Jiaxing fortune-telling in Hexi District _ Jiaxing fortune-telling place

Looking at the Old Wuzhen in Jiaxing from Mu Xin's Works

Pick? Mu Xin, a famous artist, was born in Tongxiang, Jiaxing. He spent his childhood in Wuzhen and returned to his hometown in his later years. Mr Mu Xin can't get rid of the shadow of Wuzhen all his life. While studying in Shanghai and living in New York, he wrote many works, such as Preface to the Diary of Windsor Cemetery and Shroud. , all written in his hometown of Wuzhen. The description of the scenery and local folk customs of the water town reproduces the old customs. /kloc-in the winter of 0/994, I revisited my hometown and wrote about Wuzhen, looking at the changes of water towns for half a century from the perspective of wanderers. My feelings are sincere and touching. This paper will combine Mr. Mu Xin's specific works to analyze the cultural landscape of Wuzhen reflected in it and understand the author's mood.

Keywords: wooden heart? Wuzhen? Human feelings? contrast

I. Mr. Mu Xin and Wuzhen —— A brief introduction to the origin of Mu Xin and Wuzhen.

Mu Xin, whose real name is Sun Pu, is also known as Yangzhong, whose name is Yushan and whose pen name is Mu Xin. Mu Xin was born in a well-off family in Dongzha, Wuzhen, Jiaxing, and spent his childhood here. In the 1940s, when Japan invaded, Sun's family moved to Pudong, Shanghai to study in Shanghai. From 1950s to 1970s, I worked in Shanghai Institute of Arts and Crafts, engaged in arts and crafts design. 1982, 55-year-old Mu Xin crossed the ocean to settle in new york. During the period of The New Yorker, he insisted on artistic creation, and at the same time resumed his literary career in his youth, and successively published novels, essays and poetry collections such as Essays and Three Trees in Spain. From 1989 to 1994, Mu Xin gave a history of world literature to literary lovers living in new york for five years. Memoirs of Literature published by Guangxi Normal University Press on 20 13 was compiled according to Mr. Chen Danqing's lecture notes. 1994, after 50 years, Mu Xin returned to his hometown of Wuzhen, wrote an article on Wuzhen, and left his hometown again, disappointed and sad. In 2006, 79-year-old Mu Xin returned to Wuzhen and settled in Yixian, Zhu Xiao, where he spent the last five years of his life.

I think Wuzhen is the residence of Mu Xin in his childhood and later years, and he walked alone in new york and Shanghai and experienced the Cultural Revolution during the Anti-Japanese War. His inner corner is quiet and powerful. Mu Xin is a child of Wuzhen Water Town. He was born here and grew up here. He is also a ferryman. Through his works, he evokes the memory of the ancestors of the old water town, allowing our children to see the face of Jiahe, crossing the past to the present, and letting the present see the past.

Second, the reflection of Wuzhen —— Looking at the features of Wuzhen in the past from the preface of Shroud, Childhood Gone with the Times and Diary of Windsor Cemetery.

"Mu Xin has been practicing Flaubert's creed all his life:' present art, retire artist.' But when he writes about his hometown and childhood, he often goes to the front desk involuntarily to reveal his true colors. My hometown is Mu Xin's endless mineral resources for literary and artistic creation. Many of Mr Mu Xin's works were created in his hometown of Wuzhen. Taking Shroud, Childhood Gone with the Times and Diary of Windsor Cemetery as examples, I analyze Jiaxing in his works from three aspects: local folk customs, the style of Jiangnan water town and typical figures in a specific era.

1, local folk customs. Folk custom is a rich description in Mu Xin's homesickness works. In the preface of Diary of Windsor Cemetery, the whole town is waiting for the motorcade to open the dock, so it is a coquettish "social drama". Every spring, we buy and sell silkworm eggs to raise the huge market caused by mulberry. In the shroud, Chen Ma often complained to me about "foot-binding". When my grandmother was alive, she began to prepare coffins, robes and other "longevity materials". "Childhood Gone with the Times" recalls that when I was a child, I went up the mountain with my family's harem to "do Buddhism." ...

What impressed me most was the author's description of the old local social drama and shroud. "Up to now, I still remember the experience of watching a play as a child. At the end of each performance, the plainclothes at the counter grabbed the colorful high-backed chair, which was originally a prop, and slammed it in the middle of the platform. The other hand threw a long' re, leaning on the chair-'Please be early tomorrow'. To put it bluntly, social drama is "a big event in the eyes of lonely ancient town people". After dinner, nothing happens, and watching the drama becomes a great pleasure. Speaking of appealing to both refined and popular tastes, social drama is the common emotional connection of ancient town people. "Go to the theatre?" "Hey, watch the play!" Homesickness is also integrated into it. Mr. Yu, social drama is a tortuous costume and plot carefully produced on the stage, and it is also the "truth" that he will never see again in his hometown. "Even if the prince is always fake, even if the civet cat is always fake, there is always something real in it-my childhood, a more or less residual" civil society "..." He will always miss it. In addition, "my persistent childhood drama experience would rather be anxiety after the performance." Since joining the city, all kinds of national dramas have been overwhelming, and the drama ended in a melodious farewell song and slowly entered the crowded streets. My heart is still the gloomy feeling at the beginning of my childhood-'it is better to live in a drama'. I dare not read too much about this. I just think that in the old society, the custom of social drama really influenced a generation. The opening ceremony is over, and the mediocre people are mixed with sadness and joy in the play, and the stupid people are silly. Everyone has a "social drama" in his heart.

Speaking of "shroud", my mother told me to buy a decent coffin shroud when Chen Ma died. First of all, the author recalls that when my grandmother was alive, "every year during the Huangmei season, she went out of the room and hung the shroud on the patio by herself, and no layman was allowed to touch it, for fear that she would not be able to go to heaven." It also says that young people of the same age look at the shroud like "looking at the satin robe embroidered with gold in Beijing opera, which is dazzling and interesting." Mu Xin's attitude towards the "shroud" is very clear. Especially when Chen Ma saw the shroud that the girl picked up, she smiled and lamented that she had such a worn shroud. "I am very disgusted-why did you do it?" In Mu Xin's view, the luxury of "life", "marriage" and "death" is not joy and comfort, but an illusory exposition. The critical attitude can be seen.

2, Jiangnan water town customs. In the preface of Diary of Windsor Cemetery, it is written that when the stage near the river rises, "the boats are moored with tents, and when you watch it, you swim away." I'm afraid Wuzhen is the only place to see a play. After the play, I wrote, "The light beam of the flashlight shines back and forth on the top of the tall chimney of the tofu mill." "Stone bridge", "crescent moon", "sloping eaves" and "open window facing the street" are all imaginable. Just after the play, Wu Yu laughed and laughed, the moon hung on its own, the river flowed on its own, and it was cool and lively.

In the article "The Shroud", it is written about hearing the cries of vendors. When Chen Ma, the servant girl at home, was slightly tipsy, she "learned to sell by the roadside of vendors, which was particularly vivid, childlike and pale, with a good accent and charm." The author immediately recalled that summer evening, "'Ginger, eggplant sauce, alas, radish ...'" The young vendor selling pickles leaned against one shoulder and carried a rattan rectangular basket containing all kinds of sour, sweet, salty and spicy pickles. "Late at night in winter, the old man selling zongzi shouted in the snow. The local accent is the most unforgettable. In addition to Wu dialect, I think the shouts at the entrance of the old city also carry a lot of personnel memories, and then I feel uncomfortable after reading them. In Shroud, Mu Xin also described the scene of the old market. " In the morning, this is a farmer's market. Teahouses, snack shops, fish shops and meat shops are crowded with people everywhere, and the noisy audio-visual images are strange things, which gradually fade away in the afternoon. Until dusk, it was another kind of excitement, oil mills, smelters ... "Now there is still a morning market landscape on the water market in Wuzhen Zhaxi Scenic Area. A boatman shouted at the bow that Wu Peng would drink six boats, and an old woman laid fruit and vegetable pavements in Linjiang. A few decades ago, it might have been a lively scene here, as if I had seen past lives here, and the reality shone into my memory.

3. Typical figures under the background of a specific era. Some characters in The Shroud, Childhood Gone with the Times, and Diary of Windsor Cemetery are old disciples, maids and footmen in Jiangnan ancient town, and they are bandits and traitors during the war ... They are not "faults", they are the epitome of the ancient town people at that time, and we can find some common temperament of the old Jiahe people in them, which is why we analyze this point.

Among many figures, "Chen Ma" in The Shroud is the most typical and profound. Chen Ma is a full-time chef in our family. She was recommended by the owner of the recommendation shop. "Black shoes, white socks, black pants and light blue coat" was left by her mother because she was dressed neatly. What I'm talking about here is the "going out of town" dress of rural women in the old society, "black pants and white cloth on the moon". She claimed to be an orphan when she came. Later, someone came to the door, only to know that Chen Ma defected here to escape the abuse of her third lame husband. The blind man who told the fortune in the article sang, "I lost my father in my early years, and I had no brother and only daughter. I was married three times and killed two husbands." One husband is still alive, like a wolf like a tiger, and two lives are fierce, so we have to live together. Life without children is hard all my life. Innocent, loyal ... "This is Chen Ma's Life and Death Book, and it may also be a portrayal of the lives of many maids at that time. Women's status is subordinate, and they are forced to bear the fate of men. At that time, women's consciousness and introspection were hard to see under the so-called fate.

But even so, the "loyalty" and "kindness" of women in ancient towns are well reflected in Chen Ma. During the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period, our family moved to Shanghai and asked my uncle to take charge of housekeeping in Wuzhen. I didn't expect my uncle's family to eat and drink day and night and forge unknown accounts. After being framed, Chen Ma, who stayed at home, warned her uncle that "there are gods three feet above her head", and she was forced to temporarily flee to a small town across provinces instead of staying in the corner of the ancestral temple for the night. She was weak, and faced with her lame husband who came to collect debts, she had to "tremble with panic and go to the outer hall to suffer." When we left home, we cried so hard that we couldn't stand up straight, but we were also very car-scrapping. When the lame instigated Chen Ma to steal, Chen Ma "grabbed her son's bun and hit her head against the wall again and again". She didn't want to give in to the chaos in her uncle's house. She was feudal and conservative, and her spine was softened by three husbands, but she also had a principle of conscience that could not be violated, and she was loyal and kind.

Thirdly, regression-a comparison between hometown customs and the author's feelings from Wuzhen.

1994, Mr. Mu Xin returned to his hometown and wrote Wuzhen. Fifty years have passed since Mu Xin's childhood, and now more than twenty years have passed. What changes have taken place in Wuzhen as the common memory of a generation of water people? Mu Xin's "looking back" and "looking at the bottom of my heart" in Wuzhen may give us a glimpse.

"The small canal downstairs, the stone shore, every bridge mouth is set up, and the lights of the people on the shore are reflected in the dark river." This is my first night back to my hometown, and the author caught my hometown through the curtains. Fifty years later, the stone bridge is still there and the river is still flowing. The landscape of this corner of the water town has not changed now. "The association of poets, the door guests become a gang." Walking in Dongzha in the morning, Mr. Mu Xin revealed his admiration for Wuzhen's customs and humanities. "Go forward again, Xiao Tong, Prince of Liang Chao Zhao Ming, is studying here, and he is considering selecting articles. The second half of the Book of the Later Han Dynasty was first discovered in Wuzhen. The ginkgo trees in the Tang Dynasty have been shaded by thick shade and lush ... " And one side of the soil and water raises one side. "In Wuzhen, Yan became an official, returned as an official, and became a businessman. There are also many ordinary people writing poems on white walls ... "So far, Mr. Mu Xin seems to be" close "to his hometown. But why, after this trip to Wuzhen, Mu Xin wrote "Goodbye, I won't come again" in the book. What did he see when he visited Sun's garden? After crossing Guanyin Bridge, the East Street, which was once crowded with pedestrians and goods, is now "quiet after snow". The adjacent house is two floors, with wooden doors and windows painted black. "At the end of the 20th century, Wuzhen Street View was rebuilt as a tourist attraction, and the light-like houses were rebuilt, which is not what it used to be. Mr. Mu Xin said, "I came to Wuzhen." Walking through the street and entering his former residence by memory, he still remembers that "these long windows with thin lattices should be brown, light-sensitive and brightly lit" and "the low wall covered with Ficus pumila and roses at the north end, the mutually built babao lattice windows and the open moon door are the haunted back garden for decades". Alas, he remembers, and then look. This should be a general portrayal of Wuzhen folk houses at the end of the 20th century.

The last scene in Wuzhen is the teahouse, which is also the characteristic of Jiangnan water town. Looking at the stone fence of the small bridge, "the inner hall of the teahouse is very dark, and there is a wide river opposite it, reflecting the pure white skylight", which is objective and natural, like a passing backpacker inadvertently noticed. Look at the people who drink tea inside. "They are all men over middle age. Their faces, clothes, shoes and hats are the same as wooden tables and stools." In Mr. Mu Xin's eyes, "they are lonely mourners in the last days. They work before sunrise and can't rest." At this point, he only felt silent sadness. "People who used to go to teahouses really have something to say, but now people sitting in teahouses really have nothing to say."

Fortunately, this is not the last chapter of Mu Xin and Wuzhen. From 65438 to 0999, the protection and tourism development of Wuzhen began. The chief designer Chen Xianghong saw Wuzhen, which Mu Xin said in his works, "I will never come again". He contacted Mr. Mu Xin many times, hoping to call back with sincerity and practical actions. In 2006, 79-year-old Mu Xin returned to Wuzhen. "Today's Wuzhen is not Wuzhen in the past. A new generation of people gave me enough space to create art, so I came back. " Spend one's old age in Sun Jia Garden.