How much elegance can be reproduced

Author: Cai Pa
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-06-01
Features: Cai Pa's writing might be the beginning of rediscovering the Nanyang. The various life destinations this beginning points toward, and the profound thoughts and emotions of ordinary people, await further exploration and imagination. — Renowned writer Han Shaogong
The works of Ms. Cai Pa cannot be the only version of the many memories of Hainan Island, but the passionate sense of justice she carries and her attachment to beautiful things lend this record an emotional power that moves one deeply. It also deepens my sense of guilt as an Asian man. Reading her book makes me realize how many heavy memories I have forgotten, and how great a sin forgetting is! — Kong Jian, Editor-in-Chief of the magazine "Tianya"
"How Many Graces Can Be Replayed" can be interpreted in many ways, but it is not just about elegance. From it, I read—historical justice. When the countless illusions dissipate, the truth of history emerges clearly, like the gnarled texture of an old tree, vivid as ever. Here, a delicate feminine pen writes about the sense of justice that should have been borne by men. — Well-known online writer Qingqiuzi
A tree grows, and there are many leaves to be picked; a person lives on the earth for a long time, and there are many past events to recall and savor. When does what is happening become less than what has happened, and what is lost more than what is gained? Only an unmeasured heart neither increases nor decreases. However, the human heart is usually measured. Those things abandoned and buried by time are not easily let go of. People always dig them out in some way, re-editing and reassembling them. Because the life currently in progress seems thin and ordinary in any way you say it, while the originally seemingly ordinary and thin life, after being soaked in wind and rain for several years, takes on an indescribable force when recalled. It's like pickled cabbage in an old jar, with all kinds of flavors—sweet, sour, bitter, and spicy. This proves what someone once said: the value of something is only revealed when it is lost. However, many times, memory is a secret act, a private one. A person cannot see the image of another's memories, which is why memory needs to be told and listened to.
Because of memory, time becomes the greatest collector. True history never lies in vast scrolls but is engraved in people's heart-wrenching recollections. But memory needs a patient and passionate listener, and Ms. Cai Pa is just such a person. Her concern for the personal fates obscured by grand historical narratives leads her on a journey against time. With extraordinary enthusiasm, she carries a microphone and a notebook, wandering through the old streets of Haikou and the remote villages of Qionghai, Wenchang, Sanya, Ledong, and Danzhou. She delves into narrow alleys and old houses, visits the elderly and the marginalized, rescues already blurred memories, and fights against forgetting. With living witnesses and faded photographs, as well as her own insight and imagination, she recreates the old sunshine on Hainan Island and the hazy shadows under coconut trees, allowing us to see the truth behind the statistics and general judgments, to see a more humanistic history, especially the fate of women in families during the transformation of patriarchal society.
In her writing, Ms. Cai Pa pours her immense personal passion into the work, almost making the deceased speak. Especially when it comes to humanitarian disasters, her hands tightly grip those of the victims, and her indignation is hard to conceal. Her clear love and hatred, and her fierce aversion to evil, are fully expressed in her writing. In her words, conscience becomes the only judge of history. No matter how complex and perilous the times may be, people must take their moral actions to account with their lives, and those who escape responsibility will never find peace in their souls. Reading her book makes one recall how many heavy memories have been forgotten, and how great a sin forgetting is!
The same past event can have many possible recollections. What the past was like depends on who is recalling it. The works of Ms. Cai Pa, "How Many Graces Can Be Replayed," cannot be the only record of the many past events of Hainan Island, but the passionate sense of justice she carries lends this record an emotional power that moves one deeply. It also deepens my sense of guilt as an Asian man. May we, through reflection, repentance, and forgiveness, reach forgetting and enter the realm of Zen enlightenment. To intervene in today's life, we cannot easily forget the past. However, the past is endless, and memory has no end. The true tense of life should be the present continuous. People cannot drown in the stream of meditation and regret. I hope that this book's reflection on the past, like Lu Xun's commemoration of Liu Hezhen, points toward oblivion and nothingness.
The Frenchman Proust immersed his entire life in the flow of time, unable to break free for his entire life. This both accomplished his literature and drowned him in the breath of his life. As Borges said, memory can crush a person. Like longing, what memory holds is but a fleeting thought in the human heart. Once the one who longs no longer longs, the future becomes blank; once the one who remembers no longer remembers, the past ceases to exist.