It is said to be the once-in-a-hundred-year flood. Many old buildings in the rural area have beed crashed down. So far, it has claimed roughly hundred lives. It reported that a well-known former 'Garden' used in the wartime has been damaged by the flood, for the three-meter outer wall was crashed down, many rooms being flooded, and some antiques like thoes tools used for torture being buried deep in the mud.
It seems most of these evidence for the "unforgetable" past has gone but these memories carried by them have not been flooded away, cause the authority said they would renew this place and recover these proof later.
I still remember that in elementary school every year the school will organize a trip for students to come to the place above to commemorate these great lives sacrificed during the war. Usually, we were supposed to write down the feelings to show our respect, admiration and gratefulness for them. However, once in my 3rd year, many of students in my class including me were asked to rewrite our writings, cause most of us wrote something "unsuitable" for such a should-be serious and meaningful activity. We wrote:"After such a happy journey around the 'Garden', we took a bus back school and kept singing all the way along." Then, the teacher accused us of not understanding the greatness and the tragic fate of these sacrificers. The next day, we came back with new version almost the same:"After such a long journey around these 'Garden' we were all touched by the sacrificers' unselfishness and their great belief. We all felt very deeply moved about their tragic fate but have reinforced our belief to study hard for a better tomorrow for the big Family. "
Many years later, I still feel funny about my deeds.
Sometimes, people play down of the memory which is not part of their personal memroy, but belonges to the group. As a memeber of the group they are supposed to have the same emotion toward these words, pictures, and statues, even without any experience. I have no doubt about the overwheling power carried by the words, picture and statues; however, what I doubt is the effect of erecting a wall for the past as well as the present to dwell in.
When the recording is in danger, there is always a fear that the meaningful and profound power of the past will be decreased. Then, there will be a hurry to recover the old. Otherwise, another way will be created to substitue for them. In one month or two, another group of visitors will again be standing on the spot, being asked to imaging some cruel beating carried by these copies of the torturement in the renewed dam dark and hell-like room.
It reminds me of a documentary made by Alain Resnais The Memory of the World which records how the antique works like books, writings are kept and how the new publications are restored in the huge library on the shelves. It says that human beings don't have good memorybut are in a fear of forgetting the past, especially these essence of human thoughts and production. As a result, library as a store is in a great function and people exert every effort to keep the "unforgetable" past "perpetual and unruinable". As a matter of fact, many of there works are barely understood by people or few of them can be recognized. When the camera is drawing away between the high shelves on two sides, with the low angle, what I see are not life-less books but lively rabits like kids even little old men who are jumping unceaseingly in transparent little bottles, yearning to break out of the glass to escape the imprisonment. However, what they don't know is while they are fixed on the shelves, many lives else have been fixed on them. What the documentary advocates is the liberation.
I couldn't images what will happen if I hold every bits of my life when I am 90 years old. How much more I am able to carry as life goes on?
Why not let the flood take away the blood?
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