Overnight at Rasheed Hotel, Baghdad, 18 November 1999

There is one thing that should not be forgotten in Baghdad: a visit to One Thousand and One Nights.

The reason is simple: children all over the world, including us as children, first learned about Baghdad from that collection of stories. In the future, no matter what news of Baghdad is heard in the news media, we will carefully pray for it, because this is the city that belongs to our childhood, and we can't bear to let it hurt.

These days, the Baghdad seen and heard, both in its history and in its present, is heavy. Needless to say, its humiliation, even its glory is always murderous. I've always wanted to look for a little bit of the city that belonged to our childhood, but I'm afraid to dilute the serious topic. I once saw a sculpture on the street through the car window, and it seemed to have something to do with it, but when I looked for it again, I was overwhelmed by another kind of cookie-cutter sculpture of the leader. It wasn't until today that I was about to part, and I didn't hesitate to ask.

The press officer smiled, waved his hand, and let us go with him.

I came to the intersection of a street and looked up to see the sculpture I had seen in the car window. A girl was pouring water on a large number of jars, many of which were spewing water, showing that they were already full. From the point of view of sculpture art, this is the top grade, commendable is the treatment of the dozens of jars, there is no sense of sculpture layer by layer, but there is a girl on the top of a little melt, and all of them have become the most secular texture of the physical sculpture, it can really be said that the stone into gold, the weight is light. The second is the use of fountains, which endlessly imbues the whole sculpture with vitality and aura. In fact, here is the use of water instead of oil, and the hot oil should be poured seriously, which is based on "One Thousand and One Nights", called "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", which is too famous a story. It is said that Alibaba's family found a treasure trove of robbers and carried a few bags of gold coins home, and his brother also went to get it when he found out, and was killed by the robbers. The robbers came to hunt down Alibaba's family again, and after repeated failures, they came up with a plan, and a robber disguised as an oil seller carried dozens of oil jars to Alibaba's house to spend the night, but in fact, only one jar was oil, and each of the other altars hid a robber. This was seen through by a clever servant maid, who boiled the jar of oil, poured spoonfuls into the other jars, and burned dozens of robbers to death.

This story is pleasant to listen to at first, but it is a bit too cruel when you think about it, so let's take its happy side, which can be regarded as the victory of good over evil.

The second sculpture in question, on the banks of the Tigris, depicts the beginning of the book One Thousand and One Nights: the king takes revenge on his wife for her infidelity, marries a maiden every night, and kills her the next morning. In order to stop this atrocity, a girl named Shanruzod voluntarily married the king, and told the king a story every day, which came to an abrupt end in the best part of the story, and left it for tomorrow. The king's appetite was hung in this way, and he could not kill her, and hung for a thousand and one nights. In fact, this thousand and one stories have imperceptibly completed an enlightenment education for the king, and he not only no longer has murderous intentions, but also really falls in love with her. So the next thing became very popular: the two grew old together.

This beginning of "One Thousand and One Nights" is truly beautiful, and I think that's a big reason why it's been passed down for centuries. But, with all due respect, this sculpture is not beautiful, two people sit and stand, wooden, clumsy, without any physical charm and expressive language. Thinking of the sculpture I just saw, the altar is better than the human body. This is understandable, in Arabic aesthetics, there has always been a clumsy depiction of the human body and a meticulous depiction of patterns. This is probably related to the fact that Islamic civilization opposes idolatry and portrait display, and it is normal for religious ideas to control the aesthetic focus. What is even more interesting is a giant sculpture at the entrance of our hotel, probably complaining about the United Nations embargo, a woman's right eye shoots out of a fountain, which is regarded as a rain of tears, and the sadness suddenly turns into comical and child's play. It's a pity that the only two "One Thousand and One Nights" sculptures in such a dense cluster of inferior sculptures do not do a good job of the human body.

The story of One Thousand and One Nights began in the 8th and 9th centuries and took shape over hundreds of years, spanning most of the Middle Ages in the Arab world. The Middle Ages may not have been as dark as it was previously described, but it is true that ignorance and barbarism have long overshadowed the brilliance of reason. In such an era, legends and stories are like wild flowers that grow tenaciously under huge rocks, which can best express the collective psychological structure of a nation and gain global significance, so their status should be far higher than that of ordinary literati creations. Unfortunately, for various reasons, the overall state of the Arab world out of the Middle Ages was not as good as that of Europe, and as a result, "One Thousand and One Nights" was not overshadowed by many rising stars. Italy's "Decameron" was greatly influenced by "One Thousand and One Nights", but after "Decameron", there were many giants, and "One Thousand and One Nights" has been lonely. The only image I see on the streets of Baghdad, where I have endured thousands of years of hardship and suffering, is still associated with it, and I am both happy and saddened by it.

In that case, let's stand in front of its sculpture for a while and appreciate the meaning of those stories.

There are so many stories, and there are only two, which is indeed too few, but these two alone have also shown that there are two ways to deal with the evil in the world, whether it is a robber or a king, one is to eliminate, and the other is to dissolve. Of course, resolution is the best policy, but it is not the same as persuasion. This is to comb the world's best sound into a thin stream, and slowly grind with a brutal heart. This long stream spit out from the girl's mouth, it can be broken from time to time but it is not broken, the limit of one night is expanded a thousand times, and finally the weak defeats the powerful, and the beauty subdues the evil, the king is actually surrendered, captured, and whether he loves or not falls second.

All goodness is like a legend, all beauty is facing slaughter, and they are powerless when they are separated, but they can create anticipation at the junction of day and night. Yes, it is anticipation that becomes the lifeblood of kindness and beauty. "If you want to know what will happen next, and listen to the next breakdown", as long as you are willing to listen, everything can continue, as long as it can continue, everything can change. This is how the history of civilization is written. The depth of folklore is truly amazing.