In 1949, just after the founding of New China, remnants of the Kuomintang drifted to Burma, creating a huge gap between Burma and China at that time.
In order to ease relations between the two countries, U Nu, the burmese leader at the time, wanted to become the first country in South Asia to recognize the new China. At the time of hearing that India was also discussing the matter.
Wu Nu also urgently sent a telegram to India, can they admit it first? At that time, India's leader Nehru and Unu had a good personal relationship, and at the same time, they were very sympathetic to his situation, so they asked him to agree first.
In this way, Myanmar became the first country in South Asia to recognize the new China.
In November 1954, Wu Nu received an invitation from Premier Zhou to visit China for a state visit. Wu Nu was very happy after receiving the invitation and set off for the mainland the next day.
On the evening of Wu Nu's arrival, Chairman Mao and several leaders received the delegation led by Wu Nu in Beijing and china's first ambassador to Myanmar also participated in the meeting.
At this meeting, Wu Nu appeared very cautious, and in the face of Chairman Mao's inquiry, he also answered cautiously, for fear that he would say the wrong thing.
When it comes to the remnants of the Kuomintang Party coming to the Burma area and committing a series of sabotage, Chairman Mao also expressed great understanding and said to them: "We can understand your plight, the Kuomintang army can survive in your place, not your shelter, but there is no way to drive them away." We are also defensive against them, and we will never cross the border. Nor will they be used as an excuse to sabotage our relationship. ”
Hearing Chairman Mao's words, the burden on his shoulders was also relieved and he breathed a long sigh of relief. The meeting also ended in a harmonious atmosphere.
On December 11, Chairman Mao held the second meeting with Wu Nu in the Yinian Hall, and this meeting was much more relaxed than the last time, and Wu Nu also felt Chairman Mao's sincerity and gradually let down his guard.
The boldness also gradually grew, and the speech became more and more arrogant, and at the end, everything was said, whether it was a small domestic dispute or a border war.
He also shouted at Chairman Mao: "I'm sorry, but I didn't dare to say a lot of things before, for fear that talking so brazenly in front of you would make you think that I was a subordinate of another country." Now that we're open to each other, don't blame me for being too direct. ”
After the meeting, the delegation with Wu Nu told him that what he had just said was too direct, which made it very rude to Chairman Mao.
Wu Nu also felt very afraid after hearing it, and one night, his heart had been uneasy.
The next day, Wu Nu quietly found an opportunity and tentatively asked Premier Zhou: "Premier Zhou, my language yesterday may have offended Chairman Mao. ”
When Premier Zhou heard this, he smiled at him and said, "Now we are friends, and the most important thing between friends is to be honest with each other, and Chairman Mao cannot have a bad impression of what you said last night." ”
Wu Nu was very ashamed after hearing this: "I'm very sorry, before I came to China, I had countless fantasies, what if I met unfriendly people in China?" It is true that our country is only a small country compared with China. ”
In the eight years that followed, Wu Nu visited the mainland four times, admired Chairman Mao's approach and attitude, and bought himself a set of Zhongshan suits.
In September 1960, U Nu led a delegation of more than 300 people and a Burmese song and dance troupe to China again, by which time China and Myanmar had signed an agreement on the border issue.
This is China's first boundary treaty and symbolizes the friendly development of China-Myanmar relations. While watching the Performance of the Burmese Song and Dance Troupe, Cheng Ruisheng, who chairman Mao usually translates for Chairman Mao, also sat next to him.
His life can be represented by legend. Born in Shanghai, he was born in Anhui, and in 1950, when he was only 16 years old, he applied for the military cadre school.
At that time, he was not interested in learning foreign languages, but he preferred mathematics, physics and chemistry, so when he filled out volunteers, he was also a technical branch, namely the navy, artillery, tank and air force.
However, due to the outbreak of the Korean War at that time, the mainland needed a large number of foreign language cadres, especially English cadres, so he was transferred to foreign Chinese school to learn English.
According to Cheng Ruisheng's recollection: Why did he choose to learn foreign languages at that time? It must have something to do with the fact that he had read at St. John's Secondary School and Youth High School.
It was a school run by foreigners, and most of the teachers in the school were foreign teachers, so his English foundation was also relatively good. Based on the resume he provided, he was admitted to a foreign Chinese school.
At that time, the whole country was talking about dedication and obeying the needs of the people as a slogan, so he easily accepted the arrangement of his superiors, and he studied very hard in school, and he was proficient in English in only two years.
He believed that as long as he mastered English, he could engage in diplomacy in the future. However, Premier Zhou had long planned for this, believing that the mainland's diplomacy could not be in one language, but in the language of the countries in which he was stationed, so in 1950 he began to decide to train non-lingua franca cadres.
In 1952, Cheng was assigned to study at the Chinese Embassy in Burma, studying and working at the same time. And his learning ability is indeed higher than ordinary people.
After less than two years of study, his conversations with locals in Myanmar have been completely free of obstacles. That's why in the same year he began working as an interpreter for ambassadors at the Myanmar Embassy.
During Wu Nu's many visits to China, Cheng also served as an interpreter at Chairman Mao's side, when he had just turned 20. Chairman Mao also liked the 20-year-old boy next to him.
Here I can tell you the story of Chairman Mao learning English at the age of 61, in October 1954, Chairman Mao found his foreign affairs secretary Link, because he had worked as a reporter and translator for the Xinhua News Agency.
He sincerely told Link that he had invited him to teach him to learn English, and Link became Chairman Mao's English teacher. According to Chairman Mao's librarian, Chairman Mao's end of learning English at that time was particularly sufficient, no matter where he was, as long as he had a little spare time, he would always hold an English dictionary in his hand, keep practicing repeatedly, and memorize words.
There are so many languages in the world, why do you have to work so hard to learn English?
Chairman Mao once said: "English will become the world language in the future, and it will be beneficial to learn more." "Nowadays, English has indeed become one of the common languages in the world. For a time, I admired Chairman Mao's far-sighted vision.
Link believes that Chairman Mao studied English so hard because he was able to more accurately understand and grasp the meaning of Marxism-Leninism's writings, and because he could accurately perceive the changes in the international situation and politics with a smile, and finally because he exercised his strength to exercise more outstanding leading cadres to join the ranks of learning English.
When Chairman Mao was learning English, his memory was beyond ordinary people, and he did not start from simple words, but learned various English masterpieces, so he knew astronomy and geography at home and abroad.
However, there is a point that Chairman Mao's pronunciation of English is not very standard, and zeng zhi once said that Chairman Mao carried a thick Xiang accent when he pronounced it, and the more seriously Chairman Mao read it, the more Zeng Zhi laughed.
But he didn't care about this, he still read English by himself, and later he could read articles in pure English independently, but he still couldn't start an English conversation.
Premier Zhou once had an objective and accurate assessment of Chairman Mao: In terms of vocabulary, Chairman Mao really has a lot more than me! Because in 1936, when Snow interviewed Chairman Mao, he felt that his colloquial words were quite accurate.
Therefore, Chairman Mao was very surprised that Cheng Ruisheng was able to master a foreign language in less than two years in Burma, and in his spare time, he would also talk with Cheng about ways and means of learning foreign languages.
In 1957, Cheng clearly remembers that when two vice premiers of Myanmar visited China, Premier Zhou was entertaining them. When Chairman Mao saw that Premier Zhou was busy, he took the time to ask Cheng Ruisheng, "Where did you learn the Burmese language?" ”
He replied: "I studied at the embassy in Myanmar. Chairman Mao could not help but exclaim: "The embassy is really a good place to learn foreign languages." ”
Fast forward to 1960, when Cheng Ruisheng sat next to Chairman Mao and watched the Performance of the Burmese Song and Dance Troupe, Chairman Mao was still constantly discussing with him ways to learn foreign languages.
As he spoke, Chairman Mao suddenly thought of something: "Why are there so many Burmese people with the surname Wu and the surname?" When Cheng heard this, he explained it to Chairman Mao.
There have been rumors that Burmese people are descendants of Wu Sangui, so they are all surnamed Wu. Of course, such a statement is certainly wrong.
Cheng felt that Chairman Mao must have misunderstood in it, and in Burmese, the two pronunciations of U and Maung are actually monosyllabic languages, and each word can be taken out separately to represent the meaning of a word.
Most Burmese names are monosyllabic or two-syllable, and if translated into Chinese according to pronunciation, they are very similar to Chinese names.
Cheng then explained to Chairman Mao: "In Burma, people's names are only first names, not surnames. And they will also be called by price before the name. For example, 'U', in fact, this is the same as the English 'Mr.', representing an adult male, that is, Mr., or Uncle, Uncle. 'Maung' is the humble name that young people call themselves, just like 'little brother'. The honorific title for peers and brothers is 'Ko'. ”
Chairman Mao listened with relish, and couldn't help but sigh that it was really interesting! Then Cheng took Wu Nu as an example, his name is actually just Nu, in front of which a U is actually an honorific title, translated as Chinese is Wu Nu, which is often mistaken by Chinese as his surname Wu Mingnu.
Chairman Mao suddenly realized that he had praised Cheng as a "good teacher."
Many years later, whenever Cheng Ruisheng recalled, he would be full of emotion, saying that although Chairman Mao was very knowledgeable, because I only knew two foreign languages at that time, Chairman Mao asked me for advice like a humble primary school student, which was really admirable.