Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of the death of Mr. Hu Shi, and today is the 10th anniversary of the death of his student, Mr. Chen Zhifan. Chen Zhifan (1925-2012), a native of Baxian County, Hebei (now Bazhou), graduated from the Department of Electrical Engineering of Beiyang University, obtained a master's degree from Princeton University in the United States, and then went to Cambridge University in the United Kingdom to obtain a doctorate in philosophy.
He has taught at Princeton University, Hong Kong Chinese University, Boston University, National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, and is the founding head of the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Chinese, Hong Kong. He is engaged in electrical engineering research, and at the same time has a deep humanistic literacy, and his prose works have been selected for the Chinese language textbooks of middle schools in the three places across the Taiwan Straits.
In 1962, the 37-year-old Chen Zhifan heard the news of Mr. Hu Shi's death overseas and tearfully wrote a memorial text:
It's not that I prefer him, there's no one who doesn't love the spring wind, no one who doesn't revel in the spring wind. Because there is a spring wind, there is the swaying of green poplars; there is a spring wind, there is a swallow's return; there is a spring wind, the earth has poetry; there is a spring wind, and life has dreams.
Today, we reprint the report of the Oriental Morning Post ten years ago as a memorial to Mr. Chen.
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Tolerance is more important than freedom: the 60th anniversary of Mr. Hu Shi's death
Mr. Chen Zhifan
Text | Shi Jianfeng, Tian Bolan
Source | Oriental Morning Post, February 28, 2012
Shanghai scholar Chen Zishan was the first to introduce Chen Zhifan's works to the mainland, and his first book published on the mainland was Reflections of the Sword River. Chen Zishan said:
The biggest feature of his (Chen Zhifan's) prose is that it is natural, and he pays more attention to how to write the vernacular beautifully. His writing is clean, even lyrical, very subtle, very restrained, but it is impressed at first glance. So it was very good that his article was selected for inclusion in the textbook. The biggest influence on his writing came from Hu Shi, but there were many philosophical ideas in his later prose.
Regarding Chen Zhifan's writings, Lin Daoqun also said:
His text is very concise and not fancy, and his article, if you delete a word, he may know. Many people may not be able to accept this kind of poetic prose, but I think he put the tradition of ancient Chinese poetry into the prose, so although he wrote prose, he cared about every word, and each word seemed to be no more or less. Personally, I think that "Walking" and "Thoughts and Blossoms" are two of Mr. Chen's best books, which are very different from his early writing, and the articles in "In the Spring Wind" are deeply influenced by Hu Shi.
Chen Zishan once said in an article:
Chen Zhifan's Reflections of the River of Swords and other collections of essays record the ups and downs of his own thoughts over the years, the waves of a constantly groping soul splashing in the turbulence of history. The research and contemplation of Chen Zhifan in his works, whether it involves the macroscopic cosmic world or the microscopic trivia of the world, shows most clearly the humanistic accomplishment of an overseas natural scientist and the conscience and insight of an overseas intellectual. The combination of traditional roots and philosophical speculation, and the fusion of scientific knowledge and timeless literary style, make Chen Zhifan's prose appear dazzling. Time is flowing, the world is changing, and the phenomenon of each leading the way in the literary world for three or five years has been common, but the charm of Chen Zhifan's prose is still so fresh and strong, it can be said that it is a rather special literary phenomenon.
In Chen Zishan's impression, Chen Zhifan usually didn't talk much, "but if you chat with him on one level, you have to be mentally energetic, and if you don't pay attention, you won't be able to keep up, because his knowledge is too broad." Talking about the story of the scientific community, he came to his aid, and the one he most admired was Einstein. ”
The famous Hong Kong writer Dong Qiao once wrote an article recalling his participation in Chen Zhifan's "In the Spring Wind" seminar, and as a good friend of Chen Zhifan for many years, his words are also worth revisiting and reading at the moment when the Si people have passed:
What is worth enviing is actually Professor Chen Zhifan's erudition. Ordinary letters can be written one anecdote after another, and Professor Chen's failure to give a few lectures at the Faculty of Letters is a loss to the Faculty of Letters and a regret for the students of the Faculty of Literature. It is enough not for him to teach a class, but for him to chat with students in the lecture hall. He is the real Man of Letters, in the ancient East, in the ancient West, such a Hongru is the most respected and beloved person, and there are not many in the electronic age. They all say that Professor Chen's article is like a cloud, like flowing water, and I praise him like this, and he doesn't seem to think so. Later, he once saw two poems quoted in my article: books are like green mountains often stacked, lights like red beans are the most acacia, letter said that these 14 words can be discarded two words, become "books like green mountains stacked randomly, lights like red beans acacia." He said that because the word "most" cannot be used in two consecutive ways, is the red bean "most", or is the lamp "most"? Since the next sentence abandons the word "most", the previous sentence should also be changed to six words, abandoning the word "chang". He said that he gave this couplet a laxative, and sure enough, he could cool off!
When Chen Zhifan was interviewed by the media before his death, he often mentioned his turbulent and displaced life during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in March, and this kind of suffering in war and revolution did not condense into his inner hostility, but gave him a sense of indifference and detachment of "walking to the end of the water and watching the clouds rise".
During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, in addition to the Southwest United University formed by Peking University, Tsinghua University and Nankai in Kunming, there was also a Northwest United University in Xi'an, which consisted of Beiyang University, Beiping University and Beiping Normal University. Northwest United University existed for a short time, and it was not long before it was divided into Northwest Institute of Technology, Northwest Agricultural College, Northwest University, Northwest Normal College and Northwest Medical College. Chen Zhifan was at northwestern polytechnic institute at the time, and the president was Li Shutian, the grandfather of Nobel laureate Chu Steven Chu.
At the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chen Zhifan set off from Beijing, took Jingpu Road to Bo County, Anhui Province, and then walked northwest, walked for ten days past several places, and then took a train to pass customs. When they passed the customs clearance, Chen Zhifan and his classmates were lying in the train used for sports objects, the train had no windows, and there was chicken dung and cow dung around them, and the Japanese on the other side of the Yellow River were sweeping around with guns. After passing through customs clearance, after passing Through Mount Hua, we arrived in Xi'an. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the schools began to resume, and Chen Zhifan began to return along the same road.
In 1947, Chen Zhifan was a junior in the Department of Electrical Engineering of Tianjin Beiyang University, and one day he heard a speech by Hu Shi, president of Peking University, "The Trend of Culture in Front of Him" on the radio, and felt that there were some differences with his opinions, so he wrote him a letter. Hu Shi quickly replied, and the correspondence between them began. Chen Zhifan recalled: "His sincerity and kindness can be felt from every letter. So I love to write to him and always have something to say. Later, these letters were integrated into the "Letter to Hu Shi in the University Era". The thirsty Chen Zhifan had unusual contacts with Hu Shi, Shen Congwen, Jin Yuelin and others.
Chen Zhifan once talked about the famous writer Shen Congwen in an interview:
Shen Congwen is very interesting. He lives in Zhonglao Hutong, which is the dormitory of Peking University. I went to see him in Zhonglao Hutong, probably the day after I saw Hu Shi. They are all colleagues and chat all day. You don't know that at that time they were talking, and the Chinese were very poor. He is very hard, because he eats the line of teaching Chinese, there are still some things I don't understand, but I generally understand... After I graduated from the Department of Electrical Engineering of Beiyang University, the school assigned me to Go to Taiwan, and it was difficult to find things at that time, and I couldn't find things on my own in Beiping. You see Shen Congwen is very strange, he found something for me, at that time I had gone to Taiwan, after taking a boat to Taiwan, I received his letter, he said that there was a job in Tianjin Yishi Bao, that is, writing some culture, which had nothing to do with the motor. Later, he wrote that you must not come back, north China is full of blood and fire.
In 1948, after graduating from Beiyang University, Chen Zhifan was sent by the school to work for the Taiwan Alkali Company in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, and later entered the National Compilation Hall presided over by Liang Shiqiu. Recalling this past, Chen Zhifan was full of gratitude to Liang Shiqiu:
When I was in the Taiwan Compilation Museum, Liang Shiqiu was the leader of the humanities group, and Li Shutian was the leader of the nature group. The natural group has a soldier and a general, it will be Li Shutian, and the soldier is me. The humanities group is also a soldier and a general. Later, Liang Shiqiu became the curator of the compilation museum and doubled my salary. At that time, I went to his house almost every day to chat and have dinner at their house in the evening.
Subsequently, Chen Zhifan's fate once again took a turn because of Hu Shi. Once Hu Shi returned to Taiwan from the United States and encouraged Chen Zhifan to study in the United States, knowing that Chen Zhifan was financially strapped, Hu Shi sent a check after returning to the United States. In 1955, Chen Zhifan went to the University of Pennsylvania in the United States to study. When he arrived in the United States, he went directly to Hu Shi. It was early in the morning, Chen Zhifan called Hu Shi, Hu Shi just got up, there were only tea eggs at home, Chen Zhifan ate a tea egg at Hu Shi's house. Two and a half years later, during the summer vacation, Chen Zhifan went to see Hu Shi almost every day. The University of Pennsylvania also gave Chen a very good job, earning 1,000 yuan a month. It's only 9 months, but it's already very good. At that time, Mei Yiqi himself withdrew the salary of Geng, which was only 200 yuan a month. At this time, Chen Zhifan published the famous work "Little Jane in the United States" in "Free China" at the request of Nie Hualing, integrating his observations of American social culture and universities into those timeless short articles.
What Chen Zhifan enjoyed most at this stage of studying abroad was chatting with Hu Shihai in the sky. In this kind of aimless small talk in daily life, the past of Southwest United University is what they often talk about, and later Chen Zhifan said when interviewed by reporters about the theme and object of small talk:
For example, the four professors of Southwest United University: Wen Yiduo, Fei Xiaotong, Pan Guangdan, and Wu Han, the letters they wrote to Marshall, all four of them wrote well, all above the standard. Hu Shiman likes to smell a lot. I won't ask Wu Han, I won't ask, he won't say, he means that Wu Han is too close to him, because he recommended Wu Han to teach at Tsinghua. I asked him how Pan Guangdan was, and he said that Pan Guangdan had a lot of personality. When I say Fei Xiaotong, he says slippery. I admire Fei Xiaotong and am very influenced by him. At that time, we were reading almost the same ones that Fei Xiaotong wrote from England, and my articles were very influenced by him, and I did not think that Hu Shi would say that he was oily and slippery.
Chen Zishan said: "His (Chen Zhifan's) life ideas are still under Hu Shi's liberal intellectual system, and he also has great respect for Hu Shi. ”
In 1957, Chen Zhifan received a master's degree in science from the University of Pennsylvania and went to Memphis, Tennessee, as a professor at The Brothers Christian University, where the class was very funny and often caused students to laugh. After arriving in Memphis, Chen Zhifan began to write again, and the article at this time was "In the Spring Wind". These include nine commemorative articles written by Chen Zhifan in tearful letters after Hu Shi's death on February 24, 1962. In the fall of 1962, Chen Zhifan was invited back to give lectures at the Institute of Atomic Research of Tsinghua University and the School of Science of National Taiwan University. After returning to the United States in 1964, he worked as a senior engineer at Brown Engineering Inc. in Alabama, working on NASA projects. In 1966, Chen Zhifan went to the University of Texas to teach. In December of that year, he returned to Taipei, where Professor Meng Yao invited him to speak. Students from ZTE University crowded into the lecture hall. Chen Zhifan, with the theme of "Knowledge and Wisdom", sweated profusely for 1 hour, and the students did not disperse, so they had to talk for another hour, which shows that he was already famous at that time.
In 1969, Chen Zhifan was funded by the National Science Foundation to study at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Most of the "Reflections of the River of Swords" was written when I first arrived in Cambridge and published in Taiwan's "JoongAng Daily". In 1970, Chen was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical Engineering, and in 1971 he received a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Cambridge, england, and then returned to the University of Houston to teach. He was also an Associate Research Fellow at Princeton University.
In 1977, Chen Zhifan worked as a Visiting Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, studying artificial intelligence. In the same year, he was appointed Chair Professor of the University of Chinese in Hong Kong, followed by Professor Kao as the Head of the Department of Electronics, and held a doctoral program to cultivate professionals in the electronics industry. The article at this time is "A Star Like the Moon". In 1985, Chen Zhifan became a research professor at Boston University. In 1988, he suffered a stroke in Boston. After brain surgery, from 1993 to 2003, Chen Zhifan returned to Taiwan as a visiting professor at Cheng Kung University for 10 years. Later, Chan went to Hong Kong as an Honorary Professor at the University of Chinese, Hong Kong, but since his second stroke in June 2008, Chan has rarely appeared in public and is cared for by the paedophile Yuan Fang.
Tong Yuanfang, who is known for his translation and pen, is the wife of Chen Zhifan, who married when he was old, and Tong Yuanfang is a doctor of philosophy from Harvard University, who has taught at Harvard University and is now an associate professor in the Department of Translation at the University of Chinese, Hong Kong. In addition to his well-known translations of "Einstein's Dream" and "Love Letters: Einstein and Mileva", he is also the author of Chinese "Blossoming Like a Flower: A Harvard Decade of Essays" and "Water Flowing Quietly: A Dialogue between Science and Poetry".
The wedding of the two can be described as a marriage in a previous life. As early as his teenage years, Tong Yuanfang seemed to have formed a fate with Chen Zhifan, who became famous for his prose. Tong Yuanfang's essay "We All Grew Up Watching Your Articles" published in Vientiane chronicles the journey from the intersection of the reader's mind and the author's mind to the life partner:
Maybe it is my own rebellious age, facing the pressure of further education day and night, the father who is sick and sick, the mother who is bitter and bitter, reading Mr. Chen's articles has become a ritual that can purify the soul; and because Mr. Chen refines words and sentences, there is no ambiguity, no non-division, and every stroke of the pen has its own power. I finally saved up money and bought these two little books (referring to "In the Spring Breeze" and "Little Jane in the United States"). The feelings of teenagers are really intense! I react so much to the irrational phenomena in reality that I can almost say that I am cynical. While reading Mr. Chen's prose, I wrote my own passionate words and feelings in the blank space of two small books. It seems to be an eyebrow criticism, but it can also be seen as seeing a good poem, and it should actually be reconciled.
The basic issue that Chen Zhifan was most concerned about in his later years, Tong Yuanfang naturally had the most right to speak. She said in the article:
In recent years, Mr. Chen has been particularly concerned about the true meaning of the rule of law and wants to know all kinds of things that made the United States Constitution in those years, so he often picks up the speeches of those founding fathers to read, and even memorizes. At the end of those few semesters, I finished all the papers and we returned to Taipei. He was reading what Franklin had said to state delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia at the age of 81, hoping that everyone would abandon prejudice and sign the Constitution. He was very excited after reading it, and he argued that he was not sure of 18th-century English, and he had to translate it for him at once. I was tired for a semester and wanted to rest, not to mention that he could translate it himself, so he argued that I was not very sure of 18th-century English, and I really did not want to sit at the table. As a result, looking at his eyes, I couldn't bear it in my heart, so I had to reluctantly pick up the pen. He went out quietly. A moment later he came back, holding the coffee he bought for me at Starbucks on the underground street.
And these details also reveal the loving life of this pair in the field of contemporary prose creation.
In fact, Chen Zhifan's influence in Hong Kong and Taiwan is far greater than that in the mainland, especially in Taiwan, because his works are included in Chinese textbooks, and generations of Taiwanese say that they grew up reading Chen Zhifan's articles.
For the earliest publication of Chen Zhifan's works, Lin Daoqun introduced to the morning newspaper reporter:
Mr. Chen went to Taiwan before 1949 for work reasons, not taiwan after 1949. In the 1950s, he went to the United States to study and then worked, during which he wrote some articles and sent them to Taiwan for publication. However, the publication of the book was collected and sorted by others, not by himself, and the early publication was also very scattered.
"In the Spring Breeze" and "Jane in the United States" had a great influence on Taiwan in the 1960s, when Hong Kong and Taiwan had close relations, so books with great influence in Taiwan would also be popular in Hong Kong. However, a very important reason why Mr. Chen's works are so popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan is that his works have long been included in Taiwanese Chinese textbooks, and his articles are required readings for middle school students, and for this reason, generations of people will go to his books to read. However, over the years, his works have become less popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
When Mr. Chan and his wife, Tong Yuanfang, returned to Hong Kong in the late 1990s, he had an idea to restore his books to their original appearance and publish them, rather than anthologies. Therefore, Oxford later published 9 monographs according to his wishes and ideas, of which the last two books, "Walking" and "Thoughts and Blossoms", were written by Mr. Chen when he came to Hong Kong to settle down. Lin Daoqun said: "Mr. Chen also has a book called "Letters to Hu Shi in college", and everyone actually has some misunderstandings about this book, the letters in this book are actually found by us from the collection of Hu Shi's letters, and then compiled, because Mr. Chen himself has forgotten how many letters he wrote to Mr. Hu Shi. Although this is a very thin book, it is Mr. Chen's earliest writing. ”
Chen Zishan's most admired are Chen Zhifan's two works in his later years, and many people often refer to him as a writer with the identity of a scientist, but Chen Zishan believes that "in the second half of his life, he is obviously more interested in writing, but in writing, the identity of a scientist will still appear." ”