Speaking of the Republic of China, the first impression in everyone's mind may be different.
There is no doubt that this is an era full of contradictions, both the war-torn soldiers and horses, but also the feeling of saving the world and saving people; there is both the impact of new Ideas in the West and the preservation of feudal etiquette...
Different ideas and concepts collide in this era and then burst into a fierce spark.
Under the collision of different cultures, a large number of literati emerged in the Republic of China, most of whom grew up in China, received traditional education, and had the experience of studying in the West, and were baptized by new ideas.
Portrait of the Republic of China
Two very different ideas intertwined in their minds, giving them a lot of inspiration in their minds and leaving them with many heirlooms.
In this era, there were many talented and beautiful people, who were almost all brilliant in literature, and wrote countless commendable works, which made countless people compete for it.
Today our protagonist is Su Xuelin, who is known as one of the ten talented women of the Republic of China.
A woman pursuing a new style of education
Speaking of Su Xuelin, she may not be as well-known as those great literary heroes of the Republic of China, but at that time she was a famous writer with the same name as Bingxin.
Su Xuelin
Su Xuelin's original name was Su Xiaomei, the character Xuelin, born in Ruian, Zhejiang, and his ancestral home was in Anhui.
Since childhood, Su Xuelin has loved to read, but the elders of the family believe in the feudal etiquette of "a woman without talent is morality", and she is not allowed to enter the school, she can only quietly hide in the corner of the private school and learn a little.
Later, her brothers and brothers went to school, and when they came home from vacation, they would bring her some books and newspapers, which allowed her to keep exposed to the outside world.
Due to her family's support for girls' schooling, Su Xuelin's knowledge is basically self-taught, and she herself learned from the "Three Character Classic" and "Thousand Character Text", learning more and more things, and her vision is getting wider and wider.
With the accumulation of time, her level has also changed from only knowing one or two thousand words at first to being able to read various Ming and Qing novels, poems and various works without any obstacles.
The accumulation of a large amount of reading in her childhood laid a good foundation for her later academic research and literary creation.
Due to family reasons, Su Xuelin's path to education has not been smooth, but she has received a little education intermittently, but as the number of books she reads increases, her desire to go to school has become deeper and deeper.
Until one day she saw the news in the newspaper that Anqing Junior Girls' Normal School had resumed enrollment, she felt that this was her long-awaited opportunity, and she was determined to go to school no matter what.
Her idea was no doubt opposed by the whole family, but she was so desperate that she tried everything she could think of, including making noises, pleading, crying, and so on.
Under the toss of her "one cry, two troubles and three hangings", it was still her mother who was distressed by her, finally relaxed, and together with her, persuaded the rest of the family so that she could finally learn.
After graduating from school, she stayed in the primary school attached to her alma mater as a teacher, and during her time at the school, she was very knowledgeable, able to write poetry and paint, and was very famous in the school.
But this period of teaching did not last long, Su Xuelin met Lu Yin during her teaching, and the experience of this progressive young woman greatly inspired her, and she was determined to go outside and run around more.
Her idea was met with even fiercer opposition, with her family believing that she was 22 years old and should not be tossed anymore, and that she should marry her fiancé with a marriage contract earlier and teach her children at home.
But Su Xuelin, who has received a new type of education, how can she be willing to accept an arranged marriage, and she has a big fight with her family.
But this time there was no one to help her, and Su Xuelin, who saw no hope of further education in China, made an extremely bold decision.
She decided to study in France, she secretly admitted to the overseas Chinese law school in Lyon, France, because she was worried about her family's obstruction, he did not tell her family the day before her departure, and finally the family could only let her leave.
No one can stop Su Xuelin from breaking free from feudal freedom, and her family certainly can't.
In this way, Su Xuelin went to Lyon and began her study abroad career, she successively studied Western literature and painting art, and felt the artistic influence from France.
But other than that, her life didn't go as smoothly as she thought.
On the one hand, as a woman, she was born with a relatively weak body, and soon after arriving in France, she began to be unsatisfactory, coupled with the influence of food and climate, she would get sick every three to five years, and often lived in a hospital bed.
On the other hand, she met the man of her choice in France, but this free love was strongly opposed by her family, and the family began to put pressure on her.
The physical torture was tolerable, but the psychological pressure put her in a dilemma, and she began to struggle infinitely inside.
During the time when she was struggling, she also received letters from home, urging her to contact her fiancé as soon as possible on the one hand, and on the other hand, she would also tell her about the recent situation at home.
Later, she received the news that her father had died and her mother was seriously ill, and she was anxiously ill, and then she decided to drop out of school and go home.
Married to her husband for 36 years
In this way, Su Xuelin, who pursued free love, still gave up his lover in France and returned to China. Faced with her seriously ill mother, she could no longer say the word rejection, and finally agreed to marry her fiancé Zhang Baoling.
Zhang Baoling is the son of a businessman, originally from Jiangxi, with good looks, and he studied at St. John's University in Shanghai and later studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States.
It is reasonable to say that both family and academics are a good match, why would Su Xuelin be so rejected?
There are two main reasons: one is that it is the fate of the parents in the family, and Su Xuelin is very resistant to arranged marriages from the heart;
The second is that during her study in France, she had several correspondences with Zhang Baoling under the pressure of her family, and in the process of communication, she found that the personalities of the two were completely incompatible in all aspects.
Su Xuelin is a talented woman, who prides herself on her outstanding literary ability, and naturally likes to quote some poetry dictionaries when writing letters, and is also more enthusiastic in emotional expression.
Zhang Baoling is a typical science and engineering man, who likes to be straightforward when talking about things, so the communication between the two is like a chicken and a duck talking a lot of times, and each other is not used to each other's expression, and the two are not happy.
For example, when Su Xuelin said that she liked the romance and beauty of flowers, Zhang Baoling would say that flowers are the reproductive organs of plants; when Su Xuelin said that the moon was born very round, Zhang Baoling would say that there was no circle he drew with a compass...
These ridiculous people come and go, and the combination of the two is doomed to be only a seeming separation.
From our current point of view, Zhang Baoling is a typical straight man in science and engineering, not necessarily has many shortcomings, but straight forward, never play romantic that set, which is like romantic and went to France to study abroad, how can it be accepted?
After trying it, Su Xuelin felt that it was not suitable for Zhang Baoling.
Su Xuelin wrote a letter to the family, explaining these circumstances and trying to withdraw from the marriage, but got not the support of the family, but the severe scolding of the father, and then the father died not long after, and the withdrawal was not successful in the end.
Later, the mother was seriously ill, the two were married in this way, until the time of marriage, the two met for the first time, this kind of blind marriage and dumb marriage, coupled with the previous correspondence of two people who were not suitable personalities, how can their marriage be happy?
Shortly after their marriage, Su Xuelin's mother died, and the two went to Shanghai together and began a marriage that was not pleasant for both of them.
In the beginning, the two also worked hard for this marriage, during the period when Su Xuelin's mother was seriously ill, Zhang Baoling served medicine and food every day in front of the hospital bed, which was very filial piety, and Su Xuelin was also very moved.
For su xuelin, Zhang Baoling also gave up his job at the shipyard, went to soochow university with Su Xuelin to teach, and even learned the dialect of their hometown in order to better communicate.
Zhang Baoling also once built a small western-style building in the shape of a steamship for Su Xuelin, and Su Xuelin also liked it, in this small western-style building, she wrote classic works such as "Green Sky", and also recorded the few happy times in the early days of the two people's marriage.
So Zhang Baoling did his best, but Su Xuelin's prejudice against him and arranged marriages was deeply rooted, so that he could never touch Su Xuelin's heart, Su Xuelin has always been repulsive to him, and no matter how much he does, it is futile.
Even once Zhang Baoling was sick and wanted to drink a bowl of hot soup, she refused to let Su Xuelin help, she felt that she was a new-style woman, not an old mother, and should not cook on call.
Such a small thing accumulated over time, and Zhang Baoling finally chilled his wife.
He voluntarily moved out of his wife's room, postponed the end of work, and even resigned from Soochow University to go to a shipyard that suited him more, and the life of the two was more like a modern roommate, just eating together, but living in different rooms.
Although the relationship between the two has been so cold, Su Xuelin still has not thought about divorce.
On the one hand, because of her Catholic faith, there was a rule that believers could not divorce, and on the other hand, because she was already famous at that time, divorce was not very good for her reputation.
Su Xuelin, who regards fame as more important than anything else and always lives in the evaluation of the outside world, eventually trapped himself and Zhang Baoling in marriage, and neither of them has experienced the happiness of marriage in their lives.
Soon after the two separated the house, Su Xuelin could not stand the increasingly empty home, ran away from Anhui alone, and then moved to Wuhan, Taipei and other places, the two separated, and never saw each other again.
The two had only occasional correspondence between them at the beginning of their separation, and then they basically heard from each other from other people.
Even if the couple in love has a long-distance relationship for a long time, they may face a breakup, not to mention the couple who have no feelings, and the feelings between the two are getting weaker and weaker, but they have not divorced until Zhang Baoling's death.
This 36-year marriage, in fact, the two have not spent more than 5 years together.
Late years of indulgence in literary career
Frustrated in his marriage, Su Xuelin began to focus on his literary career and created many well-known works.
Her fame in the literary world is also getting bigger and bigger, but in addition to constantly creating, she has also done a big thing, that is, "scolding Lu Xun", which is half a century.
At the beginning, Su Xuelin had great respect for Lu Xun, and after the publication of her first book" "Green Sky", she personally wrote a gift message to Mr. Lu Xun, and also praised Mr. Lu Xun in public.
But after Mr. Lu Xun's death, she began to write frequent articles and began to scold Mr. Lu Xun.
The reasons for Su Xuelin's scolding of Mr. Lu Xun can no longer be examined, and she herself has never mentioned it, probably because Mr. Lu Xun's writing has always been very sharp, which has folded Su Xuelin's face on some public occasions.
It is also possible that Lu Xun dared to live with Xu Guangping outside in the face of arranged marriages, but Su Xuelin did not dare to take the bottom line in his life to make Su Xuelin feel unfair.
But whatever the reason, her "anti-Lu" career was more or less affected by her unhappy marriage.
After Zhang Baoling's death, until 1999, Su Xuelin did not remarry and lived alone in Taipei.
Nephews who are far away from the mainland sometimes write to her, mentioning Zhang Baoling in the letter, and her nephew said that in Zhang Baoling's later years, he had always felt guilty about Su Xuelin, and he always had feelings for her, believing that he did not understand romance to delay Su Xuelin's life.
After knowing this, Su Xuelin was infinitely sentimental and slowly relieved.
In her later memoirs, she also mentioned that she had been dragging herself for some reasons and refusing to divorce, leaving Zhang Baoling alone and not enjoying the ideal happy marriage, and she could not stand him.
"He should not be left alone on the mainland", but it is too late to say this.
The two people who were originally talented and beautiful people eventually lived their lives with helplessness and loneliness, and finally made people sigh.
From the perspective of the current people, it is not difficult to find the problems in this marriage between the two people.
Su Xuelin (middle)
Su Xuelin is a talented woman, and the expectation of marriage in her bones is romantic and sweet; zhang Baoling, although she has a Western education, is still traditional in her bones, believing that marriage should be a life of guessing riddles and vinegar tea, and wants a wife who can wholeheartedly assist him.
Obviously, Zhang Baoling, who is traditional and does not express romance in sweet words, is not Su Xuelin's ideal husband candidate; and Su Xuelin, who can only make the pen but not the spatula, does not meet Zhang Baoling's expectations for his wife.
Two people in this marriage are not willing to lower their own requirements and are not willing to change their personality, then the end is bound to be tragic.