Who was the first person in China to travel around the world on foot and by bike? What are his feats?

"Take the world as my big school, nature and human affairs as my textbook, hear and see direct contact as my reading method, and wind, snow, rain, frost, scorching sun, morning stars, night and moon as my rewards." Deming resolutely forged ahead, showing our Chinese national nature in the world, so that we know that China is forward, in order to seek glory in the world, we must achieve our goals without retreating. ——Pan Deming's "Celebrity Ink Collection" self-description

"Celebrity Ink Collection"

Eighty-five years ago, in July 1937, Pan Deming, a 29-year-old Chinese youth, completed a walking trip around the world and returned to his starting point, Shanghai.

Pan Deming lasted seven spring and autumn seasons, through more than 40 countries and regions, measured the world with his feet (short ride), and was the first person in human history to walk and cycle around the earth.

Pan Deming

To commemorate the 85th anniversary of Pan Deming's round-the-world trip, this newspaper interviewed Pan Deming's son and famous painter Pan Yusheng to relive this dusty legend together.

My father told me travel stories

My earliest memories of my father were when I was three or four years old. One day, a man came to the house, carrying a broken bag. At the time I thought he was a rag. I didn't know that the broken bag had been given to his father by the great Swedish traveler Sven Hedin, who had carried it for most of the world.

Later, I learned that after my father returned from a trip around the world in 1937, he donated $100,000 of the overseas Chinese to the front line of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. My father worked at the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration for a time and was unemployed at home after 1949. My father had gone to Kunming to help one of my mother's relatives, and after more than a year of work, he felt that he was not the material for business, so he resigned and returned to Shanghai. My first impression of my father was when he returned from Kunming.

When my father returned to Shanghai, he first ironed his clothes to earn some money, and later learned to paint and started a career in painting palace lamps, when he was almost 50 years old. I remember when I was eight or nine years old, my father told me what is sketching and what is sketching. When I was eleven or twelve years old, my father suffered from eye diseases, and it was particularly difficult to do small work, and sometimes I would help him do some small work on the palace lamp, flower buds, coats, earrings, jade hairpins... Need to be particularly careful, draw slowly, the same drawing more than 20 pieces, do this small work is not like sketching, sketching interesting, I think it is very boring. In order to relieve my fatigue, my father told some stories as compensation.

He told me stories of traveling the world when I was young, and I tried to draw the story and show it to my father. He looked very carefully and sometimes took a pen to help me revise.

Once, my father took out a few photo albums from his collection and opened them to explain to me one by one. These are all places of interest and customs that he has photographed on his travels around the world. At that time, I didn't understand much, and my father said, "When you grow up, I will explain it to you carefully one by one." ”

The shock came, and the father was afraid that the travel information would be destroyed, so he sent himself to the police station. Before sending him away, he took out the "Celebrity Ink Collection", opened the first page, and asked me to copy down the "Travel Statement" he wrote. There is a passage in it: "Take the world as my big school, take nature and human affairs as my textbook, take the direct contact of hearing and seeing as my reading method, and reward my reward money with wind, snow, rain, frost, hot and desolate sun, morning stars and night moons." Deming resolutely forged ahead, showing our Chinese national nature in the world, so that we know that China is forward, in order to seek glory in the world, we must achieve our goals without retreating. ”

After graduating from high school, I signed up to go to Heilongjiang Farm, and on the day of parting, my father was still painting, so I went to the staircase to say goodbye and said, "Daddy, I'm gone." He turned slightly and said, "Be careful when you're outside." "Turned around and continued to draw, not leaving the stool." I came home once a year and my father was always reading. He hopes to one day sum up his life. It's a pity he didn't finish his thoughts. In October 1976, his father died of a myocardial infarction in Shanghai. He died on December 31, 2012 at the age of 6

Oil painting "Traveling Around the World" painted by Pan Yusheng

It took seven years to become the first person to travel the world on foot and by bicycle

In 1979, his father's deeds were rediscovered, and sports newspapers serialized the story of his father's travels around the world. Zhao Pei, the editor of the People's Sports Publishing House, is my zhiqing painting friend in Heilongjiang, and asked me to paint a set of more than 250 comic strips. From collecting materials to finishing all the paintings, I spent three years, often painting until two or three o'clock in the middle of the night.

My father encountered many hardships during his travels, such as meeting a tiger in the primeval jungle of India, being stung by wasps in the desert hinterland of Egypt, being entangled by a large python while crossing the Turkish Klolu Mountains, being captured by indigenous people in Australia... I drew them all.

Pantemin and the Pyramids

In 2008, the 100th anniversary of my father's birth, Jilin Fine Arts Publishing House enlarged my original manuscript and published the hardcover open book "Pan Deming Walking and Cycling Around the World (Part 1 and 2)". In recent years, I have also painted the oil painting series "Traveling the World".

On the cover of "Pan Deming's Hiking and Cycling Around the World (Up and Down)", I painted my father dressed in a Chinese Boy Scout uniform, and behind it was a map of the world, composed of twenty or thirty pictures of travel and inscriptions by Li Zongren, Zhang Xueliang, Xu Beihong, Gao Jianfu and others, and a red line was a travel route.

His father was born into a family of tailors in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, and moved to Shanghai with his grandfather as a teenager. He has loved swimming, running, and adventure since he was a child, and has developed a good body and a brave and fearless character. Because my grandfather was a tailor who specialized in making clothes for foreigners, my father began to learn foreign languages from the age of four and mastered many Chinese. After graduating from high school, he went to Nanjing to run a small Western restaurant. Whenever he saw foreigners bullying Chinese, he was very angry. He studied foreign languages and geography and history books of various countries, and fantasized that he could conduct a comprehensive global investigation to find a way to save the country.

In the summer of 1930, he happened to see a news item in the Declaration that the "Chinese Youth Asia Walking Group" planned to travel asia on foot from Shanghai. He hurriedly packed his bags, caught up with the team, and became a member of the walking group. For various reasons, the members of the group have withdrawn one after another. When they arrived in Vietnam, the walking group was left with only the last father to join. He decided that one person should also stick to the road, and even more to expand the original Asian itinerary to the whole world. On New Year's Day 1931, he bought an English-made "Lan Ling" (also translated as "Lan Ling") bicycle in Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City) in Vietnam and began cycling.

Pan Deming took a group photo with the group members before traveling around the world

I painted my father trudging through Southeast Asia with his car, because he said to me, "The roads in Siam (Thailand) are bad, two-thirds of the way I am riding in a car, and one-third of the way is ridden by a car." ”

Whenever my father went to the place of residence of overseas Chinese, he was well received by overseas Chinese. For example, in Indonesia, the Overseas Chinese Daily reported a warm welcome to his father, and consul General Song at the time said in a speech: "Pan Jun hiked with tenacity and traveled all over the world... We not only deeply admire the spirit of Pan Jun, but also feel that Pan Jun's behavior is really a glory of Chinese, so that foreigners know that China also has courage and perseverance, and breaks the impression of foreigners on Chinese. "I will name this scene "The Light on the Faces of Overseas Chinese."

Hu Wenhu, an overseas Chinese businessman in Singapore, was very touched to hear of his father's feat, and not only raised money for him, but also called him "a man who works for the country and the world". His father prepared a copy of the "Celebrity Ink Collection" and invited Hu Wenhu to write the first inscription, and Hu Wenhu wrote: "I hope that the roads of the whole world are printed with the wheels of your bicycle." ”

In India, my father, accompanied by four Indian Boy Scouts, met tagore. Tagore signed his name on the Celebrity Ink Collection and presented him with a drawing of his own. Finally, in Chinese: "I wish you a smooth journey!" Father was also received by Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru, leaders of the Indian Congress Party. I drew my father and Gandhi sitting on the floor in the humble study. Gandhi gave his father a piece of home-woven earthen cloth.

Pan Deming with Tagore

On the streets of Damascus, the Syrian capital, my father met a salesman of the British "Lanling" bicycle company, and the salesman exchanged a new car for his old car in order to promote the company. Unfortunately, in a small town near Jerusalem, the new car that had just been exchanged was stolen. He had to walk on a bicycle, heading toward the African continent and climbing the Egyptian pyramids.

In the birthplace of the Olympic Games - Olympia. He put a piece of paper on a stone pillar next to the ruins of the ancient sports field and wrote in Chinese and English: "Chinese Pan Deming walked here." ”

In Paris, France, my father was received by the President, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of France. Zhang Xueliang, who was being treated in France at the time, heard about his father's deeds, met him, and wrote the words "Grand Tour" on the "Celebrity Ink Collection". My father traveled to many countries on the European continent, and then went to Britain, Canada, the United States, Australia...

Zhang Xueliang's inscription "Grand Tour"

On July 6, 1937, my father returned to his homeland after seven years and became the first person to travel around the world on foot or by bicycle. His "Celebrity Ink Collection" records the handwriting of more than 1,200 groups and individuals, including the handwriting of more than 20 heads of state, including the Mahatma Gandhi of India, the father of the Turkish nation, The Father of the United States, President Roosevelt, as well as the British Prime Minister, the King of Norway, the Queen of the Netherlands, the President of France... So many celebrities and heads of state received their fathers, and I think they were impressed by the tenacity and indomitability of Chinese youth.

Gandhi's meeting

I think that when I painted the story of my father, I not only had to draw interesting insights from my journey, but also to paint the hardships of travel and the spirit of not being afraid of dangers. More than 80 years have passed, and the spirit of "will achieve the goal without retreating" will not fade.

About the Author

Pan was born in Shanghai in 1949. In 1969, Zhiqing went to the countryside to Heilongjiang Beidahuang Qixingpao Farm. Member of the Heilongjiang Provincial Art Senior Title Review Committee and Leader of the Fine Arts Discipline Group. He is a member of the China Artists Association. First-class artists (Zhenggao second-level) enjoy special allowances from the State Council. He has won the bronze medal of the National Art Exhibition three times and the first prize of the Heilongjiang Provincial Art Exhibition for many times. One of the representative works is the comic strip "Pan Deming Walking Around the World on Foot", which vividly represents his father Pan Deming's journey around the world in the form of ink paintings. (Editor-in-charge: Li Zhengrong)