Qianjiang Evening News Hourly News Reporter Ma Li
At seven o'clock in the evening, Geng Jun will swim in the lake, Su Causeway Willow Yin, the lake wind is extremely beautiful, a cool to the bone, living in Hangzhou for thirty years has never been, talking until ten o'clock to endure thirst. Abdominal pain for several days, take Huoxiang Zhengqi pills at night.
Blowing the wind by the West Lake, it will catch a cold.
In the rain, Sui'an Road and Baochu Road were all flooded with water, which had not been seen in Hangzhou for thirty years. There was no electric light on the way, and fortunately I arrived home at more than ten o'clock, and there was no servant or accident. Seventy-three-year-old man took this risk, if Shu Zhao is still alive, I don't know where the clouds are. Lucky to sleep at night, no fever.
Baochu Road has accumulated water, and now it has not been there for a long time, right?
This 73-year-old man who still has to venture home from wading is called Xia Chengtao.
Twelve volumes, nearly 4 million words, took 12 years — no, almost 30 years, this month, "The Complete Diary of Xia Chengtao" was published by Zhejiang Ancient Books Publishing House.
Diary manuscript
Xia Chengtao, a Wenzhou native, belongs to the public academic star, and he knows his name as soon as he says it, but in the impression of many people, he is a series of tall identities - a famous lyricist and educator in modern China. Devoted to the research and teaching of lexicology, he is the pioneer and founder of modern lexicology, known as "a generation of lexicography".
This professor of the Department of Chinese of Hangzhou University, who has lived in Hangzhou for more than 30 years, we know almost nothing about his daily life, eating habits, and emotional interactions, only in the previously published "Tianfengge Xuezi Diary", through the deep theme of "learning words", we have explored some corners, but we are still far away.
In the list of advisers to the "Complete Compilation of Diaries" Organizing Committee, Wu Zhanlei, Wu Xionghe, Chen Ming, and the names of the three gentlemen have been black boxes and have passed away. After nearly 30 years of literary relay, we can fully see the personal life history of Xia Chengtao's youth, prosperity and old age.
From the first day of 1916 to August 13, 1985, the last diary that can be found so far, Xia Chengtao wrote for more than 70 years.
This is not a "master" raised in a study. Loving neighbors, confessing failure; friends in distress, two ribs inserted knives; weak and sick from childhood, vowing to be a time management master, carefully recording the data of each blood pressure measurement, envying Kant can live to 80 years old without marriage... In addition to reading notes, methods of word management, methods of learning, works, songs, and minutes, he recorded a large number of important current political news, people's lives, local landscapes, friends and friends, character reviews, mountain and river tours, and the mentality of intellectuals in several movements. Records of prices of necessities, entertainment, prescriptions and other prices over different periods reflect the social treatment of specific classes at different stages of society. The academic value of "The Complete Diary of Xia Chengtao" exceeds that of any of his individual academic monographs.
In 1974, Xia Chengtao and Wu Wuwen were in HuanglongDong, Hangzhou (Photo by Wu Changyun)
Keep a diary for 70 years and keep a diary for 12 years.
Evaluators and writers, with an official propaganda perspective, are prone to stereotypes, and diaries present a relatively true private perspective. The personal experiences and observations recorded in the diary have direct historical value, are historical, and can be valued by those who govern history. The trivial personal life, as well as the views on the personnel at that time, are strung together into a chain, and we can deeply observe how Xia Chengtao's academic style was cultivated.
From the continuous, seemingly trivial records, the details of the times are becoming clearer and clearer. The historical framework, as we all know, disappears in furry details. The memories pass away with the wind, and the diary retains the scene - of course, the author will have reservations, choosing the parts that can be said.
"It's hard for contemporaries to deal with their own history." Editor-in-chief Wu Bei feels that after Mr. Xia left, the time span is actually not long enough, so although the "Complete Compilation of diaries" took more than ten years, it is not too late to publish. Between history and contemporary people, there needs to be a distance of scrutiny. The value of a diary takes a long time to digest and understand. What we can do is to try to keep the original as it is, and the reader has his own judgment and imagination.
On the eve of the launch of the "Complete Compilation of diaries", Wu Bei and the editor-in-charge Lu Wei visited You Xiuling, a farmer historian, who was the younger brother of Xia Chengtao's original companion You Shuzhao, and also the oldest living figure involved in Xia Chengtao's diary, 103 years old this year, and also a scholar visited by this newspaper's "Wen Vein".
The Complete Diary of Xia Chengtao was published, wu bei (third from left) and Lovells (first from right) visiting You Xiuling (first from left)
Elder You didn't remember the past very well, and there was one thing he repeated several times.
I am a person who loves music, can play erhu, and wants to learn the violin, so I save money to buy one. He is in Shanghai. I asked someone to send him the money. Later, the money was returned, because there were still two or three silver dollars, and finally did not buy, I later changed to erhu, erhu cheap. That's how it went. A year or two later, one day, I was pulling erhu at home and he came. Because I was very concentrated, I didn't know that someone was coming, and he didn't ring, listening from the side.
After pulling, he spoke—very sorry.
I don't understand, what's sorry?
The violin was still a few dollars short and was not bought.
In 1947, Xia Chengtao wrote in his diary that seven or eight years ago, in Shanghai, Xiu Ling asked him to buy a violin, and had already found it, but "he hesitated to let it go without a bow string, so that Xiu Ling could not become this art. In his lifetime, he loved Dai Dongyuan the most, "Holding the word "holding on to the word of perseverance, and keeping the word of no regret to others", which is not a regret of regret and a regret of thinking. ”
More than 80 years have passed, and everything has not faded.
On March 4, 1950, Xia Chengtao wrote: "Reading "Christophe" has a feeling, into an "elegy", written as follows. The cultivation of age adds two movable words, which are very good:
You're not dead, but you've changed a spot. Once lived in front of my eyes, now lives in my heart. ”
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