Contemporary prose｜Yi Ye Yuan
2024-08-10
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Text/Wang Mingfei
My acquaintance with Liu Yeyuan was due to literature. The 1980s was a period of great literary enthusiasm. At that time, there was a group of young literature lovers on our railway who often gathered and interacted, including Liu Yeyuan, Xie Mingzhou, Liu Yanlin, Yan Jianzhong, etc. Liu Yeyuan was one of the best. He was four years older than me. He graduated from the Chinese Department of Shandong Normal University and was assigned to my alma mater, Jinan No. 2 Railway Middle School, as a teacher in the late 1970s. At that time, I was working in the vehicle depot. One day, my literary friend Liu Yanlin from the locomotive depot told me that a teacher named Liu Yeyuan from the No. 2 Railway Middle School wrote great prose and took me to visit him. We hit it off at first sight and got along very well, and we have been dating since then. He is also a railway child. Both of his parents work at Liuzhou Railway. His father is a railway policeman and his mother is a train conductor. He graduated from Liuzhou No. 1 Railway Middle School and returned to his hometown, Teng County, to work as a farmer in the countryside.
After he started working at the railway, he published an essay titled "For the Golden World" in China Youth Daily. Although it was only a short essay the size of a palm, it also amazed his literary friends at the railway. I cut out his articles and collected them for study. Before he got married, he lived in the school's single dormitory, in a bungalow behind the teaching building. My family lived next to the Second Railway Middle School. After dinner, I often went to chat with him, and he often came to visit me. Sparks of inspiration often collided in our exchanges, and we both enjoyed the process. Once, we had a long conversation at my house and unknowingly it was the middle of the night. He climbed the school's big iron gate back to the dormitory. He once mentioned the wonderful experience of taking the entrance exam. At that time, the village production brigade recommended him to take the exam for a technical secondary school. His score ranked first in the county and he was admitted to the university by exception. After graduation, he was assigned to the railway. He hoped to work in the railway bureau newspaper, but he failed. He also talked about the hardships of his family. He stole a train and wandered all the way back to his hometown in Shandong. He talked about preparing to write a novel reflecting that period.
One day he came to me with a copy of Yalu River magazine to discuss something. We hit it off and attended the correspondence course on literary creation organized by Yalu River magazine. Later, he was transferred from Tie Er Middle School to work at the Provincial Writers Association. We had fewer opportunities to meet. After his first collection of essays, Jian Yi, was published, he gave me a copy. He also often sent me newspapers and magazines such as Writers Information and Shandong Literature. At this time, I also worked in the Propaganda Department of the Railway Bureau, and we often contacted each other by phone. He introduced the young writer Zhang Wei to me and asked me to help buy train tickets several times. Later, I was busy with work and alienated from the literary circle, and I had less contact with him.
In the mid-1990s, I went to work at the Jinan West Vehicle Depot. One day, Ye Yuan suddenly appeared in my office, which made me very happy. He was on his way to interview and passed by the door of our unit, and came to visit me. It has been many years since we last met. He has become thinner and smokes a lot. This time, we came and went in a hurry, and it has been several years since we last met. The last time I met him was in early 2008. He was invited by the Jinan Railway Bureau Federation of Literary and Art Circles to give lectures to literary lovers in the Xuzhou Railway area. He was already a professional writer at that time. He rarely participated in social activities, but he never refused the invitations of old railway friends. He was accompanied by Liu Yanlin, Secretary General of the Railway Bureau Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and his student Liu Rongzhe. At that time, I was working in Xuzhou. After getting the news, I rushed to the Xuzhou Railway Cultural and Sports Center to meet him and sneaked in to listen to his lectures. His lectures were wonderful, passionate and thoughtful, and his language was vivid and attractive, which was greatly welcomed by the students. Unfortunately, I have been out of the literary circle for many years and can't calm down to savor it carefully. In the evening, I treated him to dinner as a host. He looked weak at that time, but his spirit was full, and his words were profound and insightful. He still loved to smoke. We were very friendly after not seeing each other for many years, and we had a great time talking. He encouraged me to continue writing literature, which made me feel ashamed and I confessed that I was not that kind of material. He thought I could do it, but my interest and energy were no longer here.
Although we didn't meet again, I have been following his dynamics. Once in a bookstore, I saw "Wang Anyi's Selection of Contemporary Prose" compiled by the famous female writer Wang Anyi. A total of twelve authors in the current domestic literary world were selected, including Ye Yuan's "What Does Night Tell in the Contemporary World?", which is comparable to Wang Meng, Shi Tiesheng, Zhang Wei and other masters, showing his status in the Chinese prose world. I was so happy for him that I bought the book without hesitation. After retirement, I picked up my literary hobby in my youth and participated in the Shandong Provincial Prose Society. I learned that he had served as vice president. The prose world has a high evaluation of him. His prose is unique in today's China, and he has a large number of loyal fans following him. As his student Liu Rongzhe said: "For those who know Teacher Ye Yuan, especially those who love literature, he is a phenomenon that needs to be explored in depth."
I am only an early literary friend of Ye Yuan. My knowledge of his literature is superficial, and the distance between us is gradually increasing. I can only look up at him from afar, like a twinkling star in the night sky, sometimes clear, sometimes hazy...
[Author Profile] Wang Mingfei, pen name Feifei, is currently a member of the China Railway Writers Association, a member of the Shandong Province Prose Society, and a member of the Jinan Writers Association.
Yidianhao Contemporary Prose
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