similarly, how can someone who slanders like this be qualified to describe Japan positively? But he himself can wear a kimono, soak in hot springs, and hug everyone in Japan. Why? Because deep down he has the lingering arrogance of the "second generation official" from the previous era!
And why can such a person openly become the representative of the so-called ordinary people? Because most people are like Chen Cao in the movie version of "Killing Melon": kind-hearted but resigned. He may even feel that the village chief Wang Daqiang is having a hard time. He may even feel that Wang Daqiang is doing good for him, and the idling is also for his own good...
To be honest, I prefer Chen Cao in the original work.
If you like grassroots articles, please "follow, like, and forward"! Thanks! Maybe you can find more content you like on my homepage! (Special emphasis: I have recently found that other self-media has reprinted my article. Please be sure to indicate the original author, otherwise it will be regarded as infringement)
Recommend my other articles:
Lu Yao talks about struggle, Mo Yantan reflects on
Sima Nan’s deviation from criticism of Mo Yan The correct direction of literature
I think: Sima Nan misinterpreted Mo Yan’s understanding of literature
Qian Liqun talks about the depravity of Chinese people’s “human nature”
The revelation of Zhao Shuli’s death
Zhuangzi "Human World" and Liang Xiaosheng's "Human World"
I will also briefly say a few words about "Human World": People are in the world, just don't pretend
We must correctly understand Wen Tiejun's ridicule, "Human World" is not a "scar" Literature" works
