September 8, 1995 coincided with the Mid-Autumn Festival and a time for the whole family to gather. In an apartment in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, the famous Republican female writer Zhang Ailing was found dead in her rented room. The forensic doctor concluded that she should have died of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease six or seven days ago.
When Eileen Zhang died, there was no one around, so she was only discovered by the landlord a week later. The landlord's daughter called Eileen Zhang's former friend Lin Shitong. Upon learning the bad news, the stunned Lin Shitong rushed to the scene and signed the confirmation form of Zhang Ailing's body.
Among all Eileen Zhang's friends, only Lin Shitong has seen her posthumous figure.
Eileen Zhang was lying on the only camp bed in the room, with a blue-gray blanket under her, without covering anything, her head facing the door, her face outward and eyes and mouth closed, her hair short, and her hands and legs naturally flat. Her face was serene, just surprisingly thin.
On the table was a wad of manuscript paper and a pen, as well as a will she had made for herself: "All personal belongings are left to Mr. and Mrs. Song Qi in Hong Kong; No funerals are held, the remains are cremated and the ashes scattered in any open wilderness. ”
The furnishings in the room show the "embarrassment and pitiful" of Zhang Ailing's later life. She had no furniture, and even the TV was on the floor. The kitchen was full of trash and unwashed dishes, chopsticks and forks, the bathroom was messy, no towels, and paper towels thrown away everywhere.
A generation of brilliant and peerless talents of the Republic of China has disappeared. Like the women she portrays, they float like smoke.
In November 1955, Eileen Cheung left Hong Kong for the United States. After arriving in the United States, she was granted permanent residency as a "refugee". Beginning to write novels at the age of 7, publishing works at the age of 12, and becoming a talented writer in her twenties, Eileen Zhang is full of ambition to go to the United States.
When she first arrived in the United States, Eileen Zhang was very confident that she would be "more in the limelight" than Lin Yutang, the most successful in the United States. With her successful experience in China, she fantasized about going to the United States and being able to break out of the world and live a good life through writing like Lin Yutang.
But the harsh reality soon gave her a "slap in the face", and Eileen Chang's most proud writing was completely unworkable in the United States. In different cultural contexts, Americans don't eat her at all.
Desperate, Zhang Ailing had to ask her friend Yan Ying for help. With Yan Ying's help, Eileen Zhang moved into a women's dormitory run by a charity in New York. This women's dormitory is like a refugee shelter. The aristocratic Zhang Ailing family was mixed in, and the bitterness in her heart was self-evident!
Zhang Ailing's works written in the old Shanghai did not attract foreign readers, and the manuscripts submitted were rejected miserably. She has no other subsistence skills other than writing, and survival becomes a big problem.
In February 1956, when Eileen Chang was forced to move out of the women's dormitory, she wrote an application to McDowell Camp: "The current economic pressure has forced me to live in the camp for free. "If it weren't for the exhaustion of the mountain, it would be hard to believe that she would be so humble, who has always been lonely and arrogant.
The reality is so cruel, the downcast life in a foreign land weighs her down almost desperately, and she can't breathe. In a foreign country with no relatives, Zhang Ailing's solitude is not worth a piece of bread.
In March of the same year, Eileen Zhang was allowed to go to New England, where the art camp is located. Eileen Zhang originally planned to work hard and complete the writing of the novel "Pink Tears". But here, she meets her future husband Rhea and disrupts all plans.
In 1944, 24-year-old Zhang Ailing and Hu Lancheng met, knew and fell in love, and soon married him. This marriage lasted only two years, but it made Eileen Zhang's life controversial. Zhang Ailing, who thought that she was beyond the red dust, would no longer believe in love no matter what.
However, the 36-year-old turned out to be a "love brain", and when she met Laia, who was 30 years older than her, she was hopelessly in love with him. It is said that the reason why Eileen Zhang is in a hurry to get married is to find a man to rely on. Unfortunately, her second marriage was also unfortunate and untrusted.
Rhea was born in Philadelphia and was brilliant from an early age. Before the age of 20, he was considered gifted in literary creation. And he himself was so talented that he began his life as a freelance writer. Before meeting Eileen Chang, he also had a failed marriage.
In Laiya's worldview, he only talks about love, not marriage. He likes to live alone, and spends as much as he earns. When the manuscript fee is spent, he will write a new work. However, at the age of 65, he was fascinated by this woman from the East.
On August 14, after knowing each other for more than five months, Eileen Zhang and Lai Ya got married. At this time, Eileen Zhang was pregnant, but Laiya made it clear that she did not want to raise the baby. Eileen Zhang longs for a home and no longer has to wander around alone, so she does not hesitate to beat the child in her belly.
In order to get married, Eileen Zhang lost her only chance to be a mother. But she would not have expected that her future life would fall into a place because of Riya's drag.
Laiya chose to marry Eileen Zhang, love aside, he just wanted to find someone to take care of himself. He had long had problems with his body, not only had he broken his leg, but he had also suffered a stroke three years earlier. Seemingly humorous and free-spirited, Laiya is actually suffering from financial constraints and deteriorating health.
Two months after marriage, Eileen Zhang spent a short happy time. One morning, Eileen Zhang woke up to find her husband lying on the ground unable to move. She was shocked, scrambled, helped him to the bed with all her might, and then ran out of the house to ask for a doctor. When she heard the word "stroke", she was stunned.
On December 19, Laiya suffered another stroke and almost died. Eileen Chang panicked and took him to the hospital, saving his life. Looking at Laiya's pale face, she suddenly found that this man was so fragile, he was old, helpless, and needed his own care.
The "stability of the present life" that Eileen Zhang hoped for before marriage has now backfired. From August 1956 to Lai Ya's death in 1967, during the 11 years from their marriage to Lai Ya's death, Lai Ya repeatedly fell ill and completely lost her financial ability, and this "home" became a heavy burden for Eileen Zhang.
Forced by reality, Eileen Zhang wrote desperately, she needed manuscript fees to support herself and Laiya, and also needed to pay for Laia's medical expenses. She adapted her old work "Song of Songs" into a script and was paid more than a thousand dollars. And the "Pink Tears" and "Northland Rouge" that she painstakingly wrote were not published.
The successive rejections, coupled with her husband's deteriorating health, were unbearable blows and torments to Eileen Zhang. She finally fell ill, bedridden, and fell into a deep sense of loss.
There is no market for her works in the United States, and in order to make a living, Eileen Chang was invited by her friend Song Qi to write scripts for Hong Kong film companies to earn a small income. Kitsch scripts such as "Love Scene Like a Battlefield", "June Bride", "Little Children" and "Peach Blossom Luck" were all written by her during this period.
At the invitation of the film company, Eileen Zhang decided to write a script about Zhang Xueliang "The Legend of Young Handsome". In October 1960, she also went to Taiwan to collect information, but unfortunately did not gain much, and finally only completed the manuscript. In order to get more opportunities to earn money, she had to return to Hong Kong again.
Eileen Cheung spent 5 months in Hong Kong and gained nothing but sadness, disappointment and exhaustion. She rented a small apartment to write the script for "Dream of the Red Mansion", because she could only get paid if she finished the manuscript, and as a result, the manuscript was constantly being revised and she could not get paid.
During her time in Hong Kong, she was so poor that she had to wait until the holiday discount to buy a pair of slippers. When her husband Laiya learned that she was not satisfactory in Hong Kong, she frequently wrote letters urging her to go back, and Eileen Zhang flew back to the United States full of disappointment. For her, this visit to Hong Kong is tantamount to a Waterloo, a sad trip.
After returning to the United States, Eileen Zhang's life was also not smooth. Her husband, Laia, has been in trouble for a long time, and once he fell in the library and has been bedridden ever since. During Laia's two years of paralysis, Eileen Chang worked as a writer-in-residence at the University of Miami, busy with her work and taking care of Laia.
In April 1967, Eileen Chang and Laiya left the University of Miami. Half a year later, the 76-year-old Laiya finally exhausted the vitality of her life and went to death. There was no funeral and no farewell ceremony, and he just disappeared from Eileen Chang's life, and she just felt relieved.
It is not difficult to understand that Eileen Chang's later works do not mention the two men in her life. Perhaps in her heart, she wished they had never appeared.
After Laiya's death, for 47-year-old Zhang Ailing, the last incense of her emotional life has burned out, and the most reliable thing for the rest of her lonely life may be money. Who would have thought that Zhang Ailing, a generation of talented women of the Republic of China, would also become so vulgar.
Without Laiya's drag, Eileen Zhang's economic situation began to improve. She was first invited to a women's college in New York as a writer-in-residence and began to translate "The Legend of the Sea Flowers" into English; Later, he was appreciated by Chen Shiqian and entered the "China Research Center" of the University of California, Berkeley, to study "Dream of the Red Chamber".
She loves both of these things. However, due to the neglect of personnel relations, Eileen Zhang is out of place with her colleagues. She herself said: "I am not very good at being a person, although there is a lot of contact with right and wrong, not only do I not introduce any professors, even if someone asks, I will replace it, saying that I am busy." ”
Her withdrawn and low emotional intelligence personality has aroused the disgust of many colleagues. Due to conflicts with colleagues, Eileen Zhang was eventually dismissed after the expiration of the two years. Originally a lonely and arrogant personality. Zhang Ailing, who is not good at dealing with people, has since begun to live in isolation and isolation.
In 1972, Eileen Chang moved to Los Angeles, where she lived alone and without a fixed place to live for 23 years until her death in 1995.
For the first three years in Los Angeles, Eileen Chang had no regular income and still pinned her hopes on writing. In June 1974, she wrote to her friend Xia Zhiqing: "The submissions are all for practical purposes. "Fortunately, when old works are published, they are paid to pay rent and living expenses.
The University of Hong Kong approached Eileen Chang and commissioned her to write a study of Ding Ling's novels. Xia Zhiqing was unhappy for her: "It really doesn't make sense to spend time studying Ding Ling with a big genius like Ailing. Eileen Chang wrote back to tell him that writing such articles was just "for money."
Eileen Zhang, who became famous at a young age, has conceited capital, but in her later years, she gave in to life and the world. Under the pressure of life, her high and solitary pride has long been gone.
In addition to the downfall and hardship of real life, from August 1984 to March 1988, in just three and a half years, Eileen Zhang moved more than 180 times in Los Angeles. It's either moving, or on the way to moving. And the reason for her frequent moves is also incredible, it is to "hide from fleas".
Friend Song Qi describes Eileen Zhang's later life:
"She started moving last year and contracted fleas. In order to save money, I bought a second-hand refrigerator, and fleas multiplied from the bottom of the box, making her cornered, even shaving her hair, washing her hair every day, and then she had to wear plastic clothes, and then take them off and throw them away, embarrassed, tea and rice have no heart..."
What disturbed her was said to be a North American flea. Eileen Chang carries simple luggage with her and leaves as soon as she finds fleas in her new residence. In a letter to a friend, she said: "Two hundred dollars a month for pesticides" and "cupboards are compartment by jar".
Zhang Ailing, a brilliant talent of the Republic of China, the focus of her later life was not writing and research, let alone traveling, but fighting fleas with great difficulty, and no one can know the sadness.
As early as 17 years old, Eileen Zhang said: "Life is a beautiful robe, crawling with lice. When a young girl said such words, she revealed her pessimistic disappointment in life. Unexpectedly, she has been trying to get rid of the "lice" on the "Mirama robe" all her life.
Friend Lin Shitong said that Eileen Zhang did suffer from a skin disease caused by flea bites, but it later turned into her psychological illusion; Another friend, Crystal, even believes that Eileen Zhang is mentally ill and suspects that her "fear of fleas" comes from the depths of her heart.
In addition to dodging bugs, Eileen Zhang has been avoiding "people" in her later years. She was passively evaded from the world, depressed, and lived a cold life of closing her doors and thanking customers alone. It was as if she was an old object of the last century, casually thrown in the corner of the times, leaving it to be dusty.
Living alone in seclusion for more than 20 years, Eileen Zhang has been suffering from various diseases in her later years. During the Mid-Autumn Festival in September 1995, Eileen Zhang was found dead at home. Eileen Chang died at the age of 75. It is embarrassing that the legendary woman has closed the curtain like this.
In the early morning of September 19, Lin Shitong cremated Zhang Ailing's body in the Whigel Cemetery; Eileen Chang had no children and no relatives were present at the cremation. In accordance with her wishes, her ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean.
After Zhang Ailing's death, her works became lively because of her death. After the rise of "Eileen Chang" in the 80s, it quickly swept the Chinese-speaking circle. She is dead, but alive in the reader's heart.
She wrote in "The Golden Locks": "The moon thirty years ago has long sunk, and the people thirty years ago have died, but the story of thirty years ago is not over..." Lively and lonely, flashy and desolate, great joy and great compassion, in Zhang Ailing's 75 years of life, like a reincarnation.
END.
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