"Autumn Rain Collection" in 20 volumes was finally compiled amidst the firecracker sounds on New Year's Eve, and I gently put down my pen.

  Put down and pick up again, take a closer look: pen.

  A person's life will come into contact with many objects, so many that they can't be counted. For me, the most important object is definitely a pen.

  I still haven't used a computer, and all my writing is done by hand. I'm known in the publishing world as one of the rare "pure handwriting writers". Will this change? No. Although I'm not conservative, a person's life is limited, and you need to hold on to a few loyal things, one of which is the pen.

  Maybe many people will laugh at me for being out of date, but as long as you read the following fragment of memory, you will definitely understand.

  One

  The first pen in my life was a small brush made of bamboo. My mother wrote letters for the villagers, and I imitated her with this little brush on the side when I was only three years old. The next year, two new primary school teachers dragged me to school from under our home desk, and my mother replaced it with a slightly better brush. As soon as I started class, I got ink all over my face, which made every teacher take me to the riverbank to wash after each class, and then run back to my seat.

  At the age of seven, my mother gave me a dip pen longer than a brush, plus a bottle of blue ink, and asked me to write letters and keep accounts for the villagers from then on. With one dip of the pen tip into the ink bottle, I could write seven characters. The movement of the pen tip on paper attracted the eyes of the villagers. The villagers almost didn't look at me, only looked at the pen.

  That is to say, when I was very young, my mother intentionally or unintentionally told me that this pen has a responsibility to the villagers.

  At the age of nine, I graduated from elementary school and went to Shanghai to attend middle school. My father reluctantly bought me a "Guanleming" brand fountain pen, but it was soon lost, and my father was very angry. Later, when I found out that I had won first prize in the Shanghai Municipal Essay Competition and the Mathematics Competition Grand Prize, my father's anger dissipated, but he never bought me another good pen again. The ones I used later were always those cheap pens that no one would take away. I was happy with them because they were light, while good pens are always heavier.

  Two

  The first time I wrote on a large scale was from the age of 19 to 21, writing "confessions" for my father. It was in the early days of the "Cultural Revolution" disaster, and my father had been exposed by the "revolutionary masses" as having political problems and historical issues, immediately "overthrown", his salary suspended, while our family had eight mouths to feed. My father hoped to use a series of written accounts to explain the facts to the "revolutionary masses", so he dictated with tears in his eyes, but soon his eyesight deteriorated, and I took over writing for him. At first, he was not yet under arrest, and every night at home he would tell me what to write. Later, he was accused by the "revolutionary masses" of "opposing the great leader", and could no longer return home. He told the authorities that he could no longer write, and I had to take over writing for him. As a result, he was allowed to come back once every few days, but not overnight.

  I have written over 600,000 words of "confessions" for my father. At first, I advised my father that it was not necessary to write, but as I continued writing, I learned many true stories from my grandfather and uncle, which I felt had great historical and literary value, so I continued to write. Moreover, I actively asked my father about many details and then verified them with my grandmother and mother. All of this became the starting point for my later writing of "A Brief History of My Family". This book was written intermittently over a period of more than 40 years.

  At that time, I wrote "handover" for my father with a ballpoint pen. A plastic rod cost three cents each, and I finished many pens. Using this ballpoint pen requires more force than using a fountain pen, and the pen holder is too thin, making it very uncomfortable to write. However, my father required that a blue-purple "carbon paper" be placed under the written material, so that there would be a copy left after submitting the material, so I could only use this ballpoint pen. After writing for a while, my fingers became numb, and the first joint of my middle finger next to my index finger had a deep pen holder mark. If I continued writing, my entire palm would cramp because I was really writing too much and too urgently.

  Three

  No matter what, my father should not have been a target of the "Cultural Revolution" struggle. He was neither a cadre nor a capitalist nor an intellectual. The reason for "overthrowing" him was due to the jealousy of the "revolutionary masses". What were they jealous of? Only one thing: he had four sons, which meant he was "prosperous with many children". At that time, having many children inevitably led to a lack of food, but the "revolutionary masses" didn't care about this. They only collected a few sentences from his daily conversations with colleagues that seemed "dissatisfied", and then "overthrew" him, detaining him for a long time.

  The real focus of the "Cultural Revolution" is actually related to my profession. Theater became a trigger for social disaster. The entire "Cultural Revolution" began with criticism of Wu Han's play "Hai Rui Dismissed from Office" - that was theater; the banner of the "Cultural Revolution" was several so-called "revolutionary model plays" - also theater. In human history, there has never been such a thing: many people were imprisoned or lost their lives just because they said one or two sentences related to theater. The Shanghai Theater Academy's drama literature department I enrolled in, which studied drama theory and playwriting, suddenly became a "concentration camp" where black and white, beauty and ugliness, good and evil were all turned upside down. I decided to quit and change my profession.

  At the Shanghai Theatre Academy, I was one of the "conservative three big mountains" opposed to the "Cultural Revolution". Under the circumstances that my father had already been "overthrown", this opposition of mine at that time was a tragic act of self-destruction. Just like my uncle Mr. Yu Zhi-shi who protested against the "Cultural Revolution" by cutting his wrist three times in succession, I took over his legacy with his ashes box in hand.

  At this time, a greater disaster struck, and all students in the cities across the country had to drop out of school and go to the countryside. Many Shanghai students were even sent to remote border areas as punishment. Before leaving, all parents and students had to watch a play that thoroughly negated education and culture, "New Sprouts in the Border Regions". Good heavens, it was still a play! After watching this play, I threw away all my pens into the trash can when I went to the farm, including the ballpoint pen I used to write confessions for Dad. At that time, Dad's "crimes" had become more serious and he couldn't leave his detention room anymore, so I could no longer write on his behalf.

  Why throw the pen into the trash can? Firstly, it is a kind of protest and break. "Revolutionary model operas" and "New Sprouts in the Border Region" made me feel a professional shame. Secondly, because I found that there was no opportunity to write anymore. Who would I write letters to after going to the farm? It's not allowed to communicate with my father, if I wrote to my mother, what language could she use to reply? Moreover, I heard that our labor place didn't even have a post office, and sending letters required walking a long distance on rest days to find a small town, but in fact, there were no rest days. For these two reasons, it was reasonable to fold the pen, abandon the pen, destroy the pen, bury the pen.

  The actual situation is worse than expected. We built a thatched hut on the farm, with four bamboo sticks supporting a wooden board as a bed, and we would sink into the mud while sleeping. There was no place to use a pen, nor any time to use one. Every day, it was pitch black when we went out to work in the fields, and it was completely dark when we returned, so exhausted that I couldn't even remember the characters, or the pen, or that I was someone who could write.

  Four

  In 1971, a political event suddenly made Premier Zhou Enlai China's second-in-command. He took charge of leading the resumption of classes and attempted to partially correct the "Cultural Revolution" disaster. This allowed many endangered "borderline new sprouts" to return to school in the cities, and also gave us the opportunity to return to Shanghai to participate in some textbook compilation work. I was assigned to the "Lu Xun Textbook Compilation Group", which picked up my pen again. I remember that pen was bought from Jing'an Temple's Bailian Shopping Mall for about one yuan, an ink steel pen. At that time, domestic brand-name pens like "Hero" and "Golden Star" were already available, but they cost two or three yuan each, which I couldn't afford.

  I was assigned to compile teaching materials, which I finished in a few days. However, the task of resuming classes and compiling teaching materials, although directly arranged by Zhou Enlai, still encountered opposition from the ultra-leftists who advocated for abolishing schools and stopping classes, considering it "rightist reversal". They were busy arranging for students who had just returned to class to watch plays like "New Sprouts in the Border Regions" again, "Re-returning to the Border Regions to Make Revolution Again". This made me angry once more, both for education and for drama. However, since a trend of restoring education had already emerged at that time, my anger turned into academic courage.

  I picked up that one-yuan pen and started working. At the time, in order to resume classes, university libraries were reopened. I took advantage of a familiar staff member at the Shanghai Theatre Academy library, Cai Xiangming, to sneak into the foreign language book room, which was still considered off-limits at the time, and began writing "World Dramatic Theory". My pen copied large amounts of original texts in foreign languages, and with the help of various dictionaries, I translated them segment by segment. At the same time, I had to browse through a large amount of background materials, and finally gathered together the dramatic theories of 13 countries around the world. This task was enormous in terms of workload, because even today, more than 40 years later, these contents have not been fully translated. At that time, I relied on my own strength, in a closed space, with my pen as my staff, and proceeded step by step. What's even harder is that at the time, outside, just one window away, if you said something unfavorable to the "model revolutionary plays", you would be imprisoned. For this reason, I must express my respect for that one-yuan steel pen, and for my youth.

  At that time, it was completely unimaginable that this 680,000-word profound academic work could be published. Of course, it was even more impossible to predict that this book would become the only textbook in this major discipline nationwide for decades to come, without being replaced.

  It can be seen that the pen, which helped me sneak into the dark and muddy place, drew a huge academic structure.

  Compared with this academic construction, many of the later academic works I completed, although more famous, lost a life force that was not afraid to die.

  Five

  Due to my performance in the disaster, after the disaster passed, I was ranked first in three public opinion polls in the hospital and was promoted to president.

  Not even a group leader, yet became the first leader of a national key art university, it seems like riding a "rocket", but it's actually ten years of trust accumulation. All the teachers and staff in the school have been watching me for ten whole years, some things they didn't understand at the time, later finally understood, such as why I disappeared again and again secretly in the foreign language library.

  Images of disasters are often widely spread. At that time, my social reputation had far exceeded the college and I was selected as the leader of the Chinese Professional Professor Evaluation Group for the entire Shanghai city, concurrently serving as the leader of the Art Professional Professor Evaluation Group. Every time we evaluated, we resolutely negated those writers who were opportunistic and lost their conscience during the years of disaster. So, I picked up that pen again, writing down the conclusion of negation heavily, signing my name thickly. That pen at that time was almost like the judge's hammer, loud, bold, authoritative, and undisputed.

  That was in the 1980s, when my career path was smooth and my official career was prosperous. As the youngest university president in the country at that time, I often had high-ranking officials from Beijing and Shanghai trying to pull me into a higher power circle, which was easy to do back then. So, there were repeated long talks and repeated advice. These high-ranking officials later became very prominent leaders. However, I understood my pen's temperament all too well. Although it also had the ability to continue becoming a bigger hammer for judges, it obviously did not want to.

  Then, in a state of utter shock and amazement, I resigned. It took 23 attempts to get my resignation reluctantly approved. After that, I put on a thin grey cotton-padded jacket and went to the Gansu Plateau to start tracing the Tang Dynasty of the 7th century AD.

  In those years, searching for ancient ruins required a long time of walking, and the roads were not easy to walk on. On my way to Yangguan, halfway through, I crouched down several times to examine the densely packed ancient battlefield, and lost the old pen that was inserted in the pocket of my pants. That old pen wasn't worth much money, but it was the one that I repeatedly fiddled with before quitting my job, stubbornly telling me that it only wanted to sign my name on articles, not documents.

  Since it's somewhat important to me, I looked for it a bit longer on the sandy beach. But that place is too vast and messy, of course, it can't be found. Thinking about it again, I'm relieved: this pen has been with me for a long time as an old friend, from now on, let it represent me to accompany the soldiers and poets who were stationed in remote areas over a thousand years ago.

  My habit of investigation is not to copy anything on the spot, but only after returning to the hotel at night and closing the door to focus on writing. I remember that in Lanzhou, I once stayed for a long time in a very simple and crude reception room, so simple that going to the toilet required walking a long distance. A local elderly scholar, Mr. Fan Kejun, had read many of my academic works and saw that my luggage was thin, so he sent me a ballpoint pen and two stacks of manuscript paper. This kind of ballpoint pen has a thicker pen holder, which is more convenient to use than the one I used to write "entrustment" for my father. However, the manuscript paper was too thin, and it would tear easily when writing, so I had to be very careful with every stroke.

  I wrote down my daytime feelings into essays and sent them to my old classmate Li Xiaolin, who was an editor at Harvest magazine. The post office couldn't be found, so I stuffed it into a gray-green mailbox on the side of the road. It wasn't until then that I felt Mr. Fan Kejun's gift of thin paper was well-intentioned. The paper was thin, and several articles stacked together could also fit in the mailbox.

  I wrote and sent them out in time, fearing that they would be lost on the way. In some places, even roadside mailboxes could not be found, so I had to carry the written articles with me. Carrying them with me required the manuscript paper to be thinner and better. As a result, I developed a habit of only using thin manuscript paper. Even later when I could use better manuscript paper, I still chose thin manuscript paper. This way, those ballpoint pens that easily scratched through the thin manuscript paper needed to be replaced.

  Of course, the most comfortable to write with is still a fountain pen. But for me, this traveler who is always on the road, it's very inconvenient because I have to carry an ink bottle. Ink bottles are made of glass and are easily broken or spilled when packed in luggage. It's said that Andersen used to hang his ink bottle from a string around his neck when he traveled, so it wouldn't spill or break. But I won't imitate him, not only because it looks bad but also because it seems like showing off that "I have a lot of ink". When Andersen traveled, he also carried a large coil of hemp rope on his shoulder, which was prepared for escaping from the hotel in case of a fire. It can be seen that he travels more troublesome than me, but I travel farther and longer than him.

  Later, I still learned half of Andersen's, carrying an ink bottle with me, but not hanging it around my neck. Choose a glass bottle that is particularly thick, and add a rubber ring to the screw-on lid. However, this is still not secure, as after several bumps, the lid is prone to cracking. So, I added another clumsy method, wrapping a layer of plastic wrap around the outside of the lid, tying it tightly with thin twine in three circles. The luggage was already very small, and I placed the ink bottle in the middle of my clothes.

  I sent out a stack of thin manuscript papers from the mailbox on Gansu Road. If it's possible to publish, I should give it a title. So when sending out the third batch, I added a sentence on the back of the envelope: "Let's call it 'Cultural Hard Journey'". Later, the road was still walking, wind and rain, dusty all over, but always carrying that pen, that bottle of ink. I think I should say something to the pen, so when naming the next collection, I added a word "pen" and called it "Mountain Residence Notes".

  Six

  The greatest challenge for a pen is in the extremist terrorist areas of North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia and Central Asia.

  I have written so much about the relics of Chinese civilization, and for comparison, I must go in search of other civilizations that are equally ancient or even more ancient. But the road is really too rugged, too difficult, too disorderly, and too chaotic. I have to crawl on the ground and can't take a plane, so I have to pass through countless checkpoints. They ask me questions, but I am forever unclear about where I can eat next and where I can stay tonight.

  Due to the crisis happening every day, life is precarious, so it's completely impossible to rely on memories after the fact. I must write down my diary for the day. But where can I write my diary? On the edge of an abandoned trench, on the wheel of a jeep, under the shed of a sentry post. This way, the pen has become a problem again. Obviously, I couldn't bring an ink bottle; if I did, those people would probably make me drink two mouthfuls to see if it's a dangerous substance. They also examined ballpoint pens carefully, twisting and disassembling them to determine whether they were specially made miniature handguns.

  Fortunately, at that time, a lightweight fountain pen made of transparent plastic rod was popular in the world. One pen could be written for several days without refueling. Along the way, I didn't see supermarkets or stationery stores, so I didn't care what kind of small hotel I checked into, as long as I saw this kind of pen in the guest room, I would take it down immediately to prevent not being able to write my diary suddenly one day.

  As I traveled through Iraq and along the long borders of Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nepal, with dark shadows looming, fortresses hiding, eerie lights flickering, and gun barrels bristling, I clutched my handwritten diary manuscript wrapped in a plastic laundry bag to my chest, with a water pen gripped tightly in my hand. I thought that even if I were captured and my luggage was taken away, I still had my paper and pen, and could still write. Of course, the greater likelihood was that I would not be allowed to write, but I wanted to make every effort to preserve one last chance for myself, and one last chance for my pen.

  This scene of tightly holding the manuscript and gripping the pen has been maintained until I entered Tibet from Nepal at Zhangmu Port.

  That fountain pen, along with a better ballpoint pen that I had kept in my luggage throughout my journey, was quickly auctioned off by a charity organization for a high price, and the proceeds were donated to supplement the milk supply for disabled children in Beijing.

  Later, when I further studied the gap between Chinese civilization and world modern advanced civilization, I also examined 96 cities in Europe. Although it was also very hard, there was no longer a life-threatening danger, and it was relatively easy to get a suitable pen along the way.

  After I finished my investigation of so many places around the world, starting from the United Nations, many international institutions and famous universities have invited me to give keynote speeches. The topics are mostly "Chinese Civilization in a Global Context", "Contemporary World Culture through the Eyes of a Chinese Scholar", "50,000 Kilometers 5,000 Years", "New Crises Facing the Globe" and so on. I have been to places like the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., the United Nations Conference on World Civilizations, Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, New York University and more. I was also invited to give long-term lectures in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. I think that since I've used so many pens along the way, now is the time to use a better pen to systematically write out my findings.

  But never could have imagined, encountered an unexpected situation.

  Seven

  It was at the time when I had basically completed my long-term observation of Chinese civilization and world civilization that the cultural landscape around me underwent an overall transformation. Simply put, the cultural theme composed of "reflection and innovation" in the 1980s completely fell apart, and unexpectedly, a new century's cultural dual structure was formed by large-scale "carnival" and "denunciation". The former is labeled as "prosperous national essence", while the latter is labeled as "freedom of speech", with a blend of Chinese and Western styles, loud and clear. Of course, there are other cultures, but they are the most lively ones.

  This binary structure has left my wife and me with no way out. My wife, Ma Lan, an excellent performing artist, was "frozen" by local officials after she declined an invitation to a supposedly "top-level important gathering", lost her job; while I, for some unknown reason, became the first focus of cultural slander, "cultural revolutionaries", "liberals" and some official media collaborated closely to spread rumors, even if I remained silent, it would be forever turbulent. That is to say, my wife and I were both eliminated by this "binary structure". We do not want to seek help from the authorities, so we are destined to have nowhere to go.

  It should have been emigration, but we didn't have the conditions, so we could only escape to a city in Guangdong Province that was almost oblivious to culture and hide for many years. At home, no one paid attention to us, but internationally, people were always enthusiastically searching for us, inviting us to give lectures and performances. Taiwan even regarded me as the main lecturer on Chinese culture, and their invitations were especially sincere. This created a dilemma for me: should I continue to systematically interpret Chinese culture based on the results of my life-risking investigations?

  It's still the old problem: should I fold my pen, abandon my pen, destroy my pen, bury my pen, or pick up my pen again, hold my pen, wield my pen, and let my pen run wild?

  In comparison, it is easy to deprive my wife of her performing rights because she has already left the regionally dependent creative group; however, it is not easy to deprive me of my pen because this is a personal midnight vigil with no regional limitations unless I myself feel that it's meaningless.

  Does one think it's meaningful or not? My wife looked at me silently time and again, I shook my head repeatedly while fiddling with the pen holder. Still going to explain Chinese culture? Look at the thousands of articles in newspapers that have been slandering me forever, all using Chinese characters, Chinese grammar, Chinese malice, and Chinese cunning. Moreover, all the slander can be immediately debunked with a little investigation, but for twenty years, not a single cultural institution or group has done any investigation, nor has any dissenting voice been raised. These newspapers, institutions, and groups are not from the people.

  Among the people, it's not much better. My wife's audience and my own readers were once far ahead of the rest of the country in terms of numbers, and even more so in terms of enthusiasm; but overnight, I heard that we were frozen out by officials and beaten up by the media, and everyone immediately changed their stance, eagerly awaiting new blows.

  This is exactly the same as what I observed among the masses during the "Cultural Revolution".

  So all I can do is shake my head, and keep shaking it.

  Later, I suddenly discovered several strange materials and began to change my attitude. The first material told me that the mastermind behind most of the slanders I suffered was actually the creator of the Shanghai drama "New Sprouts in the Border Regions" decades ago; the second material told me that the planners of other nationwide slanderous events against me were also two leaders of the Shanghai Rebel Command at that time; the third material told me that those who actively responded to the slanders and rumors in Shanghai were mainly writers whose professorship applications I had rejected and their students. Suddenly, everything became clear, and I was amazed that they were still so energetic and influential despite their advanced age.

  These discoveries left me silent for a long time. My father's decade-long imprisonment, my uncle's three-time bloodletting, my whole family's near-death from starvation, my father-in-law's public denunciation... all of these floated before my eyes. It turned out that whether or not I should take up my pen again was not just related to my current situation, but involved a much larger time-space coordinate.

  All cultural forces will eventually destroy culture in a cultural way. Simply put, it's "taking the pen away with the pen". As a descendant of poor seniors, I should still bear some responsibility for guarding culture. In fact, my guard may not be willingly accepted by contemporary Chinese culture, but I can't just look at its face. I will not only take up my pen again, but also accept international speaking invitations. Of course, I won't complain about the experiences of my wife and me, but when I clarify the thousand-year-old cultural context and ten-thousand-li contrast of China, perhaps some Chinese and foreign readers will begin to doubt the cultural binary structure composed of "union" and "slander" over the past twenty years, and start to realize that it may not be the true soul of Chinese culture.

  So I took up my pen again. As I did, I set a strict rule for myself: time is short and ink is precious, not one drop can be wasted on refuting slander.

  So, on those stormy nights filled with slander, in a quiet little house far away from numerous "cultural grand events", accompanied by my wife who had been unemployed for a long time, I wrote out a batch of books one after another. They are: "Chinese Cultural Pulse", "What is Culture?", "The Way of the Gentleman", "Peking University Lectures", "Extreme Beauty", "A Brief History of My Family", as well as part of their first drafts "In Search of Chinese-ness", "Caressing the Earth", "Lend Me a Life"...... In addition, I carefully selected several classic works of Chinese culture and translated them into contemporary prose. Those previous collections of "cultural grand essays" and academic works were also seriously sorted out.

  Up until now, I dare not say that I have done justice to Chinese culture, but I dare say that I have done justice to my own pen. Of course, my pen has also done justice to me.

  I can still make a joke about you like an old friend: You've consumed my whole life, but I haven't wasted too much ink on you.

  Not only has no ink been wasted, but also no social resources have been wasted. These twenty volumes of books, each one has not applied for a single yuan of funding. It is said that the country now has money, and there are many such funding projects, such as research funds, creation subsidies, project expenses, academic allowances, inspection special funds, data fees, additional funds... Each item is astonishing in number. I have never taken advantage of any of them, relying solely on a pen.

  With a pen, everything is enough.

  Eight

  Just as I was about to finish writing this article, a memory suddenly popped up and I thought it was interesting so I'll say a few more words.

  I remember that time when I was on a trip to Europe, taking a boat across the English Channel. It just so happened that we encountered strong winds and high waves, causing all the passengers on board to stumble about in every direction. But I, who had never been seasick since birth, was actually sitting in a coffee shop in the ship's cabin, writing away. Two British old ladies also weren't seasick, and upon discovering that I shared their immunity, they excitedly walked up to me, holding onto the railing for support. After exchanging greetings with them, I continued to focus on my writing, when suddenly I heard their voices filled with amazement: "Look! Such beautiful Chinese characters! And in such strong winds, he's still able to hold his pen!"

  These two old ladies did not understand Chinese at all, so when they said it was beautiful or not, they were only referring to the neat arrangement of unfamiliar written symbols, which is not enough to rely on. However, I really liked their exclamations. Indeed, the beautiful Chinese characters, such a big wave is still being written. Isn't all this somewhat symbolic?

  I am a holder of pen, holding on in the midst of storms, yet still able to write so much, writing with such neatness.

  The purpose of writing is not entirely for the reader. As time goes on, a large part of it is for the wind and waves, for the boat, for the pen. Even for those foreign old ladies or gentlemen who appreciate the beauty of Chinese characters.

  Actually, it's mainly for myself. Looking back on all those years, the seven-year-old boy who used to write letters for his fellow villagers can still write something for them; the young man who wrote "instructions" for his father around the age of twenty can still explain some things about Chinese culture to the international community.

  Looking at oneself is not about being fixated on "I", but rather observing a state of life, and whether it can be expanded and transcended. This is the meaning of Buddhism.

  And so, I lay down my pen.

  Kowtowing and worshiping, remembering and thinking, rejoicing and weeping.

  From Gui Si (29th) of the lunar calendar to Jia Wu (4th) is the Spring Festival.