Teacher Mao Xipang's two or three things

? (1)

? I remember that it was late one night in 1983, when I was about to put down a scholar's history in my hand and prepare to sleep, a very polite knock on the door sounded like a piano. Hurriedly rolled off the bed and opened the door. The bearer turned out to be a respected teacher named Mao Xipang, followed by a young man.

The wrinkles around Mr. Mao's eyes are crooked, and his chubby face is full of apologetic smiles.

Listen to the introduction. He came with the keeper of the archives of Wusi Factory. Due to the need of compiling history, he deliberately found this young man, hoping to take out some materials from the archives and have them remake by me. However, the file system does not allow the materials to be lent out, so Teacher Mao asked the archivist to steal the materials in the middle of the night to prepare for the remake and then return them.

In the early 198s, there was no copy shop in Leshan. If there was no negative film, Mr. Mao would ask me to copy the required materials. If there was a negative film, I would help me to develop it, which included a large number of negative photos and letters of a large number of famous people, such as Guo Moruo, Zhang Beilu, Zhang Daqian, Fei Xinwo and Qian Shoutie. That is to say, in those years, I at least developed and printed hundreds of photo letters and various materials for Mr. Mao Xipang.

For these precious materials, the teacher will compile the table of contents, indicate the outline and put them neatly in his folders that make outsiders look dazzling. All kinds of materials in Teacher Mao's study look like hills, but he can accurately take out any book and find any page.

The teacher likes to dip his mouth in his vast history books. I once joked that Sima Yi just turned over the books with his hands stained with saliva and was finally poisoned. The teacher laughed. Sima Yi died of illness at the age of seventy-three. No one poisoned him. I copied the drawings of Wusi Factory neatly, but this time, Mr. Mao must see the film in person. He was afraid that no one would dare to steal the file for the second time if the film was scrapped.

So I began to prepare a film developing tank, an enlarger, a developing disc and a hair dryer, glazing machine. In the process of developing and enlarging film photos, including cutting paper and developing and fixing, this respectable teacher helped me to do odd jobs. In the hurry, I actually instructed Mr. Mao Xipang like my apprentice, but the teacher seemed very happy to be my helper. He just wanted to see the photo effect quickly.

After the film was washed out, it was dried with a hair dryer and then put into a magnifier, so that decades later, the famous photographer Deng Hongxiu felt sorry for these films that had not been washed sufficiently and had been scrapped early, including most of the negatives of the pictures I needed for this text now, which were no longer usable and had to be remake from publications that had published works before.

(2)

Guo Moruo wrote a poem "Ode to the East Wind" and personally wrote it as a banner, which was brought back to Leshan from Beijing by Huang Gaobin, director of Leshan Cultural Management Bureau, and presented to Dou Guangyu, the former Leshan Administrative Commissioner. Therefore, Mr. Mao Xipang asked me to go to Commissioner Dou's house, took down this four-foot banner from the wall, and then stood on a single bench and held it for me to shoot. The next day, I developed the photo and sent it to him. I felt that Mr. Mao was a little happy, because Guo Lao's poem was not only clearly shot, but also found that this calligraphy was actually missing a word like the wrong edition of RMB, which was unique in Guo Moruo's calligraphy works. So I immediately began to guess which word this missing word should be. Finally, Teacher Mao decided that it should be an escape word. This day, Teacher Mao felt like a child.

(3)

It's common for me to be called away by Mr. Mao at any time.

One day in 1984, Mr. Mao suddenly found me and said that the remnants of the original outer city wall were exposed after the houses in Shanghe Street were demolished. He was afraid that the remnants would be destroyed and asked me to take pictures at once.

I took my equipment and rushed to the scene to take some photos with Mr. Mao. I was about to go back and develop the photos. The teacher suddenly asked me if the photos could reflect the height of the outer wall. I said I couldn't, so I had to mark them under the pictures. Teacher Mao quickly said that someone should take two pictures under the city wall so that future generations can clearly know the proportion of the city wall.

Because I wanted to take a photo, Mr. Mao walked to the crumbling wall root by himself, and the debris under the wall formed a slope. As soon as Mr. Mao stood up, he slipped and his face was covered with mud. I quickly found another young man to stand under the wall root and finished shooting. At this time, it was getting late, so Teacher Mao called me to his house for dinner.

(4)

The food in the teacher's house is not complicated, but Teacher Niang's cooking is good, especially the old bacon cooked by Teacher Niang herself, which is as shiny as a child's slap, and the bite is full of oil, and its fragrance from lips and teeth to gastrointestinal tract is hard to say.

The teacher asked me to eat first. He wanted to change his clothes full of mud and take a bath.

I won't be polite at the teacher's place. I picked up a piece of bacon and ate it with relish, completely ignoring my teacher's mother who was still waiting for the teacher to eat. I didn't expect that this piece of bacon had just been eaten, and the teacher had already come out of the shower. While greeting with a smile, he said, "Please take your time."

I was a little surprised at the speed of Mr. Mao's bath, so I asked the teacher if he had already taken a bath. I didn't know that he laughed, "Why is it difficult to take a bath? I'll tell you how I took a bath all my life." As he spoke, he also picked up a piece of bacon that I had already taken a fancy to.

Teacher Mao said that he only needed half of the water in the washbasin for bathing, one third of which was used to wet his body and wipe soap, and then the remaining half of the water was drenched from head to toe and then dried. In less than ten minutes, he could sit at a desk full of historical materials and start his writing work.

When I got home that night, I took a bath according to my teacher's instructions. After that, I always felt that the soap was not cleaned and I was itchy for several days. I just thought about my teacher, so I took a bath all my life.

Author's Note: Due to the mildew and damage of the negative film, most of the pictures in this article were found in my previous publications, and some of them were blurred, so everyone had to make do with it.