"A literati, the best training is an unhappy childhood" – Hemingway
This famous quote of Hemingway can be regarded as a true portrayal of Zhang Ailing, a talented woman in the Republic of China who no one knows. In the current family ethics dramas, Zhang Ailing is the most pitiful little pity. Ming ming was born into a noble family, and his great-grandfather was still the famous Li Hongzhang.
But when it came to her father's generation, the family was completely ruined. Her father lay in bed every day and smoked opium, and it was rare to have time to punch and kick the child, if it were not for the old maid in the family to protect Zhang Ailing. According to her book, she "probably was killed."
Since she was a child and a child, she has lived in a so-called big family of old and young, and the roof is full of corruption. It's just a fly camp dog, but it's a conspiracy, but it's all sick people, sick things. Zhang Ailing's only comfort when she was a child was her mother, Huang Yifan.
But Huang Yifan's love cannot fill Zhang Ailing's emptiness, because Huang Yifan obviously loves herself more than her children. Huang Yifan was a legendary figure in the Republic of China period, although not as legendary as her daughter, although it was a pair of "feudal" little feet. But she is indeed the first generation of new women in China who dare to go abroad and travel the world, and the first generation of "runaway Nala" in China.
When Huang Yifan married Zhang Ailing's father, Zhang Tingzhong, she was already a new woman. Although she was a small foot, she longed for freedom. She wore new-style costumes, hot and fashionable distributions, and Hu Shi and they talked about heaven and earth, and talked about New China. But Zhang Tingzhong, who was left behind in the late Qing Dynasty, was still immersed in a dream and refused to wake up.
Zhang Ting's heavy smoking of opium, gambling, playing with birds, marrying his aunt and wife, and other vices that should have been rare in the late Qing Dynasty were not less at all, and such a depraved husband made Huang Yifan unbearable. It was not until 1924 that Zhang Tingzhong's sister Zhang Maoyuan decided to study abroad, and things ushered in a turning point. Huang Yifan asked to go abroad with Zhang Maoyuan as a guardian, and took care of all his relatives in advance, so that Zhang Tingzhong could not even say anything to dissuade him.
The only thing that can make her heart soften is her two children, Zhang Ailing and Zhang Zijing. The two children cried every day, but Huang Yifan's reaction was to cry all night on the day of the set sail. After Huang Yifan left, Zhang Tingzhong seemed to feel that his wife must leave and was not ready to come back. He still has some friendship with Huang Yifan, in order not to let the thread involving his wife be completely disconnected.
Zhang Tingzhong constantly wrote letters to his wife, begging her to return, and the deepest friendship was a love poem:
"Listen to the sound of jinjia in jinmen, and then hear the sound of drumming." Shusheng is ashamed to support the book city, two-word peace newspaper and Qing"
This kind of old-fashioned affection may really impress Huang Yifan. In 1928, Huang Yifan, a wandering cloud that had already drifted to the edge of the sky, returned to his homeland. At this time, Zhang Tingzhong seems to have really changed, he quit opium, stopped gambling, and all his aunts and wives were dismissed. In Zhang Ailing's memory, this is the best time, she said:
"We moved to a garden house with dogs, flowers, fairy tale books... Everything in my home I think is the pinnacle of beauty. ”
But the addiction of addicts and gamblers is not so easy to quit, and Zhang Tingzhong soon began to return to his old ways. And this time, his addiction was extra heavy. Not only did he smoke opium, he even started injecting morphine. Zhang Tingzhong himself was also very miserable, he knew in his heart that this would not work, but he could not overcome this addiction.
Huang Yifan finally left, she could not stand the rotten smell emanating from this big room. She and Zhang Tingzhong ended this devastated marriage, and her head did not return to the country. She went skiing in Switzerland, and her little feet slid even better than her sister-in-law Zhang Maoyuan.
She also went to Europe to study painting, and Xu Beihong, Jiang Biwei and others are very good friends. She even went to India, in a place where the difference between men and women is worse than in China. He was the secretary of the sister of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, a brahmin nobleman of the highest status.
And in the midst of this, she basically did not return to China. The only time I returned home was to see my children. The only thing he did for his children was to insist on sending Zhang Ailing to a new-style school. Later, in 1948, Huang Yifan went abroad again and never returned to China.
Zhang Ailing called her mother a "globetrotter", but she didn't know how much ridicule and helplessness there was in the title. Maybe I love my mother, but maybe I hate it too. After all, for Zhang Ailing and Zhang Zijing, Huang Yifanshi has not fulfilled her responsibilities as a mother. In 1957, Huang Yifan died in London, and Zhang Ailing, who was also in London, did not send her.