My teacher Qian Mu: Leave the world with disappointment

Those who say that they know a little about the history of their own country must be accompanied by a kind of warmth and respect for the past history of their country.

——Qian Mu,"Outline of National History"

Ms. Qi Bangyuan, born in Liaoning in 1924, graduated from the Department of Foreign Languages of Wuhan University in 1947, served as a teaching assistant in the Department of Foreign Languages of National Taiwan University as a child, and has since served as a teacher of Chinese and English in Taipei, the english secretary of the National Palace Museum in Taipei, the head of the English Department of Chung Hsing University, a full-time teacher and honorary professor of the Department of Foreign Languages of National Taiwan University, and a visiting professor at the Free University of Berlin. There are memoirs such as "Mighty River".

Remembering my teacher Qian Mu

Text | Qi Bangyuan

Source | Bijiben (ID: yxbijiben)

01

I'm with Mr. Qianmu

Once, when stating my ideal of writing a book, I finally had the courage to face Mr. Qian Mu as a person, rather than his fame as a "master of traditional Chinese studies." His face was gentle, and when he listened to people, there was often a contemplative tranquility. It is also an encouragement.

Before that time, I used to climb the stone steps of the Su Library for business, delivering manuscripts, sending books, asking for benefits, and going very diligently. Later, Mr. Qian learned that I was a student of Teacher Zhu Guangqian and talked about his trip to Leshan, Sichuan Province, thirty years ago to give a lecture at Wuhan University.

I told him that I had heard the seniors talk about going to the auditorium in the morning with torches to attend his class. Therefore, sometimes Mr. Qian also left me to sit and talk about the events of that year.

When I was not on business, I would go to see him until he was forced to leave the Sushu Building during the New Year's Festival and his birthday.

I went up and down that stone step nearly a hundred times in eighteen years, and the two rows of maple trees next to the steps grew tall. In 1985, when I was hospitalized in a car accident, Master Qian's mother came to see me and said that the teacher was very worried. When I went to see him again a year later, when I slowly climbed the stone steps, I saw that the small ditch next to the road was full of red maple leaves rare in Taiwan.

In those years, Mr. Qian's eyes gradually could not read books.

After I really talked to Mr. Qian, although I always felt the dignity he naturally possessed, and I also felt a kind of tolerance and warmth, perhaps I did not have a background in historical knowledge, and I did not know what was the boundary that could not be crossed.

When he asked me what new books I had in the room, I would sometimes take the knowledge of foreign languages and take the books published in his library to him, and also buy some anecdotal treatises, such as Bai Yang's books, and give them to him.

After I returned to NTU, I often talked to him about some of the books I used as teaching materials, such as the reactions of students when I first used the English versions of Brave New World, 1984 and Heart of Darkness, and the most talked about was "The Pursuit of Loneliness". Mr. Qian finds it quite "interesting" to pursue the cultural phenomenon of loneliness (his Wuxi pronunciation is still unforgettable).

In fact, in 1983, he personally gave me the book "Eighty Memories of His Parents and Teachers and Friends", Mr. Qian recalled that most of the important works of his life were conceived and completed in the loneliness of being alone in the garden, especially when he taught at the Southwest United University in Kunming at the beginning of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, in the Yanquanxia Temple in Yiliang, Yunnan, he lived alone in a small building for one year, and completed the "Outline of National History" in the context of "loneliness and impatience", which has been a must-read book for many people for seventy years.

It's just that the loneliness of his Chinese literati and the loneliness of Western society are very different.

02

Literati in the turmoil of history

Of course, after 1975, Mr. Qian, in the face of various changes, recalled the turmoil in China before and after the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, observed with the mood of a historian, and sighed more deeply, what he had been looking forward to and finally disappointed was a stable China.

When the "Outline of National History" was completed, Kunming and Chongqing were bombarded by the Japanese, and the frontline soldiers fought endlessly.

"If the mainlanders are not good today and the culture is degenerate, but they can still talk about the War of Resistance and the founding of the country, then the cultural tradition of our whole people is still not holographically extinguished."

This passage made me understand more concretely why he was willing to leave Hong Kong to settle in Taiwan, thinking that he could live in peace for more than a year, because he, like all Chinese at that time, believed for eight years in the necessity of resisting Japan and saving the country, and had the responsibility of defending Chinese culture.

I dare not enter the field of historiography, but I am extremely interested in cultural history, especially the reaction of intellectuals to social changes, the compilation of chinese language textbooks in the National Middle School, and the new compilation of the Chinese Cultural History in the high school, everything is the focus of the news.

During that period, I was the director of the humanistic and social group and the textbook group, and I had the possibility of staying in the "Security Hotel" at any time, fortunately, I grew up in a family like mine, experienced many big winds and waves, and my father and brother often humorously said that you became such a big sesame official, but you got into trouble reporting every day, and you must remember the instructions in the statement, you should always "be solemn and self-reliant" and "not be alarmed."

Dad once said, "My daughter is timid and often "gets startled."

Unexpectedly, the National Compilation Hall in the 1970s was actually my "Bold Research Institute" . In fact, the public opinion circle is not one-sided, and the number of innovative idealists who hope for academic neutrality is not very large. The Outline of National History was our textbook when I was in college, and I have re-read it at many different stages of my life.

Recently, it was learned that the "Outline of National History" has become a must-read book on the mainland, and if this is the case, the first page of the book requires that "all those who read this book must first have the following beliefs":

"Those who say they know a little about their own history must be accompanied by a warmth and respect for their own past history."

For the country's half-century of turmoil, the devastated human nature should have the effect of increasing self-esteem.

Now I look back on nearly twenty years, across the small square table, listening to Mr. Qian's speech, just like his "Introduction", in different ways, in different changes, reanalyzed Chinese culture.

Mr. Qian sometimes spoke calmly, sometimes with indignation, sometimes alone with me, and sometimes with Master Qian and his mother. Most of his Wuxi words revolve around this mind and mind, and it is not difficult to understand.

I remember talking about the blow to cultural people at the turning point of China's modernization. Mr. Qian said that after the end of that turmoil, people around the age of fifty will still preserve some of the national essence, they have a day to speak, and Chinese culture still has hope of continuity.

In those years, Mr. Qian also often talked about the political situation in Taipei, especially the attitude of the literati to changing the political situation. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Southwest United Congress moved from Kunming to Pingjin, and almost none of the returnees had their luggage settled, and the scourge of war rose again, and the people were panicked.

Literati, like ordinary people, do not know where to go.

Mr. Qian returned to his hometown in Wuxi and taught courses such as the history of Chinese thought at Jiangnan University on the banks of Taihu Lake, and concurrently served as the dean of literature.

He recalls the time in "Miscellaneous Memories of Teachers and Friends":

"When the school storm started, Gaiqun thought that not making trouble, that is, leaving behind, was shameful, and the atmosphere had become a reality, and it was very difficult to resolve it for a while."

Every day in the lake boating, or slow walking in the village, worried about the country, with colorful pens to collect Zhuangzi's notes, in 1951 published "Zhuangzi Notes". Later, it was not easy to survive, and Chinese academic research almost formed a fault line.

03

Disappointment is not despair

In 1950, Mr. Qian went from Guangzhou to Hong Kong and founded New Asia College with friends ("BiJi Ben" Note: the predecessor of CUHK), with only a few dozen students at the earliest, only three graduates of the first class, the most outstanding of which Yu Yingshi talked about the simple and difficult situation and the "friendly friendship" of teachers and students in the article "Remembering the Wind Blowing on the Water Scales", and he had a concise view of the teacher's important writings and open attitude of doing learning.

In 1970, Mr. Qian moved to Taipei, and the government treated scholars with courtesy and helped him build a small building on the reserved ground of the Yangmingshan Administration Bureau Hotel, named "Sushu Building", where he could live in peace, lecture and write, and raise his life.

What he never expected was that Taiwan, which he had "returned" to settle in his later years, had reached a day without warmth and respect, so that at the age of ninety-six, at the end of June 1990, for dignity, he hastily moved out of the Sushu Building in Shuangxi, outside Taipei, and settled in a small apartment on Hangzhou South Road, where he died two months later.

The successor of that year did not have the will to maintain the courtesy of his predecessors for returning scholars, and the reckless ignorance of the whole country to sweep a generation of great Confucians out of the door, and their disrespect for academic situation, for Taiwan's sorrow.

Twelve years later, in March 2002, the mayor of Taipei presided over the opening ceremony of the "Qian Mu's Former Residence", which was opened for the study of Chinese literature, history and philosophy. It's been exactly thirty years since I first ascended the stone steps, and now my footsteps are so heavy.

A small tent was set up in the courtyard on the stone steps, and the spring rain fell abundantly at the beginning of the ceremony afternoon, and the small tent could not cover the rain, and the scene was quite messy. After I went in, I found a seat in the back row that could not be discovered, I could listen to it, and think carefully about the events of the past thirty years, Master Qian's mood was even more imaginable.

When the parliament first called for the repossession of the city property, there were still some young scholars of historical research who visited the Sushulou and sorted out and revised the old works for him.

Mr. Qian asked them, "What are these people anxious to do with this house?" They said, "Make a memorial." He said, "I'm alive and won't let me live, and what will I be remembered when I die?" ”

Yu Yingshi wrote a letter of condolence to Mr. Qian:

All his life he summoned the soul of his homeland, and at that time, he was mashed into dust, and the incense was not scattered without learning to fast.

Wanli Zengjia mountain into a dream, riding a whale across the sea on this day, the beginning of the month outside the Sushu Building is cold.

In the article "Summoning the Soul of the Homeland all his life", he wanted to use this pair of ties to symbolize Mr. Qian's ultimate and final concern.

"Unlearned" is the name of Mr. Qian's study room before, which is his mood of hard study and self-study, and the Sushu Building "no longer exists today." ”

This is probably Mr. Yu's generous statement as an international historian.

Since mr. Qian read Liang Qichao's "Lack of Hope for China's Future and National Responsibility" at the age of sixteen (1910), he was deeply attracted by Liang's historical arguments, and studied history all his life, hoping to find a deeper basis for China's immortality. He hoped that the national society could seek progress in stability, rather than fiercely seeking change and damaging the culture with hostility.

Yu Yingshi said:

"Mr. Qian undoubtedly left this world with deep disappointment, but he did not despair... What he pursued was never the return of the old Chinese soul to the yang unchanged, but the old soul to give birth to a new soul. More people today would agree with that view. ”

When I first met Mr. Qian, it was already his autumn leaf stage, in the late autumn, the thinking leaves had changed from green to a kind of peaceful rot, and after several storms, it was about to fall. On his eighty-year-old birthday, he traveled south and wrote the article "Eighty Memories of His Parents" at Wuling Farm in Lishan:

"This is the one who will haunt the rest of his life. It can also be said that it is the most meaningful value in the rest of life. ”

This article was later collected with "Miscellaneous Memories of Teachers and Friends", which is full of warm memories of family and friendship, and is also full of the sighs of his generation of literati in the chaotic world, gathering and dispersing:

"Yu Yiyi sat alone behind closed doors and became his own life, which was also caused by the times, and How could Yu Yi be a scholar behind the times." However, the recollection of the pen begins as far back as the remaining dozen children. Those who can remember, this beginning is the risk of my life. ”

People and things that cannot be forgotten are true lives. This is also what Mr. Qian Mu, who wrote "China's Academic History in the Past Three Hundred Years", said.

04

Academics cannot be too eager to sell themselves

I have moved in recent years, and on the wall of the current study hangs an ink treasure given to me by Mr. Qian, recording five words and five poems by Mr. Gao Jingyi, and the beginning of one poem is to express his reclusive mood of settling in Sungai Wai:

"Open the window to the north of the mountain, the sunrise bamboo light; the people in the building are vulture, and the birds and finches come and go."

Signed "ChengChen Heavy Nine Qian Mu Shi Nian Eighty Two". By then he had poor eyesight. This painting is even more precious. On the wall opposite it hangs a broad-leaved tree that Zhuang Ling photographed, with its branches clearly projected on the mountain rocks where light and shadow intersect —this is also the situation I hope to see.

Missing those years, why was Mr. Qian willing to talk to me?

He is a historian of academic thought, who has worked hard in institutional history, history and geography, and even social and economic aspects, and has written special works; after arriving in Taiwan, he began to sort out the "Zhu Zi New Study Case" and "Ancient History and Geography Theory Series", which were assisted by Dai Jingxian and He Zeheng of the Department of Chinese of National Taiwan University.

He talked to me, never to study more, but to talk about life, as he said in the book "Eighty Memories of Parents":

"Quitting the United Nations, the news was frequent, the mood was uneasy, and he could not read quietly, but recited Shao Kang Festival and Chen Baisha's poems as a pastime. Following Zhu Zi's poems, two more episodes were selected, and wang Yangming, Gao Jingyi, and Lu Ningting were added, and a book of six poems of science was compiled. The theoreticians are mainly concerned about life, and the chant is an important item in life. Yu loves poetry, but cannot poetry. Singing other people's poems, such as out of your own heart. ”

From reading poetry to talk about life and the way for literati to survive in a chaotic world, he believes that when a scholar serves the country, when he does not live up to his own talent and ability, he should make his own choices and try to avoid disturbances, so after the victory of the War of Resistance, he will not go to the schools in Beijing, Shanghai, Pingjin, and Tianjin, return to his hometown of Taihu Lake to study, and then go from Yunnan to Hong Kong and come to Taiwan, at least to preserve the dignity of not speaking, let alone losing.

After arriving in Taiwan, he was hired by the Institute of History of the Cultural College ("Biji Ben" Note: now the Cultural University), where students attend classes in Waisangxi for two hours a week, and served as a special researcher at the Palace Museum.

"The old man of time is finally fair. So in his conversations, he always stressed that scholars should not be too eager to sell themselves, so that the trend of the times rolled away and turned into dust in the vacuum cleaner. ”

Since mr. Qian's death on August 30, 1990, I have been reading and can write this memory in my lifetime. Because of the warmth and respect for history, there are still people and things in the world that cannot be forgotten.