The 7th One-Way Street Bookstore Literary Awards Annual Work "Flower Armor Record"
Acceptance speech
One-way space is an independent bookstore with strong connections to me. Eight years ago, when the Flagship Store opened, I had the privilege of being the first writer-in-residence, and earlier, the first event of the opening of the Sun Palace Aegean Store was a conversation with my book "Fujita Jiji: Yellow Skin in the Paris School". Although as a writer, I cherish the cultural identity that one-way has given me, I never expected to win an award. Such a special honor is both a surprise and an uneasiness for me, and at the same time an inspiration.
In the epidemic, working from home, people's feelings about time will be somewhat confused. This book, I almost think, is an old book. Leng Buding received the notice of shortlisting, confirmed the copyright page, and learned that it was indeed a book published in January 2021.
Hanako is a hard-core book published by Iwanami Shoten in 1960, republished by The Ordinary Society in 2011, and entered the authoritative Oriental Bunko, which has long been precipitated as a Japanese sinology classic. This book is not only a personal history of Mr. Uchido, but also reflects the modern history of Japan, the history of social history, and the history of Sino-Japanese relations from the end of the 19th century to the end of World War II. In the study of China's left-wing cultural history, Lu Xun's research, including the history of colonial Shanghai and other related historical topics, there is an important historical value, and many first-hand materials can be used as an important reference for cracking the historical mystery.
This is a book that has been dragged to the ground. The Republic first asked me for a manuscript in 2009, and it took 12 years from translation to publication. The first half was due to my delay, and the second half was the secret of publishing: 3 publishing houses changed in 5 years. Undertaking this translation is a project that is not self-sufficient for me. Because Uchiyama's experience as a human being is complex, he is neither an ordinary businessman, a small citizen, nor a typical intellectual. His expression is the Japanese language of the Meiji Taisho period, which is grounded, but it is mixed with a lot of Western dialects and slang, which is much beyond my Japanese ability. But fortunately, I have Japanese scholars who are committed to academic research together, as well as many Japanese journalists and writers, who have been forced to serve as my teachers on various occasions.
For reasons that are well known, the book was abridged at the time of publication, including several editors I thanked in the translator's introduction, and so on, and became a sacrifice. I would like to take this opportunity to express my belated gratitude to them: Mr. Yang Jingwu, Miss Su Ben and Mr. Cao Lingzhi, the three responsible editors of the Republic of China, Mr. Li Liming of Kyushu Publishing House, and my good friend Mr. Dai Xinwei, who waved the inscription for this book. Without their efforts, this book may never have been available.
In the field of public writing, I consider myself a writer with certain qualifications. But as a translator, I am a novice, a little monk. For translators, there are two kinds of translation objects, one is the translation, and the other is the translation. "Hua Jia Lu" belongs to the former, and I should translate it. Next, I hope to translate some books that I really like and want to translate in my lifetime, including pure literary texts, literary criticism and artistic texts.
Thank you again to one-way space, the judges, and the readers and friends on the spot, as well as online.
The Book of Flowers and Uchiyama's completed view of China
Liu Lemon
01
"The Society of Four Inch People"
In China, Uchiyama is not an unfamiliar name – not only is it not unfamiliar, but it is also well known. Of course, most people know his name because of Lu Xun: from before the war to the wartime, the Neishan Bookstore in Shanghai was an important window in Sino-Japanese relations and the "living room" for the last decade of Lu Xun's life. Therefore, when talking about the completion of Uchiyama, we must talk about Uchiyama Bookstore and Lu Xun, and Uchiyama is undoubtedly one of the most qualified people in the world to be called "Zhilu".
Lu Xun at the Second National Woodcut Exhibition (October 8, 1936, photographed at the Shanghai Baxianqiao Youth Association)
But the problem was that Uchiyama's interaction with Lu Xun was full of calculations, less than ten years, less than one-third of his travel career. Before getting to know Lu Xun, Uchiyama had been "diving" in Chinese society for more than ten years, and his view of China had already taken shape; after Lu Xun's death, after ten years of experience, the view of China had not changed. In fact, Lu Xun constitutes an element of Neishan's view of China, or provides some kind of support.
As a Japanese born in the middle of the Meiji period and who came to the mainland in the early years of Taisho, Uchiyama's view of China bears a distinct imprint of the times. Driven by the "rich country and strong army", backed by the strong ships and cannons of the so-called "trade country", a large number of low-level people flocked to the mainland from the remote mountain pass fishing villages to seek development opportunities and make a living, and at the same time created a group of mainland Ronin.
It should be said that when Uchiyama crossed the sea to China, it was also based on the same background. But what sets most of the Japanese who roamed the continent is the complete Christian faith. The guide of his faith, and the predecessor who introduced him to China, was Pastor Toraji Makino, a famous Japanese religious figure who later became president of Kyoto Doshisha University. For those who come from the bottom and have no academic qualifications, have worked hard in the domestic business sea for many years, and have been deeply tired, China is not only a fresh and mysterious country, but also a realistic option. So, when Pastor Makino asked him about the idea of going to China, he hit it off. Later, he wrote in the Book of Flowers:
As soon as I heard it, I was so excited that I couldn't help but shiver. Why? Because I used to think that if the world were five inches, I would be less than four inches and five inches. I am afraid that it is possible to succeed unless we get a society of four inches of people – that is China.
That is to say, compared with the "five-inch" Japan, China is a "four-inch society." And for the "di silk" in the "five-inch" society, only "four inches and five" long, its "comparative advantage" goes without saying, which means a lot of opportunities, which is undoubtedly no small temptation.
Neishan Finished Manufacturing (1885-1959) and neishan Bookstore on North Sichuan Road in Shanghai
In this way, the Concept of China is in line with the so-called "civilized" ideology of Japan, which after the Meiji Restoration, through the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, and jumped from a "second-class country" to the "first-class country" of the European and American powers, while the colonial and semi-colonial countries such as Korea and China were reduced to "third-class countries" and can be said to represent the greatest common denominator of the Japanese people at that time. Needless to say, this is also the origin of the complete creation of the Chinese concept.
On March 24, 1913 (the second year of Taisho), the twenty-eight-year-old Uchiyama arrived in Shanghai by Kasugamaru and was shocked:
In the early morning, the first time I saw the red yellow muddy water of the Yangtze River, I was startled; then, looking around, I was surprised by the vast plains that were extremely wide-eyed and boundless; only a tributary called the Huangpu River could accommodate three thousand tons of Spring Pill to enter and exit freely, which could not help but surprise the grandeur of this monster-like behemoth.
"I began to have doubts about imagining the Chinese as four inches, but when I heard that the scenery was nothing more than a Western neighborhood, I still landed with a four-inch line of sight to Chinese."
Since then, until he was deported after the war, the so-called "four-inch" China concept that was completed was constantly being tried and wronged, revised, and reconstructed. Its power mainly comes from two aspects, which can be said to be the stimulation of the Chinese scene. The first is Chinese— from merchants and intellectuals to ordinary shop assistants, and even those peasants, porters, and coolies who are struggling at the bottom of society, their diligent, optimistic, and reclusive qualities are silently infected with perfection.
At the same time, the rudeness and domineering of the Japanese on the mainland and the tyranny of the soldiers made him feel pain and shame from time to time. For example, during the first "Shanghai Incident" (i.e., the "January 28 Incident"), he saw (China) "refugees pouring in droves, but there was no sign of chaos, and when the truck crossed the road, it was safe." Compared with the hysteria of the Japanese, those Chinese are not a problem at all, they are really calm as usual", and it is actually difficult to calm the heart. Especially when he saw that "when Mr. Zhou Jianren and his party were taken away, they were also calm and self-assured", and "it was the Japanese who were restless", his inner balance was obviously tilted, "Comparing the two, it is naturally not difficult to see the indiscretion and weight of the nation."
02
The birth of Uchiyama Bookstore
In the 1920s, the Chinese and Japanese clerks of Shanghai Neishan Bookstore organized an internal savings meeting, each of which paid one yuan a month and deposited the money in Zhongnan Bank. But later, the bank suffered huge losses due to the collapse of public debt, and the banknotes it issued were rejected by foreign banks.
Therefore, Uchiyama suggested to Mr. Wang Baoliang, the Chinese director of the bookstore: "Zhongnan Bank is more dangerous, or it is safer to take out the deposit of the savings club and transfer it to the Zhengjin Bank." But Mr. Wang said, "It doesn't matter, let's leave it there." Uchiyama was puzzled, "What if the bank goes bankrupt?" Mr. Wang replied: "When people lose money, they withdraw money, and the bank will go bankrupt." It is better to withdraw money when people are making money. Uchiyama listened and felt ashamed:
I couldn't help but blush, and even Mr. Wang, who had been in the store as a young man since the age of thirteen, could put economic theory into practice, and the greatness of this ordinary Chinese was really admirable to me. The question is not the theory itself, the decisive factor is whether it is implemented or not.
Liu Zongyue (1889-1961)
You know, in that era, the poor and weak Chinese were in the external vision, together with Lu Xun, who was Chinese, was beating up the "national nature" of the Chinese people, mourning their misfortunes, and angry at them, while a Japanese person could find something from the bottom Chinese, and admire this discovery from the bottom, which really explained Uchiyama's character and reminded me of Liu Zongyue, the advocate of the "folk art movement".
Long before the war, Yoo Jong-yue discovered a "sad beauty" in the art of Japan's "protectorate" Korea, especially pottery. Based on this discovery, he raised the question of "how to present a unique Japan in front of the great Indochina and in front of elegant Korea", and turned his attention to the daily miscellaneous utensils (that is, folk art) in life, trying to discover the unique "Japanese beauty" from it, which also became the starting point of the "folk art movement".
Like Liu Zongyue, Uchiyama is one of the few elements who are in the magnetic field of colonialism but have transcended colonial thinking. There is a way that it is easier said than done, but in fact, "knowing" is not easy. In the era of china, the number of Japanese expatriates in Shanghai alone increased from 10,000 to more than 100,000 on the eve of Japan's defeat. Among those who traveled to and from the mainland from the interior of Japan, there were many high-ranking officials and literary elites, but almost all of them held the nationalist position of defending the imperial mainland policy, and most of the writers and literati were reduced to "pen troops". Looking at the imperial era of Japan, there are very few people who have such transcendent anti-colonial reverse thinking.
And that's what attracted me to the experience of Life—what made Himgogo grow from an eye-drops dealer to a liberal anti-war intellectual while becoming the owner of Shanghai's most famous literati bookstore? China's history and social reality show that most of them are the stumbling after the success of the "di si", the so-called "one broad face will change, the beheading is gradually more" (Lu Xun wrote a poem on the inside mountain), Lu Xun simply divided Chinese history into two eras: the era of wanting to be a slave and not being able to sit on the slave for the time being. The process of Uchiyama starting from the bottom of society and relentlessly working hard and rising in Chinese society presents a completely different life trajectory.
Shortly after arriving in China, he led several Chinese coolies on a business trip that lasted two years and covered most of East and Central China, calling himself "Japanese Coolies". The vast expanse of the land, the majestic nature and the fresh stimulation of the foreign culture, constantly refreshing and rewriting the concept of China that was brainwashed in Japan, he began to realize and be ashamed of the "ignorant arrogance" of the previous one:
Whether it is For China or for Chinese, although they have no common sense at all, they have a Kind of Japanese-style self-confidence, and they often think of themselves as "civilized people" and put their lives on the shelf, which must be quite funny. When I think about it later, even I can't help but smile bitterly.
In this way, China, which was built in the early 20th century, while feeling the infiltration and crushing of china by the Japanese emperors, saw the rising consciousness of the Chinese nation's independence, and under the impact of this wave of "anti-Japanese" waves, in the gap between the two cultures of China and Japan, which was intensifying in antagonism and not without the danger of confrontation, it was diligently doing business, and at the same time accumulated observations of China and thinking about the cultural differences between the two countries, so as to prepare for a new start in the future. As an intellectual, the difference with a businessman is that even when doing business, his senses are open, and he will find different business ethics from various commercial laws and unspoken rules, thus correcting the established prejudices in the previous "problem China view".
For example, he recorded a story in the "Flower Armor Record". In 1914, he went to Changsha to travel and visited the Yinghua Pharmacy in the city. Five or six years ago, Shanghai Nisshin Pharmacy, the Shanghai agent store of Samson Paradise, commissioned this store to consign university eye medicines. He wanted to know the follow-up situation and recover the payment, but he didn't know that the store had changed owners:
Lu Xun with Daisuke Suzuki (second from right) and other Japanese friends (photographed on May 10, 1934, in front of Uchiyama's apartment)
It just so happened that the owner was there, saying that in fact, the store had changed owners four years ago, and at that time, in the content of the handover, there was also the balance of university eye drops. Saying "Please wait," the shopkeeper went into the back room and took out a paper bag and handed it to me: "This is it." The details are written on it, please look at it. "I opened it on the spot, and it was wrapped in a note with a detailed note and the remaining scraps and payments. While lamenting that integrity, I also began to think about what Chinese business ethics are. However, the banknotes in the paper bag are the banknotes of the Great Qing Bank, and since the Great Qing Bank has gone bankrupt in the revolution, these banknotes are probably not even worth three dollars. But there is no doubt that this is the package four years ago, and the tightly sealed wax on the outside of the paper bag proves this. Moreover, such matters are not limited to Hunan people.
Although the store has changed hands and the bank has closed, the payment is not bad, and the integrity of the Xiangshang is returned to Zhao, and the integrity of the Xiangshang Isan," which has greatly shaken the heart of the Kansai merchant, and he believes that "such things are not limited to Hunan people." It can be said that it is precisely as a businessman's travels and extensive contacts with the middle and lower classes of the people that have laid the foundation of the Uchiyama View of China.
But in his bones, he is not actually a typical businessman. Born in a chaotic world, and in the whirlpool of the two cultures, the role of a pure businessman gave him a sense of trepidation, which was related to both his early experience and faith. In terms of origin and education, the composition of the completion is close to that of the Japanese residents living in Shanghai at that time, equivalent to the "indigenous faction". But through the path of faith, especially the resume of the bookstore operator later, it was completed to get close to Shanghai, the middle layer of this unique pre-war cosmopolitan metropolis, thus achieving a transformation of life. In 1917 (the sixth year of Taisho), it was completed from a merchant and ran a toilet bookstore. Since then, the name Uchiyama has begun to merge with a certain kind of business, that is, Uchiyama Bookstore.
03
From "The Gesture of Living China" to "Hua Jia Lu"
In fact, the predecessor of Uchiyama Bookstore was the side business of Uchiyama's wife, Miki Uchiyama (formerly known as Miki Inoue), and the first store manager should also be Mrs. Uchiyama. At that time, the completion of the business was everywhere, and the couple gathered less and left more. In order to dispel his wife's loneliness, he opened a small bookstore in the pavilion on the second floor of his apartment in Wei Shengli at that time. Both were devout Christians, and at the beginning of their business, they only ran the Bible and bible study magazines, as well as the writings of the Japanese socialist Christian theorist Kanzo Uchimura and others.
After the completion of the construction of the shop, the couple calloused hands, painstaking management, the store was relocated several times, getting bigger and bigger, and finally the store settled in 1929 in the prime area of the public concession North Sichuan Road (Scott Tower Road), and opened a branch in the British Concession, becoming Japan's largest bookstore overseas before the war to the wartime. In 1926, the literary hero Junichiro Tanizaki visited Shanghai and wrote in an essay about the prosperity of Uchiyama's bookstore and his travels with the owner:
This bookstore, said to be in China, is the largest shop outside of Manchuria. The owner is young, well-spoken and very interesting. Around the stove in the shop, there are a few benches and tables, and the people who buy books come, but they can sit and drink tea. Apparently, this shop has become a favorite place for bookmakers. I myself was called to drink tea, and I learned about the current situation of the young people of China.
Koichiro Tanizaki (1886-1965)
From the accounts of Tanizaki writers, it can also be seen that Uchiyama Bookstore has gone beyond the scope of pure bookstores, and has a taste of today's Book Café, which was already quite literary at that time. In fact, Neishan Bookstore was not only one of the largest humanistic bookstores in China at that time, but also published concurrently. The café attached to the shop, the Literary and Art Talks, is seated in turn by chinese and Japanese writers and literati. It is called "Long Talk", in fact, it also regularly publishes the organ chronicle, known as "Wanhua Mirror". Boss Uchiyama also naturally made a cameo appearance as a "rambling writer" and published no less than twenty collections of essays during his lifetime. The left-wing progressive books provided by bookstores are a window for Chinese intellectuals to understand the world.
According to incomplete statistics, in the 1930s alone, among the foreign literary and art books translated and published by Chinese left-wing writers, there were more than 330 kinds of books originally originated from the Uchiyama Bookstore - it is not an exaggeration to say that the Uchiyama Bookstore was an important cultural town at that time.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the Neishan Bookstore, which was full of war clouds and strange clouds, guarded the strategic point of Shanghai's public concession, naturally attracted the attention of all walks of life in China and Japan, and its influence far overflowed the cultural circle. The store was full of friends, talking and laughing, and there was no white Ding, and in his own words, "Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, among the first generation of socialists in China, are all customers of the bookstore." The most famous bookworm is Lu Xun. Lu Xun not only often bubbled, but even the rent and water and electricity bills in his home were paid by neishan Bookstore together with the book account.
Among the Japanese friends lu xun met, there were more than one hundred and sixty people who were introduced by Uchiyama. The day before Lu Xun's death, the last note was written to Uchiyama. Uchiyama's debut novel, The Gesture of Living China, was published, and Lu Xun wrote the preface.
Lu Xun takes refuge in Senai-ri with Japanese friends such as Uchiyama Kenzo (first from the left) (August 29, 1934, in front of Uchiyama's apartment)
In the "1.28 Incident", Lu Xun and his brother Zhou Jianren's family took refuge in the Neishan Bookstore; after Lu Xun's death, Uchiyama was one of the two foreigners (the other being Smedley) who was listed in the Funeral Committee; during the second "Shanghai Incident" (that is, the "August 13 Incident"), Neishan came forward to rescue Xu Guangping, who was arrested; Guo Moruo, Tao Xingzhi, Xia Junzun and other progressive cultural people were all rescued by Neishan... It is no exaggeration to say that Uchiyama and his bookstore were the most reliable and solid bridges in Sino-Japanese relations in the cold era.
On August 15, 1945, Japan surrendered unconditionally. On October 23 of the same year, the Shanghai Uchiyama Bookstore was taken over by the Nationalist government as an "enemy property". In December 1946, Uchiyama was required to leave the country within a time limit, and was forbidden to carry any luggage, wearing only a cardigan jacket, and boarded the ship returning to China, and a large number of precious materials such as handwriting and letters were lost.
After the war, because the pieces of paper were not brought back to China, the completed work had to take the historical chronology published in Japan as a clue, and completely relied on memory to write sixty years of memories from birth to returning from Shanghai, that is, "Hanako Record". In September 1960, Hanako records were published by Iwanami Shoten. In March 2011, it was republished by the Ordinary Society and compiled into the authoritative Oriental Bunko. More than half a century after its publication, the "Hana Jia Lu" has long been precipitated into a classic work of modern Japanese sinology. Over the past decade or so, Uchiyama's completed works have successively landed in China, and this "hard goods" has not appeared. This time, it was paid by Kyushu Publishing House to talk about the regret of adding the lost pearl, which is also comforting.
04
Example of content giver
In every sense, the Book of Flowers is an important work. It is not only a personal history of Uchiyama's complete creation, but also a history of modern Japan, social history, and Sino-Japanese relations from the end of the 19th century (1885) until the end of World War II. Scholar Takeuchi Yoshinori commented: "The Hanako record is not a history book, but history itself, the personality of Uchiyama. For those who think about Japan-China relations, it is an infinite treasure trove of unexplored or semi-pioneering. ”
Not a historian, but more like a historian — the special background, legendary experience, and the great influence of the Shanghai Neishan Bookstore from pre-war to wartime make this memoir full of historical materials. Many of these first-hand materials can be used as an important reference for cracking the mysteries of history: for example, in the Shanghai Concession Park, the ins and outs of the famous "Chinese and dogs, no entry" problem notice; such as the truth of Lu Xun and Zhou Jianren's family refuge in the first "January 28 Incident"; for example, in 1927, Guo Moruo lived in a military uniform anhui girl in The Inner Mountain for more than ten days, and the girl's mother chased her to Shanghai to find a daughter, while At the same time, Guo's Japanese wife Anna (Sato Tomiko) made a quick start from Guangdong. Living in a house near the Inner Mountain Home, gossiping about opportunities, etc., makes people can't help but read it.
Japanese version of "Hana Jia Lu" (photo by Liu Ming)
Next, I would like to touch on a few questions about the content and style of the Flower Armor. There are roughly three: First, the original work is not annotated, and all footnotes are added by the translator. Because this book is a historical text, involving a complicated personnel, in order to facilitate the reader's interpretation and research, all annotated foreign names (including Japanese) are marked with English (or Japanese Roman characters) spelling; second, because the completion of the writing, with reference to the japanese post-war historical chronology, and use it as a timeline to activate their own memory, so the events of each year are recorded in the historical chronology selected by Uchiyama, rather than the author himself. Therefore, individual expressions with nationalist overtones, the right and the recording, focus on highlighting historical clues; third, hindered by the author's life years, there are some pre-war expressions in the writing, which are only based on the habit of "the error of the times" and have no specific political implications. In addition, in accordance with the relevant regulations, when the book was published, the "special notes" part in front of the body of each year's memories was deleted as a whole, and the overall deletion part needs to be improved later. The contents and expressions in the text that are deemed to be inconsistent with the contemporary historical narrative of the mainland have also been partially abridged, and hereby declared.
Finally, allow me to thank the three editors of the Republic of China for their efforts in this book: without Mr. Yang Jingwu's engagement and tolerance for my lengthy "tractor" behavior, this book would not have been possible; without Miss Suben's careful editing and the professional work of Mr. Cao Lingzhi, the publication of this book would still be far away. Thanks to the good offices of the publishing house Li Liming and the work of the responsible editor. The title of Mr. Dai Xinwei's book adds a kind of literati temperament to this vicissitudes of historical text.
For many years, he has been working with O. A. Thompson, Associate Professor, Faculty of Letters, Chuo University, Japan. Ms. J. 'Heart to Heart' exchange has benefited me a lot and is of greater significance than scholarship. Many late nights, "translation lectures" using MSN, e-mail or WeChat as the medium have contributed greatly to my understanding of many pre-war Japanese events and old-fashioned Japanese expressions, and I would like to express my deep gratitude here.
Written on October 19, 2016, the 80th anniversary of Lu Xun's death
Amended on September 22, 2020