Patriotism should be an idea rooted in the bones of every Chinese. Because of the motherland, we have the confidence to live in this world with confidence; because we have the motherland, we don't have to worry about not having a home; because we have the motherland, we can enjoy the happy life we have today. The motherland has silently paid so much for us, and we should return her love enough.
But there are many people who enjoy the convenience brought to them by the motherland, but turn away when the motherland needs them, and do not care about the motherland's grace for their cultivation. Such a person is shameful! The famous Chinese collector Weng Wange is like this, donating 183 Pieces of Chinese cultural relics to the United States free of charge, but refusing to buy them back from the motherland!
Weng's ancestor Weng Tonggong
The Weng family to which Weng Wange belongs is very powerful, and has a very rich literary background, "father and son two emperors, uncles and nephews double yuan, a five-door soldier, a family of three inspectors" The Weng family is a veritable family of scholars. Among the Weng family, the most famous is Weng Tonggong.
Weng Tonggong was the most famous minister in the late Qing Dynasty, he was the emperor of the two dynasties, he had taught the emperors of the Guangxu and Tongzhi dynasties, and in the eighth year of Guangxu, he was appointed as the minister of military aircraft. In the famous Sino-Japanese War, Weng Tonggong resolutely took the lead in the battle and never surrendered to the Japanese forces.
The following year, the Qing army was defeated in the war, and during the Sino-Japanese peace talks, Weng Tonggong and Li Hongzhang put aside their old grudges and joined forces to vigorously oppose the cession of land, pointing out: "It is better to increase the amount of indemnity than to cut the land," and resolutely safeguard China's territorial integrity. Unfortunately, due to the poverty and weakness of the Qing Dynasty for a long time, the situation could not be recovered, and in the end it could only pay compensation for the land.
Weng Tonggong is also a collector, as a military minister, Weng Tonggong has enough capital to get the collection he wants. Therefore, during Weng Tonggong's tenure, he collected countless treasures such as calligraphy and painting porcelain, and properly arranged and passed these collections to future generations.
Young and inherited
As the grandson of Weng Tonggong V, Weng Wange deservedly inherited all the treasures of Weng Tonggong, but in fact, Weng Wange was not a grandson of Weng Tonggong's blood relations, but a successor, so what is going on?
Although Weng Tonggong had great achievements in literary collection and politics, he had some difficulties in his family. Weng Tonggong had no heirs in his lifetime, so he could only inherit weng Zenghan, the son of his brother Weng Tongjue, and passed on all his family treasures to Weng Zenghan.
However, in the later inheritance, Weng Zenghan's son did not have his own biological children in his lifetime, so he could only imitate Weng Tonggong and adopt children from Weng Tonggong's eldest brother Weng Tongshu.
This child who had passed on could not have his own flesh and blood when he grew up, so he could only adopt again, and one of his children was Weng Wango. Weng Tonggong has been passed down for five generations, and three generations have not been able to have their own biological children, which is also a rather mysterious thing.
WengWango was adopted when he was two years old, and Wengwango did not understand these things because he was young when he first passed over, but he knew that he was going to call another person's father, and when Wengwango grew up, he did not know how much of a bargain he had picked up.
Study abroad
Since becoming the fifth grandson of Weng Tonggong, Weng Wange will have to shoulder this great family business, so the education that Weng Wange received from childhood is an elite education, and Weng Wange himself is also very competitive, talented and hardworking, it is also natural to become the proud son of heaven.
After receiving an initial education in elementary and junior high school in Tianjin, Weng Wange went to Shanghai Jiao Tong University to study. When he was at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, because Weng Wange had excellent grades and a good family background, he had a feeling of being a worldly nobleman, which made him a lot of pursuit in school.
In 1938, when Weng Wange was 20 years old, Weng Wange graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University with honors and went to study at Purdue University in the United States. After two years of study, Wengwango received a master's degree in mechanical and electrical engineering from Purdue University, which shows that Wengwango is quite talented in learning.
After obtaining his master's degree, Onwango did not choose to return to China, but stayed in the United States to continue his studies. What everyone did not expect was that the direction of Onwango's further study was not mechanical and electrical engineering, but the fine arts department - studying oil painting in the fine arts department of the University of Wisconsin in the United States.
In fact, we can understand this, after all, the Weng family is a family collector, the collection of treasures and paintings is countless, Weng Wange often faced these calligraphy and paintings when he was a child, under the influence of a long time, it is normal to be interested in art.
Since graduating from the Department of Fine Arts in Wisconsin, Ongwango has been working in the Arts of america, such as fine arts, photography, and film, and has achieved a great deal in these areas due to his high talent.
Transfer your home collection
In 1948, the domestic situation became more and more severe, in order to keep the family collection from the war, Onwango returned to China for the first time after studying in the United States, and after spending a lot of time and energy, Wengwango finally sorted out all the collections in the family. Since the family has a large collection of calligraphy and paintings, in order to ensure that these collections are well preserved, Ongwango has developed the safest route for them.
The collection was transported from Tianjin to Shanghai, where they were then taken on a ferry to the United States and finally to the United States. This seemingly short sentence took Onwango half a year to complete.
In early 1949, Onwango successfully arrived in the United States with his family's collection and his family, and exchanged Chinese nationality for American citizenship for himself and his family.
This is equivalent to the replacement of these collections from Chinese to American, although logically, these collections are the private collections of the Weng family, and we have no right to comment on this, but what Weng Wango did later directly caused the anger of the Chinese people.
$4.5 million was sold to China, but donated to the United States free of charge
As we have already mentioned above, the Weng family's collection is mainly calligraphy and painting, especially the calligraphy and painting works of the Ming and Qing literati, including the calligraphy and paintings of the Ming and Qing literati such as Shen Zhou, Zhu Yun, and the "Four Kings" of the Qing Dynasty, and among these calligraphy and painting works, Liang Kai's Gongbi painting "Daojun Portrait Scroll" is the most precious.
Very few of Liang Kai's works have survived, and at present, only one piece is stored in the National Palace In Taipei and one each in the Forbidden City in Beijing, which shows how precious this "Daojun Portrait Scroll" in Weng Wange's hand is.
In 2000, Weng Wange sold some of the treasures in his family collection to the Shanghai Library for a high price of 4.5 million US dollars through an auction company, which was originally Weng Wange's private collection, even if he sold them to the library at such a high price, but these treasures eventually returned to the embrace of the motherland, and we should be happy about this.
What angered the Chinese people was the incident that happened in 2018. 2018 is the centenary of Weng Wange's birth, and it is also on the day of his 100th birthday that the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston publicly announced that it has accepted the largest and most significant batch of Chinese paintings and calligraphy donations in history- the WengWango Family Collection.
The donation of 183 cultural relics, including 130 paintings, 31 calligraphy, 18 rubbings and 4 pieces of embroidery, spanned 13 centuries and five dynasties.
And these collections are donated by Onwango free of charge, and it is worth paying attention to, when the country learned that Onwango wanted to donate these precious collections to the Boston Museum of Art free of charge, we had proposed that we could buy this batch of cultural relics at a price higher than the market standard, but Wengwango ruthlessly refused.
If we dig deeper into the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, we will find that a large part of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts' collection comes from Onwango.
Onwango himself is a long-term patron of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and these artifacts were donated by Onwango free of charge and did not receive any remuneration from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
The donation of cultural relics is to promote cultural exchanges between China and the West
After Wengwango donated 183 cultural relics to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts free of charge, this incident caused a strong response from the domestic people, especially Wengwango's attitude towards the very serious polarization of China and the United States, which caused strong dissatisfaction among the people.
They believe that Ongwango is a veritable "traitor", and Ongwango, who has lived in the United States for many years, has forgotten the nurturing grace of his homeland and changed his nationality to American nationality.
He chose to donate his family's collection to the United States in order to overture the U.S. government and seek the welfare of his children and grandchildren.
In the face of accusations from domestic netizens, Weng Wange's nephew once responded on behalf of Weng Wange, saying that "the reason why Weng Wange insisted on donating cultural relics to the American Museum of Cultural Relics free of charge is to promote the exchange of Chinese and Western cultures."
Let Westerners see Chinese works when they visit the museum and understand the charm of Chinese works.
And Boston is a cultural center, and the Weng family's collection was donated to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts so that the world can see these collections. ”
Wengwango's nephew also said that Wengwango did not have his own selfish intentions to donate the collection free of charge, all for the great goal of "promoting cultural exchanges between China and the West".
But in fact, this reason does not make sense, first of all, the collection that Weng Wange transferred to the Shanghai Library was sold for 4.5 million US dollars, which is much higher than the market price.
Secondly, when Weng Wange bought back the collections in his hands in China, he refused on the grounds that "China cannot protect these collections". All of this contradicts the words of Wengwango's nephew, who would not have done such a thing if he had really done it for the sake of national righteousness.