Literary Master 1983

Chapter 226 Yu Lao Hu from Wanxian (Part )

What does it mean to prepare a speech?
Only the winners can give speeches.

Is Yu Qi already certain that he can win the award? Open the champagne in advance?

This was a misunderstanding at first.

Xu Chi wrote about this interesting story in his report: Yu Qie was thought to have won the Akutagawa Prize "early" in China.

Everyone was scared out of their wits!

The delegation was warmly welcomed upon arrival in Tokyo. It was a large delegation of dozens of people from industry, government and the art world, and each had a different itinerary. However, because Panasonic, the sponsor of the Go Challenge, had booked the New Otani Hotel, the other members of the delegation simply stayed at the New Otani Hotel in order to save costs and management.

As a result, a gathering effect was created. Japanese and some foreign journalists from different industries came to the New Otani Hotel and surrounded the place. The Go tournament had not yet started, and the visits of people from the industrial and economic circles would take time. The journalists also learned that the winner of the Akutagawa Prize would be announced tomorrow.

Since they were already here, they invited Yu Qie, the most popular Chinese person at the moment, to speak.

Yu Qie is also very famous, and writing about it can be a good match for the times. When the Akutagawa Prize is awarded, all of Japan is paying attention. Many people who have won the Akutagawa Prize later became national writers, and the Akutagawa Prize is a milestone in their establishment of status.

If a very talented drama actress or TV anchorwoman marries an Akutagawa Prize winner, it is definitely not that the poor Akutagawa Prize winner is "marrying above his station", but that his wife is using her husband's reputation to gild herself.

Writers are the conscience of the nation! In Japan, no matter what kind of person you are, when you reach a certain level, you always write books to improve your level.

A Japanese reporter handed a note to Chen Xiru, the translator of the delegation, which read: "We have a lot of people here, and we would like to invite Mr. Yu to do a Q&A session so that we can have something to write about."

Chen Xiru blushed after receiving the note and quickly walked to the door of Yu Qie's room. At this time, Yu Qie was chatting with Qian Zhongshu, vice president of the Academy of Social Sciences, Nie Weiping from the Go team, and writer Xu Chi. Chen Xiru knocked on the door and asked, "Yu Qie, can you go out and talk to everyone?"

Yu Qie was stunned: "Our leader this time is Mr. Qian Zhongshu, and the people below him have their own leaders. How can it be my turn to speak?"

Chen Xiru shook his head, holding up the piece of paper in his hand: "Not to us, but to the Japanese journalists!"

The note was passed to everyone. Everyone looked at it and suddenly fell silent.

"That's a good thing!" Qian Zhongshu laughed and said, "They also want to earn royalties. They won't leave without you! Go quickly."

Yu Qie came out of the room and heard another thing:
Outside the hotel, a dozen Japanese book fans holding copies of "Happy Hunting" were waiting. Tokyo in February was only slightly warmer than the capital of China. The fans were shivering with cold and it was raining, but they hugged the book "Happy Hunting" and used the tree canopy and their backs to shield themselves from the rain. They were afraid that the book would be wet when Yu Qie came to sign.

Yu Qie first invited these fans into the hotel and signed autographs for them one by one. He said a few pleasantries, but after signing, the fans were reluctant to leave and continued to sit outside the hotel.

why?
They wanted to witness the 24 hours when Yu Qie won the Akutagawa Prize, and they wanted to see the writer they supported "enter the dragon gate"!
This is the influence of the Akutagawa Prize.

Everyone in the visiting delegation was shocked. Mu Qing of Xinhua News Agency made a prompt decision and applied to reprint this exciting scene in China, asking Japanese reporters to prepare questions, which led to Yu Qie's impromptu speech in the New Otani Hotel.

As a result, the reporters whispered among themselves and finally asked him only one question: "Is the Akutagawa Prize important to you Chinese?"

This question was simple, but Yu Qie thought about it for a while and then said, "It's important and it's not important."

Of course the reporters wouldn't understand.

"Why?" Yu Qie laughed. "Many Chinese people don't know about the Akutagawa Prize. If I were competing for another award, such as the Naoki Prize in Japan, or the Prix Renaudot or the Prix Goncourt in France, people would be happy too. So the Akutagawa Prize is not important."

"But it is also very important because my winning the award can inspire domestic creators. They didn't know their own level before, but now they dare to compete on the same stage because someone has broken through the literary 'forbidden zone' and proved the infinite possibilities of my skin and my culture." Yu Qie told Japanese reporters.

This is very simple to say, but many people were moved when they heard it.

Especially Xu Chi, who is familiar with the history of domestic literature, he knew that Yu Qi was implying that he had become the one who broke the "shackles".

This is a commonplace topic, and it involves a regret of the times among domestic writers. Many of them have refused foreign awards for various reasons. For example, Lu Xun once said, "China is still a poor and weak country. If someone wins an award, it is a bad thing. It will encourage everyone's vanity and make everyone temporarily forget the suffering of reality. It is very harmful."

So Lu Xun refused all foreign awards.

The famous Shen Congwen was rumored to have been nominated for the Nobel Prize three times. He set off a "Shen Congwen" fever in Europe in the late 1970s and 1980s, and almost represented modern Chinese literature. But not long after Shen Congwen was nominated for the third time, he passed away.

He didn't win the award either.

Qian Zhongshu once had the opportunity to win a foreign literary award, but the public opinion environment at that time did not allow Qian Zhongshu to win a foreign award, so he criticized foreign literary critics and even belittled foreign literary awards as "dirt"! It is unknown what Qian Zhongshu actually thought, but he showed that he wanted to break with all foreign awards, so foreigners naturally would not stick to him.

So Qian Zhongshu also missed the opportunity.

These superstars in the domestic literary hall of fame have rejected foreign awards at different times, which has brought about a legacy problem:
That is, what position are we in when Chinese literature re-enters the world.

It’s like the Age of Exploration, when the farthest route a ship could reach came from the nautical chart drawn by the previous captain. They left human footprints in new places, and later people knew: This sea area is a place I can come to, and I can set foot here.

However, this area is relatively blank for Chinese writers. We have such a glorious literary history, and literature has such a profound impact on our country, and we are proud of it, but when it comes to specific awards, the atmosphere often becomes awkward. This is what Yu Qie said.

His "answering reporters' questions" outside the New Otani Hotel was regarded as a speech, and the Xinhua News Agency reporter sent the manuscript back to China without any review, and read it directly on the radio. Later, it was broadcast on TV news.

Mu Qing was a senior leader of Xinhua Press, and he personally wrote the news release, which made Yu Qie's simple "speech" very impressive. The host who read the news release spoke in a rhythmic manner, unable to conceal his excitement, and his voice was trembling noticeably.

What happened in the end?
With all these preparations, some people thought that Yu Qie had already won the award.

Already won the award!
Those who released the news and those who read the news knew that the results would not be known until tomorrow, but those who heard the news could not help but start celebrating. Word spread from one person to ten, and from ten to a hundred. The news of Yu Qi's winning the award spread like a whirlwind, sweeping across the country.

A Chinese writer won a Japanese literature award!!!
At Yanda University, students gathered to listen to the radio and immediately jumped up; at the Institute of Literature, students looked at the TV station, were shocked and speechless, and then hugged each other; at a microelectronics manufacturing plant in Shanghai, the factory director told the workers: "The experts from Japan said that we can't invest in our chip industry. We can only rely on ourselves. Don't be discouraged. Our novels can even hit other people's bases. In the future, our technology will have a chance to rise."

A neighbor who had seen the news knocked on Yu Qie's door and shouted, "Old Yu, your son really won the Kawaichi Prize, the Japanese literary award!"

"Isn't it the Akutagawa Prize? You got it wrong!"

"I don't know what award it is, but it's OK as long as I win it! The news said Yu Qie was giving a speech to the Japanese media about the significance of his award - if this isn't an award, what is it?"

"Ah? Why didn't I see the news? I didn't see Yu Qie's face either." Yu Yuejin still didn't believe it.

The neighbor asked, "Why don't you believe it? Everyone says so. Are they all wrong? Is CCTV also wrong?"

Yu Che's speech was on February 2, and the award ceremony was on the 27th. CCTV never said for sure that "Yu Che won the Akutagawa Prize", but everyone thought he was safe. Even if there were a few skeptics, once they raised their doubts, they would be refuted: "Everyone says so! Why don't you believe it?"

On the other side, Tokyo, Japan.

After Yu Qie returned to the room, Xu Chi was so excited that he shed tears: "We have a lot of blanks to fill, just like a person who has just woken up and has to compete with others. At this time, if we are better than others in one aspect, we can be proud!"

Qian Zhongshu and Yu Qie were playing cards and said, "I had a big fight with a sinologist, the man is Ma Yueran from Sweden. Do you know how the Nobel Prize in Literature is selected? It is selected by 18 Swedes, and whatever they like will prevail. It is very subjective."

"After Ma Yueran came to our country, he was warmly welcomed. Everyone came to welcome him, including me. But when talking about Chinese literature, Ma Yueran was very proud and said that he had made great contributions... I finally couldn't help but scold him. He had translated Ba Lao's book, but his translation was very bad! I asked him why Chinese works must be translated into English to win awards, why can other countries use the original language to participate in the awards?"

"Does this make sense? But Ma Yueran is still popular because we need him. This is what you mean by important or unimportant! For an individual, it is not important because he is not as good as me! But we need the recognition of others too much. To us, it is too important."

Nie Weiping came to play chess with Yu Qie, but it was not Go, but a very simple game of Gobang. In Gobang, there are some moves that the first move will win, and Yu Qie always drew the black pieces that made the first move, so even Nie Weiping was defeated by Yu Qie.

Nie Weiping said: "I know what you mean. You feel very lonely, and everyone puts their hopes on you. But if you succeed, will you become a national hero? I also want to play Go. In the most extreme case of a Go competition, I have to fight against six people in a round-robin match and beat all the Japanese... I calculated too much and too frequently in my brain, so I was short of oxygen. The local hospital brought me a ventilator, but I just couldn't give up."

"Yu Qie, I didn't think too much about it. I just think I am really better than others."

They used various methods to keep Yu Qie calm. Everyone thought that Yu Qie should be very nervous at this time.

In the evening, news reached Tokyo saying that "many people in the country have mistakenly believed that Yu Che has won the grand prize." This is of course a great joyous event and is very likely to happen, but if this is not the case, wouldn't Yu Che be in trouble?

The leader from Xinhua News Agency asked if we wanted to proofread the errors?

Xinhua Society also felt aggrieved. They definitely did not say with certainty that they had won the award. Maybe everyone was too excited and their hearts were stretched to the limit. They couldn't wait to believe it at the slightest sign of trouble!
Mu Qing ran over to apologize to Yu Qie: "I don't know what happened, these words were taken as your award declaration. You didn't thank the country or the leaders, but everyone thought you won the award because these are the words you can say...but this time you really haven't. Yu Qie, should we correct the error immediately and explain the situation to the people of the country, or wait until the results come out tomorrow..."

Choose errata? This will bring another embarrassment, that is, if Yu Qie wins the award tomorrow, he will have to say it again. To be honest, this plan is not very likely. But if Yu Qie strongly requests, Mu Qing will try to do so.

The other is to drag it out. Now Yu Qie must get the award. After he gets the award, this little misunderstanding is just foreplay.

Nie Weiping was dumbfounded. If I were to do this, I wouldn't be able to handle the ventilator. When I beat the Japanese in Go, I was close to the flow state. I couldn't even imagine that I had done such an amazing thing. Who would say at the beginning, "The Japanese are all noobs. I have already won."

What if I don’t win?

How to choose the cotangent?
Things became very strange. The official congratulatory message had not come, but some of Yu Qie's relatives and friends had tried their best to contact him and congratulated him on winning the award. Yu Qie neither acknowledged nor denied it.

"What should we do?" Mu Qing asked him. "It depends mainly on your opinion."

Yu Qie asked some comrades to help him find the newspapers for tonight. When Yu Qie gave his speech in the morning, the media in front of him included mainstream Japanese newspapers and periodicals. Their developed publishing system enabled manuscripts published before 11 a.m. to be printed and published in the evening.

In other words, Yu Qie can now know how the media views several writers. In Japan, due to the great attention paid to the Akutagawa Prize, some online gambling websites were born in the future of the 21st century - just like the Nobel Prize in Literature.

As the day approaches, the odds on some people get lower and lower, until a few hours before the event, the odds on a particular candidate are incredibly low. Obviously, this person must be the winner, and the gambling group will not joke with their own money.

Although there was no Internet in Japan in the 1980s, things of the same nature still existed.

(End of this chapter)