Mr. Zheng Min, a famous Chinese poet, poetry critic and scholar, and professor at the School of Foreign Chinese Literature of Beijing Normal University, died of illness at 7:00 a.m. on January 3, 2022 in Beijing at the age of 102.
The reporter interviewed Zheng Lao at the end of 2014, as the last leaf of the "Nine Leaf Poetry School", when she was 94 years old, her ears were clear, and she spoke endlessly. Living in Heqingyuan, near the West Gate of Tsinghua, she is busy reading, thinking about problems, and even rarely going out for a walk. Seeing the reporter's visit, the old man was very happy, chatted for more than two hours in one breath, and even took a sip of tea in the middle, and even said that he was not thirsty at all. In the middle of the conversation, her hands were occasionally in the air, and finally she got up from the sofa with excitement.
From English metaphysics in the 17th century, European court poetry in the 18th century, romantic literature in the 19th century, to modernist literature in the 20th century and today's postmodernist philosophy, it is a complete cross-century journey of literary philosophy. "As soon as my brain wakes up, I think about problems, and inside I am a continuation of philosophy. Philosophy, music, painting, these three things are the things that enrich my life, and I find the joy of life in these three things. Zheng Min also said in a worried tone that he was an intellectual, tortured by the conscience of intellectuals every day, and did not know where the future of Chinese literature and education was.
Talk about health: from an early age to love swimming to lay a good foundation
In a study converted from the living room and balcony, the surrounding shelves are full of philosophical and poetic books, as well as several abstract oil paintings. There were two or three small flower baskets in the corner, but the flowers had long since withered, and it seemed that the owner did not care too much. Zheng Min's usual reading chair is close to the balcony, and the afternoon sun shines in from the window and falls on her face. "I love the sun, I love nature, and as soon as I pull back the curtains, the fresh air outside comes in." The old man laughed and said that the academic air should also be kept fresh.
Zheng Min's spirit was strong, his eyes were sharp, and he did not have the fatigue that was common to old people. She wakes up very early in the morning and does not take a nap at noon, and she feels that sleeping too much is not good for her body. Her listening is excellent, and her words are mixed with English words, but she can't remember the current events, and it also reveals her real age. When it comes to health, she said happily that it was a good foundation for the body when she was a child.
Her father studied in France and worked as an engineer in a coal mine in Henan after returning to China. "The engineers in the mine all came back from studying abroad, and at that time they especially hated the title of 'sick man of East Asia', so their children were trained according to the Western way of education." Zheng Min recalled that these engineers asked tutors to run private schools, opposing the education methods of the last years of the Qing Dynasty, and children wore Western-style clothing and had to climb mountains and swim every day, completely without the idea of inequality between men and women in the old society. "In the small world of the mine, it is a practice of Western-style education." Zheng Min said that he learned to swim at the age of 7 and still goes to the pool in the summer.
But the general women like to shop, shopping, Zheng Min is not interested, and now lives more like a pure philosopher's speculative life. She said that she thinks every day, her brain never stops every day, and many ideas are stirred into a pot of "eight treasure porridge". "I think about philosophy every day, I live in my own world, my education is my time, and it doesn't matter to me how other people live." She smiled and said with a little indignation that it didn't matter if she didn't write an article, it didn't matter if she didn't let herself publish it, and it was okay if no one communicated. She laughed at herself that maybe in the eyes of others, she looked weird. However, Zheng Min likes to communicate with young people, she never goes online, but she has heard of Weibo, saying to herself, "I should open a Microblog" to understand the public opinion of the current world.
Talking about poetry: I don't like women's boudoir poetry creation
Zheng Min's thoughts are all about literature, philosophy and education, and it is also her lifelong dedication. When she brought up these topics, she was like a river, not allowing others to beak, and showed a deep sense of intoxication. Zheng Min said that he walked on two legs, one was philosophy and the other was poetry. "Unlike most women, I liked abstract thinking when I was young because my biological father studied philosophy, he studied science and engineering, and later concentrated on Buddhism." She explains that her penchant for abstract thinking may have something to do with heredity.
Initially, new poems and vernacular texts did not attract much attention to Zheng Min, and she felt that those works were too childish to write. "When I was in junior high school, the vernacular I read was ridiculous, and I couldn't compare with the profundity of classical literature." She laughed that since Hu Shi advocated vernacular literature, the new Chinese literature has taken a long detour. "Hu Shi's generation advocated folk songs in order to overthrow classical literature. The starting point of the new Chinese poetry is the song ballad, which is in the 1920s and 1930s, and it is still in the song stage, which is very bad. Western Romanticism has passed, and modernist literature has begun. Zheng Min sighed that Hu Shi's generation looked radical, but in fact, the ideas in their minds were very conservative, blindly rejecting classical literature.
In Zheng Min's memory, Southwest United University was the best era of her life. In college, she studied philosophy and officially embarked on the path of poetry creation under the leadership of the famous poet Feng Zhi. "During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, southwest United University was a unique university in the world, and the exchanges between teachers and students were very close, much like the relationship between Confucius and his disciples." She recalled that she had written the poems in a small book and plucked up the courage to show them to Feng Zhi after a German class. After Reading it, Mr. Feng said to her: "The road to writing poetry is very long and lonely. But I think you still have poetry here. Zheng Min has insisted on writing poetry since then, and has also formed a relationship with Feng Zhi as a teacher and a friend.
She likes Feng Zhi's poems because his poems are very philosophical, and the poems she wrote herself are also inseparable from philosophy. "In terms of poetry, I have always been not a boudoir poetry, and I don't like that kind of female creation. My poetry is close to philosophy, not a colloquialism, but a real practice. Zheng Min proudly said that Chinese new poetry only began to look a little bit in the 1940s, and new Chinese literature also had a new pattern, which was linked to Western modernist literature, but this was a breakthrough by the Foreign Language Department of Southwest United University, not the credit of the Chinese Department. She also lamented that it is really not easy for new Chinese literature to come to this day.
Talking about the Literary World: Contemporary Chinese literature is too much like a temple
Philosophy has a very high position in Zheng Min's heart, she believes that philosophy is the most important, only when philosophy is read can there be thoughts and images in the mind, and modern people should read it. In 1948, she studied at an American university for seven years, studying postmodern philosophy and writing philosophical papers. "American philosophy is very popular, philosophical thinking has penetrated into daily life, there is also philosophical thinking in literature, and poetry represents the latest expression of American philosophy." If you don't understand philosophy, you can't understand their current literature and art. She explained that for herself, she has always been reading literature from a philosophical point of view.
In her view, contemporary Chinese literature should also introduce philosophical thinking, including classical Chinese philosophy, like Lao Zhuang philosophy is actually very modern. "But Chinese literature is too much like a temple, I know realism, there are no genres, there are too many constraints, and I can't imagine the future of Chinese literature." Zheng Min worried that intellectuals should have a conscience, say what they think is right, and do not chase the trend of the outside world. She also lamented that the current Chinese universities are too conservative, young people want to learn things, but no one teaches, like the Department of Foreign Languages knows how to use foreign languages as a tool, rather than really like literature to learn foreign languages.
Last year, Zheng Min published a collection of essays, which is also a collection of her life's literary creations and theoretical achievements, but she feels that her literary and theoretical creations are very regrettable. "I am a person from the old times, and Chinese of my age, most of whom do not like Western modern literature and philosophy, maybe I am an outlier." My poems are a bit weird, like a hodgepodge of books, and there aren't many readers. She was a little lonely in her tone, saying that she would let nature take its course, and she would read several books every day, and it would be useless to think about it more. She also laughed and did not dare to ask her students, not knowing what kind of teacher she was in the eyes of students.
She also does not agree that the "Nine Leaves School" is a literary genre, "just a small group of old intellectuals just got together, everyone has a common literary background, a common feeling for modernist poetry, just a little thing." Zheng Min paused for a moment and said that the "Nine Leaf Sect" had not discussed abstract theories, and there was little contact with each other in private. "They are all gone, and I will live long, from autumn to winter, where are the nine leaves?" She said emotionally that now only her own leaf was left, and there were no old friends to contact.
【Biography】
Zheng Min, born in 1920, is a native of Minhou, Fujian. In 1939, he was admitted to the Department of Foreign Languages of Southwest United University, and later transferred to the Department of Philosophy. In 1943, he went to Brown University in the United States, and in 1950 he transferred to the Illinois State University Research Institute. In 1956, he returned to China and went to the Foreign Literature Department of the Institute of Literature to engage in English literature research. In 1960, he was transferred to the Department of Foreign Languages of Beijing Normal University. His creation began in 1942, and his representative works include "Golden Rice Bunch" and so on. Together with Wang Xindi, Cao Xinzhi, Tang Qi, Tang Xiang, Chen Jingrong, Du Yunxie, Yuan Kejia, Mu Dan and others, he co-produced the poetry collection "The Collection of Nine Leaves" in 1980, and translated the "Selected Contemporary American Poems" and published the "Zheng Min Anthology".