One year in Tokyo: Tokyo saved me and gave me the price of living.

One Year in Tokyo is a new book written by Jiang while living in Tokyo. Tokyo, one year. Just reading the title of the book is enough to attract me to read it. I am very interested in the real life records of other people in the distance.

Only after I opened it did I realize that this book contains 42 diaries to show my life abroad.

This surprises me even more-I like reading writers' diaries or letters, because between the lines are the writers' truest feelings and souls-besides the words they construct, what is more real is themselves.

In this book, Jiang shed the packaging of "genius" and "prodigy" and showed himself sincerely, such as Lu Xun's "dissecting himself more ruthlessly".

As the preface says: "I keep all the rambling nonsense and embarrassing social intercourse in my diary, and I feel a kind of' full exposure' pleasure."

I was moved by her honesty.

02

"In 20 16 years, I lived alone in Tokyo for a year, and Tokyo also saved me."

A plain sentence becomes heavy because of the word "save". A city saves a person-how much strength does it take to save?

I am curious. I want to know what Jiang has experienced in the past twenty years. I need to rely on a city to save myself.

-He started writing at the age of seven, published his first collection of essays "Open the Skylight" at the age of nine, became a best-selling author at the age of 1 1, set up columns in two influential newspapers at the age of 12, and had published nine books by the time of the college entrance examination.

—— He was admitted to Tsinghua University after the college entrance examination in 2008 and was invited as the deputy editor of New Weekly. I am not yet thirty, but I have been writing for more than twenty years.

No one can succeed casually. Her success is not only talented, but also inseparable from hard work.

She hasn't had winter and summer vacations since the third grade of primary school. Until three o'clock in the morning. Do push-ups when you are sleepy to keep yourself awake. When a teenager became famous, she was burdened with too many expectations and pressures. "If someone else has one day, I have to go for two days."

She lives very hard, so she is very hard.

03

"For the first time in my life, I live in a complete vacuum, without goals and meaning. Every day when I open my eyes, there is a big blank to fill. "

"Forced seriousness and forced isolation freed me from the life on the treadmill that was passively accelerated before, and regained the ability to observe and think."

"The year spent in Tokyo didn't turn me into a new person. I just look more like what I should be. "

It turns out that Jiang's "salvation" is not to change her face, but only to make her become the real self-not the self set by the outside world.

Out of the high-speed pace of life, you will be at a loss and at a loss. If one day suddenly gives you a big gap, how will you fill it? Is it wasted or ...

Jiang has her own way-reading, watching exhibitions, meeting people, traveling and being alone. In the process, she re-examined herself.

04

Jiang was invited to talk with the writer Mr. Nishimoto Masaaki and make a speech. Her speech is full of sincerity and truth, inadvertently revealing the height of thinking and the depth of thought.

She faced up to her past as a "female writer"-"I know very well what will cause readers' uproar and laughter, such as'/kloc-writing at the age of 7 and publishing at the age of 9', and I am tired of talking about it. But before I write a good work, I can only rely on these stories to arouse readers' interest in me, which is no different from performing fireballs and drilling fire circles. "

She examines her present "no works"-"I'm not a writer, because a good writer must face up to his times and look directly at a huge world, instead of turning his back and only looking at his own memories." So, she wrote "The Trial of Childhood" and said goodbye to herself.

Now, starting from Tokyo, Jiang is facing his own future again-from writing for the sake of fame to writing for himself, from flattering others to being frank with each other, which has gone through a process from precocity to maturity.

05

So, in a year's time, what changes has Tokyo brought to Jiang?

In the new city, she learned how to take the subway and became confident because she mastered new skills.

Taking the subway is a very simple thing, but it doesn't simply mean that she began to integrate into foreign life. The strange estrangement with Tokyo gradually dissolved, thus getting familiar with the city.

At first, she couldn't overcome the shyness of eating alone. Even if the streets were full of delicious food, she didn't have the courage to walk into a shop. Later, when eating alone, she would nod silently and say to herself, "It's delicious."

She has become able to enjoy life-staring at every painting in the art museum, chewing every bite of food and making every idea grow seriously. "Life is really better."

She felt lonely when she spent 40 minutes watching the clothes turn in the washing tub. The loneliness of ordinary people has long been drowned by her past high-pressure life. When she was washing clothes, she picked it up again.

She asked herself, "What is my reason for living? Maybe I still humbly long for love and being loved. "

06

Besides fireworks, she spent a lot of pen and ink on her spiritual life.

She went to the art exhibition and had a unique appreciation for the artist's works.

She went to the film exhibition and had independent thoughts and opinions on the film.

She has a profound and mature understanding of social phenomena and human nature that does not belong to this era.

What surprised me was her mastery of Japanese literature. Japanese writers and works are deeply interpreted and evaluated at her fingertips, which is so enjoyable.

What surprised me even more was that she seemed to live in Japanese literature. A street, a scene, a person and a thing, she can find a correspondence in literary works. How familiar you should be with these works.

When she goes to Omotesando Hills to buy spring clothes, she will think of the cautious widow in Shi Zhecun's Spring Sun and Kuniko Mukoda's Spring Comes. Suddenly, she felt that spring was like a scam, so she felt dejected and went back without buying anything.

When she saw the lost and found painting by the Japanese administrator's grandfather in the elevator of the apartment, she thought of the cartoon "Teacher's Bag" and Kawabata Yasunari's novel "The Sound of Mountains", which brought readers a surprise literary feast.

Sitting on the "Dudian Arakawa Line", she found a familiar feeling when she watched the streets outside the window getting worse and worse. It turns out that the protagonist in Norwegian Forest has also been in this carriage.

Even, she found Lv Zi's home in the subaltern area, and Watanabe went to find the places where Lv Zi passed-those cheap custom shops and crowded bungalows. Even the location of Lv Zi's "Kobayashi Bookstore" has found a correspondence in reality.

07

During my year in Tokyo, I saw a Jiang who was sometimes funny, sometimes heavy, sometimes frank and sometimes sharp. This is the true nature of ginger. I like it.

But I prefer her bravery. After recognizing the world and human nature, she still faced it bravely-yes, people are so sad. But fortunately, the sea is always so blue.

I'm Hawthorn, and I'm traveling-reading, writing, photography and living. I am lucky to meet you, and I am lucky to meet you once in the article. If you like my calligraphy, remember to give me a compliment.