I first met Zhou Yijun, she was white and thin, and looked gentle and lovely, like the delicate appearance of a southern girl.
And when she opened her mouth, there was a bright light in her eyes.
In "Qiang Qiang" and " Round Table Pie ", she kept arguing with Dou Wentao and Liang Wendao from international current affairs to parents. The golden sentence frequently appeared:
"Our era has very high requirements for appearance."
"Marriage system is anti-human."
"Growing up is to become the person you don't want to be."
But you may not know that behind her eloquent resume is amazing: she was the only resident in China Gaza who experienced the war. Female reporters flying around.
is also a female writer with a unique perspective and humorous writing. The article "Counting Camels in Egypt" was compiled into the textbook of the second semester of the sixth grade of the nine-year compulsory education.
and now, he has become a director of educational documentaries with a burst of word of mouth.
seems to be in this era of perishable dreams, she never stops and looks.
The closest place to God
"If I saw the quiet and beautiful Jerusalem at first sight, my heart flew up into the sky; more than an hour later, the moment I entered Gaza Strip , my heart fell into a deep abyss ." Zhou Yijun recalled in the book.
From 2002 to 2004, she became the resident reporter of Xinhua News Agency to the Gaza Strip, and she was also the only female journalist stationed in Gaza.
The Gaza Strip, close to the Egyptian border and the Mediterranean Sea, is connected to the coast through a gap in the sand dune belt.
has always been the core of the Palestinian-Israeli armed conflict due to its important strategic position.
Affected by successive years of wars, there is rubbish everywhere, people are full of voices, and the buildings are disorderly. The walls of the streets are covered with red, green and green Arabic words: "good suicide bombing", "jihad to the end", "repay the blood"... …And the bullet holes scattered around the stars.
1.5 million people are tightly sealed by the Israeli army on all sides. The city is like a prison and the people are not living, and the poverty and suffocation caused by the lack of freedom are like chronic poisons that are forced to take every day.
"This is hell." The locals describe it.
And this is the real life situation that Zhou Yijun faces every day as a "female war reporter". On the third day after
took office, Zhou Yijun suffered the first air strike in his life: the red light of 4 missiles cut through the night and destroyed two small factories in Gaza City.
Inexperienced, she turned off all the lights and stayed in the darkened house and waited for her colleagues to return. She silently thought: "If a missile shoots through the glass at this time, where should I go?"
Air strikes, explosions, shelling, shooting ...The normality of life quickly changed her from fear to habit.
The next time she encountered the situation tonight, she could already take a deep breath. After verifying the situation, she grabbed the phone to dictate the news to the Xinhua News Agency editorial department. The satisfaction of
has just begun to grow, and Gaza reminds me in its own way: This is Gaza.
At 12 midnight on January 5, 2003, there was a series of explosions, and the roaring impact shook her off the chair and fell to the floor.
More than 50 Israeli tanks under the cover of a gunship entered the slum area near East Thirtieth Avenue in Gaza City, which is only a 5-minute drive away from Zhou Yijun’s office.
more than an hour later,The voice gradually subsided. Zhou Yijun got up from the floor, thought about it, and decided to go to the scene- "There are more details."
There was a power outage in the whole district, and there were no five fingers out there. High-voltage wires that were blown out were scattered on the street.
She drove down the empty, dark streets. At the scene, she saw an ambulance, a fire engine and a policeman carrying a gun.
She asked about the situation a little bit, only to realize that the missile that made her fall in the house hit a house 500 meters away from her, leaving a hole more than one meter deep.
On the street not far from the house, a few Palestinian youths squatted on the side of the road and warmed to the fire. They said that there was a procession passing by just now, and everyone shouted "Defend Arafat with blood and life!"
Later the Israeli army Fang confirmed that there were 14 missiles that night.
Being in the place closest to God, this is just the beginning.
is brave but not a sense of mission
"Why are you here?" Zhou Yijun didn't ask himself.
As a Shanghai girl, she was admitted to the Beijing Second Foreign Languages Institute to study Arabic in 1998, went to Egypt to study in 2000, and then worked in Xinhua News Agency.
When she knew that Xinhua News Agency had a vacancy abroad in Gaza, she applied to the leaders many times to apply what she learned, and was finally approved. That year, she was 26 years old. When
said goodbye at the airport, she couldn't even bear to tell her parents the truth.
Looking back now, she also thinks she is young and impulsive and reckless, but she has no regrets at all. When
came to Gaza, Zhou Yijun really felt the "danger" in everyone's mouth. It was a more terrifying feeling than the legend.
At least eight journalists fell under the guns of Israeli soldiers in the Palestine-Israel conflict more than two years ago.
Her troubles don't stop there.
is in Gaza. Whenever she drives a jeep to the scene, curious people will always surround the car and even shake it as hard as possible. When interviewing
, she encountered countless people who threw stones at her. She was once lost a brick by a child, and the brick hit her neck. This prevented her neck from turning for half a month. When eating, the food fell out.
However, she knows more about dangers, but she has less worries. Except for being "accustomed to being brave," it may be because she suddenly gave birth to a reporter's sense of mission.
"If you can't stop the war, then you tell the world the truth of the war." This is the motto of war reporters.
Zhou Yijun practiced his motto, but found out the truth is always more realistic and cruel than a bloody death.
She has seen many suicide bombings. The onlookers overturned the car, boarded the chassis and clapped their hands and shouted: "Vengeance! Revenge! Revenge!" Surrounded by women's wailing and children's crying.
She has seen children who have just learned to distinguish the sound of bombing, and she has also seen seven or eight-year-old children carrying a gun in one hand and holding a model of a missile made of iron in the other, striding meteors.
According to statistics, 96% of children in Gaza suffer from mental illness as a result of being stimulated by the war.
Some people say that journalists are the "beneficiaries" of conflicts, and news makes journalists.
is responsible for the dual work of photography and textFor Zhou Yijun, she is full of awe and compassion for life.
In an interview with the founder and spiritual leader of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, she couldn’t help asking: “You see Israel on TV What do you think when women and children are killed?"
Yassin sighed and asked her: "Why are the women and children of Palestine killed by Israel, the whole world is silent?"
is soaked in blood and death In the world, people's hearts can become so numb.
In poverty, despair and war, people no longer respect life, and numbness is the beginning of violence.
Nine months after this interview, Yassin died in Israeli bombing.
When the Reuters reporter rushed to the scene, Zhou Yijun had already sent the news to Beijing.
The mind goes further than the feet
In 2006, Zhou Yijun started a new journey.
She joined Phoenix TV and her perspective has expanded from the Middle East to the world. Even went to Cambridge University to study for a master's degree in international relations.
She has written her own experience into two books. The style of the essays revealed in the book is not the heavy thinking in her head, but a relaxed and even humorous mood.
Maybe she thinks that a smile will remove some hypocritical things, allowing you to face life with a more positive attitude.
She hopes that everyone can see through the so-called "danger" behind the things: "There is a person on the earth who suffers, and the whole world will mourn." When
was in the Middle East, it was rare to drink with a few stationed female reporters Coffee, they smiled: "To be a female reporter in Gaza, first be prepared to not get married!" After returning to China, Zhou Yijun not only married someone, but also became a mother of two children.
The soft place in her heart was opened, and she began to return to society from the war and family from the world.
then saw more real problems: such as the whole society’s anxiety about education.
In September 2018, Zhike Education released a "Chinese Parents’ Educational Anxiety Index Survey Report", which showed that 68% of parents are highly anxious about education problems, and the most anxious time is the child’s early childhood and elementary school.
In order to answer the puzzle about "education" in his mind, Zhou Yijun visited five countries with completely different educational concepts and social backgrounds-Finland, Japan, India, Israel, and the United Kingdom.
Rigorous Japan, free Finland, stocking India, challenging Israel, and artistic Britain. Zhou Yijun searched for answers in the childhood of foreign children and made a documentary with a Douban score of 9.0- "Childhood in Afar" .
"A country's education is the projection of everything in the society." This made her have to think more deeply. Thinking about
also motivates her to step out of the circle and move forward no matter where she is or in which identity she stands. When
reaches a certain age, the way of looking at things, the attitude towards life, the principles of getting along with people, etc. are basically set, but the appearance of life will still change due to the occasional difference in thoughts.
And this opportunity for change exists in constant thinking and in constantly putting thinking into action.
At the end, Zhou Yijun's feeling: "The best education is that adults also become learners. Don't stop growing."
From warfield female reporters to documentary directors, she has also been growing and looking for her and the world. The way of dialogue with society and with everyone.
is as passionate as she was when she just graduated, but she is no longer reckless.
References:
1. Zhou Yijun: "Closest to God: The Middle East Story of a Female Journalist". Wenhui Publishing House.
2. China Net. Zhou Yijun, a reporter who cannot get married: stationed in the most sensitive country.
3. Tiger sniff network. Zhou Yijun: Regarding life and growth, we can relax a little bit more
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