Smell the dawn in the grandfather painting place in that year
Editor's note: On January 3, Mr. Wen Liming, a researcher at the Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the eldest grandson of Wen Yiduo, died in Beijing at the age of seventy-one due to ineffective medical treatment. Wen Liming's academic expertise is modern Chinese history, and he has been committed to the collection and research of historical materials of Southwest United University and Wen Yiduo for many years, and has won the legacy of family learning and outstanding academic achievements. This edition is specially written by Long Meiguang, deputy director of the Southwest United University, and Yang Xiao, author of "Re-walking: Looking for the Southwest United Congress on the Highway, River and Post Road", remembering Mr. Wen Liming for the benefit of readers.
"I basically explained the history of Smell a Lot"
◎ Yang Xiao
Mei Yu could see the shadow of his grandfather
The first time I met Mr. Wen Liming was in early July 2019. At that time, he had just finished a minor operation, and we met about to meet in the ward where he was hospitalized, and I brought a bouquet of flowers and countless questions—I was writing a book about the Xiangqian dian tour group of the Southwest United University, and I had previously read his "Narrative on the Small Long March of Xiangqian and Dian at Changsha Provisional University" and "An Investigation of the Wartime Military Movement of southwest United University", and I had benefited a lot.
The 69-year-old Wen Liming was very clear, and he could see his grandfather's shadow between his eyebrows. Let's start with his wenyi research. It was 1985, and he was 35 years old, attending a wen yiduo seminar, "thinking things were too old", and decided to come on his own, starting with collecting information. Using a stupid method, go everywhere to find information, such as "Tsinghua Weekly", which smells more than one signed article to find, but there are unsigned, or others write a lot of smell, you can only honestly turn one book at a time, "After I finished, there is no more, I am at ease." Ten years later, in 1994, "Smell a Year of Genealogy" was published. He did not stop, continued to collect materials, went to Taiwan, looked for the "National History Museum", looked for the "Academia Sinica", looked for the Party History Society, Chiang Kai-shek's archives were not allowed to be copied, only little by little; after another 10 years, in 2004, "Wen Yi A Year Genealogy Long Edition (Revised Edition)" was published.
Reading the thick long compilation of the chronology, you will lament the detail and detail of the content, which is based on the basic concept of Wen Liming: before elaborating and evaluating, we must first exhaust the data to restore the facts. Chatting with Wen Dawn will keep hearing the word "material". There are many materials in which areas, there are few materials in which aspects, and he has not seen any materials in which aspects. Someone questioned him, and he replied with "material": "I will show you the material!" Or, "You look for materials, and I'll find materials, and we'll talk about it in five years." ”
He said he had his grandfather's blood on him, but was only a scholar when he did his research, "I never thought of Wen Yiduo as a god." I talked to him about how many important scholars at Southwest United University (such as Mei Yiqi) do not have a long genealogy, and some people do not even have an almanac, Wen Liming said, sometimes it depends on whether there are any descendants to do this thing, "so I think my greatest contribution to our family is that I basically explained the history of Wen Yiduo, and the materials were basically complete." In the future, if others do more and smell more things, there will be (based on) the book. ”
It's not without regrets. He grew up living with his grandmother, but he didn't talk much about family history, although he studied history, but he only emphasized the text and did not repeat the dictation, "When my grandmother was there, why didn't she ask?" Didn't ask! "Including those uncles and uncles, when he first started to smell a lot of research, they were still there, "they were all people around him," "At that time, I didn't feel anxious, I could ask at any time..."
Find the sketch location of your grandfather
Fortunately, he never stopped collecting materials, and more than a month before the interview, Wen Liming had just re-walked his grandfather's path of studying in the United States in the United States. On June 9, 2019, he arrived in Chicago and wrote in the circle of friends: "Wen Yiduo has been living near the University of Chicago when he studied in Chicago, and Jackson Park, which is not far from his residence, is a place he loves very much. The park is next to Lake Michigan, the world's largest freshwater lake, but is a stand-alone park with patches of grass shrouded in tall tree canopy all year round, with a narrow lake in the middle. Wen Yiduo often sat on a chair by the boulevard, looking up at the sharp-billed gulls flying on the lake, looking down at the ducks and geese foraging in the lake water, and there were squirrels with daring to jump in front of their feet. Poetry was born in the painting, so there was a poem "Autumn Colors". Today, we can't wait to come to Jackson Park (Wen Yiduo translates to 'Jie Geson') and silently recite "Autumn Colors" in an attempt to experience the inspiration that touched Wen Yiduo's creation. ”
After more than 30 years of immersion in "materials", Wen Liming wanted to go to the field to see more. He told me that he didn't understand why my grandfather didn't have much class in New York, and when he went to the New York Academy of Arts, it wasn't the academy studio he imagined, but closer to a public space, anyone could go, and in such a place, there might not be a problem of "going to class" or "not attending class". And he further understood that the living environment changed his grandfather's lifestyle. "(Understand) The same is true of Southwest United University, you must go to that environment."
Maybe it was fate, at the end of October 2020, we met again in Changsha to participate in an activity to re-walk the westward migration of the United Nations General Assembly. From Yuanling and Xinhuang in western Hunan to Kunming and Mengzi in Yunnan, everywhere he went, everyone surrounded him and asked all kinds of questions, he was extremely cultivated, very patient, all kinds of materials came to hand, and constantly asked questions to the locals, in turn, checking the materials he had mastered. Because of the time relationship, that trip skipped Guizhou, Wen Liming had some regrets, but in the following spring he re-started the Xiangqiandian tour group in Guizhou - this is what I saw in his circle of friends, on April 13, 2021, he arrived in Guiding County, where Wen Yiduo had completed a sketch in Muzhu Cave. 83 years later, because of the construction of the highway, the cave has been hidden for many years, 71-year-old Wen Liming wearing a red helmet, climbed the hillside, waded across the creek, "when we found the location of Wen Yiduo's sketch, all the difficulties disappeared, and we enjoyed the joy that all the teams who retook the road of The Xiangqian and Dian Tour Group did not enjoy!" ”
Probably because Mr. Wen Liming has always been on the road for several years, the news of his death has shocked many people, including my younger generation who are related to each other. I had not yet had a chance to ask him what it was like to have a joy that no one else had enjoyed, and I remembered the remarkable work he had done, and dared to speculate that it was a broad, down-to-earth joy, to borrow zhang Dai's words in "Tao'an Dream Memories": "The chest is vast, there is no mustard, a pillow is sweet... I don't know what sorrow is in the world. ”
(The author of this article is the author of "Re-Walking: Finding the Southwest United Congress on Roads, Rivers and Stagecoaches")