Yan Jianping (Zhang Jinghua)
Mr. Yan Duhe (1889-1968) is a well-known newspaper in modern and contemporary China, since 1914, he has presided over the supplement of The News in Shanghai for more than 30 years, written a large number of essays, essays, and written short stories and novels, and has adapted Zhang Hexhui's famous book "The Cause of Laughter" published by his hand into a film script for the star film company to produce. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he participated in the preparation of the Shanghai News Library and presided over the work, successively serving as the deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Press United Library, the deputy director of the Shanghai Library, the deputy to the Municipal People's Congress and the member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. In September 2021, the Collected Works of Yan Duhe was published. Mr. Yan Jianping, the editor of the anthology and the eldest grandson of Yan Duhe, was interviewed by the Shanghai Review of Books and introduced his grandfather's life and writings and travels.
"Yan Duhe Anthology", Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, September 2021 edition
Can you please talk about the origin of "Yan Duhe Anthology"?
Yan Jianping: My grandfather's works have not produced much before. Chunfeng Literature and Art Publishing House once published a long novel of his,"Dream of the Sea of People," which was later included in the "Hundred Libraries" series compiled by the Shanghai Writers Association. Our Yan family's ancestral home is Wuzhen, Tongxiang, Zhejiang. In 2009, the 120th anniversary of my grandfather's birth, the Tongxiang CPPCC came to me and said they wanted to compile a book about my grandfather. I had exactly seven or eight hundred articles from my grandfather. It was also a coincidence that there was a year before- I forgot the specific time, it seems to be a friend of the Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, saying that they want to compile a set of Shanghai 1940s essays, and ask me if I have any articles by my grandfather. Because I was busy at work, I entrusted my sister, who was working in the Shanghai Library at the time, to find a colleague who was familiar with modern and contemporary literature in the library to help me find the microfilm of my grandfather's articles published in the newspapers and periodicals, and then make a copy of it —it was not as convenient as it is now, and there was no such tool as the computer Internet. That time I selected seven or eight hundred articles from my grandfather in the 1940s, and then somehow, this set of essays could not be compiled, and since the hometown CPPCC came to me, I just gave them the ready-made copy materials at hand. The editors of the Tongxiang CPPCC were of a very high level, and they selected about four hundred articles from them, added annotations, and produced a "Duhe Miscellaneous Talks" - because my grandfather's original column in the "News" was called "Talk". In 2009, a Yan Duhe Library was also built in Wuzhen, just next to tongxiang Zhicai Primary School, and a commemorative event was held to celebrate the completion of the library and the publication of "Duhe Miscellaneous Talks". This is what my grandfather published earlier.
Tongxiang Municipal Federation of Literature and Literature has long begun to compile a series of books on the history and culture of Tongxiang, and will launch a series every once in a while, and in 2018, it is planned to launch a fourth series, a total of five biographies of people, including the biography of the grandfather. They came to ask me if I could write, and I thought, since I have the opportunity, let's write. In fact, the most suitable biographer is my uncle Yan Zuyou, who was still alive at the time, but underwent surgery and was not in good health. Therefore, the work of passing on the legacy for my grandfather is still up to me. As for compiling a set of anthologies for my grandfather, I already had this idea, and many friends around me have done the same, for example, Brother Lu Kang compiled a lot of books for Lu Jian'an Gonggong, and the descendants of Zhou Shuangjuan also compiled zhou Shuangjuan anthology, not to mention Zheng Yimei Gonggong. Since I want to publish a biography, Mr. Zhu Chunxiang in the picture above has a good study of modern and modern literary history historical materials, and I thought of cooperating with him, on the one hand, I can collect and sort out my grandfather's works, on the other hand, I can also look for some historical traces left by my grandfather and trace his life experience... Brother Zhu gladly agreed, so we discussed and compiled a total of three volumes. The first is the essay volume, the previous "Duhe Miscellaneous Talks" concentrated in the 1940s, we intend to collect my grandfather's articles from 1914 when he joined the "News" until 1949 (he resigned during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression), arranged chronologically. The estimated number of "talks" of my grandfather is tens of thousands, so the workload of selection is quite large. Later, Brother Zhu selected some articles by my grandfather from the "Big Newspaper" and "Yi Bao", which were newly published after the liberation of Shanghai, and the heads of these two newspapers, Chen Dieyi and Tang Dalang, were friends of my grandfather, and invited my grandfather to open a column in their newspaper. The second is the prose volume, most of the essays are in the "Talk" column of the "News Newspaper", and the number of newspapers and magazines involved in the prose volume is relatively large, and Zhu Brother has played a great role in this regard. Finally, there are the novel volumes, grandfather's short stories we find hundreds of articles, representative of which is his long novel "Renhai Dream", which is his most important work, in addition, he published a "Duhe Novel Collection" in 1924, collected six short stories, and combined these with "Renhai Dream" to become a collection of novel volumes.
1924 Edition of The Tale of the Lone Crane
During the selection process, I have been paying attention to two types of articles: one is the master's and doctoral dissertations of colleges and universities, and the other is the reminiscences of my grandfather written by some predecessors. When it mentioned the articles of my grandfather's works, I made excerpts from my notes, and then asked Brother Zhu to retrieve them. It is also a process of continuous addition, and some of the works, such as his visit to the northeast of the North Miscellaneous Notes, are probably dozens of articles and serialized for more than two months. The collection pictured above was missing for more than ten days, and Brother Zhu found most of it in the collection of the National Library of Beijing, except for a travelogue in Liaoning. I suddenly remembered that a friend met an acquaintance in the Nanjing Library, and after being inquired, he finally found it in Nantu, took a photo and passed it on to me, so that the collection was complete.
You just mentioned your uncle Mr. Yan Zuyou, can you tell us about your family?
Yan Jianping: My grandfather had two daughters and three sons. Shortly after my great aunt Yan Ruying was born, my grandfather's first wife, Lu Shi, died. The second lady was my grandmother Zhong Xiangfang, who gave birth to two children, my father Yan Zuqi and my little aunt Yan Ruzhen. My father was born the day before the Chongyang Festival in 1922, my grandmother died when I was six years old, and then my grandfather married the third wife, Lu Yunyu, and gave birth to two children, the eldest child, Zu Fu, when he was in high school in the 1940s, unfortunately got typhoid fever and died, and the younger one, my uncle Yan Zuyou, was born in 1943, eleven years older than me.
Yan Duhe and his family take a group photo. Back row from left: Yan Zuyou (youngest son), Yan Zuqi (eldest son), Yao Huizhong (eldest daughter-in-law), front row from left: Yan Jianying (granddaughter), Lu Yunyu (wife), Yan Jianhua (younger granddaughter), Yan Duhe, Yan Jianping (eldest grandson).
I was the eldest grandson, and for a long time my grandson was with my grandfather until his death in 1968. My father was a technical expert studying science and engineering, and after the Soviet experts were withdrawn from China in 1960, he was transferred to Beijing as a feng, and his parents did not live with us for more than a decade. My father's work unit was said to be the 0682 unit of the Ministry of National Defense, and later I learned that it was the Second Research Institute of the Seventh Ministry of Machinery Industry, which specialized in developing missiles. My uncle, on the other hand, was beaten as a member of the "counter-revolutionary clique" near the end of college in 1964, and was sentenced to re-education through labor at the beginning, but the case during the "Cultural Revolution" was taken out and sentenced heavily, and he was not completely rehabilitated until 1980, so he started a family very late. After he was rehabilitated, for a while we lived together, had a lot of contacts, and he pointed out a lot to me in writing, which gave me great help.
The compilation of this set of "Yan Duhe Anthology", my uncle participated in the whole process, witnessed, I saw that he was weak, the specific articles did not let him look over, the general framework, ideas, including editing steps, were exchanged with him in a timely manner. This collection of essays was finally published, and he contributed a lot, and he was very happy to see the collection. I wrote "The Biography of Yan Duhe", and every chapter was written and sent to him, and the preface was also written by him. Unfortunately, he is no longer there, otherwise he could talk about his grandfather and talk about more interesting details, after all, they have lived together for the longest time, and some things are only known to him.
What kind of grandfather is in your eyes, how he educates his family and children, can you please talk about it?
Yan Jianping: I was very small and didn't know much about things, so I thought he was a kind old man. He was working as a deputy director of the Shanghai Library at the time, but when he was older, he didn't go to work very often, about once a week. When I wasn't in class, he would take me out, to a cultural club or a literary and art hall, to have a meal, or to eat ice cream for guests, and in addition, he would take me to the Dahua Bookstore to listen to books or to see Peking Opera. Every night, he would listen to the commentary on the radio, and if I did my homework, I would also accompany him to listen, which can be said to be subtly influenced.
Yan Duhe reads a newspaper at his residence in Sande Fang
I did not ask about my specific study situation, and even the parent-teacher conference was held by my aunt who took care of my life. He was concerned about other aspects, such as writing, the second and third grades of primary school opened a calligraphy class, he accompanied me to choose a poster, remember to buy Wang Xizhi and Zhong Shaojing two small letter posters. In terms of reading, it is usually my grandmother who sometimes buys me some comic strips, children's books and so on. What I can remember now is that my grandfather put a set of hundred copies of the Twenty-Four Histories in his bedroom, and in addition, there are still many books in a storage room, and I have seen some of them, as well as books given to him by my grandfather's friends, the "Dripping Water Collection" signed by Mr. Zhao Puchu, the "Glossary of Novel Words" signed by Lu Yuan'an, and the works of Mr. Huang Yanpei, and so on. After raiding the house, some survived. What books I read, my grandfather didn't care much. There was only one exception, I followed a few older children to the Huaihai Road old bookstore to look for old books, they bought Wang Shaotang's Yangzhou commentary "Wu Song" and "Say Yue Quan Biography" or something, that day there was a copy of "Water Margin Later Biography", they probably all had it, they kept shaking me to buy, I hesitated for half a day, or bought it, because I had already read "Water Margin", I didn't know what the fate of those characters in the book was later, I wanted to buy it back to see. Bringing the book home, just about to wrap it up, grandfather went into the room, saw the book, he first said a word, the book is too old, unhygienic, and then mentioned that I am too young to read this book is not appropriate, let the aunt who takes care of my life accompany me to the old bookstore to return the book. When we went, the bookstore was almost closed, and the female saleswoman with glasses listened to us ask for a refund, and she was not surprised at all, she told my aunt that I bought the book completely at the instigation of two older children, and this book really should not be bought for a child of my age, and she gave me the book back very happily.
Lu Chan'an's "Explanation of Novel Words" signed as a gift
For a child like me who is still in elementary school, my grandfather did not make any specific requirements, but for my father and uncle's generation, he hoped to study science and engineering, not to study liberal arts. My uncle was not too interested in mathematics, physics and chemistry, and eventually studied liberal arts, and my grandfather lost his temper. At first I didn't know why, but I wondered if people who read liberal arts are prone to mistakes, but when I read some of his reminiscences, I realized that this was not entirely the case. In the old days, the literati actually lived a very hard life, often facing the risk of unemployment, and some of the author friends he knew when he wrote the newspaper, such as Mr. Gu Mingdao, a martial arts novelist, Mr. Li Hanqiu, a romance novelist, including his best partner, Mr. Li Haoran, who was the editor-in-chief of The News, were very depressed behind him. Mr. Gu suffered from lung disease when he was in his forties, or my grandfather applied to the "News" for a fund to send this old author to the Red Cross Hospital, which is equivalent to the newspaper library to fund part of the medical expenses. The reason why he advocated that his children should study science and engineering may have been because he felt that the life of the literati was unstable. Like my father, he went to Jiaotong University to study mechanical engineering, and so did my cousin. My third uncle died in the thirties, when his children were still very young, and my grandfather promised his third brother before his death that he would be responsible for the lives and studies of these children, ensuring that boys could go to college and girls could go to high school. Therefore, our family has always been a big family, and my relationship with my cousin and aunt is very good. The hallgu joined the revolution as early as the time of the War of Resistance, and also brought her brother and sister with her, so after 1949, their situation in all aspects was quite good. My cousin joined the underground party when he was studying at Jiaotong University, and was arrested for organizing and participating in the student movement against the Kuomintang, but fortunately his identity was not revealed, or my grandfather tried to protect him.
The site of the Newspaper
Can you talk about how your grandfather's hobby in opera gave you any specific influence?
Yan Jianping: In fact, what impressed me the most was to go to Dahua Bookstore to listen to books. Because you can eat while listening to books in the theater, dried tofu, tea eggs and so on, they are all sold inside, which is very attractive to children. Of course, my grandfather is very obsessed with Peking Opera, he and the four famous Dan are very familiar, the most popular is Xun Huisheng, Xun Huisheng came to Shanghai to act, always have to see my grandfather first. My grandfather wrote in the "Miscellaneous Journey to the North" that when he visited Beijing, Xun Huisheng, Mei Lanfang, and Shang Xiaoyun all invited him to dinner. Of course, by that time, I had no connection with the drama of these famous characters. My great aunt and great uncle are also fans of Peking Opera, and some famous actors of their generation, like Li Yuru, are good friends. So if they have a show, the adults will sometimes take me to see it. After graduating from the Shanghai Theater Academy, one of my cousins worked in the Huangpu Peking Opera Troupe. I remember when I was a child, my cousin took me to the Great World Theater and asked me to stand on the edge of the stage, probably in the side curtain position to watch the play, and when the play was over, he would take me back. When my grandfather found out, he felt very uneasy: a young man brought a child to the big world for a whole night, there were so many people, what if he lost it? He firmly opposed my cousin taking me to the theater again, which was equivalent to compensation, and he would take me with him when he watched the play later. Once I watched a play, I can't remember whether it was in the Chinese Grand Theater or the People's Grand Stage, anyway, it was a very good theater, I watched "Zhong Kui Married Sister", "Selling Water" and "Fa Zi Du" several folding plays, and the interest was quite strong. Later, because I was getting busier and busier in my studies, and my grandfather was older, it was inconvenient to go out at night, and basically I rarely went out to watch plays, so we listened to the commentaries at home.
Your grandfather was known for his extensive socializing, do you remember any cultural celebrities who interacted with him?
Yan Jianping: I have more contacts with my grandfather, and I remember that there are several elders such as Zhou Shuangjuan, Lu Xian'an, Zheng Yimei, Kong Yijing, and Qin Slender Ou. Qin and Kong were working in the popular literature editing office of the Shanghai Culture Publishing House at that time, and wanted to compile a set of popular novels based on ancient opera, so they decided on the theme: Zhang Hexhui wrote "Liang Zhu", and his grandfather wrote "The Record of the West Chamber". Grandfather was originally quite interested, collected a lot of information, planned to think about it for a while and then start writing, Zhang Hexhui first wrote "Liang Zhu", and after publishing it, it was criticized. Grandfather quickly gave up and said: Fortunately, I did not write. At that time, I was still too young, and many things about these old gentlemen were actually not very clear, but I was most impressed by Lu Yuan'an Gonggong and Zhou Shuangjuan Gonggong. After 1949, Gonggong An had no specific job or unit, and the impact was relatively small, and he often came to my house to see his grandfather, and he did not shy away from suspicion during the "Cultural Revolution". During the Cultural Revolution, my grandfather also came to Shanghai to see my grandfather, and he said: Brother Crane, I will not look for short-sightedness. He has always worn sunglasses and has a distinct character. What everyone did not expect was that after he returned to Suzhou, he threw himself into the well.
Past editors, author friends, and calligraphers and painters have also been in contact with my grandfather, such as Mr. Zhu Dake, who taught at Bile Middle School and was close to my home. There was also Mr. Zhao Jingshen, who spoke with my grandfather at the First Shanghai Wendai Conference. He lives in Simingli, Huaihai Road, and there is only one Xing'an Road across the road from my family's Sandefang. Before the Cultural Revolution, my grandfather borrowed a copy of "Poetry and Rhyme" from Mr. Jingshen, and after more than ten years, he remembers asking my grandmother about her whereabouts. Fortunately, this book did not suffer bad luck and was able to "return to Zhao completely". In my memory, in 1964, my grandfather and they celebrated the seventieth birthday of zhou shuangjuan, Tao Lengyue and Zheng Yimei, and had a meal together at the Xinya Hotel, and took a group photo. Among the people in this group photo is Mr. Ding Hu, who has recently become very popular, and the Shanghai Bookstore has just published his "Memoirs of forty Years of Art: 1902-1945". Mr. Ding and his grandfather are also very good friends, and his daughter Ding Yiying is his grandfather's righteous daughter, and the two families have a close relationship.
In May 1964, Yan Duhe took a group photo with his friends, the front row (from left) Shen Yuzhong's daughter, Lu Yunyu (Yan Duhe's wife), Yao Sufeng, Cheng Xiaoqing, Wu Mingxia, Hu Yaguang, Jiang Hongjiao; the middle row (from left) Yan Duhe, Sun Xueni, Tao Lengyue, Zhou Shuangjuan, Zheng Yimei, Sun Chucheng, Ding Muqin; the back row (from left) Guan Ji'an, Xu Bibo, Wang Ruochuan, Lu Yuan'an, Zhu Dakeke, Ping Xiangya, Rui Hongchu, shen Yuzhong.
Yan Duhe (left) and Ding Ho
From the left, Zhou Slender Crane, Heavenly Void I Was Born, Yan Duhe (Ding Shu photo)
My grandfather's nephew Zhong Zhaolin also impressed me deeply. He is a first-class professor at Jiaotong University, known as the "father of Chinese electric machinery", is Qian Xuesen's teacher, and the Zhong Zhaolin Memorial Hall in Deqing town still displays a letter written to him by Qian Xuesen. Why am I so impressed with him? Because he was very old-fashioned, he came to my house during the Spring Festival to pay homage to my grandfather, insisting on prostrating his head, and observing the traditional old etiquette. In 1955, when he was in his fifties, the State Council decided to move Shanghai Jiao Tong University to Xi'an, originally Premier Zhou Enlai specifically proposed that Mr. Zhong Zhaolin was old and in poor health, and could not go to Xi'an, but he still insisted on going to Xi'an Jiaotong University. He had a dream of developing the Great Northwest when he was young, and he did not change until he was old.
The relationship between grandfather and Mr. Cheng Xiaoqing is also worth mentioning. My grandfather had systematically studied English at the CantonEse Dialect Hall and loved English himself. He, Together with Mr. Cheng Xiaoqing and Zhou Shuangjuan, as well as other translators, he co-translated the Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes Detectives in Chinese. This set of books was first published by the Zhonghua Book Company in April 1916 and has been reprinted more than twenty times. In 1923, my grandfather, together with Mr. Cheng Xiaoqing, founded the semi-monthly magazine "Detective World" in Shanghai. The magazine played a crucial role in the promotion of detective fiction in China and the growth of detective fiction writers, and the works published on it were famous articles by the major detective fiction writers of that era. Mr. Cheng Xiaoqing is known as "the first person in Modern Detective Novels in China", and the Hawthorne in his "Hawthorne Detective" is China's Sherlock Holmes. "Detective World" was not run for a long time, but my grandfather and Mr. Cheng have always maintained a deep friendship. Mr. Cheng is mentioned many times in his article.
What did your grandfather think of the "Mandarin Duck Butterfly Pie"?
Yan Jianping: Regarding the Mandarin Duck Butterfly Sect, my uncle Yan Zuyou once consulted my grandfather, and there is a record like this: "In the old Chinese literary circles, there was a literary genre called the 'Mandarin Duck Butterfly School'. The evaluation of this genre has been blindly derogatory in the past, but in recent years, it has been slightly praised. Zhang Hexhui is considered a member of this genre, and the main characters of this school include the novelists Xu Qiuya and Li Hanqiu in the late Qing Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, as well as Bao Tianxiao, Zhou Shuangjuan, Cheng Xiaoqing, Qin Shouou and other contemporaries of his father. Although his father was not known for writing novels, he was also listed among them because of his close relationship with many of the above. However, what is the name of this genre, or whether it is there or not, in the early 1960s, I studied Chinese in college, and when I studied the history of modern and contemporary literature, I asked my father. My father told me that the reason for this was a dinner party between the editors and some of the authors of the Red Magazine, and some people in the audience joked that some people's novels are now written without brothers and sisters, Mandarin duck butterflies, which can be called Mandarin Duck Butterfly Pie. At that time, some people stopped and said, don't talk nonsense, what faction is not sent, be careful to spread it, let the tabloid reporter hear it, and make a big fuss again. Sure enough, the next day some tabloids were hyped up, and everyone present became the initiators of the Mandarin Duck Butterfly spy faction. ”
When my uncle was in college, he once read a book called "Research Materials on the Mandarin Duck Butterfly Sect (Historical Materials Part)", which listed the authors and works of the school at the end of the book, including the aforementioned people, as well as many martial arts novelists such as Huan Zhulou, Zheng Zhengyin, Gong Baiyu and so on. When he showed this list to his grandfather, the old man smiled indifferently: "Pulling together Xu Qiuya, who writes romance novels, and Zheng Zhengyin, who writes martial arts novels, in the final analysis, this faction does not exist." He has always felt that he is a newspaperman, a journalist, writing novels is just a hobby of his youth, not a person in the writer's circle, although he does not approve of the "Mandarin Duck Butterfly Faction", but he does not have much complaint or fierce disgust for being included in it. The Mandarin Butterfly Sect has always been attacked quite badly, and my grandfather has not drawn a clear line, I guess he does not want to hurt the hearts of some of his friends who are also members of the Mandarin Butterfly Sect.
In 1988, I went to Beijing to meet Elder Xia Yanlao, and during the conversation I thanked him for sending a wreath when my grandfather was rehabilitated. Xia Gong asked: Your grandfather was... I replied that it was Yan Duhe. He said: Oh, Mr. Duhe, he was the first newspaperman to run the newspaper, he was the real pioneer of the press, he was threatened by the enemy and the hypocrites during the War of Resistance, and it was not easy for him to persevere and maintain his national integrity. Then, talking about Mr. Zhang Hexhui, Xia Gong said that in the past, Zhang Hexhui was included in the Mandarin Duck Butterfly Sect, and his evaluation was unfair. He also mentioned that Mr. Zhou Had done a lot of useful work after the founding of the People's Republic of China. I think that in the minds of cultural leaders like Xia Gong, there is still an objective evaluation of those cultural celebrities who have been ignored and degraded.
What was your grandfather's personality and personality?
Yan Jianping: He is usually very gentle and cautious in life. One thing that impressed me very much was probably in 1967, when the Beijing Peking Opera Troupe consulted the whole country for suggestions on the revision of "Sha Jiabang". At that time, I saw that Guo Jianguang, the male protagonist of "Sha Jiabang", had a line in the reeds: Ordinary people will also come to support us. I think that the military and civilian fish water situation, Guo Jianguang said that "the people" seem to be a little strange, I wrote a letter to the Beijing Peking Opera Troupe, suggesting that this line be changed to "the villagers will also come to support us." Later, they actually wrote me back a letter saying that my opinion was right and encouraging me. After looking at the revised script, the line was changed to "Fellow villagers will come to support us." When I received this reply, I ran to tell my grandfather happily, but I didn't expect his face to turn pale at once, and said: Don't write such a letter in the future. I was a schoolboy at the time, and I felt very incomprehensible: The advice I offered was not only accepted, but also praised, is this not a good thing? I later learned that my grandfather was worried that my advice would be used as an attack on the model play, so he was particularly nervous. This is one aspect of his caution as a man.
However, there is another aspect. In his old age, he was not immune to political shocks, because he had a wealth of experience, and there were always people in his family who came to do external adjustments and understand the historical problems of his friends or juniors, which was a heavy spiritual burden for him. But no matter what, he insisted on telling the truth and refused to follow the words of those who came to the outside world, so he was reprimanded a lot. Whether it was the Yuan Shikai period or the Chiang Kai-shek period, he insisted on the independent personality and integrity of intellectuals, stood on the stand of readers and spoke out in righteousness, and in his later years he was no longer a newspaperman, and he also insisted on telling the truth. I admire him very much for this, and it is not easy for such a gentle and cautious intellectual to be able to stick to his own style and bones in the joints of major events.