Memoirs of Hu Die (Lianjing Publishing House, 1986; Beijing Culture and Art Publishing House, 1988) is the only biography in the world that has been dictated and arranged by Hu Die, recording the traces of Hu Die's life from Shanghai to Vancouver. Thirty-six years after the first edition, Writers Press launched a new edition in early 2022, renamed Hu Die's Oral Autobiography. The author of this book, Liu Huiqin, is my elder and close friend, so I want to write about the story behind this book.
Liu Huiqin's family took a photo in Shanghai in the mid-1930s, with Liu Huiqin on the front right
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Liu Huiqin and I have known each other for about twenty years. Initially, we met at the events of some overseas Chinese writers, and the topic was limited to greetings and hurried farewells. I really knew her in 2007, when I was working on the Chinese historical novel "Golden Mountain" and went to Vancouver to collect information to interview the descendants of Chinese workers, and Liu Huiqin was also one of my interviewees. At that time, we were only acquaintances, not deep friends, but she warmly invited me to settle down at her house and drive me with several of her literary friends. I'm not the only writer she's ever hosted. Over the past few decades, writers and scholars from the south to the north, such as Chen Ruoxi, Yu Lihua, Chen Jiangong, Tie Ning, Yan Geling, Chen Juntao, Chi Li, Xiang Xiaomi, Niu Yuqiu, Wu Taichang, Chen Ruilin, Jiang Lan, etc., have received her warm hospitality.
At her house, we had a few deep conversations. The light in her living room cut out a small circle, the hustle and bustle of the world was blocked out, and we could finally listen to each other quietly in that small space. Liu Huiqin told me about her life. Her grandfather was the first generation of Chinese workers to come to North America to build railroad mining, and her grandmother was a concubine bought from San Francisco by her grandfather in a foreign country, and she raised more than a dozen children with her humble heart and soul, and together with her grandfather, she supported his home in Taishan, Guangdong. A relative of Liu Huiqin, braving the criticism of the entire family, married a woman of Indian descent. This marriage, which spanned two vulnerable groups, gave birth to a touching and profound love story that lasted a lifetime. Liu Huiqin's Mother, who was born in Canada, was brought back to her hometown in Guangdong by Ye Luogui's grandmother, but became the first graduate of Taishan Women's Normal School; Liu Huiqin's father who practiced medicine died young, became a widow's mother, and with amazing courage restarted the sail of destiny in middle age, returned to Canada, and formed a new family with complicated relationships. Liu Huiqin's uncles, China's earliest generation of returnees, the circle of international students who integrated Chinese and Western cultures, in Shanghai in the 1930s, was an avant-garde maverick landscape.
I was a sponge those days, greedily absorbing her story. I never imagined that Liu Huiqin, who was calm and restrained in her words and deeds in public and was decent, had such a rich life that it could almost be described as living and fragrant. Her outpouring chose my ears and felt right for each other. Polite as snakeskin, we become mo rebellious from acquaintances. In the process of writing "Golden Mountain", her family story is like a pulse, always faintly beating between my words. Since then, no matter how much dust there is in the world, we can always see each other clearly, and always send each other trust and support at the moment when we need it most.
It was also at that time that Liu Huiqin and I talked about Hu Die. The Beard in her mouth is not the movie queen who is crowded and highlighted, but an old woman Who has tightened her fingers, carefully planned her days according to the number of pensions, and even rented out the parking space in the narrow apartment. There are thousands of old people like Vancouver, but this one is still different from those, because this one once stood on the top of the mountain and saw the prosperity of the world. In the process of walking from the top of the mountain to the flat land, Hu Die encountered her English teacher Liu Huiqin. If it were not for such a moment, would it be possible for Hu Di under the spotlight and Liu Huiqin, who is self-sustaining in Qinggao, to have a dialogue? I guess not.
Fortunately, they met at the right time, and only then did they have the "Memoirs of Hu Die" thirty-six years ago and the "Oral Autobiography of Hu Die" today. Reading this biography, everyone has something to gain. Historians see silhouettes of the great turbulent times, filmmakers see precious silver-screen historical materials, designers see rotating fashion trends, and novelists see changing human nature. And I, as a friend of Liu Huiqin, saw the person standing quietly behind Hu Die, turning Pan Baojuan's voice into words.
Hu Di and Liu Huiqin are a pair of children
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Hu Di should be regarded as the topic of my grandfather's generation. Before meeting Liu Huiqin, my understanding of Hu Die was flat, just a small corner in the memory storage, where it was, but it would not be easily flipped. Liu Huiqin let me see Hu Die's frugality, Hu Die's careful and reserved, Hu Die's true thoughts of her husband Pan Yousheng, Hu Die's blue face confidant Zhu Big Brother's unwavering care and compassion for her for decades, Hu Die's cherishing and uneasiness about this friendship... Liu Huiqin let Hu Die walk down from the top of the mountain, full of human fireworks, and we had the possibility of looking at each other.
When they met in Vancouver, it wasn't just Hu Die who experienced a huge life gap. Liu Huiqin was born in Shanghai, grew up in a family background that experienced the influence of Chinese and Western cultures, and was later admitted to the Department of Spanish Languages of Peking University, where she studied under famous artists such as Yu Dahuan Zhu Guangqian, and after graduation, she successively entered the Writers Association and the Institute of Foreign Languages of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and became a colleague and friend of Yang Daifeng Zongpu Shen Ning (Daughter of Xia Yan). What she experienced was a history of ups and downs. After the dust settles, she will wake up to the fact that the tribulations and friendships she had forged with many people in that turbulent era were a snapshot of the personal history of that generation of intellectuals. The past events she experienced and witnessed still made her shudder and uneasy years later. But after all, she served in the system and lived a worry-free life in her homeland. When she reached middle age, she decided to give up everything, just like her mother at that time, and began a difficult journey to the other side to raise three children alone. The power of genes cannot be reversed.
When Liu Huiqin and Hu Di met as teachers and students in that English classroom in Vancouver, they both lost their familiar social references and had their own life changes to deal with. Hu Die is already Pan Baojuan, a housewife who is living within her bounds, while Liu Huiqin, a scholar and writer at the Institute of Foreign Languages, has become an ordinary mother who does her best to raise her children in a difficult struggle. In the process of growing up, they have experienced the mixture of Guangdong, Haipai and Western cultures. After reading countless hu butterflies in the vicissitudes of the sea, liu Huiqin's body was clearly seen at a glance. Hu Die's opening up to Liu Huiqin is an accident and an inevitability.
When our conversation went deep into Hu Die's life, I was not exempt from the vulgarity, and I also asked the question that everyone under the heavens would ask, and Liu Huiqin told me that Hu Die's answer was "The qing purifies himself." For more than half a century, Hu Die's name has been tightly tied to a military celebrity. In the face of this incident that has become her identity label, such a short answer is inevitably slightly pale and barren. At that time, "Memoirs of Hu Die" had already come out, and Hu Die had been dead for many years, and in the face of my doubts, Liu Huiqin said that if she had the opportunity to reprint, she would look for more information as evidence for that simple answer. Years later, she finally made good on her promise.
Hu Die personally presented a photo of Liu Huiqin in 1968, when she was 60 years old
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This time, the "Oral Autobiography of Hu Die", which is republished on the basis of "Hu Die's Memoirs", in addition to the revision of the text, has also added a lot of historical background knowledge and precious historical photos. Liu Huiqin used the patience of finding a needle in a haystack to look for clues in the historical materials, checked them one by one, and listed a chronology of Hu Die's major events, including the traces of Hu Die in Chongqing during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. According to Liu Huiqin's research, the time when Hu Die's family arrived in Chongqing in the beacon fire was about June 1944. Hu Di immediately went to Guilin to devote herself to the filming of the movie "The Road to the Founding of the People's Republic", and returned to Chongqing at the end of 1944. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, she immediately arranged for her and her family to return to Shanghai in batches. She lived in Chongqing for at most several months and has lived with her mother and stepson, appearing several times in public and in media records. During this time, Pan Yousheng, a businessman in Yunnan, traveled back and forth between Kunming and Chongqing, and their young stepsons at that time still have vivid memories of their father's visit. The timeline that Liu Huiqin combed made those well-said "hegemonic" statements begin to show flaws and doubts.
In the process of writing this book, there are other stories that Liu Huiqin did not mention in the preface and afterword. At that time, Liu Huiqin's two daughters were studying in eastern Canada, but she also had a teenage child who needed her moments to take care of it. A mother who works full-time can only take the weekend to come to Hu Die's house for interviews. Children who sit in Hu Die's apartment often beg their mothers in the middle of boredom: "When will you finish writing and play with me?" The mother's answer was always: "Soon, soon." The child's pitiful demands made her unbearable, and when the interview was over, she would let the child and Hu Die go to the beach near Hu Die's house to feed the seagulls with bread crumbs, while she herself sat in the car to sort out the interview notes she had just recorded. Liu Huiqin still keeps a group photo of her son and Hu Die, which freeze the moment when the morning sun and the sunset are accompanied by a permanent memory. The text of "Memoirs of Hu Di" is like this in the little time squeezed out like toothpaste, gathering sand into a tower and gradually taking shape.
In 1987, Liu Huiqin returned to China to visit relatives and took a group photo at yang Daiqian Zhongshu's home
Liu Huiqin has a typical self-improvement of the intellectuals of that era, which is particularly vivid in writing this book--she is very concerned about being misunderstood to be in the light of celebrities. Thirty-six years ago, when the Memoirs of Hu Di was published, the poet Yan Xian was a jade cheng. After the publication of Hu Die's Oral Autobiography this year, Yan Xian was also one of the earliest readers. The book was described as "clean" because the writers always retreated themselves behind Hu Die's voice. I, on the other hand, felt that Liu Huiqin had left herself too clear. The trivialities of her interaction with Hu Die, which she told me privately, if they could also appear in the book, like the shooting side notes of a movie, would be a living part of the book outside of the rigorous writing style of the book. I had told Liu Huiqin my regrets bluntly, but she laughed and said nothing. We have experienced many tribulations in each other's lives over the years, and we have long since crossed the stage of politeness in observing the color. She didn't necessarily agree with my bluntness, but she never thought it was wrong, and her tolerance and kindness gave me the courage to occasionally "throw wilds".
"In this world of many opinions, I finally left her own voice for Hu Die." These are what Liu Huiqin has said to me many times. She quietly placed herself in the position of "finisher", and even left all the fees for the first edition to Hu Die. "She needs more than I need," was her simple explanation. In this age of inflation, adjectives are not valuable. It is also a cliché to take "High Wind and Bright Festival" to talk about her, but I can't find a more appropriate word for a while, so I will leave it here for the time being.
"There are still some important memories that I haven't had time to sort through yet." Liu Huiqin told me. I know that her "some" refers to her intricate and seemingly unbelievable life today and the various past events she has experienced in the Writers Association and the Institute of Foreign Languages, including what she saw when she had just graduated from college, that is, she was sent to New Delhi as a group translator to attend the preparatory meeting of the Asian Writers Conference; her years of getting along with Yang Daiqian Zhongshu's family, and the neighborhood dispute that had once spread wildly; the writer and colleague Feng Zongpu in her eyes; and the mutual support she and Xia Yan's daughter Shen Ning had supported for decades... For someone who acts rigorously like this and needs to be carefully written, she has too many stories and is not strong enough. Every time I see her doing such and such laborious chores to pay off all kinds of human debts, I always feel sorry for her. My mind split in half at this point, half writer and half friend. Writers feel sorry for her time, friends hurt her body. The writer's half wished he could "squeeze" her more fiercely, squeeze out her memories like a milk, and let history survive in the text. The half of the friend hopes that she will let go of everything in her hands, let the memory, writing, and human feelings all see the ghost, and only hope that she will hold her grandson's small hand, walk on the sunny beach, and smell the smell of the sea. The two halves often quarreled with each other, but fortunately she knew the goodwill in my foundations and forgave me again and again for the sharpness of my words.
"Hu Die's Oral Autobiography" is a unique book in terms of both the history of Chinese cinema and Hu Die's personal history. I am not a professional filmmaker, nor a historian, nor even a literary critic. This article is not a book review, I just want to use it to say a few selfish words: I hope that when people listen to the last voice of Hu Die's life, they will not ignore the code worder who is strictly hidden behind Hu Die. The existence of this person gives the book a soul. Before I started writing, Liu Huiqin repeatedly told me to focus on Hu Die and not to write too much about herself. I certainly didn't listen to her. Hu Die is the highlight of half a century, while Liu Huiqin is not. There are not many people who really know Liu Huiqin, and I have the honor of being one of them. In addition to being happy about the reprint of this book, I am also a little proud, because I cheekily think that I also have a small credit in it. In the past few years, I have not "squeezed" Liu Huiqin, soft and hard, coerced and seduced, begged her to put down trivia, forced her to finish the manuscript as soon as possible, and persuaded her to consider such and such publishing intentions. She was always conniving and benevolent to me, calling all my unworthy deeds "encouragement." "I have the right to accept her good words as red envelopes, and I also wish her a prosperous year and write more about the past with my ears and eyes."
One of the stills of the second sound film "Flower of Freedom" starring Hu Die, written and directed by Zheng Zhengqiu
The last film, "The Woman in the Tower", stills of Hu Die (as Li Wei's mother) and Wang Ling (as Li Wei).
At the 7th Asian Film Festival, Li Hanxiang (right, Best Director Award), Hu Die (Best Actress Award), and Wang Yin
The young girl Hu Die, dressed up when she applied for film school
Liu Huiqin
Born in Shanghai, he graduated from the Department of Spanish Languages of Peking University in 1956. He has worked for the Chinese Writers Association and the Magazine of World Literature of the Institute of Foreign Languages of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. She moved to Canada in 1980 and is an overseas Chinese female writer. He was the president of the Chinese Writers Association of Canada and is currently an advisor and editorial board member of the Canadian Chinese Literature Society. He was close friends with Hu Die in his later years, and sorted out and wrote memoirs for him.
The Oral Autobiography of Hu Die
Hu Die Di Di Liu Huiqin Finishing
Published february 2022 by Writers Publishers
Participated in "Daughter Sutra" and "Feminism"
"The Daughter's Sutra" was made before I went to Europe, and "Feminism" was the last film I made at a star company before I got married.
The filming of "The Daughter's Sutra" is very interesting. In 1934, at a screenwriting meeting of the "stars", Zheng Zhengqiu proposed to make a film with the participation of all the "stars" and the main actors, and this proposal was unanimously approved by everyone. So Zheng Zhengqiu, Hong Shen, Ah Ying, Zheng Boqi, Shen Xiling, etc. each wrote a story, which was summarized by Xia Yan to complete this ingenious collection. Each story has its own character, which can be independent, but is connected to other stories, reflecting the various women's lives of the time from various aspects. The protagonist of each story still uses the actor's own surname as the protagonist's surname, and suits everyone's play path, so the performance is quite successful, and because most of the shots are filmed on the spot, the cost is low. This film is not limited to the techniques of other films, so as soon as it was released, it was well received by the audience and sold well.
I play hu ying, the heroine of the first story. She holds a banquet with her husband, Gao Guojie (Gao Zhanfei), and invites her former female classmates to gather together. Everyone recounted their lives for ten years. Starting with the oldest, Xuan Shu (Xuan Jinglin), she talks about her old age and decline, abandoned for her husband (Wang Xianzhai), and returned to her mother's house to bully her sister-in-law, and everyone is angry after listening to it. The young Mrs. Kuo Su (Yan Yuexian) thinks That Xuan Shu is too cowardly and talks about how she controls her husband (Gong Jianong). Yan Su just finished talking, women's activist Gao Hua (Gao Qianping) hurriedly arrived, and after a few words of greeting, he hurried away, and everyone did not know why. At this time, some people exposed Gao Hua's hypocrisy, while promoting the women's movement, and on the other hand, he lived a life of erosion. At this time, Zhu Wen (Zhu Qiujian), who has been a female clerk, talks about the tragedy of her dismissal for refusing the insult of the shareholder young master (Wang Jiting). Zhu Wen's story has just ended, the social flower Xu Li (Xu Lai) arrives, at the same time, the servant sends a letter, written by the husband of her classmate Xu Ling (Xu Qinfang), reporting the news of Xu Ling's death. The principal of these female students dictated that Xu Ling and his wife were addicted to gambling and caused their family to die. This tragic story evokes the sadness of Xia Yun (Xia Peizhen), who has been silent for half a day, Xia Yun is an announcer on a radio station, the whole family relies on her to work and live, and her husband (Zhao Dan) is suffering from lung disease, unemployed, pessimistic and desperate. One day when the rain was pouring, her husband ran out madly and fell on the muddy roadside, and when Xia Yun arrived, he only said one sentence: "Take good care of the child..." Xia Yun returns home, Aiko suddenly disappears, double stimulation, making her insane... Xu Li impatiently listened to Xia Yun's story and resigned, and the hostess Hu Ying recounted the story of Xu Li's luxurious and luxurious life and fighting for the wind and jealousy. The film's final story is the hostess Hu Ying recounting her own experiences during the Northern Expedition.
"Feminism" is based on Hong Shen's own screenplay "The Fugitive of Love". Played by me as the heroine Song Jiayu, Song Jiayu is quite educated, not willing to be buried in the rich family life of the tea giant, fantasizing about making a career, so she ran away from home, but she did not have a certain goal, and successively worked as a bank clerk, a middle school teacher and a female worker. After five years of ups and downs, she felt that her future was uncertain, so she married a lawyer, became a lawyer's wife, and returned to the rich family life she had to escape. At the end of the film, Song Jiayu runs away for the second time. Hong Shen's play was influenced by the departure of Nala, the protagonist of Norwegian writer Ibsen's "Doll's House". However, the women's liberation movement is a problem that has not been completely solved even in the West, and the well-intentioned screenwriters also reflect to a certain extent the powerless status of women and their suffering and struggle. After making this film, I also ended my contract with the "star" and prepared to get married. Although my grandson Pan Yousheng did not object to me continuing to make movies, at that time I really planned to return to my family and be an honest housewife!
A few films that impressed me after the victory of the War of Resistance
Although I have not made any more films in less than a year since "The Road to the Founding of the People's Republic" to the victory of the War of Resistance, the long-term professional sensitivity has made me pay attention to the development of the film industry...
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, there were several films that left a deep impression on me, all of which were shot by the Central Film Studio.
"Homecoming Diary" is produced by "CLP No. 1 Factory" in 1947, written and directed by Yuan Jun, photographed by Wu Weiyun and Wang Yuru, and starring Bai Yang, Geng Zhen, Yang Hua and Lu En. "Homecoming Diary" is a comedy about a young couple engaged in drama work in the rear area, Lao Zhao (Geng Zhen) and Xiao Xiao (Bai Yang), who return to Shanghai with various beautiful ideas after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, thinking that they can live a peaceful and peaceful life from now on. Who knew that on the first day of returning to Shanghai, he encountered the problem of not being able to find a place to stay, so he had to stay overnight on the roof of his friend's eighth-floor apartment. The next morning to find a house, either to use gold bars or to rent in US dollars, where they can pay. While he is in a hurry, he accidentally encounters Xiao Tao (Lu En), who was originally the wife of the traitor Lao Pei, who was imprisoned after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War because of his involvement in the issue of hostility and hypocrisy, and the house and his wife were forcibly occupied by Lao Hong (Yang Hua), who claimed to be the receiver. On this day, Lao Hong and Xiao Tao quarreled, out of gambling, Xiao Tao rented the extra empty room to Lao Zhao and Xiao Xiao, who liked it with all their hearts and thought that they could live in peace from now on. Unexpectedly, Lao Pei, who was in prison, suddenly brought back a large number of thugs, beat Lao Hong bitterly, and took back the house and his wife. But not long after, Lao Hong brought back a group of thugs to take revenge. In the end, Old Zhao and Xiao had to go back to their friends' apartments to spend the night, and the house problem could not be solved.
Most of the problems reflected in the film are real, and the housing shortage problem in Shanghai is also an old problem, and it is said that Yuan Jun himself has personally experienced the pain of difficulty in finding a house. After being demobilized, there are also many chaotic situations in which the receiving officers are flying all over the place, so that the gangsters take the opportunity to pretend to be the receiving officers and wantonly deceive.
Another film written and directed by Yuan Jun is also a comedy. "Riding the Dragon" is directed by Li Enjie as the assistant director, photographed by Shi Fengqi, and co-starring Bai Yang, Jin Yan, Lu Shan, Zhang Yan, Zhou Feng and Lin Hazel.
The story depicts that after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Situ Yan (Jin Yan), the fiancé of Lu Family's eldest lady WenLan (Lu Shan), will return to Shanghai from Chongqing. At that time, the psychology of ordinary people in Shanghai thought that everyone from Chongqing was "receiving big members" or making victory money. So the Lu family thought that this time they could have a lot of scenery, only the second miss Wen Hui (Bai Yang) was very disgusted with the "Chongqing people". Situ Yan returned, but he was only a poor journalist and did not bring a car bungalow to the Lu family, and Vinland was disappointed and broke off his marriage contract with Situ Yan. On the contrary, Wen Hui and Situ Yan talked speculatively and changed her view of "Chongqing people". Situ Yan was an upright journalist who was severely exposed in society regardless of his personal safety, but his righteous deeds were supported by society, the embezzlers were punished by the law, and Situ Yan and Wen Hui also formed a happy marriage.
Source Beijing Evening News
Author Zhang Ling (Novelist)
Process Editor Wu Yue