People are familiar with Xiao Shu from a best-selling book titled "Women of the Golden Triangle," published in 2004. The book describes the personal journey of life, death, sex and love of two urban women who go into the Golden Triangle as companions; the kingpins, drugs, blood, violence, killing under the poppies, and the evils behind the money, all these elements make this 300,000-word work of documentary literature attracted a lot of attention.
In the spring of 2005, she once again set foot on the land of the Golden Triangle to find inspiration for the continuation of Women of the Golden Triangle. However, a strange encounter in the north of Myanmar brought her to the Expeditionary Army, and her creative work was transformed. This female writer, who had attracted attention for "Women of the Golden Triangle," dove headfirst into the pile of old paper and paid attention to the "last veterans" who had long been forgotten.
Strange encounter
Xiaoshu original name Li Xiaoshu, born in the 1960s in Kunming, Yunnan Province, is the root of the revolutionary descendants. 80's, Xiaoshu to Kunming City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine Western Pharmacy, 10 years later, went to Hainan as a reporter for the Economic Newspaper. Due to the influence of family education, "idealism spread hopelessly in my life". 1993, in order to pursue a love, she went to Russia alone, began more than two years of Europe, Southeast Asia and other countries of the wandering writing life. 2001 spring, in order to complete the book "Women of the Golden Triangle", Xiaoshu to free writer, she traveled across northern Burma five times.
The living room of her home is decorated with Russian tapestries, Golden Triangle coffee, Parisian alarm clocks, and Italian jewelry, all of which Xiao Shu purchased during her travels. Xiaoshu is a lover of exoticism. She often claimed to her friends that even at the age of 60, her turnover rate on the street would still be 100 percent. In the eyes of her friends, not all of her clothes were brand-name, but they were certainly one-of-a-kind. Even when she goes to the funeral of her predecessor, she never forgets to stick a snow-white Maine gardenia on her head.
Best friend Liu Xia was curious about Xiaoshu's obsession with war veterans, but it wasn't until she heard about "The Adventures of Northern Burma" that she understood her.
The encounter took place in the early spring of 2005, when Xiaoshu entered Myanmar from the border town of Gambaidi dressed as a border farmer. Through an acquaintance, she hired a pickup truck from a local overseas Chinese and drove along the scenic Irrawaddy River to Myitkyina, a major border town in northern Myanmar.
The car drove into the mountains, the weather suddenly changed in the late afternoon, a storm came, the mountain stones with the torrential rain rolled down to the mountain road, the driver went to look for old folks to help move the boulders on the road. And Xiaoshu saw a tin sign on the trunk of a longan tree on the side of the road - a row of bold Chinese words "Lin Bo Machinery Repair" underneath the curved Burmese text, with an arrow pointing to a shaded path.
At the end of the path is a house with a rusty tin roof backed by a hillock. A grease-covered middle-aged man, busy with a vise in his hand, looked up, saw Xiaoshu, and said, "Looking for my father? He's behind the room." In the bushes behind the house, Xiaoshu saw a one-armed old man with a lean figure, a torch-like gaze, and a special look on his face as if it were an old wind-dried log. "Girl child, from China huh?" A thick, loud Sichuan accent.
The old man shook hands with Xiaoshu with his living right hand, strong, the scars on the back of his hand striking. Two mausoleums covered in moss and white wildflowers stand behind him. The green stone tombstone is engraved with striking Chu-colored scribal characters - "The brave man left his homeland, his liver and guts shine in the mountains and rivers," "Offerings to comrade-in-arms Jin Guanglei," "Offerings to comrade-in-arms Liu Yuxiang. Liu Yuxiang".
The old man introduced himself as Lin Guowei, 89 years old, Sichuan Yibin people, Huangpu Military Academy 15 graduates, was a mechanized division of the mortar company of a soldier. 1942, 26 years old, he went to Burma with the Expeditionary Forces, and the Japanese army blood bath, the defeat of the retreat from the Savage Mountain, into India was integrated into the Expeditionary Forces Garrison of the Indian Army. 1944, the Garrison of the Indian Army counter-attack in the north of Burma, and the Japanese in a blockade, Lin was wounded in Burma, and the Japanese army, the Indian Army, and the Japanese army, and the Japanese army.
Later, he married a local woman and had children, with the artillery battalion practiced mechanical knowledge of the skills, opened a mechanical repair workshop. This more than sixty years ago, the veteran of the war abroad, the poor its savings, exhausting, finally found the sacrifice in the wild mountains of northern Burma comrades Jin Guanglei, Liu Yuxiang's remains, and in their own house behind the monument for them to set up a tomb.
In the evening, in the driver urged to go on the road in the sound of car horns, Xiaoshu to the old man to say goodbye. The old man said in his farewell, "Waer, after returning to the convenience of the country to ask a question, we were young when we went abroad to fight for the country, now an old bone want to go home can not?"
The old man's thinning white hair and longing eyes made Xiaoshu feel worried.
Looking for
"1,500 wounded soldiers because they could not accompany the army on the long trek to the Savage Mountain, they stayed in Mo's village next to the Kandyan Buddhas Pagoda medical station, in order to avoid the humiliation of being captured by the Japanese army, they collectively set themselves on fire ...... all the officers and soldiers present to cover up their faces in deep mourning, a black mass of long kneeling." After returning to China in a few months, Xiaoshu eyes always keep surfacing in front of the Expeditionary Army breakout of the Savage Mountain before the collective self-immolation of the wounded soldiers that scene of tragedy, Lin Guowei old man's description, she always dare not and do not want to believe.
After returning home from a hasty trip to Myitkyina, Xiaoshu was plunged into a vast sea of World War II historical materials and memoirs of Expeditionary Force survivors.
In May 1942, the Chinese Expeditionary Force's road back to China was cut off by the Japanese army, and the commander, Du Iu-ming, ordered the destruction of all modern weaponry and equipment, and led his troops to break into the Savage Mountain, which the locals called the "Jedi". The mountain is a place known as "Jedi" by the locals.
April 4, 2006 at noon, Xiaoshu stood in Tengchong Heshun Township Yunnan-Burma War Museum in front of the display board, a black heavy text hit her like lightning: 70 years ago, the Japanese army fired the first shot of the Lugou Bridge. Countless young students joined the Expeditionary Army, including many girls. What is not well known is that there were about 200 female soldiers in the Expeditionary Army retreating into the Savage Mountains, most of whom were engaged in clerical work such as interpreting, newspaper service and medical care. In the end, only five women made it out of Savage Mountain.
These women, who were in their prime in the 1940s, may have been young girls, wives and mothers before they enlisted in the army, and they should have enjoyed a peaceful life of family, schooling, friendship, love and marriage, but were unfortunately caught up in the war. Xiaoshu decided to seek out the stories of these female soldiers.
In early 2006, Phoenix TV broadcast the story of Liu Guiying, the surviving female soldier of Savage Mountain. Xiaoshu found Liu Guiying's address in Hefei through Hefei TV's Evening Chronicle program. That Mid-Autumn Festival, she finally went to Hefei to embrace the 88-year-old Liu Guiying, a process documented by a reporter from CCTV's "Half the Sky" program.
As Liu Guiying's story was broadcast in the media, more war veterans and their families began to get in touch with Xiaoshu. In order to trace the veterans' footsteps back then, she traveled to Penang in the South Seas, Saipan in the Pacific, Northern Thailand, Northern Burma, Tengchong in Western Yunnan, Longling, and Songshan ...... searching for more than two dozen Expeditionary Forces veterans who have been displaced at home and abroad.
For more than 60 years ago, "World War II" memories, Xiaoshu decided to use the documentary form of the images of these veterans to be retained.2008 winter, in Kunming, China and the United States Friendship World War II Park planning committee support, she began to plan and write "the last veterans" shooting program, and invited volunteers to participate.
The film crew consists of writers, painters, amateur movie directors, military experts, university teachers and other caring volunteers who raise their own funds and equipment. The documentary is expected to produce six episodes, divided into "the return of the soul", "the soul of Songshan", "beautiful soul", "liver and gall bladder of the male soul", "foreign lonely soul", "the soul of the great nation".
Women Looking