I met Mr. Shen Longzhu (Mr. Shen Congwen's eldest son) more than ten years ago, when I was seventy years old and he was about eighty years old.
I am a senior reader of the Jiuru Lane Zhangjia self-run family publication "Water". When "Water" resumed, it was edited by Mr. Zhang Yunhe and sent to me in each issue. After Mr. Yoon Ho's death, he was run by his fifth brother Huan He, and I did not receive two issues, so I asked Huan He for help. Huan He said that he was in his nineties, too busy, and handed over to his nephew Long Zhu. I wrote to Long Zhu. Long Zhu gave me the Yu ben in his hand, and also gave me the CD-ROM of "Water" after the resumption, and I also gave him two small books, and our friendship gradually grew stronger in this exchange of gifts.
Shen Longzhu's letter to the author
In 2011, I went to Baijiahu as an editor, and I saw that "Water" often published the sketches of Long Zhu's family relatives, especially the sketches of Shen Congwen's works in different historical periods. I asked Long Zhu to draft, he was a generous man, saying that he was painting and playing, and he was ashamed to show people. After I couldn't stand my "flickering" or being in love, I "gave in". After the painting was published, the readers responded very well, and some people praised Long Zhu's sketching skills as not inferior to professionals.
Shen Longzhu painted Hu Shi
Shen Longzhu painted Ba Jin
The following year, "Listening to Shen Longzhu Tell About the Old Affairs of the Shen Family" was published, and Long Zhu gave me a copy. When I asked him to sign it, he resolutely refused, he thought it was not his work, and did not dare to plunder the beauty.
As far as I know, Long Zhu was influenced by his father and his fourth aunt Chonghe, liked to draw since childhood, and once wanted to learn to paint with his cousin Huang Yongyu in high school, planning to apply for the Academy of Fine Arts. Later, in response to the party's call, he wanted to serve the country with science and technology, changed to engineering, and enrolled in Beijing Institute of Technology (now Beijing University of Technology).
It was also in "Water" that I saw a sketch by Long Zhu for his parents in his later years. Full of wrinkles and a kind face, Zhaohe snuggled up on the shoulder of Shen Congwen, who had experienced vicissitudes, and the flying needle was threaded, and Shen Congwen quietly enjoyed this warmth. It was a wonderful portrayal of the love of a white-headed and old couple. I revealed a bit of a flattering message in a letter to Long Zhu, who was simple and understanding, and copied the work for me in less than a month.
Jiuru Lane Zhang family ten brothers and sisters of the magazine "Water"
Long Zhu is humble, enthusiastic and generous, and has always been happy to help others. One year, at the auction of xiling printing company, in order to identify the authenticity of a book signed by Shen Congwen "Moganshan Xiaozhi" in the 1930s, I called Long Zhu for advice in the middle of the night.
Soon after, due to the suspension of the magazine and the lack of contact with the manuscript, the audio question between Long Zhu and I was also interrupted. I am idle at home and take pleasure in practicing words. At the end of 2020, I wrote an album for the teachers and friends who had helped me, and I also wrote a book for Long Zhu and sent a new year's greeting. Long Zhuji lectured on etiquette, and after receiving the album, he immediately called and wrote a letter of thanks, modestly saying that he "lacked the talent for calligraphy and did not dare to give it back with the corresponding works", so he gave back a recent "self-portrait" and said that if I was willing to send him a photo, he would make a sketch for me. Respectfully, I mailed the photograph, and half a month later he sent the sketch. The painting is wonderful, not only similar, but also conveying the spirit.
Now that Long Zhu is eighty-eight years old, he wrote to me and told me that he insisted on swimming and exercising every day. He said that he bought an annual pass, sometimes lazy to think about not going, but in his heart he always muttered that if he didn't go for a day, he would "lose" 15 yuan, so he went to "punch in" every day. What an old humor.
At the end of 2021, I sent New Year greeting cards to my teachers and friends, and naturally I also sent one to Long Zhu. I didn't have a copy, but just pasted the four red characters of "Congratulations on the New Year" that were more than 6 centimeters wide on the A4 large white paper, and it was a flat mail. A week later, I received a registered letter from Long Zhu, thick and thick, and replied to me with the hollow characters he was good at——
Mr. Changhua: Thank you! I saw you send you a very creative New Year's letter. I can't respond with a serious calligraphy work, because I can't write with a brush! I had to take the crooked door oblique (evil) road. Reply with this hollow letter of thanks that is even more impossible to get on the table. For fun, I've been practicing hollow words for nearly two years. But it has been hovering at a low level. As soon as I got started, I figured it quickly, and when I was a child, I learned the brush writing base too poorly. Glyphs cannot be formal.
Shen Longzhu wrote hollow characters
What surprised me even more was that he also gave me a self-printed pamphlet entitled "Part of Shen Congwen's Teachers and Friends". It was a collection of sketches he had painted for Shen Congwen's lifelong friends, including Shen Congwen's primary school teacher Tian Mingyu, Lin Zaiping, who helped Shen Congwen find a job, and Shen Congwen's early friends Hu Yepin, Ding Ling, Yu Dafu, Xu Zhimo, Hu Shi, Zhu Ziqing, Ba Jin, Xiao Qian, and more than twenty others, which made me feast my eyes.
What I sent to Long Zhu was nothing more than a brick, but what Long Zhu gave back was a piece of jade. True gentleman also!