When Gu Hongming was teaching at Peking University, some students questioned him that a new era had arrived, why do you still have braids, are you nostalgic for the declining Qing Dynasty?
Gu Hongming replied calmly: My braids are on my head, and your braids are still in my heart!
Gu Hongming is indeed a master with a unique personality, after leaving Peking University, he went to Japan to lecture for three years, and then returned to China to be invited to serve as an adviser to Zhang Zuolin, the grand marshal of the northeast, Zhang Zuolin saw that he was wearing a front court gown, and there were still braids on his head, so he despised him and asked Gu Hongming directly, what can you do, Gu Hongming did not care about the face of this great warlord at all, and directly whisked his sleeves away.
Afterwards, he said: A person's vision and pattern determine the length and width of his future path, Zhang Zuolin is now the first among the warlords, but unfortunately, his road is over, he can't become the one who saves China!
Zhang Zuolin set up a large family business very early, but he always stuck to the one-acre and three-quarter land in the northeast and became the one who could not save China.
So Gu Hongming has such a personality, what is the academic level in the end?
Many people do not know that Gu Hongming is a great talent, he studied Chinese and Western, known as the "late Qing Dynasty Strange Master", proficient in English, French, German, Latin, Greek, Malaysian and other 9 languages, obtained 13 doctoral degrees, is the Manchu Qing Dynasty proficient in Western science, language and Oriental Chinese studies of the first Chinese people.
Of course, although he agrees that science and engineering can save the country, he also believes that sinology can also save the country, he learns from China and the West, comparing Western culture with Chinese culture, he believes that sinology is not useless, and Western culture is not perfect.
After the transition to the end of the Qing Dynasty, some people advocated total Westernization, following the example of Japan's transition from Asia to the West, and regarded classical Chinese culture as a scum, but Gu Hongming believed that if Chinese cultural artifacts were completely Westernized, then would we still Chinese?
If Western science and engineering can change the fate of the country, then Gu Hongming's life is to achieve national salvation in order to reshape Chinese culture from scratch.
Especially after the First World War, the Western industrial world was full of blood, which made Gu Hongming more firm in the superiority of Sinology, he believed that the Western set was an aggressive culture, everything they developed was to prepare for aggression, no matter how western gentlemen they pretended to be, they all wanted to drink blood and eat flesh in their bones, their culture would cause great instability to the world, and the world would destroy this culture.
China's culture pays attention to harmony and difference, which is the tolerance system at the top of the world, which is more conducive to the peaceful development of the world.
Of course, at that time, China was extremely weak, and Gu Hongming's theory could not be recognized by foreigners and could not convince the Chinese people.
Therefore, when the famous British writer Maugham came to China, he met Gu Hongming, who had such a unique personality, and the two launched an extremely fierce verbal debate.
Maugham said: Chinese culture has lost its value, Chinese culture is only suitable for the classical period, and if China wants to integrate into the world now, it must be like Japan, abandoning its backward culture and integrating into Western culture.
Gu Hongming, on the other hand, smiled coldly, leaving behind a remark that Maugham could not refute.
Gu Hongming said:
"On what grounds do you say you are better than us?" Are your art or words more beautiful than ours? Are our thinkers less esoteric than yours? Is our culture less sophisticated than yours, less complex than you are, less subtle than yours? Oh, when you drink blood in the cavernous wilderness, we are already evolved human beings. Did you know that we tried an experiment of solipsism in the history of the world? We have never ruled the world by force, but have governed this great country with wisdom, and we have been successful for many centuries, so why do you whites look down on yellow people? Need me to tell you? Because you invented the machine gun, this is your advantage, we are an undefended country, you can genocide us by force, our philosophers had dreams of governing the national team with law and order, but you crushed this dream with guns, and now you are transmitting your experience to our young people, you have imposed your evil inventions on us, but do you not know that we are a people with a talent for machinery? Don't you know that we have forty million of the most time-sensitive and hard-working people? Do you think it will take us a long time to learn your technology? When the yellow race can also make the same fine guns and fire at you, what advantage do you white races have left? You turn to machine guns, but in the end you will be judged under the muzzle of machine guns! ”
Maugham was very arrogant and arrogant when he came, but when he left, he was very decadent and low-key, because the Western culture he was proud of was indeed built on the nature of gun aggression, and Gu Hongming broke the truth with one sentence, which made Maugham lose face, and he also admitted that China's backwardness at that time was not the fault of Chinese culture, but the scapegoat under weakness.
In the end, Gu Hongming also wrote two poems to Maugham, Maugham asked him the meaning of the poem, Gu Hongming told him, I don't have to tell you, you will find someone to answer you.
After Maugham went back to ask someone to help translate, he directly cried and laughed, because Gu Hongming gave him two poems that were written for the love history of the qinglou woman.
One of them reads: When you don't love me, your voice is sweet, your eyes are smiling, and your hands are slim. When you fall in love with me, your voice becomes miserable, full of tears, and you see your hands and lament. Sadness, sad love makes you not love....
The meaning of this poem is self-evident, and I have to say that Gu Hongming is really afraid and really has a strong confidence in Chinese culture.
Of course, none of this matters, what matters is that Gu Hongming's words against Maugham are actually a kind of prediction of the future of China, that is, that China will not only have a future, but also defeat the West and become a real power.
You know, after experiencing a series of humiliations at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the warlord melee made China at that time miss the best opportunity for development, and the continuous growth of the great powers made most people in China discouraged, they did not know how to go in the future, nor did they know whether China had a future.
But Gu Hongming is different, he firmly believes that China not only has a future, but also a future that is stronger than the West.
Then China also did as Gu Hongming predicted, after experiencing the difficult War of Resistance Against Japan, China defeated Japan in 1945, and then defeated the United States in Korea, won the battle for the founding of the country, the future of Chinese came, which really verified Gu Hongming's words, when the yellow race can also make the same sophisticated guns and fire at you, what advantages do you Whites have left? You turn to machine guns, but in the end you will be judged under the muzzle of machine guns!
Since the birth of mankind, the earth has been born four ancient civilizations, and now the three major civilizations have disappeared with historical changes, only the Chinese civilization is still standing in the world, although the middle has experienced countless ups and downs, but we still exist, we are still progressing, we are still popular in the world, and will continue to be popular, this is what we are currently seeing.