Today is the ninth day of 2022.
When we leave the old and welcome the new, we are accustomed to jumping from individual memories to a broader space, and the better way is to enter the reading of history.
The writing of Chinese history is voluminous. But at the beginning of 2022, two "other perspectives" converged on the public.
Mr. Jonathan D. Spence, an 85-year-old famous historian, died at his home in the United States on December 26, 2021 local time. During this time, the academic community, the history writers who were deeply influenced by him, and his readers mourned.
Established in 1872, the "Julian Prize", named after the French sinologist Julian, has entered its 150th year. This award is one of the most important awards in the field of sinology, bringing a large number of sinologists at home and abroad and their works to readers.
These two things make people who have been reading think: the writing of generations of sinologists is actually constantly presenting the face of China to the world and reflecting China's influence.
During this time, the famous scholar Zheng Peikai gave many media interviews, and a question was naturally frequently asked, what is the greatest contribution of Shi Jingqian's writing?
He answered this question in a recent article: changing the Western misunderstanding of China and understanding Chinese history and culture in an objective and plain way.
In the nearly half century after Fairbank, Wei Feide, Kong Feili and Shi Jingqian, three "post-30s" overseas sinologists, had a great influence on China's writing. Today, they are all gone.
Shi Jingqian "made up for the gaps in history", based on the imagination of historical facts, properly grasped the "degree"; Kong Feili's research methods and perspectives were very unique; and Wei Feide was known for his selection of topics and historical materials.
Shi Jingqian once said: "In the whole world map, China is an important and extremely attractive existence. Westerners need to spend a long time digesting and analyzing the data they get. Something that can be seen at a glance does not exist. The more vague and faceted our view of China becomes, the closer we are to the most elusive truth. ”
In their own way, they present the charm and multi-faceted nature of China. And their disciples and descendants are also attracted to this charm and take on the mantle.
As Zheng Peikai's observation of Shi Jingqian , " inspired some of his students to devote themselves to studying China's influence in world history and exploring China's place in the world , which indirectly overturned Western-centrism." ”
Unfinished trip to Gangnam
At the turn of the spring and summer of 2019, Shi Jingqian had plans for a trip to Jiangnan, China. Originally, he would travel to Suzhou and Hangzhou with his friends and friends, and planned to visit Shaoxing, the hometown of Zhang Dai, the protagonist of his book "Former Dynasty Dreams: Zhang Dai's Glitz and Desolation". However, before the trip, his body had some conditions and had to cancel the plan temporarily.
Later, when the new crown pneumonia epidemic struck, the plan of Jiangnan Trip was repeatedly shelved, and eventually failed to make the trip.
Born in 1936, Shi Jingqian graduated from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and Yale University in the United States with a doctorate, and served as a professor at Yale University, the director of the Center for History and East Asian Studies, and the president of the American Historical Society.
While teaching his students, he wrote a large number of excellent historical works. Since the 1960s, he has completed 14 works on Chinese history, including "Kangxi: Reconstructing the Inner World of a Chinese Emperor", "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom", "The Death of Wang", "Tracing Modern China", etc., which have opened a window for the West to understand Chinese civilization and provided a perspective for Chinese readers to examine history.
Mr. Zheng Peikai, a famous scholar, was recruited as a doctoral student by Shi Jingqian in 1972. He is also the editor-in-chief of the series of "Works of The Republic of China and Shi Jingqian". In addition to studying with Shi Jingqian, in the 1970s, Zheng Peikai also served as Shi Jingqian's assistant teacher. Over the years, they have maintained close contact between teachers and students.
In Zheng Peikai's nostalgia, the unfinished trip to Jiangnan was restored. Through his narration, we also took a step closer to Mr. Shi Jingqian and realized that his writing of Chinese history is not limited to history itself, but has compassion for mankind.
At the beginning of May 2019, Zheng Peikai and Shi Jingqian took a walk in the garden of Mr. Shi's home. Courtesy of Professor Yan Xiu
Qian Bao: At the turn of the spring and summer of 2019, I learned from Jiang Aijun, the head of Hangzhou Xiaofeng Bookstore, that Mr. Shi Jingqian planned to come to Hangzhou, but later I regretted that I could not make the trip, please talk about this uncompetited trip to Hangzhou.
Zheng Peikai: Every year at the turn of spring and summer, I visit my teacher, Mr. Shi Jingqian, in New Haven. The reason why I chose this season is because the flowers and trees in his big garden are really beautiful, and the purple and red are very similar to the "garden tour" described in Kunqu Opera.
I have an apartment in Suzhou, there is also a small courtyard, and Shi Jingqian's garden can not be compared at all, probably only less than one percent, fortunately Suzhou people are good at "doing dojo in the screw shell", actually stacked Huangshi rockery, surrounded by a small pond, there are more than a dozen small goldfish swimming in it. I often return to Suzhou in the spring, when the jade flowers bloom full of hedges, and then the Lingxiao flowers bloom, which is also pleasing to the eye. My residence is next to the Humble Administrator's Garden, close to Pingjiang Road, and close to the Lion Grove, so I can often visit the garden. With Shi Jingqian said about the beauty of Suzhou, but also said that it is close to Shanghai and Hangzhou, they are very envious, saying that they heard that "there is heaven on the top, suzhou and Hangzhou on the bottom", I hope to visit Jiangnan, I said no problem, I will arrange.
People are old, and some wishes are not done, so someone must arrange and help them complete. My teacher, Mr. Shi Jingqian, is older and his body is slowly getting weaker, and he has not been able to swim in Jiangnan, which is what I can help. I discussed with Mr. Shi and his mother, Jin Anping, to see if the trip could be completed in the late spring and early summer of 2019, and they were very excited, saying that they had no task in retirement anyway, and they would definitely be able to swim in Suzhou and boat on the West Lake. However, Mr. Shi insisted that this trip would never give a speech, did not look at the academic peers, but just played the scenery of Jiangnan with us, went to Hangzhou, Suzhou, Shaoxing, like Zhang Dai in the late Ming Dynasty, comfortable and leisurely.
On February 28, 2014, Professor Shi Jingqian gave a lecture at Peking University. Courtesy of Visual China
At the end of April 2019, I went to the United States to give a lecture, and before returning to Hong Kong in early May, Jin Anping called me and said that Mr. Shi was not in good health and was prone to fatigue, and that she was a little worried about the long-distance travel and fatigue, and asked me to visit Mr. Shi at their home in New Haven to observe his health and determine whether I could start. We were especially busy in New York those two days, because we had an appointment with Ang Lee to discuss the new film he was making, and we had dinner with the dancer Jiang Qing and discussed things with friends at Columbia University.
After settling down in New York, I drove to Mr. Shi's house early in the morning of May 3 and had a pleasant day. We watched the cherry blossoms in his carefully tended garden, put on rubber boots, climbed down the dark field in his backyard, visited the "secret garden" he personally designed, ate a meal carefully cooked by Jin Anping, and talked about the night until we reluctantly returned to New York. After observing all day, I saw that Mr. Shi's situation was very good, the interest was also high, and he was full of laughter and laughter, unlike any problems. So we agreed that his trip to the south of the river would proceed as planned.
Mr. Shi felt that every time he came to China, he was more "troublesome" because many universities would "surround" him - his colleagues in academia would invite him to give lectures and participate in seminars, of course, these knowledge exploration activities were very interesting, but he had almost no time to catch his breath, let alone calmly enjoy the landscape and experience the elegance of the ancient Chinese literati. This time, he told us to visit only with us, and never tell his friends in the academic circle.
He actually wanted to see Jiangnan very much, especially the book about Zhang Dai: "The Flashiness and Desolation of Zhang Dai in the Dream of the Former Dynasty", the wonderful life that Zhang Dai spent in Jiangnan, Mr. Shi did not experience. I remember him saying, "As long as you promise, you will never arrange any academic visits, and if you don't go to the university to give a speech, I will go." ”
I have a lot of friends in Jiangnan, the garden industry, the Kunqu opera industry, the calligraphy and painting industry... Then, I will arrange a trip not to go to academia, just a tour by ourselves, happily looking at Jiangnan, mainly to visit Hangzhou and Suzhou.
Subsequently, I contacted my friends in Suzhou and Hangzhou, and arranged for him to go to Zhang Dai's hometown of Shaoxing to have a look. Friends in Hangzhou are particularly interesting, chartered a dragon boat to swim in the West Lake, and also booked a lakeside hotel, so that he can open the window to see the scenery of the West Lake.
I promised him that we would never arrange any lectures or visits, and that we would play by ourselves, including a rafting trip to the West Lake. He was overjoyed. In the words of his mother, Jin Anping, it is "enjoy the scenery of Jiangnan and experience the fun of Jiangnan".
Why didn't the trip take place? In fact, he spent a lot of effort for this trip to Jiangnan, because his passport and visa had expired, and he had to reapply for a while, and the visa finally came down and he bought a ticket. I was about to leave, and I also informed my friends in Jiangnan and "solemnly" told everyone: "Mr. Shi Jingqian should have a good time, and you cannot arrange any other activities for him, only leisure activities." ”
At the beginning of May 2019, Zheng Peikai and Shi Jingqian enjoyed the scenery in the garden. Courtesy of Professor Yan Xiu
Two or three days before take-off, my mother, Jin Anping, called me, and she said that Mr. Shi suddenly fainted, as if he was in bad health. In this way, he had to go to the doctor first, and when the doctor's judgment came out, he could decide to continue traveling or cancel the plan.
After going to the hospital for examination, the doctor said that he was very weak and that there were some problems that were not carefully explained at the time, but hinted at the possibility that he had a chronic disease.
We finally decided to cancel the tour after discussing various possible scenarios. Later, when we discussed his physical condition again, the doctor suggested that he had mild Parkinson's disease and that there were some problems with physical coordination. I thought, after he recovers, I will make arrangements for the trip to Jiangnan.
Who knows, by the end of 2019, the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, all of us were trapped, including myself, who had not been to Jiangnan for two years. Mr. Shi Jingqian's coming to Hangzhou was also stopped so vaguely.
Qian Bao: This meeting in 2019 was the last time you and Mr. Shi Jingqian met? What else was there to talk about?
Zheng Peikai: We talk a lot, but none of them have anything to do with Chinese history. He talked about the books he read, including literature, art, and poetry, and he enjoyed reading poetry.
In addition to classical poetry, he also likes to read the poetry of modern English poets, and he is quite familiar with some poets in the eastern United States, such as John Ashbery and John Hollander, and when he reads their new works, he discusses them with me.
I also like Ashbery's works, and I have a deep feeling. We talked about poetry, about the flowers and trees planted in his garden, and then about the unsuccessful trip to Jiangnan from May 21 to 28.
After that, due to the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, we were unable to leave our place of residence. We haven't seen each other for more than two years and occasionally make a phone call to say hello. I think the last time I called him was just to say hello, ask about the COVID-19 situation in the United States, and then say take care of yourself, and so on.
Qian Bao: Although Mr. Shi Jingqian's trip to Hangzhou did not materialize, when I read "Memories of the Former Dynasty: Zhang Dai's Glitz and Desolation", I was very impressed by his description of Zhang Dai's details of the details of the winter boating from Shaoxing to Hangzhou, and the snow in the Huxin Pavilion. In your opinion, why did he build such solid and compelling details?
Zheng Peikai: I will answer this question from two aspects.
First, Shi Jingqian was full of interest and reverie in Jiangnan. In the process of writing his entire historical works, starting from the earliest doctoral dissertation "Cao Yin and the Kangxi Emperor", it is said that Cao Yin, who was sent by the central government to Jiangnan as a weaver, was a confidant of the Kangxi Emperor. Cao Yin often made reports to the Kangxi Emperor, all about the situation in Jiangnan—economic developments, social trends, and some local conflicts.
Therefore, when Mr. Shi first studied Chinese history, he was very interested in some social details, cultural details, and even some artistic activities in Jiangnan, such as the exchanges between literati.
Later, he wrote a book about historical figures in the era of the Chinese revolution, talking about Lu Xun, Ding Ling, Qu Qiubai... Many people in this book live in Gangnam, and the book presents a lot of details about Gangnam, and also repeatedly presents his interest in Gangnam.
For the actual situation in Jiangnan, Mr. Shi himself has more or less contact with it, but his most important contact method is often related to academic reports. Usually he is "circled" by the university, participating in seminars, giving lectures to students, and only contacting experts and scholars in the school, and he rarely has the opportunity to relax and visit Jiangnan.
His interest in Jiangnan is related to his historical research. He was familiar with Jiangnan in the literature, and he had seen the materials that survived from the late Ming Dynasty to modern China. Jiangnan, of course, became one of his interests. This may also be the reason why when I planned to come to Gangnam with him, he immediately agreed.
In the second aspect, in mr. Shi Jingqian's writings on Chinese history, the characters and the environment should be written very clearly and in detail, and only in this way can we show the historical experience of a living person in a very specific and real life environment. That is to say, when you write history, you must compare the data, present the environment, and then present some of the lives of the characters in the environment.
Therefore, "constructing historical details" is very important, because to present a character who is flesh and blood and a living figure, it is necessary to present a variety of historical environments around him, including customs and customs, scenery, and the interaction of characters. For example, how can the poetry and wine flow of the literati express the style of poetry and wine? It must be presented through details, so that this character has a three-dimensional sense, can construct his entire historical narrative, and narrate history vividly.
"Dreams of the Former Dynasty: Zhang Dai's Glitz and Desolation" Shi Jingqian, translated by Wen Qiayi, | Guangxi Normal University Press
The gap between imagination and history
Qian Bao: I see a saying that Professor Shi Jingqian is called "Picasso in the field of Chinese studies" in the Western world, and no one has published more research works on China than him, and they have been widely recognized in academia and the public; in addition to the richness of the subject matter, no one can write better than him.
How did he bring life back to those characters who are in the dust of history? What was his approach to writing? It is also said that Professor Shi Jingqian wrote many historical works in the café, is this a real situation?
Zheng Peikai: The analogy in this question is quite interesting, that is, Mr. Shi Jingqian's historical works have many tricks, like Picasso.
But doesn't he look like Picasso? Matter.
Indeed, Shi Jingqian's works are colorful, and I think this metaphor is quite good, because Picasso let the outside world, or the content he is interested in, have his own artistic interpretation through his sensitive artistic mind. Shi Jingqian also gave a unique display through his own understanding of Chinese history and culture.
On the surface, his works seem to be multi-faceted, but in the end, he has a deep yearning for Chinese history and culture in his heart, and later when he studied Chinese history, the main direction of exploration was the general response of human beings in some situations.
Therefore, when he writes history, he often discusses the situation experienced by people who are very specific and living in the big historical environment and those people, and this situation must also be very specific, very detailed, very vivid. That way, when he writes about different characters, you'll find that his picture is different! Of course, his picture is different, because this person is different, and his situation is different.
His writing in a café should be a misconception.
In fact, he had a nice research room at Yale, a large area filled with books. At the same time, he has two study rooms in his home.
That is to say, he has three different workspaces, and often uses a study room when developing a certain topic. For example, to carry out Plan A in this study, Plan A cannot be completed in a short period of time, and the large amount of material he wrote and collected in advance is piled up there; then he is attracted by another content, and the topic that attracts him becomes Plan B, and the materials of Plan B are piled up in another study; by chance, he actually has Plan C, so the contents of Plan C are piled up in the third study.
His three different creative spaces have three different piles of materials, and when he feels more mature, he will concentrate on completing one of the plans. It can be seen that he has many interests, facing different characters and different scenes, and he writes different historical works.
Why does he have a different topic? It has to do with the way he teaches.
We know that he taught modern and contemporary history at Yale University, and the way he lectured was mainly big speeches, because he had too many students. When I gave him a teaching assistant, he had forty students, which later became two or three hundred, and finally he told me, somewhat triumphantly, that he had more than 700 students and that he was going to speak in the largest lecture hall. Moreover, Yale students feel that they will regret not having listened to Shi Jingqian's history class for the rest of their lives.
His lectures in the big class, of course, are modern and modern history, and in the process of lecturing there will be a special topic, that is, a certain topic will be talked about in a certain week, and sometimes, when this topic is finished, he may have another topic to discuss. Because the students who come to choose courses are not all studying history, Mr. Shi Jingqian cannot completely solve these problems in the ordinary classroom, and these topics become his research projects, and then he writes them step by step in different study rooms.
Writing about this in a café, maybe he wrote a small paragraph, because he had a temporary inspiration, just sit down in the café and write it down, this is there.
When I used to be a student, he would take me to a cafe on campus or a pizzeria where students used to go for coffee or beer. Sometimes, he suddenly thought of something, so he took out a small book and wrote it down. But for formal writing, he had to go back to his study room or study, not as the rumors said.
Qian Bao: I once read your description of Mr. Shi Jingqian: "Using imagination to make up for the gaps in history", as a student of him, and from the perspective of a bystander, where do you think the degree of this "imagination" is?
Zheng Peikai: I think his grasp of this degree of "imagination" is not very easy.
Because I had more contact with him, his basic method, my inference is this - he writes about the activities of any character or the situation of history, trying to be wordless and without a history, and every sentence must be supported by historical materials, which is shown in his annotations.
With the character to write, with the documentary materials related to the scene, how will this character think in the scene provided by the historical documents? What decisions are taken? Why were those decisions taken? This is the "gap". The parties in history will not travel through time to tell you: I made this decision because of this and that, and with such an action. At this time, a historian must use his imagination, which cannot be outrageous, cannot be separated from the material provided by these historical documents.
Of course, the historical documents themselves are diverse, there may be conflicts, and there may be different ways of presenting them, in such a situation, how do you choose? This requires you to have the ability to imagine history, and you must have a macroscopic understanding of history before you can make a more appropriate judgment.
We say that whether this historian is good or not, in addition to the mastery and use of historical materials and the writing style, whether there is historical knowledge is very important. This historical knowledge, I think Shi Jingqian has.
Therefore, the degree of this "imagination" is not very good to grasp. If you do a good job, people will praise it; if you don't hold it well, people will question it; if you really don't hold it well, people will talk nonsense. But looking at Shi Jingqian's works, readers may often think, "Is this the case?" However, after questioning it, I felt that the degree of "imagination" he provided was more reasonable, because he had already told you in his writings that there was such a possibility.
The farthest he went this way should be "The Death of Wang"," which uses some material from Pu Songling's novels. In other words, in the same era, the same place, there may be such an imaginative space, and this should be used very skillfully.
"The Death of Wang" shi Jingqian, translated by Li Xiaokai into the Republic of | Guangxi Normal University Press
The philosopher of history, R.G. Collingwood, once said that when a historian writes history, he must experience the historical scenes he writes. He talked about writing British history, going to the ancient battlefield in Britain to hang, and you people went to the ancient battlefield to experience that environment, feel those people shouting horses, arrows fighting, and the scene of the war in that year came alive. He used a word called "hallucination," which is an illusion, an illusion of history, into which historians want to be illusory—this is actually the degree of imagination.
More about Shi Jingqian's story
and the development and changes of Western sinologists that he spoke of,
They are all described in detail in the special report of this issue of the Humanities Reader
Source: Qianjiang Evening News hourly news reporter Sun Wen Song Hao
Duty Editor: Zhou Qin