1
In 2009, when I was in my early thirties, I was still like a little kid when it came to career direction, work, financial management, relationships, and choosing friends. That year, I worked nine-to-five at a technology company in Beijing that was preparing to go public. I had to resign and go back to Nanning for a young woman. Facing me, who was just awarded an excellent employee last year, my boss was embarrassed. Maybe he didn't know how to explain it to the president.
When Young and Dangerous Girl made a big joke, I gave up on myself and used alcohol to relieve my worries. Not only did I lose my new job, but I also owed the bank a debt of 120,000 yuan. In the autumn of that year, I returned to my hometown in despair. When my father saw me depressed, his face was ashen and he said nothing. After a long time, he slowly said, "You should be out of work. The collection department of the bank called me, and I said that the matter needs to be solved by yourself. If you still imagine. If I live alone, I will go to the Pearl River Delta to work in a factory. There is an old watch who is only 16 years old and already earns 4,000 yuan a month. If you go, I will give you a few hundred yuan to travel."
Father paused twice when he said this, and could hear the pain in his heart. My father worked hard all his life. During the most difficult period in the 1960s and 1970s, we gave birth to a few brothers and sisters. In the 1980s, things got better. In order to allow us to go to school, he rode a bicycle to a distant town to wholesale popsicles on his off days. Selling in the village, tanning from morning to night, in exchange for our school fees and clothing. After finally graduating from college, my brothers worked their way up to work within the system, and their lives were relatively stable. After my sister got married, the only thing left to worry about was me, the youngest.
Passing by the door in the middle of the night, I could hear his deep sigh.
2
When I was young, I was successful, and I worked as a cultural enterprise in an excellent publishing house in Nanning, the capital city. The news spread in my hometown, and my father and my fellow villagers praised it. The old father, who had been fond of writing and calligraphy since he was a child but had unfulfilled ambitions, had a bright face. When someone asked me where I was, he proudly said, "I am the editor-in-chief in the capital, although it is not a country. Cadres, but I heard that the salary is good, and there is a collective house." How can people in my hometown know the difference between inside and outside the system? I only know that cultural institutions are all high-level jobs. If you are lucky, you can go to Beijing to become an official.
But now, the good times are no longer, and it really makes the old man feel the pain. The son's decent job has disappeared, he is in his thirties and has no fixed girlfriend, and he owes a lot of debts. Maybe he will be a bachelor in this life. Perhaps, every father has high or low expectations for his children. When what he finally sees is not his imagination, that kind of loss is not very common.
"Tianlun Journey" is about this topic.
Originally focused on it because of idol Robert De Niro. After reading it, I can't wait to watch the Italian version of 1990 (directed by Giuseppe Tonadore), but unfortunately, I have searched several times and failed to make a comparison. Looking at the synopsis of the plot, the content of the two films is exactly the same - for the upcoming journey, Frank (Robert De Niro) is full of excitement and anticipation. After the death of his wife and his retirement, he finally has to get out of the same life environment. , to visit the children who have been away for a long time. On the way to relive the family relationship, you will appreciate the different scenery in a foreign country. This kind of experience feels wonderful when you think about it.
However, the reality is not as perfect as imagined. As the journey progresses, Frank discovers that his children have their own secrets. The youngest son, David, who is supposed to be a painter, is missing. His eldest daughter Amy's married life is not as happy as it seems. He thought it would be the band conductor's son, Robert. She's just a drummer, and her daughter Rosie, who has been dancing since she was a child, also hides something from her father. In this way, old Frank embarked on his way home full of suspicion. On the way, he was admitted to the hospital due to a heart attack. The children finally gathered in front of Frank's hospital bed, but the younger son still did not show up...
Kind children try to comfort their frustrated father with lies. Then at his wife's grave, Frank told the same white lie - "Everyone is fine."
3
In contrast, my father did not choose to travel. He has been a conservative person all his life. First, he has lived in the mountains and ridges of the southeastern Guangxi countryside for many years, and he does not have much realistic imagination about the outside world. Second, because of his financial constraints, all his salary income is invested in this family. On the eve of his retirement in the 1990s, he and his students went to Fengkai, a nearby Guangdong province. In the fifth year after retiring, he came to Nanning at my invitation to play. He only stayed in the capital for two days because he missed his mother who was sick all the time. The day went back in a hurry.
"Journey to Family", the first way he chose was to write a letter.
Everyone is drifting away, I am hundreds of kilometers away, and my nearest brother is also tens of kilometers away. My father used to use a ballpoint pen to neatly write letters on the Red Star Book (a kind of workbook for primary school students), tear it down and fold it after writing, and send it to the XX Police Station and XX Middle School in the suburbs of Wuzhou City, Guangxi, which are the units where the brothers work. It was sent to Building 2, District A, Ronghe Xincheng, Baisha Avenue, Jiangnan District, Nanning City, where I lived for a long time. The content of the letter is nothing more than the following points: recent events in my hometown, expectations for our work and family, and advice to live frugally and live frugally.
The young people in the city work every day in the crowded traffic and tedious work, and most of them have never seen death. The death of my aunt, my uncle and the old man in the village was all told by my father through letters. In particular, my aunt and uncle wrote in detail the funeral process and the contributions of our elders in their letters, encouraging us to work hard and revitalize our family business. It's a pity that I didn't feel deeply about his admonitions when I was young, and my letters were lost when I moved.
The second way is nagging.
After graduation, I went back to my hometown and settled down in the city for about 18 years. Every time I went home to visit relatives or celebrate the holidays, my father would nag me about my brother after dinner, and it was nothing more than what they did wrong in work or life. . For example, who should not be engaged in part-time work in a certain year, not only the management is not good, but also affects the career, or who is criticized by the superior leaders on the phone during a meeting, and the influence is not good...
It is actually a kind of hope to pull home like pouring old sesame and rotten millet. It suddenly occurred to me that when my brother came home, my father would also nag them about my affairs and scold them for their dissatisfaction with me? As for the stupid things I've done, he's heard and understood eight of them, if not ten! Thinking of this, I secretly covered my mouth and smiled.
4
There will also be lies.
Just as in "Journey to Heaven", the children have concealed the news of their younger brother's death from the male protagonist. The marriage of the eldest daughter Amy has changed. The old father noticed that her husband was wearing the same clothes as yesterday when he went to work in the morning. I was called back to play the show for my dad. The second daughter Rosie, whose life was not satisfactory, rented a luxurious extended car to pick him up, booked a rooftop revolving restaurant, and borrowed someone else's luxury apartment for her father to live in... Maybe real life is so cruel? They did this to prevent the elderly father from being sad, and to let the lonely him know in his hometown that "we are all fine."
Most of the lies I lied to my father were about salary and negotiating ideals. When I first started working, my salary was low, and I often ate a meal but didn’t finish it. He called to ask, and I always said, “Hey, I can’t spend it all!” I said that I had an overtime bonus and that I was not bad. But the next year, for some reason, he "borrowed" one thousand and several hundred dollars from him.
His lies are often about physical health issues. The old father has high blood pressure and suffered from kidney stones after retirement. In order to save money, he is very cautious about the parts outside the medical insurance. He does not dare to buy the "special medicine" recommended by the doctor. Sometimes doing housework is too hard, and he feels dizzy, but soon he said on the phone, "It's alright, I drank Chinese herbal tea"... Actually, he was worried that our distraction would affect his work.
His sadness and hope, in the final analysis, are all deep love and expectations for our brothers and sisters.
There is also a detail in the movie that is touching. The male protagonist often seems out of place. He doesn't know that the trolley case has trolleys and wheels. He still uses an old-style film camera. He doesn't care about passers-by and insists on taking pictures of his daughter at the door of the company. He drags the creaking case to the band rehearsal scene. distressed. The same is true of my father. I remember being unwell in high school. He drove dozens of kilometers to see me, wearing an old blue shirt from the 1980s, which looked out of place compared to the people in the city. At night, in order to save dozens of yuan for accommodation, he simply lived in my student dormitory, and the father and son were squeezed into a hard bed... I was in a complicated mood back then, but now I can finally understand the painstaking work of being a father.
The tedious and dull days passed quickly, and the father, who had been busy all his life, fell ill while waiting for his children day by day. In the spring of the previous year, he suffered a sudden stroke. After being sent to the hospital for treatment, he suffered from Alzheimer's disease after a year. He required round-the-clock monitoring. Several of our brothers and sisters returned to him to take care of him day and night. He can not continue the "family journey", let us realize it together for him in a way of feedback.
I would like to write this superficial text to tomorrow, Father's Day 2020.
View more about Everybody's Fine reviews
