Chapter 31 Appendix: "Cat City Tale" by Lao She, a work of worrying about the country and the world

"Cat City Tale" is the second novel written by Lao She in 1930 after he returned to his motherland after six years of absence from London.The writing time was about 1932-1933.At that time, China was facing internal and external troubles, with warlords and civil wars between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.In addition, Japan invaded and occupied the three northeastern provinces, and later made a .The February 8th incident, the people were in dire straits.The shadow of national peril hangs over the motherland where the people are in dire straits. Faced with the situation of land loss, political darkness and corruption, and people being displaced, Lao She adopted the style of fables in order to express his worries about the country and the world more conveniently and more strongly. The metaphor of half China and half cat country has written the political satire novel "Cat City Tale".The novel lashes out at the dark politics at that time, exposes the warlord politics and the corruption of the rulers, and ridicules the insensitive and cannibalistic people. The strong patriotic enthusiasm and sorrow and indignation of peril.

In "Cat City", Lao She pretended that I in the novel took a plane to explore Mars, but the plane crashed on Mars, and the companions died unfortunately.I fell into the hands of the big scorpion of the cat country alone, and saw the social situation, personality, social circles, diplomacy, military economy, and politics of the cat country. The tragic situation of annihilation of the country and the genocide expresses my extreme indignation at the tragedy of the cat people society.What is the cat country society like in the author's writing? In the country of cats, the popular food is a kind of narcotic plant sycamore (metaphor of opium) from foreign countries. At the beginning, it was eaten by the upper class. The more they ate it, the more addicted they became, and the emperor ordered it to be the national food.The lost forests in the Cat Country are all controlled by politicians, officers, and landowners.Big Scorpion is an important person in the cat country, a big landowner and politician, poet and military officer, a big landowner, because he has a large lost forest, and lost leaves are the food in the food of cat people. If you don't plant lost trees, you will lose all your power.Doing politics requires fans, otherwise you will not see the emperor.To be a military officer requires fan leaves, which are military pay, and to write poetry, you need fan leaves, which can make people dream during the day.The lost leaf is omnipotent, with it, one can run amok for a lifetime.Infestation is the noblest word in the upper class of cat people, for widespread eating of stray leaves has debilitated the cat kingdom.

Cat City is the capital of Cat Country.Here filth, disease, mess, confusion, and darkness are the characteristics of this civilization.When I saw Cat City at first glance, I don’t know why a sentence formed in my mind: This civilization is about to become extinct!It seems that people are about to be stripped of their flesh and blood, turning this cat city into a dumping ground for bones.Here, the upper-level rulers of the cat country I saw lived a decadent and corrupt life.There are twelve concubines in Daxie’s family, and a cat man who was a minister died and left eight concubines. They have to be carried by the cat man when they go out. They regard the cat man as nothing, and they can kill the cat soldiers Cat people, when they travel, they use sticks to clear the way. The big scorpions are on the heads of seven or eight cat people, and they keep rushing into the crowd. With all his strength, he hit the cat man on the head, and the crowd was split.The people of the cat country are not treated as human beings at all.

The education in Cat Country is even more messed up, and admission counts as graduation.It is precisely because the family, society, and country are all fools that such foolish children are raised.In education, I was angry to see that giant finger of destruction on the hopes of the cat people.Suspicion, smallness, self-interest, and cruelty are everywhere.No honesty, generosity, loyalty, generosity!Dark, dark, one hundred percent dark.The "Cat City Story", which hates iron but not steel, exposes the darkness of the cat country with grief. The emperor has no personality, the politicians have no personality, and the people have no personality. Therefore, the no personality outside the school washes out the no personality in the school. dyed.Once there is no personality, people will immediately return to barbarism, not to mention the school we have run for two hundred years?Hitting as soon as you reach out is the honor of the upper-class cat people, and it is also the right attitude for the lower-class cat people.The author wrote sadly: What is the reason for the collapse of this new education?I can't answer.I just think it's because I don't have personality.

The ruler of the cat city treats ordinary cat people as nothing, disregarding human life, but fears and worships foreigners.People in Cat Country are most assured of foreigners. Every landlord (a metaphor for warlords) must keep a few foreigners as protectors to protect Milin for them.Foreigners live alone in foreign cities in the cat city (metaphorical concessions), and the laws of the cat country do not control foreigners.Foreigners only need to report when they kill someone, not only will they not be punished by the cat country authorities, but they will also be thanked.Instead of adopting a policy of self-improvement, the cat people adopt an opportunistic attitude. Their only hope is that the foreigners fight first.Aiming for self-improvement requires great effort, and cat people are too shrewd to put in so much effort.The cat country's army only knows how to rob Miye and women.It is a characteristic of cat people's nature to be in awe of foreigners.It is impossible to fight foreigners.

The regime in the Cat Kingdom is extremely corrupt, with many yamen, and the officials only care about playing with women. The diplomacy is even more abhorrent and ridiculous. When the foreign army is on the verge of death, the Minister of Foreign Affairs is busy at home welcoming his wife.The only thing left is a pile of stone slabs engraved with the word protest.A slate is sent no matter what happens, and the catman's protests from foreigners are always ignored.When the foreign soldiers came to the city, both the big scorpion and the politicians fainted from fright. Even though they were frightened fainted, they still haven't forgotten to socialize or summon prostitutes.The emperor and dignitaries fled one after another, not wanting to resist at all.Not only did they not resist, but Daxie and other politicians rushed to surrender to the enemy with their own troops: We go to surrender, whoever arrives first can hand over the capital to the enemy first, and they will never worry about not having official jobs in the future.Wrote the shamelessness of the upper class.

The author wrote in the article that the people in the cat country only know how to kill each other, they are cowardly and incompetent, and they are almost hopeless.The ability to kill each other is getting stronger every day, and the method of killing is almost as ingenious as poetry.Killing has become an art.In ancient times they also fought against foreign countries, and they were victorious. However, in the past five hundred years, the result of cannibalism made them completely forget the concept of fighting against foreigners, and they all fought internally.In the article, the author wrote angrily: Even though the elements that make up this civilization are also bright, those lights can never resist this dark force.This power, I saw, must some day be cut off by some true light, or some poisonous gas, as if to sterilize.

In "Cat City", besides denouncing the darkness and corruption of the society, the author also criticized the internal strife caused by the cat Ravsky, Yayavsky, Dafusiji, and the national Fusiji army with red strings around their necks. The national strength is weak, and the dwarf soldiers take the opportunity to invade and feel disgusted.The article criticizes mercilessly: the believers of our great master Siji call Mazu Daxian when they are in a hurry, and Mazu Daxian is the least superstitious person at all.Our revolutionaries moved the Great Western Immortal when they were in a hurry, and the Western Great Immortal is the most unimaginable and confused person in the world who only knows how to use straw sticks.When the problem has to be solved immediately, everyone has no choice but to seek immortality.This is why we must die, everyone is confused!Economic, political, educational, military, etc. are bad enough to perish a country, but everyone is stupid enough to perish, because there are no people in the world who treat people who are confused like animals.This time, you see, our failure is undoubtedly; after the failure, you see, the enemy must kill us, because they don't treat us as human beings, they kill us just like slaughtering animals, they are not polite Those who go to kill, you watch!

Here, we can see how heartbroken the author is for the cat country (metaphor of China), the internal warlord melee, the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, and how heartbroken it is.The author went on to write in grief and indignation: The dwarf soldiers (a metaphor for the Japanese invaders) dug a deep hole.Many catmen came from the east, followed by a few dwarves, as if driving a flock of sheep, to the vicinity of the big pit. The dwarves resting here surrounded them and squeezed into the pit.The catman's cry was enough to break even Tie Zuo's heart.But the ears of the dwarves seemed to be harder than iron, and they kept rushing into the pit with their iron handles.The dwarves are filling the pit with earth.A whole batch of burials alive!This is the cat people's punishment for not being self-reliant.I don't know who to hate, I only learned one lesson: those who don't consider themselves human beings cannot be treated like human beings; one person's selfishness is enough to make so many compatriots suffer the violent torture of being buried alive!When facing extinction, the cat people still work in groups of three or five; they still don't know how to cooperate until they die.There are already two catmen left, the enemy has arrived, and the two of them are fighting hard.The dwarves did not kill them both, but put them in a large wooden cage, and they continued to fight in the cage until the two killed each other; thus, the cat people completed their extermination.A living and tragic scene of the Nanjing Massacre!The author's worry has indeed become a reality in Nanjing five years after the publication of this article, because the selfishness, ignorance, and internal strife of the Chinese have weakened the country and given opportunities for the lowly bandits to take advantage of it. A terrible tragedy made Lao She's prediction became a fact.Here, we see Mr. Lao She's extreme worry and indignation about the corruption and darkness of Chinese society, the warlords' melee, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party's endless civil wars, the people's insensitivity, and the people of the country killing each other, which led to the verge of extinction.

Between the lines of "Cat City Tale", Lao She shouted hoarsely, analyzed with anxiety, and sternly reprimanded, and the sincere heart of worrying about the country and the people that was dripping with blood jumped out on the paper.Lao She's deep and painful, indignant and strong patriotic noble character makes people feel alert to the world after reading it. If Lao She's works "Four Generations Under One Roof", "Camel Xiangzi" and "Tea House" are lovable, memorable and deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.Then "Cat City Tale" is about the darkness and corruption of society in the 1930s, but we are no strangers to reading it.It not only makes people have a deep understanding of the people and things in the old era, but even resonates, and then plays a positive role in invigorating China.Reminiscent of the early morning of August 24, 1966, Lao She stepped into the heart of Taiping Lake without hesitation, with a broken heart of worrying about the country and the people, and fought against the authoritarian regime to the death. His death shocked a whole generation. His deep and unforgettable awareness of national woes and his great sentiment of patriotism and concern for the people will nourish the soul of the Chinese nation.