Wildfire Collection: Thirty Years Anniversary Edition

Chapter 22 Wildfire 20 Years (1)
Innocent Woman Long Yingtai

——Through the era of wildfire

Deputy Editor-in-Chief of China Times

杨泽
In [-], Little Red Riding Hood broke into the forest where the wolf was sleeping

The person who wrote "Wildfires" 20 years ago was not the wolf, but Little Red Riding Hood.

In the winter of 20 years ago, "Wildfire Collection" was published, and it was a bestseller in Taiwan. It was reprinted 21 times within 24 days. It has become a student movement guide or social movement handbook for everyone. Almost every family can find such a copy. Anyway, it is either a brother or sister, or someone among the younger siblings bought it back. The popularity is like that of many families back then. "Peme Recipe".

In the spring of the Chinese New Year, Long Yingtai came to New York with the intention of going on a "pilgrimage" to the United Nations Headquarters to meet her long-awaited health generals Liu Daren, Guo Songfen and others. I act as a companion.I can't remember what everyone talked about at that time, but I have a very vivid impression of the relationship between the dragon and the dragon.I remember this emaciated Long Yingtai, pale, melancholy, a pure and innocent literary girl, but full of worries about the country and the people. Compared with those few, it was almost a full 20 years ago , the big leftist brother who was branded as "bandit" on the front page of "Central Daily", she was sometimes pensive, sometimes dazed. Girls like that.

It was two years before martial law was lifted, and Long Yingtai was just in his early thirties.In post-war Taiwanese society, the accumulated energy of dissatisfaction with the system for many years, and the turbulent criticism of the undercurrent, followed the wildfire ignited by Long Yingtai, which quickly burned. Such a wildfire, such a sonorous and powerful voice, questioned and knocked. Ask, the door of the old system, which was strong from the outside but strong from the inside, just like this, it just fell down like this.However, instead of saying that Long Yingtai is brave, or, as Yang Zhao later described her as "simple and courageous", it is better to say that "heaven will send a great responsibility to the people", history forcibly puts the torch, the dragon sword , stuffed into her hands (in English, Some have greatness thrust upon them), she also went on stage, aptly performing the role of the dragon slayer.She's really more like Little Red Riding Hood, who accidentally stumbles into a wolf-sleeping forest.

Long Yingtai is a harmless "Zhengqi powder" that eats to strengthen the body and eat more

What did the wildfire at Longyingtai illuminate?The philosopher Kant said that enlightenment is to get out of immaturity and to seek knowledge bravely. Undoubtedly, "Wildfire Collection" is just such an enlightenment book to prepare for the lifting of martial law and lead the whole society into the era of democracy for all.This book illuminates our immature, unenlightened state, and more importantly, sets off a new wave of "enlightenment" in postwar Taiwan.However, we can't help but ask, why Long Yingtai?Why "Wildfires"?Compared with the previous wave, from Lu Xun to Lai He, Li Ao to Bo Yang's old enlightenment, how is this wave different, which can produce such a powerful effect, such a deep and wide echo and resonance?
Looking back today, whether it is Lu Xun's wild grass style, dagger style essays, or Li Ao's "traditional monologue", they are all in the traditional literati style.These early Enlightenment heroes, we can call them "assassin-type" cultural critics, they have a deep-rooted, almost irrational obsession with Chinese history; With the resentful mentality of "you must destroy what you want and then quickly", they are revengers, stepping on the pace of Hamlet's monologue, and in the end, they leave an image of desolation and loneliness that cannot be revenged, ending in tragedy.Dare to take all kinds of anti-traditional and anti-mass dissatisfaction, they are even more "fart people", poor and stinky, loud and loud like a man's stinky, but in the end, they only become self-proclaimed and unmanned. The melancholy white-clothed clown (Pierrot) who agrees.The cruelty of history and the ruthlessness of the masses can be seen.

If the tragedies of the predecessors (imprisonment, books banned) are the fate of "assassin" cultural critics, Long Yingtai is a historical fairy tale or pastoral.In fact, Long Yingtai is not wild at all. The wildness in "Wild Fire Collection" is "seeking all wildness if the etiquette fails".As a liberal writer who had drunk foreign ink, it was impossible for Long Yingtai to sing high-profile like traditional literati and build a high wall of isolation from the world.Her impoverished background, coupled with her growing environment dominated by the working class, makes her more like a weed in the wild, with a very pragmatic character, and her arguments are full of rationality and sense of reality that "there is nothing high about being humble".Compared with the self-exile and anti-system guerrilla strategies of the predecessors, Long Yingtai stood in the light of history from the very beginning, waved the flag among the masses, and naturally blended into the chorus representing the aspirations of the whole people.If the predecessors were good at attacking poison with poison, like suppuratives, they tried their best to drive away carbuncles, but Long Yingtai used righteous and neutral Zhengqi powder, and it would not hurt to eat more.

Although he intends to burn down the old framework, Long Yingtai's attitude towards the system is moderate and reformist.In the series of articles "Chinese, Why Don't You Get Angry" and "College Students, Why Don't You Make Trouble" that received wide attention at that time, her style of writing was not at all bitter and mean, but she spoke eloquently, easily blending rationality and sensibility. To strike a balance between them, to show a force of persuasion that is irresistible and the awe-inspiring righteousness from the people.Long Yingtai is a cultural critic of the new era, but she also expects and promises to be a free person and a modern citizen with a high degree of ethical reflection. In her dictionary, public and private, male and female, and social One generation and the next generation, emotion and reason, tradition and modernity, classical Chinese and vernacular, are not completely dichotomous.She is not afraid that someone will say bad things about the system or tradition, but she is afraid that everyone will not speak up; she is not afraid that she or others will stir up trouble everywhere, but she is afraid that "only state officials are allowed to set fires, and the people are not allowed to light lamps."

Wildfire looks like it was a blog back then
The phenomenon of "Wildfire Collection" shows that smallness is not the point, smallness can fight for bigness, Little Red Riding Hood can beat big wild wolves with sticks, and small citizens can fight for big privileges.Many people today criticize Long Yingtai as a big discourse (sic, actually a "big narrative"). Back in the day, Long Yingtai was nothing more than a small "personal news station" that had no rights and no rights. A powerful blog, because of its daring to speak out, scold and rush, once it has a platform for the "Human World" supplement, it will immediately become popular in Taiwan.

After thinking about it carefully, we are still puzzled, and can’t help but ask again: How can an unknown returnee scholar, a newcomer who has nothing to do with the mainstream literary world, and an isolated individual who seems to have nothing to do can shake the the general public?How does the accident of history become inevitable?How did this idealistic literary girl who grew up in the poverty-stricken Kaohsiung township and dreamed on the simple campus of Chengda University possess the magical power of "transformation" like a girl comic, which generates huge energy in an instant, turning Everyone connected?Righteousness and luck are scattered, so how can they become the elixir that everyone uses to practice kung fu?
Undoubtedly, the success of Lung Ying-tai and the turmoil of the times are based on the maturity of the post-war middle class and, correspondingly, the desire of this class to be the masters of Taiwanese society.However, what really connects her with everyone's life is rather that Long Yingtai's grassroots character aroused the civic consciousness of the citizens of the time. The civic spirit of the family and the country, the local feelings, and the individual value and dignity are closely linked together.

Long Yingtai's "Wild Fire Collection" borrows the vocabulary of modern advertisers, so it belongs to everyone.Long Yingtai has always been a "storyteller". Her articles are full of narration and discussion, rich in traditional reasoning and instruction, but she never sees difficult arguments and quotations. Stories of people's lived experiences.Through this way of storytelling, Lung Ying-tai communicates her civic experience in European and American societies with the local experience of ordinary people in Taiwan, and builds a bridge between civil society and Western civil society. Those brand-new ideas, values ​​and forms that Taiwanese society desperately needed at that time were conveyed through her stories and characters.

The success of Long's Zhengqi Powder is a wonderful revelation: Does criticizing the system necessarily go against tradition?In addition to local feelings and family and country feelings, as far as the style is concerned, Long Yingtai's speech strategy is actually similar to the narrative skills of traditional folk artists, like a storyteller who walks the rivers and lakes and raps, or turns on the AM channel in his early years , a radio host who sells medicine while talking about ancient times; but, the new storyteller Long Yingtai talks about modern warning fables and sells the power of righteousness and luck.

Jade Jiaolong Stealing Fire
Over the past 20 years, Long Yingtai can be regarded as a small cultural wonder in the Chinese world. The ideological bridge she built connects elites and the public, folk society and literati traditions, East and West, classics and modern times. Never before have they been strung together on such a large scale.Pure as her, naive as her, like a chivalrous heroine, seeing injustice everywhere in the Chinese world, "setting fire" to help, just like that, all the way from Shanghai, Singapore, to Hong Kong, Guangzhou; from [-] In the "March [-] Incident" in [-], when the value of Taiwan's democracy was questioned, she stood up to defend Taiwan's democracy. In [-], Lien and Song visited the mainland successively. She published "You may Unknown Taiwan, within a few days, millions of people clicked on the Internet, vigorously disseminating Taiwan awareness and Taiwan values, and the entire Chinese-speaking world has become an enlarged modern arena.The chivalrous girl Long Yingtai can be regarded as a certain level of Jade Jiaolong. Although she doesn't know martial arts, she can't fly lightly, fly around the sky, or kill the enemy with swords and swords, but she is also a woman. Their innocence can teach people There is no way to guard against it, and once the trick of setting fire comes out, it is often taken by surprise and people are caught off guard.

After further investigation, we found that Taiwan is actually the practice room of the Dragon Warrior, the venue for her horse riding, where she created what can be called the "Wildfire Era", and the so-called "Taiwan Experience" is not exactly She has successfully developed a unique move.Although the value of Taiwan's experience is not enough, it is more than enough, and it is not as good as the civilized and democratic society of the West, but compared with the closed and backward Chinese community, it is even more precious.As the spokesperson of Taiwan's experience, Long Yingtai has continuously exported Taiwan's experience and democratic values ​​through various forms of writing and speech actions. To respond to Taiwan, you must jump out to defend and speak for Taiwan.

Which book of secrets did Dragon Lady's trick of setting fire come from?In Greek mythology, Prometheus stole fire from humans and promoted the development of human civilization. From this perspective, Long Yingtai's "Wildfire" probably inherited the enlightenment role of the fire thief and stole her in the Western world. Bring the tinder back home. Since the "May [-]th Movement", these people who have traveled to other places to study, like Long Yingtai, have really sailed across the sea, wandered abroad, and then returned to the mainland, focusing on their own missions, trying to bring the perspective of first-hand Western life experience , There are many "sailor-type" writers and scholars who communicate with local traditions; what is rare is that the Dragon Lady is the first and unique ingenuity. The wildfires of the local people and the wildfires of the native land "seeking all the wilds without courtesy" can actually merge into one furnace, illuminating the ruins of the Chinese-speaking world.It's a pity that there are many cultural compradors who may be called "pirate type" in their team. These people are concerned about what treasures and secret books others have, and they can buy and sell them now, so they often Many dazzling theories have been introduced, but in fact they lack an inner understanding of Western culture. More fundamentally, they have lost their own memories and experiences, so it is impossible for them to truly understand the West.However, this may be a fate that cannot be broken for a long time, just like Taiwan was considered a typical "pirate country" in the past. Now, to put it bluntly, everyone is often just doing counterfeit OEM work, using the wealth of the Western world as One's own rice bowl cannot further improve oneself.

Set fire again, "When Facing the Sea" sparked controversy

In the past, the economic miracle created by Taiwan and the dazzling status of the four Asian tigers once made us quite complacent. Therefore, we can proudly say that Long Yingtai is the pride of Taiwan's cultural output.However, once upon a time, across the millennium and into the 21st century, in just four or five years, Taiwan's "success story" faded as quickly as a dream.In the past, the value of Taiwan that made everyone most satisfied, now looking back, it has become a suspicious historical drama; once, the most advanced modern and post-modern discourses that we thought we had mastered, are now declared bankrupt, and thinking seems to be a whole. Hollowed out in general. The "Wildfire Era" vigorously advertises the arrival of the era of universal democracy and universal voice, emphasizing that only the people can carry out a "value revaluation" that will turn the world around and turn the world around through the "will to power" of themselves and the group. From [-] to [-] alone, there were seventeen social movements (consumer protection movement, anti-pollution self-relief movement, ecological conservation movement, aboriginal human rights movement, women’s movement, peasant movement, etc. However, if we take the environmental issues closely related to life as an example, every family would rather spend money on drinking water fountains and water filters today than believe that the government can work together to improve the drinking water problem, and do not believe in the government’s public works. Don't trust the government to spend taxpayers money on something meaningful. The public space and public discourse created by "Wildfire Collection" almost collapsed in the end.In addition to our disappointment with public works, we are full of resentment towards the public sphere full of various call-in programs. Blue and green blame each other, interpreting others and the whole society with simple and crude symbols such as unity and independence and ethnic groups. As if falling into an unprecedented disaster, I just feel disillusioned and lost right now.

The inability to accumulate Taiwan’s experience and the loss of Taiwan’s value, if we blame it, first of all, we only have the “minus culture” mentioned by Jiang Xun, but not the “plus culture”. The culture of the previous regime was uprooted and wiped out; secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the past experience of Taiwan or the pattern set by "modernity", we have to admit that what people often see is that a new expanded The Vanity Fair of China is deeply fascinated by the flashy world it shows, but does not see the value of tradition, history, and culture; it is also because people do not see the role of humanistic values ​​and classical values ​​in real life, so that we The once-proud Taiwan experience, the so-called economic miracle, and the so-called democratic politics turned out to be just another form of money games and power struggles.

(End of this chapter)