[Reprint] Lionel Messi and his field mouse Alfred

Thanks to Huang Jian­ping for this great arti­cle! It seems like any inter­pre­ta­tion of Lionel Messi­na, the fab­u­list in the pic­ture book, is just right.

Every­one can have their own inter­pre­ta­tion. Although I’m for­tu­nate to have trans­lat­ed “Afu the Field Mouse,” I feel I can nev­er com­pare to Afu as a poet. How­ev­er, I still firm­ly believe that one does­n’t have to be a poet like Afu; any mediocre per­son like me has the right to be lost in thought, col­lect­ing sun­light, col­ors, and words.Orig­i­nal address:Lionel Mes­si and his field mouse Alfredauthor:Red Mud Study Group1959Lionel Leo49At the age of 18, at the peak of his career, he plans to50At the age of 18, he retired from New York to pur­sue a more cre­ative life and moved to Italy. It was at this time that a small inci­dent hap­pened, which led him to find his career for the rest of his life. Leonie, who was already a grand­fa­ther at the time, was tak­ing his two young grand­chil­dren home by train. To pass the time on the long jour­ney, he tore off some col­or­ful pieces of paper from a near­by mag­a­zine and made up a sto­ry for the chil­dren.—Lit­tle Blue and Lit­tle Yel­low, his first chil­dren’s book was pub­lished.

In the next35Years, Lionel Mes­si wrote two books for chil­dren:/Draw40Many chil­dren’s books, includ­ing4Ben won the Calde­cott Medal:Inch by
Inch/inch­worm(1961 Calde­cott
Hon­or book),Swimmy/Small black fish (1964
Calde­cott Hon­or book),
Frederick/Alfred the Vole(1968
Calde­cott Hon­or book), Alexan­der and Wind-up Mouse/Alexan­der and the Clock­work Mouse
(1970 Calde­cott Hon­or
book).
Lionel Leo is a mas­ter sto­ry­teller. His books tell chil­dren about many seri­ous top­ics such as shar­ing, coop­er­a­tion, main­tain­ing indi­vid­u­al­i­ty, peace, human rights, etc., but there is no moral preach­ing in his books, because he always uses cute ani­mal images to impress chil­dren all over the world, mak­ing them feel that his books are first of all fun and inter­est­ing. As for the pro­found truths con­tained in the books, I believe that chil­dren will slow­ly expe­ri­ence them through­out their lives.
Lion­ni’s books cov­er a wide range of top­ics. Hav­ing wit­nessed and per­son­al­ly expe­ri­enced the rise of fas­cism in Europe, and as a mem­ber of an inter­na­tion­al anti-fas­cist orga­ni­za­tion (main­ly com­posed of intel­lec­tu­als and artists), his strong sup­port for peace and human rights is often reflect­ed in his sto­ries, such asThe Alpha­bet TreeWrit­ten dur­ing the Viet­nam War;Tillie and the WallPub­lished before the fall of the Berlin Wall8months;Nico­las, Where Have You Been?
It tells how to over­come prej­u­dice. It can be said that every book of Leonie is worth dis­cussing. Due to the lim­i­ta­tion of time and space, I still want to talk about the first book of Leonie that I read, which is also my favorite, The Lit­tle Field Mouse.—Before talk­ing about Afu, I can’t help but praise Aji­a’s trans­la­tion. Afu is real­ly accu­rate. It not only retains the play­ful­ness of the lit­tle field mouse, but also points out the Bud­dha-like state that Afu has reached. The orig­i­nal text isFred­er­ick, can you share with us how you came up with the trans­la­tion into Afo?
In the pre­vi­ous email, I men­tioned the impact that Afu had on me. I will repeat it here so that peo­ple who read this arti­cle for the first time will not feel con­fused.—Every­one was busy work­ing, but the field mouse Ah Fu was laz­ing around in the sun. This remind­ed me of a text I learned when I was a child called “The Cuck­oo”. The Cuck­oo in the sto­ry was just like Ah Fu. While every­one else was work­ing in the sum­mer, it was leisure­ly enjoy­ing the sun. How­ev­er, because it had no food stored for the win­ter, it died of cold and hunger in the cold win­ter.—At the time, I thought that for­eign writ­ers, like our Chi­nese teach­ers, also teach chil­dren to study hard from a young age to avoid freez­ing or starv­ing when they grow up (this is how my teacher sum­ma­rized the main idea). How­ev­er, the out­come of the sto­ry was far beyond my expec­ta­tions, leav­ing me filled with envy and hatred: enjoy­ing the sun­shine and beau­ti­ful scenery will lead to star­va­tion in Chi­na, but in the Unit­ed States, you can become an artist! From then on, this new con­cept of stor­ing sun­shine and col­or was deeply engraved in my mind and had a pro­found impact on my future life.
Com­par­ing the Cuck­oo and Alfred, I am not say­ing that all Chi­nese peo­ple have the Cuck­oo-like mind­set, and that all Amer­i­cans or West­ern­ers have the Alfred-like mind­set. I am also not say­ing that most peo­ple in the sub­sis­tence stage are like the Cuck­oo, and most peo­ple in the afflu­ent stage are like Alfred. In fact, there are Cuck­oos and Alfreds in every coun­try and every class. When I met with my Ger­man friend dur­ing the Nation­al Day hol­i­day, I talked aboutFred­er­ick,She said that was her favorite, too. I then told her the sto­ry of the cuck­oo, and she imme­di­ate­ly said she was a cuck­oo-like per­son. She said she always had enough food in her refrig­er­a­tor to feed the whole fam­i­ly for a week. She could­n’t stand hav­ing only enough food for one or two days, so she always had to make full prepa­ra­tions in advance. So, dif­fer­ent coun­tries and dif­fer­ent class­es have cuck­oos and Afus. They actu­al­ly rep­re­sent two dif­fer­ent ways of liv­ing, name­ly what Fromm called “the way of liv­ing that empha­sizes pos­ses­sion” and “the way of liv­ing that empha­sizes sur­vival.” Peo­ple who live in a pos­ses­sive way want to pos­sess every­thing.—Get every­thing you can think of done in advance so that every­thing is under your con­trol.Pre­pare the
future(What Tiger Mom always says); those who val­ue sur­vival take things as they come. They pay more atten­tion to the present and try to enjoy the present as much as pos­si­ble, instead of turn­ing every moment into a prepa­ra­tion for the future and los­ing its inher­ent mean­ing.
I must admit that I have always been edu­cat­ed and thought in the way of the cuck­oo: when I was a child, I tried to be self-dis­ci­plined and gave up enjoy­ing the sun­shine and col­ors so as not to freeze to death or starve to death in win­ter; when I grad­u­at­ed from col­lege and entered the soci­ety, I worked even hard­er to have a bet­ter future; when I became a moth­er, I pre­pared my chil­dren’s future so as not to end up like the cuck­oo.40I sud­den­ly real­ized that both the dread­ed win­ter and the beau­ti­ful future were in a tomor­row that I could nev­er reach. My cuck­oo-like sense of cri­sis made me ignore the present moment, turn­ing every moment into a prepa­ra­tion for the future. This com­plete­ly ignored the exis­tence of the present moment, as I only had future goals in mind. With­out today, how could there be tomor­row? If we live our entire lives for tomor­row, then would­n’t that mean we’ve nev­er tru­ly lived? We might as well learn from the lit­tle field mouse, Alfred, and try to live in the present moment.—If you find stor­ing grain and nuts fun, then join the effort and save them. If you find this labor too bor­ing and pre­fer to sit qui­et­ly and admire the sun­shine and col­ors, then ful­ly enjoy the moment with­out wor­ry­ing about starv­ing in the win­ter. Afu impart­ed to me a non-cling­ing mind­set: ful­ly enjoy the sun­shine when you can, and rel­ish the cold win­ter when it arrives, com­pos­ing poet­ry for every­one. This is not the usu­al cling­ing or entan­gled mind­set we often have: wor­ry­ing about starv­ing in the win­ter while enjoy­ing the sun­shine, then regret­ting not work­ing hard­er to store more food and instead focus­ing sole­ly on enjoy­ing the sun­shine. In this sense, Afu was already a high­ly accom­plished Zen prac­ti­tion­er. No won­der many peo­ple regard this book as a yog­ic prac­tice book. In fact, it is not only suit­able for yogis, but also for Bud­dhist prac­ti­tion­ers and all prac­ti­tion­ers of var­i­ous tra­di­tions who wish to live in the present moment.
To all those who love Alfred the Field Mouse, while you’re busy “stor­ing win­ter food,” don’t for­get to take a break and enjoy the sun­shine and beau­ti­ful scenery before you. Don’t always make stor­ing sun­shine and col­or a beau­ti­ful goal, wait­ing until this job is fin­ished, until your annu­al salary reach­es a cer­tain lev­el, until the chil­dren grow up… No one knows what will hap­pen when that time comes. We always think that the good life has not yet begun, but in fact it is already fad­ing. The only thing we can grasp is the present moment.
                                                                 
Huang Jian­ping