Characters Mo Yan: Literature and charity both come from compassion

Beijing, 4 Apr (ZXS) -- Mo Yan: Both literature and charity stem from compassion

"China Philanthropist" reporter Gong Yijie

On March 2022, 3, Mo Yan updated an article on his public account of the same name, titled "The most memorable thing I did this year". "Hello friends, I'm Mo Yan. During the Spring Festival this year, I feel that I have done something more valuable and meaningful, and of course it also proves that I have some abilities in some aspects. ”

What Mo Yan mentioned was a cooperation he reached with the China Charity Federation. Around the Spring Festival, he made 105 blessing characters with a brush, and raised 524.2 million yuan (RMB, the same below) in the form of personal and corporate collectors' contributions and public auctions. All of this money was invested in the "Moyan One Heart" project, which targeted funding for children suffering from congenital heart disease in the western region. Using calligraphy ink treasure as a bridge, Mo Yan led his daily life to public charity.

"Wow, Teacher Mo quietly did a good thing." Some people left a message in the comment area of the public account article. In fact, Mo Yan has been caring for children in distress in the western region for several years.

Mo. Photo by MORE x JOLI studio

"Good is not what people say"

As the first Chinese writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Mo Yan has been living in the spotlight for a decade. For the attention of public opinion, his attitude is somewhat "respectful and far away"; For some titles given by the outside world, his response has a sense of "light and light".

As for charity, Mo Yan basically kept silent about it before, and always believed in the admonition of his ancestors, and "should not talk to others" to do good deeds and accumulate virtue.

In 2001, Mo Yan won the second Feng Mu Literature Award. "Mr. Feng Mu has cultivated me," he said. Mo Yan was born in the army, and Feng Mu, who was once the deputy head of the Kunming Military Region's Ministry of Culture, was his old chief. Mo Yan's famous novella "Transparent Carrot" was published in 1985 in the newly founded magazine "China Writer", and its editor-in-chief was Feng Mu.

That time the prize was 20,000 yuan. "At that time, 20,000 yuan was still a lot of money, and our salary at that time was only a few hundred yuan." Mo Yan said, "But I think this money should not be put in my own pocket, it should be taken out." ”

He eventually donated all 5000,<> yuan to the "Procuratorial Daily" where he worked after he was discharged from the army. At that time, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the organ of the newspaper, helped set up a hope primary school in Xizhuo County, Yunnan Province. Mo Yan's money was all used for the construction of this primary school. During his time at the newspaper, Mo Yan also received a special allowance from the State Council, a one-time distribution of <>,<> yuan, which was also donated to the primary school.

In 2014, Mo Yan donated <> million yuan to the Red Cross Society of China to help children suffering from congenital heart disease in the western region. At that time, Mo Yan had just won the Nobel Prize in Literature two years earlier, and everything about him became a topic of conversation for a while. However, Mo Yan's donation was very low-key and did not even become news.

The reason for this donation was that he had visited Hu Dayi, chief physician of Peking University People's Hospital and director of the Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, due to heart discomfort. During the visit, he learned that this famous doctor had a special program in the Red Cross Society of China to help children with congenital heart disease in western China. "Dr. Hu's words left an impression on my heart." Mo Yan said.

This project became an opportunity for Mo Yan to get involved in public welfare. In 2015, Mo Yan donated another 125.62 million yuan to the project, which eventually helped <> children with congenital heart disease in Tibet. Mo Yan specifically put forward requirements to the Red Cross: first, no publicity and no reporting; Second, he himself does not attend any events or visit the children who underwent surgery in the hospital. The whole donation process ended silently.

"Because at that time I firmly believed in the idea that goodness and knowledge are not true goodness. There was also an old saying in the past, which probably means that if a person does something good and doesn't like to let others know, that's not interesting," Mo Yan said.

However, a few years later, Mo Yan had a deeper thought about "whether good should be known".

Charity becomes a public act

On the eve of the Spring Festival in 2022, Mo Yan and his friend Wang Zhen, president of the Beijing Shutong Culture and Art Research Association, got together to write some blessing characters and birthday characters, ready to give to relatives, friends and the elderly.

Between the pen, an idea suddenly burst into my mind: can I write a batch of blessing characters, donate them to charities, and raise a donation by auction to continue to help children with congenital heart disease in the western region.

"Wang Zhen and I hit it off, and then the two of us began to write, and wrote at least one hundred and fifty or so blessing characters, and selected a hundred of them that were more satisfactory." Mo Yan said.

Calligraphy is Mo Yan's "ancient hobby" that has lasted for decades. Since he was a child, he has listened to his parents' admonition that "words are people's clothes", and Mo Yan has always remembered it in his heart, especially likes to ponder words and practice writing.

For Mo Yan, the thinking of text and ink is the same. Feng Jicai once described in the preface to the calligraphy collection "Mo Yan Moyu": "Calligraphy for him (Mo Yan) is not only his personal artistic method, but also an alternative literature outside his novels." ”

Mo Yan believes that it is difficult for a writer to create a completely different writing style, narrative language or protagonist image than his previous works, and "of course he will not be satisfied." And this kind of thinking is almost the same frequency in calligraphy. In order to get rid of the habitual pen writing path, Mo Yan began to practice brush writing with his left hand to "try to gain a sense of strangeness". "The left hand has never written, and every stroke is clumsy. At first, I couldn't master it at all, but after persevering, I went from raw to cooked, from unfortunate to slowly gaining strength. Mo Yan said.

Extending the idea of charity from the pen and ink, everything is natural and natural.

After a flash of inspiration at the end of the lunar month, Mo Yan and Wang Zhen immediately contacted the China Charity Federation, and 100 blessing characters became the beginning of the "Mo Yan One Heart" project. As a caring enterprise, Yunnan Baiyao invested 500 million yuan to purchase the entity and copyright of Fuzi, and promised to donate the proceeds of the use right of "Baifu" at an annual price of 5 million yuan in the next five years. All of the 300 million donations will be donated to the "Mo Yan One Heart" public welfare project under the China Charity Federation.

At present, the first batch of 500 million yuan has sponsored nearly 200 children with congenital heart disease. This made Mo Yan have a new thinking about charity - although the personality is more inclined to "good and unknown", but can do more with his appeal and influence, why not do it?

On February 2022, 2, Mo Yan (middle) raised funds.

On the Lantern Festival in 2022, Mo Yan and Wang Zhen went to the Sixth Medical Center of the PLA General Hospital together. There, a group of children with congenital heart disease from Tibet and Gansu are undergoing surgery.

"I remember a very young child, maybe a little over a year old, whose mother took her with her. When I went in, I saw her sitting on the bed and reached out and grabbed her little feet. When your hand holds the delicate foot of a child, a human instinctive love is indeed born. ”

Speaking of this moment, Mo Yan, who has always been calm and calm, showed true feelings on his face, "To get such a feeling is a great happiness." Could it be that I helped this child? On the contrary, it was the child who helped me, comforted me, and reminded me of the continuation of human beings from generation to generation and the preciousness of life. Literature is about life, people, and emotions. ”

On the Lantern Festival in 2022, Mo Yan visited children with congenital heart disease in the ward of the Sixth Medical Center of the PLA General Hospital.

In the Spring Festival of 2023, Mo Yan continued to auction Fuzi and couplets at Beijing Rongbaozhai Auction House. Because it was an auction for charitable purposes, Rong Baozhai voluntarily waived the commission. The auction proceeds of 89,85 yuan were also directly remitted to the "Mo Yan Tongxin" project.

A decade of "post-Nobel Prize"

Although enthusiastic about public welfare, Mo Yan stressed that charity is an "inner need", and his life revolves around writing. "I've always been a writer, and everything I do is centered on writing." Mo Yan said.

The Nobel Prize in Literature is a monument and a height for a writer, but it is difficult to say that it can bring blessings to creation. "For a few years after winning the award, I really had to be busy socializing." Mo Yan admitted, "However, sometimes when I am in a meeting, I sit down and quietly turn on my mobile phone, so that I may learn the cursive or seal writing of a word on it." ”

In 2015, Mo Yan finally returned to the desk most of the time. "My main job is still writing. To complete a work, you will relatively close yourself off. He took some past novel material or rough and polished it, and in 2020 published a collection of novellas "Late Mature People", and later published several modern poems such as "The Bronze Statue of Neruda".

Mo. Photo by MORE x JOLI studio

Mo Yan, who entered the year of Huajia, has a strong willingness to explore life, and also wants to expand his interests and cultural tentacles. For example, he studied calligraphy, traveled to mountains and rivers, and paid attention to the forms of opera, opera, and drama.

Born in Gaomi County, Shandong, Wa Moyan is still obsessed with the stage drama she watched when she was a child. "At that time, there were no books to read, and the plays on the stage, the old operas performed by folk theater troupes, were our teaching materials, and watching plays was also our greatest cultural and artistic entertainment. So, I have a natural love for folk opera. The style of writing language of our generation, many elements of language also came from or were influenced by opera. ”

In 2017, Mo Yan published the opera literary script "Jinyi" in "People's Literature", and the following year, he published "Sorghum Wine" and the script "Sandalwood Punishment" adapted from the novel.

"I once 'swore an oath' to Yu Hua and Su Tong at Shakespeare's house in England." Mo Yan said, "I said in the past, I stood with you, everyone said writer Yu Hua, writer Su Tong, writer Mo Yan. In the next few years, I will stand with you two brats, that is, the playwright Mo Yan, not just a novelist, I am different from you. ”

"Of course, these two brats have been sneering and laughing at me." Mo Yan laughed when he said this, "So I wrote a play and a script, but also let them see it and 'teach' them!" ”

Some define Mo Yan as "a writer influenced by the magical realism genre", but Mo Yan believes that he should be classified as a realist writer. Based on real news events, Mo Yan took 35 days to complete the entire work, angrily pointing at bureaucrats in the power system who were extremely indifferent to the interests of peasants.

The three-year epidemic has also become a theme of thought in literary creation. Mo Yan said, "A global disaster and plague like this, I think any writer and artist is thinking. It can be written as absurd fiction, it can be written as surreal fiction, it can even be written as a journalistic novel. Every writer has a draft novel about the epidemic brewing in his heart, which is the question of how, when and in what form. ”

He revealed that he had been working on a war novel since more than three decades ago. "There's been a lot of wind outside," he laughs, "but it's never been finished, I've been preparing, and I've collected a thick pile of related books." ”

Mo Yan said that the biggest wish at present is to finish and write this novel well. "But when it's done, I really can't say well." Speaking of this, his face showed a little mischievousness, "I think it will always be done." (End)