Dying for the Benefit of Living Beings Is a Sublimation of Life

Dying  for  the  Benefit  of  Living  Beings  Is  a  Sublimation  of  Life

Xuemo

The year before last, when I attended a seminar at Fudan University, I realized something. What did I realize? It was that there’s a great difference in people’s psyche between the eastern and the western regions. To what degree? For example, in one of my works, White Tiger’s Gate, there is a girl called Ying’er. She lives for love. Because of love, she is willing to endure countless sufferings and worries. So, she has clung to that hope in her heart all the time. One day, reality destroys her love, preventing her from realizing her love. She would rather die than marrying the butcher her family has chosen for her. People of the West think it’s a good thing that she is willing to die for love, which means a sublimation of the soul. In contrast, people of the East think that death is a suffering, a disaster. People of the Western Xia regime, which was contemporary with the Song dynasty, took their death for love to be a glorious thing. Besides, they regarded their death in battle also as a glory. So, when a girl in my work sacrifices herself for love, we western people think it’s a very good thing – she is sublimated and she is perfect. But eastern people don’t think it is good. Why? Because she ends her life rashly. You see, that’s where a sharp contrast occurs.

In addition, eastern and western people have different views about many other things. For lack of communication, they don’t understand each other. Although we belong to the same country, the western psyche and the eastern psyche are vastly different. I have a book called Hot Blood and Thick Soil, which is about dialogue between eastern and western cultures. It was compiled by He Yu from Shanghai based on our conversations. In this book, she compares “hot blood” to Wenzhou culture and “thick soil” to western culture. The analogies are very good. In fact, death is the most important thing in one’s life. For instance, Mao Zedong in “Serving the People” differentiates between deaths that are weightier than Mount Tai and deaths that are lighter than a feather. Thus, the cause of death determines the quality of our lives.

In the 1980s, there was a controversy in newspapers: a college student called Zhang Hua jumped into a cesspool to save an old farmer and lost his life. Many people were wondering if it was worth doing it I asked my son, “Do you think it is worthwhile for a college student like Zhang Hua to save an old farmer?” My son answered, “Of course! Although he lost his life, his spirit has been passed down.” Even today, when we think of Zhang Hua, we find that such a spirit still exists in our world and that we can still find people like him. He deserves our honor and our desire to learn from him. That is the value of his life. And that is exactly what western people will think.

Remark

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利众的死是生命的升华

雪漠

前年，我在复旦大学参加研讨会的时候，发现了一个问题。什么问题呢？就是东部人的心灵和西部人的心灵的反差非常之大。大到什么地步呢？比如在我的作品《白虎关》中，有一个女孩子叫莹儿，她活着是因为爱。因为爱，她愿意忍受无数的痛苦、无数的烦恼。然后，她一直坚守着自己心中的那个“盼头”。有一天，现实摧残她的爱，就是让她不能实现自己的爱，她的家人要把她嫁给一个屠夫的时候，她宁愿选择死亡。西部人认为，她能够为爱去死，是一件非常好的事情，是在升华灵魂。东部人则认为死亡是一场磨难、灾难。在中国的西夏――就是跟宋朝同一时代，西夏人把自己因爱而死，当成是一种荣耀。同时他们把战死杀场，当成自己一生中非常重要、荣耀的事。所以，当一个女孩子在我的作品中，去殉自己那份爱时，我们西部人觉得她非常好，她得到了升华，她非常完美。而东部人却认为她不好。为什么呢？她轻率地结束了自己的生命。因此，就出现了一个巨大的反差。

此外，东西部地区还有许许多多认知上不同的东西。因为缺乏沟通，而彼此不了解。虽然我们同属一个国家，但东西部人的心灵却有着非常大的差异。我有一部关于东西部文化对话的书，叫《热血厚土》。这是上海的何羽根据我的对话整理出版的。在这本书中间，她把温州文化用热血来象征，把西部的文化用厚土来象征。“热血、厚土”这种象征非常好。事实上，死是一个人一生中最重要的事，比如毛泽东的《为人民服务》中间专门谈到，为了什么去死重于泰山，为了什么什么去死轻于鸿毛。可见死的不同，让我们的生命有了不同的质量。

报纸上曾出现过这样一个争论：大学生张华为了救一个老农民，掉入粪坑死了。好多人在问值不值得？我问儿子：“你觉得张华这样一个大学生去救一个老农民，值得吗？”儿子说：“当然值得。张华的生命虽然结束了，但他的精神却传了下去。”直到今天，当我们想起张华的时候，我们会觉得世间还有这样一种精神，还有这样一种人类。他值得我们去敬畏，值得我们去向往。这就是他的价值。这种观念，正是西部的观念。

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