In the works describing Qingdao's mountains and seas, history, and characters, Wang Tongzhao's article is the most objective, vivid and comprehensive. We can't help but take a few excerpts from his essay "Sketches of Qingdao", which was selected as a university textbook.
"Coming from Beiping, from Shanghai, from any city in China to Qingdao, you will feel another taste." Green mountains and blue seas, red tiles, green trees. Speaking of Qingdao's performance color, these adjectives are naturally immovable. ”
"Before the sea bathing, there were only wooden houses of various colors on a large beach, standing empty. It happens to be not a highly wet day, shallow water, bright sand, especially interesting. Look at this deep blue floating mirror with a lovely bright light, diagonally opposite the Qingdao Mountain, the small peaks are isolated there, draped in the thin clothing of spring, and the small waves are tired, delayed, like the breath of a spring troubled girl. ”
"At night, I walked alone on the South Coast's Miscellaneous Flowers Island for a while, and then I sat obliquely in front of the diagonal bridge in the small park at the north end of the pier. The newly built trestle, the pavilion deep into the sea, like a lighthouse... The curved coast is dotted with lights in the distance, and the tall building belt north of the bridge is a kind of night symmetry. ”
(Wang Tongzhao and his family in Qingdao)
Wang Tongzhao, Zi Jiansan, a famous writer in the history of modern Chinese literature, spent nearly 30 years of his life in Qingdao, teaching, writing, editing newspapers and periodicals, and making great contributions to the new literary movement in Qingdao and even China. Wang Tongzhao said that Qingdao is his second hometown, yes, he is familiar with and loves the mountains, rivers, grasses and trees here, and he once spoke fondly about the people of the mountains and seas here and the beautiful scenery in many of his essays.
Wang Tongzhao was born on February 9, 1897, to a family of landlords in Zhuxiang Prefecture, Shandong Province. He studied private school since he was a child and was admitted to Jinan Provincial No. 1 Middle School at the age of 16. The natural environment of the hometown is ordinary, with no mountains and rivers, and no transportation hub. Although the Wang family is said to be the richest man in Xiangzhou, he is no more than a "rich man" in a family with enough grain in the field, neither a squire nor a squire, nor has his ancestors produced a famous Confucian high-ranking official.
Children born in such a family either sit on the mountain and eat the sky, or become poor children. However, Wang Tongzhao was able to stand out from the crowd and become a famous writer and poet in the history of modern literature, which was not only related to his intelligence and studiousness, but also had an extremely close relationship with the impact and influence of the May Fourth Movement at that time.
Wang Tongzhao was admitted to the English class of Beijing China University at the age of 21, although he studied in the Department of Foreign Literature, but he was more enthusiastic about editing publications such as "Journal of Chinese Universities", "Dawn", "Morning Light", etc. In terms of creation, there are poems, essays, essays, reviews, more natural novels, translations of Western philosophical arts, and became one of the twelve initiators of the famous literary society "Literary Research Society" at that time (also in the history of modern Chinese literature), and was the director of the editorial department of "Morning Light Magazine".
He admired and admired Lu Xun's ideas and creations, and formed a deep friendship with Lu Xun. He was close friends with Shen Yanbing, Zheng Zhenduo, Ye Shengtao and other cultural pioneers of the Literary Research Association, and he once sent Qu Qiubai to the Soviet Union for an interview with others...
In the Chinese New Culture Movement, Wang Tongzhao, together with other literary scholars, used his diligent pen cultivation to remove the garbage of feudal literature and advocate the production of a new generation of literary works. Mao Dun pointed out in summarizing the achievements of novel creation in the first decade of the New Culture Movement: "At that time, there were only five or six writers who published their works from time to time, including Bingxin, Ye Shaojun, and Wang Tongzhao. ”
The period from 1927 to 1936 was when Wang Tongzhao lived in Qingdao in a relatively concentrated area. In 1926, at the age of 29, Wang Tongzhao resigned from his position as a professor at a Chinese university with a sad feeling, left Beijing, the center of the new cultural movement, left the literary research society he loved, and returned to Qingdao to mourn for his mother (who moved to Qingdao in her early years). In April 1927, he moved his family to No. 49 Guanhai 2nd Road, Qingdao, and although he left Qingdao many times in the middle, he also lived and lived here for more than 20 years before and after, until he moved out after liberation.
As soon as he stepped into Qingdao, he fell in love with the city, and he once sang a poem about the scenery of the island city: "The ghost people are clear at dawn, and the scenery is like spring." The sails faded into the morning fog, and the sound of cars passed through the thunder. Light dust washes around, and light rain makes flowers bloom. Looking at the sea and the sky in the distance, the sky is full of gloom. ”
Here he wrote the magnificent tome "Mountain Rain" against the background of the northern countryside under the rule of warlords, the famous essay "Sketches of Qingdao" and the poetry collection "This Era"; in the former residence of Qingdao, he received many modern cultural celebrities such as Yu Pingbo, Wen Yiduo, Lao She, Zhu Ziqing, as well as many literary rookies who came to Zang Kejia and Wang Yaping to ask for advice. Here, he opened up the virgin land of qingdao's new cultural movement.
After settling in Qingdao, Wang Tongzhao taught at Qingdao Railway Middle School and Municipal Middle School (now Qingdao No. 1 Middle School) for the sake of his family's livelihood. Teaching during the day and studying at night. At that time, he had been immersed in the grief of losing his mother, often thinking about the past alone. His first literary works in Qingdao were unscripted in such a state of mind. More than 10 short works, such as "Stirring up the Wind and Snow Dream Complaints", "Printing The Void", "Buying Firewood One Day", etc., brought some new vitality to Qingdao, which was dry at that time and was known as the literary desert.
On September 1, 1929, Wang Tongzhao led Jiang Hong, Du Yu, Li Tongyu, Bing Lu, Wang Zhuo, Wang Mei and other literary youth to found the first journal in the history of Qingdao literature, "Qingchao" Literary Monthly, with Wang Tongzhao as the editor-in-chief. "Qingchao" died after only two issues due to financial difficulties.
In the first issue of Qingchao, Wang Tongzhao personally wrote the pronoun of "Our Meaning", in which he wrote: "... We want to use the power of literature and art to express ideas. ...... Is this proof after the storm? Or the eve of a storm. For this still surging green tide, Wang Tongzhao worked hard, he not only revised the manuscript for the literary youth, proofread and translated, but also worked late at night to write two short stories, "The Handle of the Sword" and "Fire City".
The publication of "Qingchao" has opened up the garden of new literature in Qingdao. In the municipal middle school and railway middle school where Wang Tongzhao taught, many young people who loved literature successively organized literary societies such as the Luping Society, the Morning Gull Society, and the Tao Society. From 1930 onwards, Qingdao newspapers also published columns publishing new literary works, such as "poetry" in the "Qingdao Times", "Nanfeng" and "Phenomi" in the "Minbao".
In June 1930, the famous scholar Yang Zhensheng was appointed president of Qingdao University, and he followed the old educator Cai Yuanpei's "inclusive" and "scientific and democratic" policies of Beijing University, and used his prestige and status to recruit experts and scholars to teach or lecture at the university. More than a dozen celebrity scholars, including Wen Yiduo, Liang Shiqiu, and Lao She, were hired, and their arrival further enlivened Qingdao's new literature. For them, Wang Tongzhao is already an old Qingdao, and his family's cottage is filled with guests almost every day, and they are opening up an oasis of Qingdao's new culture.
In 1932, under the leadership of the Qingdao underground party, the "Left League" was also established, and under the influence of the Left League, Wang Tongzhao broke the wandering of several years and actively moved closer to the party organization. In the summer of 1935, Wang Tongzhao, Lao She, Hong Shen, and some colleagues in the literary and art circles who came to Qingdao to spend the summer opened a literary and art supplement "Summer Escape Record" in the "Minbao". Although the works published in "Summer Escape" are "different styles, different moods, different opinions, different positions, and more different ways of talking", "boiling blood and anxious hearts" are common.
Wang Tongzhao published a large number of poems, novels, and essays in "Summer Escape", which is rich in content and timeless in feelings, expressing his call for envy and hatred and longing for a free life. Due to the establishment of "Summer Escape", and the subsequent publication of "Tomorrow", "Poetry" and other weekly magazines, the development of qingdao's new literature has entered a new stage.
While living in Qingdao, in March 1931, Wang Tongzhao was invited by his friend Song Jie to teach at the First Traffic Middle School in the northeast of Siping Street, Jilin Province. At a time when Northeast China was on the eve of the September 18 Incident, he witnessed the barbaric aggression of Japanese imperialism and the hardships of the people's lives. A few months later, he returned to Qingdao, where he wrote a collection of reportage, "Spring in the Northern Kingdom", describing the painful life of the people of northeast China under the ravages of the enemy.
In September 1933, his masterpiece, the famous realist novel "Mountain Rain" in the New Culture Movement, was published, followed by the publication of the poetry collection "This Era". After the publication of "Mountain Rain", it was welcomed by the vast number of readers and praised by critics, and the writer Wu Boxi believed that "Mountain Rain" could be compared with Mao Dun's masterpiece "Midnight", one wrote about the bankruptcy of the countryside and the other about the decline of the urban national bourgeoisie, just like "twin peaks standing together". But its publication offended the Kuomintang reactionaries, and the Kuomintang Central Propaganda Committee, with its "rather class struggle consciousness ... It was given a warning and banned from distribution", and Wang Tongzhao was also included in the blacklist of "dangerous people".
At the beginning of 1934, Wang Tongzhao left Qingdao to return to his hometown, sold his land and property, and traveled to Europe at his own expense, and in the spring of 1935, Wang Tongzhao returned to China. Shortly after the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, Wang Tongzhao's family moved to Shanghai. After the Japanese occupied Qingdao, they threatened to confiscate their homes and all their family property in an attempt to force Wang Tongzhao to return to Qingdao. He attached great importance to the great national righteousness and vowed not to return to youth to serve the Japanese Kou.
On the eve of the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1945, Wang Tongzhao returned to Qingdao with his family and temporarily lived on Qidong Road. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he served as the editor-in-chief of the supplementary magazine of minyan bao. In August 1946, he became a professor and head of the department of Chinese of Shandong University in Qingdao, and moved back to his home on Guanhai Erlu. At the turn of the spring and summer of 1947, student movements against hunger, civil war, and persecution broke out in major cities under The Kuomintang ruled areas.
Qingdao students, with Shandong University students as the backbone, also organized demonstrations that shook the city. At the university-wide congress, some leaders of Shandong University blamed and obstructed the students' patriotic actions, but Wang Tongzhao stepped forward, clearly declaring that the students' actions were patriotic actions and vowing to be their backing. Later, the student movement was suppressed and he was dismissed.
On the eve of the founding of New China, in July 1949, Wang Tongzhao went to Beiping to attend the All-China Congress of Literary and Art Workers, where he was received by Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and other central leaders, and was elected as a member of the All-China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and a director of the Association. In September, he attended the first meeting of people's representatives from all walks of life in Qingdao and was elected as a member of the presidium and a member of the standing committee. In the autumn of the same year, he became a professor and head of the Department of Literature of Shandong University, and a member of the University Council. In March 1950, he went to Jinan to serve as the deputy director of the Department of Culture and Education of Shandong Province and a member of the Provincial People's Government.
Since March 1926, Wang Tongzhao has settled in Qingdao At No. 49 Guanhai 2nd Road, where he lived for nearly 30 years. Wang Tongzhao has deep feelings for Qingdao and regards Qingdao as his second hometown. In Qingdao, he left many footprints and deeds, leaving behind works that make Qingdao literature sky starry night, he is one of the leaders of the ship of qingdao modern literature, and has made great contributions to Qingdao's literary cause. In 1956, Wang Tongzhao returned to Qingdao, visited his old residence again, and inscribed a poem -
Thirty years old residence, Qiuhui co-column.
The two elms are still alive, and the sea is calm.
Wind and rain have dreamed of the past years, and the children and grandchildren have rejoiced on this day.
The sunset is brilliant and the sky is moving.