When I was a child, I didn't know that fish would get sick, birds would be poisoned and children would die. But my father knows. He is a biologist. Then my father passed away. My father's students told me that fish in the Yangtze River can't be eaten. Birds flying on imperata by the river fell down and died, which was lead poisoning; Children born near the Yangtze River develop liver cancer at an early age.
When people haven't reflected on why, the Yangtze River, which fell from the sky and flowed into poetry and painting, suddenly lost its leisure and ambition to set off the lonely sunset; Suddenly closed the broad mind of Qian Fan Wanmu. The Yangtze River suddenly became our "enemy".
Recently, when I returned to Jiangnan, I saw the muddy yellow water of the Yangtze River flowing silently, like a stubborn old man dragging a twisted mahogany crutch, walking indignantly in front of the unworthy children and never looking back.
At this time, I felt I had to tell my father's story to the black sheep along the Yangtze River and its banks. My father turned his back on the Yangtze River one step at a time until his death. I hope people will remember my story when they finally know how to apologize to nature.
First of all, the story of fish
My father died in Arizona, USA. Before he died, my brother and I took him on a trip. This is the last trip in his life. He took many photos that interested him. When he came back, he posted these photos on his photo album one by one and wrote a sentence or two under each photo. Looks like a piece of paper. Every time, I will open the photo album of his last trip and look at the photos he took. The sentences he wrote under these photos became faded old photos, telling some stories about his father.
For example, on the first page of the photo album, there are two fish that my father took underwater with a waterproof camera in Alama Bay. Those red and yellow tropical fish, with flat bodies like cattail fans, stirred up blue ripples in the seawater, and the ripples stirred up two brown algae beside them like a breeze. Tropical fish swim quietly in the aquatic plants, enjoying themselves.
Father wrote in these two photos: "the fish, fish and fish in Gezhouba of the Yangtze River are going to lay eggs upstream."
Father, like many old people, came to America to visit his children. I missed me and my brother before I came here. After only one day, he said, "I can only stay for a month at most." I have a lot of important things to do. " I said to my brother, "You are retired. Let your graduate students do those important things. " Father said: "The graduate students are not good enough, and no one listens." My brother and I just laughed, "Your prestige is very high. Who listens to you? " Mom and dad sighed. But after a minute, he said firmly, "I must go when the fish in the Yangtze River swim back."
When the fish in the Yangtze River come back to swim, my father always leaves. This rule began in the 1970s, when Gezhouba was built on the Yangtze River. I remember my father's friend, Gu Gu, wearing a pair of fat black cotton shoes, sitting on the stool where I wrote, wolfing down a bowl of fried rice with eggs. Father, wearing a gray cotton-padded jacket, walked around the small living room sighing.
"The fishway on the dam is useless?" Father asked.
"It's no use." Lao Gu said.
"Fish don't take the fishway?" Father asked.
"Don't go." Lao Gu said.
"Can't the fish get up downstream?" The father asked again.
"I just came from Gezhouba. The fish all stop there. " Lao Gu said.
"Before the dam was built, I told them long ago that fish don't listen to people's orders, and fish have fish rules." Father said.
"Gezhouba people thought that there was a bumper harvest in fisheries this year. I am catching fry and scattering them on the altar. " Lao Gu said.
"Eat quickly and we'll go." Father said.
I didn't know where they were going, but I felt they were in a state of anxiety. It's like two firefighters rushing to put out the fire. Later, I learned that they took three graduate students to Gezhouba and tried their best before crossing the fishway. Finally, the fish in the Yangtze River failed to understand the human language and the road signs pointing to the fishway, and stupidly stopped at the downstream of the dam, waiting for the dam to be merciful and make way for them.
Finally, my father and Gu Gu, two professors of fish biology, had to take graduate students to transport those instinctive fish across the dam in the most primitive buckets. And since then, every year when the fish come back to swim, they will take their graduate students to help the fish brothers cross the dam. This is called "scientific research". Fish swim back every year, so my father got such a "scientific research" job that he can never retire.
My father died before the impoundment of the Three Gorges Dam. Otherwise, he has another "scientific research" job that he can never retire. Father said, "Our professor can only do the repair work after the sheep dies. The "sheep" is not dead, and no one will listen if you shout again. "
We are a very utilitarian nation, a nation that only needs immediate utilitarianism. We can make use of the resources belonging to future generations in advance and squander or spoil them quickly. We like grandchildren, but our concern comes to an abrupt end when it comes to grandchildren at most. As for our great grandchildren, do they have the sun and the moon, the breeze and the blue sky? As long as our feet pedal and our eyes close, we will be out of sight and out of mind. We also accidentally laugh at alarmists. How can the sky fall? This is much ado about nothing. Our good feelings are groundless, but they are also reasonable.
Coincidentally, my father is such an alarmist. It's just that Yugong has one more skill than people without foresight-leading his disciples to move fish year after year.
Second, the story of ducks.
On the second page of my father's photo album, there is a group of photos of ducks. At that time, we saw a place called "Swan Lake" on the map. We took our father. We drove in the endless cornfield for three hours, and then we went into the Woods. There is no wind, and the old vines hang quietly on the branches, like beards that have not been shaved for many years in ancient times, very peacefully hanging on rotten leaves all over the ground. We found this "Swan Lake". There are no swans in the lake, but a lake full of ducks. One by one, from a distance, dense, like gray fleas. Our dog wants to drink water by the lake. A duck in the lake suddenly growled and swam towards our dog like a soldier to defend its territory. Father took this picture of the duck with a smile.
Under this photo, he wrote: "Ducks in Pudong, Shanghai, are proof of the pollution of the Yangtze River."
Since the late 1970s, it has been found that the incidence of liver cancer in Pudong and Chongming Island in Shanghai is very high. Father has an excellent graduate student named Huang Cheng, who is an orphan. Both parents died of liver cancer. Father often gives him some small change. There are five brothers and sisters in their family, who love each other and live in Pudong, Shanghai. When this graduate student was studying, his eldest brother also died. Still liver cancer. People don't know why. My father started an investigation with several graduate students to find out why the incidence of liver cancer in Pudong, Shanghai is high.
My father chose to study ducks living in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Ducks kept coming to our house during that time. The kitchen at home smells like duck shit. My brother and I tiptoed to the kitchen to find snacks. Oil balls and baked wheat cakes smelled of duck excrement. My mother quarreled with my father and asked him to get rid of these ducks. My father said, "where can I get it?" I can't get it in the university office. "
Later, the research results of ducks showed that most ducks in Pudong and Chongming Island in Shanghai had liver cancer after living for more than two years. The conclusion is obvious: the water quality in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River is seriously polluted.
1989, my father went to the United States to attend the international conference on water resources and environmental protection with a black suitcase. His graduate student Huang Cheng and I sent him to the plane. His black suitcase contains detailed evidence and research reports on water pollution in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Father is wearing a brand-new suit. The trouser legs of that suit are rolled up to the knees, and a pair of liberation shoes are at the feet. Huang Cheng and I repeatedly asked him to put down his trousers and put on his leather shoes. He said, "I'm used to soaking in the Yangtze River all day." So he got on the plane. Unlike a professor. Fishermen on the Yangtze River. My father spent half his life wandering on the Yangtze River, like a Jianghu hero in a martial arts novel, defending the water resources of the Yangtze River that he could not protect.
Father was unhappy when he came back from a meeting in America. He said: "After talking about pollution, reports from other countries and regions talked about measures to save lives. After I reported the pollution, people asked: What are the rescue measures in your country? I can't answer this question. We didn't. " That meeting was held more than ten years ago. At that time, environmental protection was not regarded as an important thing by China people. In the 1980s and 1990s, the most important thing was to make money. People are keen to decorate their small homes beautifully. Once out of the small house, you can't see the dirty aisle. Who cares how to clean up the things that flow into the Yangtze River and give ducks liver cancer?
Last year, by chance, I met my father's graduate student Huang Cheng. He came to America for a short visit. I asked him: How are you? He said: I had just been to Shanghai before I came. My youngest sister died of liver cancer. So, we all miss my father at the same time. Huang Cheng recalled many papers and reports written by his father. Those papers and reports have long warned of the pollution and crisis of aquatic resources in the Yangtze River. Unfortunately, in his father's lifetime, China's society first only focused on the struggle with heaven and earth, exaggerating people's ignorance of nature into the authority to rule nature; Later, society has become a society that only pays attention to asking for money from heaven and earth, and regards people's extortion of nature as wealth from nature. My father, like Tang, declared war on society with his "Sancho"-a few graduate students who devoted themselves to Geng-a big windmill that was hard to stop when it turned. He fought alone to the death.
Third, the story of the ship.
The third page of my father's photo album is a picture of us boating on the Colorado River. My brother and I are afraid of my father's loneliness in America and miss his romantic wandering on the Yangtze River. We decided to take him boating on the Colorado River. The Colorado River is light green, and our small motorboat is milky white. Father happily wore a fisherman's hat, rolled his trousers over his knees, smiled and held the steering wheel, as if he had returned to his hometown. A small ivory motorboat glides across the water, splashing high and low water droplets, like dexterous roller skates across a white mark on the surface of a crystal bowl. I remember that there was a sparrow-like bird flying around the bow at that time, and my brother fed it bread. The bird is not afraid of people, so it runs to our chair where food is placed to amuse itself. My father sighed and said, "I don't know how many generations it will take to build this trust between people and animals in China. Our sparrows in the south of the Yangtze River are like seeing the devil when they meet people. " Of course, I can understand what my father means. Only a few scientists can't save the animal crisis and environmental pollution in China. Father is sailing. He asked me to take pictures of him, the bird and the boat.
My father wrote in this photo: "We should educate the people in the Yangtze River valley."
After ducks in Pudong, Shanghai proved that the Yangtze River was polluted, my father was busy in the waters of the Yangtze River for many years. He and his graduate students lived on fishermen's boats for half a year, collecting information. When my brother and I were young, we wanted to board a fishing boat and stroll around Taihu Lake in the Yangtze River. My father took me there once in the summer vacation. I remember that the fishing boat I went to was too small. I slept in the back cabin and couldn't even stretch my legs straight. You have to hold your stinky urine until it gets dark, so you can stand by the boat and pee. It was fishing news at that time, and the ship bumped on the water day and night. Father got up before dawn and rummaged among the fish caught by fishermen. They cut some fish and observed them under a microscope. It is said that some fish have bent spines, some fish have blood spots, and some fish have greatly reduced their numbers. I was on the boat, bored, and ate fish without salt and oil for a week to cook. When I leave the ground, I even walk like a frog, just jumping. Later, I was no longer interested in playing fishing boats. My brother was once confused. That time they went to Taihu Lake, and the boat was bigger. My brother came back and said, "Almost drowned, almost drowned." Never go again. But my father and they never stopped. Year after year, they have to leave during the fishing season. Pay close attention to the changes of various aquatic resources in the Yangtze River basin. Later, they simply rented a fishing boat and followed the fish around. From the lower reaches of the Yangtze River to Chongqing, Sichuan, from Taihu Lake to Beiyang Lake. Year after year, they traveled all over the Yangtze River, rain or shine. They also collect deformed birds in the Yangtze River valley. The sparrow bird has three wings, and the third wing is very small, like a small torn pocket on a child's clothes. My brother and I looked at it for fun, and my father said that this mutation may also be related to pollution.
Later, my father's office in N University was filled with specimens of common animals such as polluted deformed fish in the Yangtze River basin. I sometimes go to my father's office and see so many samples of polluted fish and animals that I really don't know what to say. Father, his colleagues and graduate students talked about these polluted fish and animals, and their expressions were as solemn as Enemy at the Gates's. However, paper mills and printing houses along the Yangtze River still discharge lead-containing sewage into the Yangtze River. Tuberculosis hospitals and mental hospitals are still throwing discarded drugs into the Yangtze River. Father, what can these powerless intellectuals do? I even laughed at my father: "When your polluted fish and animals don't threaten the stability of the state power, any of your countermeasures will not be used."
Father is still busy on the Yangtze River. Later, I found that my father did it for a spirit, which is the meaning of my father's life. This spirit can't be described by adjectives like sacrifice or love. This spirit is a calm sense of reason and responsibility. It is a spirit of being responsible not only for yourself but also for future generations, not only for today's development, but also for the future of the earth where human beings live. This is a scientific humanistic spirit. For such a scientific and humanistic spirit, my father and their generation of intellectuals endured humiliation and did a lot of things that they didn't see until today when there was no scientific and humanistic spirit.
Fourth, the story of father's memorial service.
The last photo in my father's photo album is a photo of my father's memorial service. It's not from my dad, it's from my mom. Mother wrote a line under the photo: "Jianghu is better than forgetting each other." Take the story of two fish in Zhuangzi's movies for example. The water in the small pond dried up, and finally the two fish spat at each other and got a little wet. People lament what a great love this is! But for fish, it is better to let them swim happily in the rivers and lakes and not think about each other at all. When there is a difference between life and death, father returns to nature.
Like many other poor and persistent middle-aged intellectuals in China, his father suddenly died young. At that time, he had just returned from that trip. Because the season for Yangtze fish to swim back is coming, he has bought a plane ticket to return home. But it didn't succeed. A few days before my father died, my skin was itchy all over, and then I suddenly had stomach bleeding and vomited blood. When the ambulance arrived at our house, my father had already died. Apart from this photo album and a few sentences written under each photo, he has no last words.
The doctor told us that the cause of his death might be lead poisoning. Without saying anything, my mother returned to China on time with her father's ashes before the Yangtze River fish season came. Father returned to the Yangtze River in this way.
My father's memory of the Yangtze River in America is one step at a time, and his memorial service should of course be held in his hometown in the south of the Yangtze River. However, after the mother returned to Nanjing with her father's ashes, the head of her father's department said to her with great guilt: because their secretary dumped the futures, she secretly used the department's money. As a result, all the money was gone I didn't even get bonuses for professors and lecturers in those years, and I really didn't have the money to hold a memorial service for my father. As a result, my father's graduate student Huang Cheng came. At that time, he donated 300 yuan to hold a memorial service for his father. Then Gu also donated money, and so did other fathers' colleagues and students. Mom cried.
Father's memorial service was held by the Yangtze River. Besides his colleagues and students, there are many fishermen. At the memorial service, my father's life was connected:
My father's name is Yuan Chuanmi. He was born in a very wealthy landlord family in the south of the Yangtze River and graduated from Jinling University. After that, I worked in the biology department of N University all my life. When he was young, he was very foreign, wearing a tie and speaking English. He is by no means a "fisherman" who can't even wear a suit later. He will also take my brother and me to the western restaurant upstairs in Ji Ming restaurant for steak without telling my mother. Later, during the Cultural Revolution, he went to the countryside and raised pigs in the countryside for several years. Like all reformist intellectuals, he worked very hard to get rid of the non-proletarian consciousness of eight generations as residue and juice, clean it up, and then closely mingle with the workers and peasants. In the 1970s, as long as he had a chance to work normally, he tried his best to shout for the environmental protection of the Yangtze River until his death. This is my father's life. It's simple. Father, the intellectuals of his generation seem to have no inner world, and their inner world must be open. The only thing that belongs to them personally is a scientific and humanistic spirit rooted in the conscience of outstanding intellectuals in China. This is the fulcrum of my father's life.
Father's story is over. The story of the Yangtze River has not been finished, and it may never be finished. Recently, Gu sent me a local newspaper, which reported that a fisherman had caught a rare animal in the Yangtze River-the paddlefish. According to the report, everyone, from fishermen to scientists, tried their best to save this white sturgeon. After reading it, Gu must let his son take this report to my father's grave and burn it to comfort him. It is also because my father discovered and named the first paddlefish in the Yangtze River. That newspaper asked me to talk about what my father would think if he saw the story that people care so much about rare animals. By this time, my father had died for nine years. Finally, the scientific and humanistic spirit adhered to by intellectuals of my father's generation began to become public consciousness. What would my father think?
I think my father would probably say, "It's better to forget each other than to be in the Jianghu."
My father's career as a scientist made him see farther than many people. Instead of praising human love for animals until they are in frequent danger, it is better not to interfere with animals and let them have a place on the earth like us and live their quiet lives. The earth is not dominated by us humans, and the fish in the Yangtze River have the right to refuse the command of humans and have no right to care about them. Let animals live freely according to the instinct of their respective species. I think this may be my father's declaration of independence to fish, birds, ducks and paddlefish.