In 2023, in the turbulent tide of the times, people try to coexist with anxiety, anxiety and confusion, stand on their heels, try their best to move forward, and reconstruct their lives. In China, a group of documentary filmmakers found an opportunity to record the year 2023 when a group of ordinary people were accumulating energy. The last note of the band fell, the lights went out on stage, and the screen lit up. The result of the creative team's long-term efforts was finally screened for the first time at the Xi'an Olympic Sports Center on NIO Day 2023. In the story, people are like the seeds of the world, growing on their own.
After breakfast, when I came out of the hotel, the sky on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau was still not bright, like night. The car parked in the open field had a thin layer of ice on the front window. In order to get on the road safely, Pan Guoyi and Qiu Hefen were panting hard, while using a small shovel to scrape off the ice on the car window little by little, and then got into the car to turn on the air conditioner, so that they could regain the view of the front window.
On the empty road, few vehicles pass by. The sun slowly rises over the horizon in the distance, and the blue sky gradually clears.
Pan Guoyi is 74 years old this year, and this is his third time in Tibet, more than 20 years since the last time. Fifty years ago, he participated in the construction of the Golmud-Lhasa oil pipeline, which traveled from the plains of the Yangtze River Delta to the plateau. On the Qinghai-Tibet line, I stayed for more than ten years. Those days of fighting side by side with his comrades-in-arms are always his most cherished memories. In his twilight years, it is easier to think of the past years, and while his body is still strong, he wants to return to the plateau with his wife and take a look at the place where he spent his youth in the past.
This wish has been buried in Pan Guoyi's heart for a long time, but he has never been able to make it. Originally, I had a plan last year, but it was delayed for some reason. Finally this year, the old couple found an opportunity.
Seeing that the year is about to pass, Zhu Lexian, the producer of the documentary "Flavor World", hopes to have a work that records the changes of ordinary people in this era of drastic changes. In his view, from last year to this year, people's lives have gradually recovered after some twists and turns, and ordinary people, as participants in the times, have changed their inner and outer states as a microcosm of this era. So, he served as an executive producer and began to look for a partner. Cheng Gong, the director of the documentary "Long Live Life", likes to observe and document the complexity of people, and at the invitation of Zhu Lexian, he took the job. Wanting to bring comfort and encouragement to people at the end of the year, the main creative team chose to use the theme of NIO Day 2023 as the theme of the documentary. At the beginning of September, they issued a questionnaire to the whole network, and after layers of screening, they finally finalized eight subjects across all ages and industries. Pan Guoyi is one of them, and from the information he submitted, Zhu Lexian saw the courage and passion that people still have in their twilight years. He and director Cheng Gong want the elderly couple to make their wishes come true.
Before leaving, Pan Guoyi browsed the travelogues shared by many people on the Internet and screened and produced a road book by himself. Even with adequate preparations, on the day of departure, Pan Guoyi did not sleep well, and his brain was filled with all kinds of thoughts. The route that had been planned for a long time coiled in his mind, and the difficulties he might encounter also came to his imagination. He woke up early, couldn't sleep anymore, got up at five o'clock with his wife, packed his bags at six o'clock, and drove off.
From Jiangyin, Jiangsu, the mouth of the Yangtze River thousands of years ago, it went all the way upriver to the Tanggula Pass where the Tuotuo River, the source of the Yangtze River, is located. The couple spent more than ten days on the road.
By the time we reached the vicinity of the Golmud Kunlun Pipeline, it was already getting dark and the temperature had dropped sharply. The pipeline, which was once rated as an "excellent project", stands quietly in the wind and has been serving as a carrier of oil and gas for decades. Now that Pan Guoyi is old, the surface of this pipeline he participated in the construction of also shows the vicissitudes of wind and rain.
This is the first section of pipeline built by Pan Guoyi's unit. The pipeline is located next to a cliff more than 40 meters high. More than 50 years ago, there were no cranes, and an 11/2-meter-long pipe had to be lifted by more than a dozen people. Exposed to the wind and sun, Pan Guoyi's face became skinny, one after another like fish scales. Recalling the past, Pan Guoyi and Qiu Hefen set up a tent next to the pipeline to temporarily shelter from the wind. Hiding inside, they swallowed a few steamed buns little by little with the hot water in the thermos pot.
Pan Guoyi remembered the past, Qiu Hefen also became excited, and talked about the life on the other side of the family when the pipeline was built: "I am also bitter at home. ”
When he gave birth to two sons, Pan Guoyi was on the Qinghai-Tibet line and could not go home. Qiu Hefen has to work and pull the children at the same time. Communication was not developed, and the couple could only communicate by letter. Even the news of the child's birth, Pan Guoyi only knew about it after receiving the letter more than ten days later. Later, Qiu Hefen came to Golmud with his children because of work transfers, and it was difficult for Pan Guoyi to take a break from the project to share the family's affairs. When Pan Guoyi worked hard for national construction, Qiu Hefen struggled to support this small family.
The former high spirits are no longer traceable. On the plateau again, the old couple brought a blood pressure monitor and blood pressure medication with them. From Golmud up to Tanggula Mountain, altitude sickness becomes more and more obvious. They have a headache and can't sleep, and they can only sleep three or four hours a night with oxygen tubes. Pan Guoyi, who has not had to take blood pressure medication for two years, once again unscrewed the familiar medicine bottle, took out a few pills, put them in his mouth, and swallowed them in one gulp. The closer they got to Tanggula Mountain, the cooler the temperature became, and the couple repeatedly checked each other's condition and put on all the clothes they had brought.
The most impressive thing about the producer of this film, Song Xiaoxiao, is the way Pan Guoyi and his wife care about each other. They seldom express their concerns directly, and always care for each other in a gentle tug of war and a little bickering.
Driving on the plateau road at an altitude of more than 5,000 meters, looking at the blue sky and white clouds outside the window, Pan Guoyi tried to persuade his wife Qiu Hefen to go to the Everest camp at a similar altitude: "There can't be a second time in this life, after you go back, you will be a braggart." Qiu Hefen said that she doesn't like to brag, she just likes two people to be with each other for a few more years, and she is also worried about any accidents, and it will be difficult to explain to her two sons when she goes back.
The wind slammed into the couple, and they staggered forward with each other's arms. Qiu Hefen pressed the hat that was about to fly away and muttered, "I came with you at the risk of my life." ”
The day before the Mid-Autumn Festival, Pan Guoyi and Qiu Hefen sat on a mountain in Lhasa, watched the sunset, and unwrapped the mooncakes they had brought from home. Swallowing the sweet filling of moon cakes, Pan Guoyi remembered the nostalgia of "thinking of relatives every festival" decades ago. In a letter to Qiu Hefen, he once wrote: "I live at the head of the Yangtze River, you live at the end of the Yangtze River, and send lovesick flavors from the water of the Heijiang River." "The regrets and longings of the past are satisfied in the twilight years.
The sun hid into the back of the mountain in the distance, and he couldn't help but chant: "The sunset is infinitely good, but it is just near dusk." Pan Guoyi feels nostalgic for the beauty of his current life, but regrets that the end of his life seems to be near.
In the martyrs' cemetery in Golmud, there are square monuments lying neatly. The young people who died 50 years ago to build the Golmud-Lhasa pipeline are permanently asleep in this land, and few people have come to break the tranquility here. In September, the wind is already bitter on the plateau. 74-year-old Pan Guoyi and his wife Qiu Hefen took off their hats, stood in front of the monument, and bowed deeply again and again. They walked among the tombstones, muttering familiar names.
I am your instructor, and I have come to see you. "The comrades-in-arms who once fought together in their twenties will always stay at the age of youth, but Pan Guoyi is already in his twilight. Under the hat was gray and thinning hair, and on the face was a furrow that could hardly be filled. After experiencing those difficult years together, Qiu Hefen understands what complex feelings are behind her husband's simple whisper. She stood beside her husband and wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes.
After returning from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the altitude sickness subsided, and Pan Guoyi's heart was only satisfied. But a long-cherished wish, in the later years, he wanted to take this seed that could no longer germinate and travel lightly. Looking back at his passionate youth, this precious memory is enough to give him the strength to look forward without regrets, and to ring the end of life with his wife healthy and happy.
For the "NIO Cup" Formula Student Competition in November 2023, Luo Yinlong has been preparing for a whole year with the team. Before the game, Luo Yinlong went home to have dinner with his parents. At the dinner table, my father looked at Luo Yinlong and asked, "If you have a problem halfway, your year will be in vain, right?"”
Luo Yinlong lowered his eyes, his chopsticks stirred in the bowl, and he didn't answer positively, but only replied lightly: "Failure is the norm." ”
From joining the team of Guangdong University of Technology in his freshman year to serving as the captain at the end of last year, Luo Yinlong has witnessed two defeats for the team. Affected by the epidemic in 2021, only an online static defense competition can be held, which is the weakness of the Guangdong University of Technology team, and Luo Yinlong is not surprised by the result of the second prize. But the failure of last year's dynamic competition brought a real blow to Luo Yinlong.
The race was two or three months in advance, and the Guangdong University of Technology team originally did not plan to participate, but they did not want to lose the experience of the race, so they reassembled the old cars left over from the previous year, which had been dismantled, and put them on the track. The preparation time was only more than two months in a hurry, and there was not enough time to do the test, and I almost failed the car inspection. In the end, last year's car did not finish the dynamic race due to electromagnetic interference, stopped in the middle of the track, and stopped at the second prize.
As long as they return to the top eight and win the first prize, the Guangdong University of Technology team can return to the national powerhouse. In the eyes of the team, this year is the most promising session of Guangdong University of Technology in the past three years. The car designed this time was already relatively stable during the first test run, and the drivers were among the top in the country.
In 2017, when he was still in his third year of junior high school, he happened to see the competition of Guangdong University of Technology**. The car crossed the finish line smoothly, the organizers announced that Guangdong University of Technology had won the first place, and the team members gathered around to cheer and rushed to the podium. Luo Yinlong was already participating in the model car competition at that time, and he knew how happy and excited he would be when his small efforts and dedication could be seen and recognized by everyone. Through the screen, he felt the same way.
In the three years since he joined the team, Luo Yinlong has not had the opportunity to experience this joy and satisfaction on the field. This year is his last chance, and he will graduate in June next year.
In order to prepare for this event, Luo Yinlong and the team members worked hard and were always overcoming various problems. In order to save money, they also went to learn a few techniques, bought raw materials and came back to process them themselves. When they have more time to spare, they will take processing orders from other schools and earn money. Sometimes, a single part costs 2,000 pieces. For two or three days a month, Luo Yinlong survived on soy sauce rice for one dollar in the canteen.
On the blackboard in the studio, the number of days counting down to the game is decreasing day by day, and the lights in the studio are going out later and later until the early hours of the morning.
In the studio, Luo Yinlong has seen the sunrise. In October this year, the car entered the commissioning stage, and the small defects hidden in the intricate circuitry could directly affect the start of the car, and they needed to be keen enough to find out the problem, and the problem found that day must be solved on the same day so as not to affect other tests the next day. Luo Yinlong stayed up all night in the studio. Lying on a recliner in the studio, the warm light fell on his eyelids through the window. At first, he thought it was a street lamp outside the window, but when he opened his eyes, he got up and walked outside the door, only to find that the sun was rising in mid-sky and a new day had begun.
Even on the field, the unexpected situation still did not stop. Since last year's competition, Luo Yinlong has often dreamed that the car stopped in the middle of the road because of electronic control problems. On the day of the competition, Luo Yinlong woke up from a dream again, turned on his mobile phone, and found that the temperature in Hefei, where the competition was held, was only 9 degrees that day. He couldn't help but complain to his teammates: "How do you play 9 degrees?""Their cars run in the environment of twenty or thirty degrees in Guangdong all the year round, and the working environment is different, and the working methods of many electronic components and batteries will also be different. There was no time to panic, and he began to think quickly about what needed to be paid attention to in their car.
Fortunately, the car inspection passed smoothly, and the referee ticked their ** item one by one.
But last year's nightmare struck again. The magic error number of "3587" appears again. Luo Yinlong drove the car on the track, but he sensed that the wheel on the right rear no longer rotated, and there was the same electronic control problem as last year. I remembered what his teammates in the electronic control team told him before he went on the field, "It's good if you run hard, and I'll fix it tonight if you run badly." He quickly calmed down, judged the situation, found no problems other than the right rear wheel, and continued as usual, crossing the finish line and squeezing into the top three in the national lap race.
Victory was short-lived. In the endurance competition, Luo Yinlong's nightmare came true. He drove the car and stopped halfway through the track. Within two minutes of the referee approaching him, he was still trying to restart the car, reset the motor and put down the high voltage, but the car remained motionless. The referee approached the lane and told him that he would have to retire if he couldn't restart within two minutes. Until the last second, he didn't give up, and even begged in his heart if he could ask the referee to help him press the button he couldn't touch in the back. All his efforts were to no avail, and he could only get out of the car and watch as the car was pushed away.
witnessed another failure of the team, but director Cheng Gong is more looking forward to seeing the direction of the story than before. Similarly, in the opinion of producer Song Xiaoxiao, most of the performances of winning are similar: cheering, excited, shouting, only from the performance in the face of loss, can we more clearly see what kind of character and background people this group of children are.
The team members who were standing with bated breath on the periphery of the arena squatted on the ground, staring at the cars parked in the middle of the race, their noses fluttering, and some people couldn't help but cry. Luo Yinlong, who got off the car, fell into a blank space that was numb after being nervous. As the captain, he temporarily paralyzed his loss and sadness, and he only thought about finding the people in the team, and couldn't let them be sad in the corner alone. The people of the convoy sat together and watched in a daze as the car was pushed into the warehouse.
It wasn't until he met the former captain of the team who took a leave of absence to watch the race that he couldn't control his emotions completely.
On the green train for more than ten hours on the way back, Luo Yinlong met a team member and talked to him. In the comfort of each other, the frustration gradually subsided.
Back at school, Luo Yinlong didn't have time to dwell on the loss, there were too many things for him to do. In addition to the team's summary meeting, the change of captain and the training of new team members, he is also responsible for the research of new technologies to pave the way for the team in the new year.
When you succeed, it is regarded as a kind of lucky favor, and when you fail, it is regarded as a kind of normality, so that no matter whether you succeed or fail, the burden will not be too great. "He's used to digesting emotions quickly and switching states. During his years in college, he not only had to participate in team activities, but also took care of the track and field team training. The track and field team has always had good results in competitions in Guangdong Province, but when it came to the national arena, the results were not satisfactory. He didn't have time to slump, which would delay the team's progress.
For this year's competition, he postponed his plan to study abroad for half a year, and in the second half of next year, he will go to Germany. There are some of the best teams in the world, and he plans to learn a little more about racing. After stepping down as team leader, he will spend more time preparing for studying abroad. But like every brother who still cares about the Guanggong team after leaving, he will still show up in the team's studio when needed.
Just like after last year's failure, he mustered up a lot of energy to turn around this year, Luo Yinlong began to look forward to next year. He is always rushing to the next arena, like a seed blocked by a hard stone, which has not germinated, but always surging with vitality and vitality to break through.
It's not just success that is up. Long before the start of filming, Cheng Gong revealed his understanding of "upward" in a conversation with Zhu Lexian, shrinking and enduring is upward, taking a step backwards is also upward, carrying the past is also upward, and living every day is upward.
Now I am a little sad, but tears are beginning to hide, I have lost hope in my heart, I am becoming more and more confused, whether I should recognize the reality, I may be a pebble, ordinary to spend my life ......"The friends around me are dotted with colorful colors, they are flowers and trees, and the little boy in the gray-green jumpsuit stands on the stage**, singing loudly the heart of a seed that does not sprout. Not far away, children and parents sat around and enjoyed this ** drama performed by children.
Lu Min, the 42-year-old director of the ** play, sat on the terrace, where he could clearly see the stage effect and the audience's reaction. She found that several parents who couldn't help but light up their mobile phones at the beginning of the play never took out their mobile phones until the climax of the plot. After singing this lyric, the little actor turned around and looked at the boy's back, Lu Min couldn't hold back his tears.
The children's situation saddened her. Listening to the lyrics, she remembered that the young actors came to the theater at 7 o'clock in the morning to report for the performance. They gathered backstage and talked about their homework that they hadn't had time to finish the night before, and when the show was over, they would continue to write tomorrow, "Can you give us a day off?""At a young age, they are under the pressure of achievement transmitted to them by their parents and society, and their time is all filled.
The story of a seed that does not sprout originates from Lu Min's thinking about the current concept of education. During the weekend rehearsals of the children's theater troupe, Lu Min, as the mother of three daughters, often gets together with other parents to chat. Last year, she met a mother who quit her job for her child, thinking that she had paid so much energy and price for it, that her child should not be excellent, that she should be admitted to a prestigious school, and that she should be better than other children in all aspects. Lu Min immediately retorted that the child does not have only one possibility of growth, the child itself is himself, a person, not an object.
It just so happened that French designer Matali Cassette was going to hold a parent-child installation exhibition in Shanghai, and invited Lu Min to create a matching original ** play. Looking at the seeds, earthworms and mushroom communities in the installation, Lu Min immediately thought of the story of the seeds. Everyone thinks that the seed must germinate, so what if there is a seed that does not germinate?Along these lines, she and her team thought of the story of Sid, a seed that didn't sprout.
Lu Min once sat in the audience and observed the reactions of children and parents. In an hour-long play, some children are anxious for the first 50 minutes, and keep asking their parents: "Why haven't the seeds germinated yet?"”
When the performance is over, she has to tell the parents that a child should not be anxious about whether the seed will germinate, this is not something he should be anxious about, their anxiety comes from the words and deeds of the parents, and the anxiety of the parents is seen by them and remembered in their hearts, so they will be anxious when a seed does not follow the established route.
Can the seeds not germinate, this question also touched Zhu Lexian, who has a daughter. He looked at Sid in the spotlight on the screen, and watched him realize that even if he couldn't sprout, not grow into a tree or a flower, he was still himself. Zhu Lexian began to think about how to judge the success or failure of his children and how to make his daughter grow up healthily.
After in-depth communication with Lu Min, Song Xiaoxiao found that behind this drama is Lu Min's self-growth.
As early as his teens, Lu Min also ran aimlessly under the coercion of the surrounding environment. When I was in junior high school, both parents and teachers emphasized the importance of academic performance. She didn't think about what she was going to do in the future, but she still studied hard and performed the scripts of most ordinary people step by step. In pursuit of higher grades, she taught herself about stomach bleeding.
Hard work doesn't always pay off. In the third year of junior high school, Lu Min fell ill, fell behind in his studies, and was not admitted to the ideal school. At the age of 15, she left Lanzhou to study at a secondary school in Shanghai. Her parents only paid for living expenses, and her studies at the secondary school were more leisurely, so she went to work in the surrounding restaurants to earn tuition. Since the age of fifteen, she has been self-reliant, and under the pressure of survival, she gradually jumped out of the framework of achievement, "I don't want to sprout, I just want to live." ”
The desire to live was also worn out for a time. In 2018, Lu Min gave birth to twin daughters. Even though she had been accustomed to solving problems on her own since the age of fifteen, she struggled to cope with the physical and mental stress of caring for two babies at the same time. Since the middle and late stages of pregnancy, Lu Min has not slept well, and after the child is born, she has to feed every four hours, and there is no time to sleep. The hormones in the body have dropped from the peak of pregnancy to the lowest point, and the wound of caesarean section has been around for 3 years, and it will be painful and itchy every time it rains. In a bad physical and mental state, Lu Min suffered from postpartum depression.
She didn't dare to stand in front of the mirror. Looking at herself in the mirror, she always felt that there were two people talking in her ear. One on the left said, "It's all a small thing, and it's just going to pass." The other retorted in his right ear: "Don't listen to her, these days are endless." When it was serious, Lu Min still had a tendency to self-harm. At three or four o'clock in the morning, she wanted to end it all, and the past of this life flashed back to her eyes, and she began to think about what happened after her death. Thinking of her daughters, not wanting to affect their lives, and not willing to take them with her, she changed her mind and said to herself, "Please be strong." ”
For a long time, Lu Min took her two daughters by herself, and she jokingly called herself "the mother with 11 heads". Every day she wakes up early to wash her two daughters and prepare breakfast. When it was a weekend rehearsal, I drove them to the troupe. Every night, she tells them a different bedtime story. Before they fell asleep, it was difficult for Lu Min to concentrate on work, and the voices of her daughters calling "Mom" always came from all directions of the house. Before the performance in November this year, Lu Min often slept only three or four hours a day.
She was thin, with no flesh on her face and sharp edges. The thin body can hold the weight of two daughters. When she held her two daughters in the crook of her arm at the same time, she couldn't pay attention to her physical feelings, and only thought about how to hold them steadily.
Gaining the power of life from the children, Lu Min also wants the children to have a more colorful and energetic life. She always remembers what the troupe kids told her, "Don't think the kids don't understand anything." She communicates with her two daughters on an equal footing, teaching them how to express their feelings, how to refute the words of adults, and be a seed with self and not afraid to grow up. Only by sticking to oneself can we jump out of the judgment of others' eyes, find our own upward path, and write our own life script bravely and firmly.
Lu Min doesn't expect the children and parents who come to see the play to change right now. This drama may also be a seed sown in people's hearts. Every audience member who walks out of the theater and is still humming a certain lyric may suddenly remember at some point in his future life: Sid can not germinate, Sid is the seed of a lotus flower buried in the earth.
Whether the seed germinates or not, it grows as it wishes. The other six protagonists in the documentary "Up" also have a variety of life attitudes: Kong Bo, who returned to the countryside after graduating from university, firmly believes that urban agricultural products can break out of the predicament and take root in the land. With the belief of saving lives, Wang Shuhao walked through major hospitals to promote his own model, and he smiled and put his enthusiasm into the cause of human health. Ge Lingyu, who likes to be "nosy", wants young people to feel the care of "being seen" and change the emptiness and confusion in their eyes. Yang Shujiao, the founder of the top 100 UP master of station B, "Stealing the Moon Society's Food Encounter", and his companions started from scratch, passing on their power in this rapidly changing world. Zhu Shengnan, who has been with his daughter alone for ten years, is also realizing self-growth while accompanying his daughter's growth, and is looking forward to meeting new topics in life with his daughter.
On December 24, Tencent** and NIO jointly produced the user story documentary "Up", the whole film has been launched on Tencent**, inviting everyone to experience a diversified life together at the end of the year and accumulate energy and courage for the start of the new year.
end - Written by Yang Xiaoqian.
Edited by Wen Lihong.
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