Yang Bin
The story of Zheng He's voyage to the West has triggered countless reverie for thousands of years. In China and even in Southeast Asia, related novels, interpretations, stories and legends have emerged in an endless stream. Zhang Ailing, who became famous in Shanghai in the 1940s, is famous for writing about the urban love and marriage of young men and women in the old family in the new era; but who would have thought that such a writer who portrayed modern love would once want to write a novel by Zheng He.
In fact, Nanyang, today's Southeast Asia, which is one of the places and destinations that Zheng He must pass through to the West, almost from the time Zhang Ailing began to write novels, it was like the white fog on the top of the mountain, always haunting her heart. In 1961, Zhang Ailing told her friends in Hong Kong, Song Qi and Kwong Wenmei, that I wanted to go to Southeast Asia. But Zhang Ailing did not go after all. In fact, she had never been to Southeast Asia, or to The South Seas before the name Southeast Asia appeared. In her lifetime, Zhang Ailing never went to Nanyang; however, in her pen, Nanyang can be seen everywhere at any time, and sometimes Nanyang characters (overseas Chinese) are still the protagonists. Zhang Ailing, who is in Shanghai, why does she yearn for Nanyang, and how does she imagine Nanyang and tell about Nanyang?
Zhang ailing
"I hope to have a chance to see"
In 1961, Zhang Ailing, who lived in the United States, told her friend Kwong Man Mei in Hong Kong that she wanted to go to Southeast Asia to see.
The letter, written on September 12, 1961, said: "I want to come to Hong Kong alone at the beginning of next month, first, because it is inconvenient to write a long-distance screenwriter, and it is more labor-saving to talk to Stephen in person, and second, there are two stories I want to write in Southeast Asia, I have not seen it and cannot write, I live in Hong Kong for a year, I hope to have the opportunity to see." "Stephen is Mr. Song Qi, Kwong Man-mi. Song Qi and his wife were Zhang Ailing's closest friends for the second half of her life. On February 14, 1992, Zhang Ailing said in her will: "After I died, I left everything I had to Mr. and Mrs. Song Qi. ”
So, what is the story that Zhang Ailing wants to write? In the author's understanding, it should be the story of Zheng He's voyage to the West. Song Qi's son Song Yilang, when sorting out his parents' correspondence with Zhang Ailing, talked about the works that Zhang Ailing wanted to write but could not complete for various reasons. He said: "In the 1960s, Zhang Ailing said in a letter that she wanted to write a book about the three eunuchs Zheng He going to the West. My parents found her a pamphlet about Zheng He. By 1963, she suddenly said, 'After consideration of the Story of Zheng He, she decided to give it up, so you should not send me that book in the future.' But this pamphlet was sent out after all. Song Yilang added: "Zhang Ailing conceived this kind of subject, breaking our general imagination of her. If she had written it, it would have been interesting. But she finally gave up the book, at least not in English, and she said in her letter: 'Zheng He's novel because there is no Anglo-American (at least European) as one of the protagonists, I don't think American readers will be interested, short historical novels are not available, long and huge, not worth a try.' ’”
Judging from the other unfinished works of Zhang Ailing introduced by Song Yilang, except for Zheng He's voyage to the West, there are almost no Southeast Asian backgrounds. But Zhang Ailing is talking about two novels with Southeast Asian backgrounds. So, what is the other one? The author thinks that in addition to "The Young Marshal", another story may be Zhang Ailing's story set against the background of Su Qing and her uncle. In 1957, Zhang Ailing wrote to Song Qi and his wife: "I want to move the story of Su Qing and his uncle to the current Hong Kong and write a long Story Ofoma Port, but I do not plan to write it for the time being." Aroma Port literally translates to the meaning of "Hong Kong", but Zhang Ailing did not write it in the end.
It was 1961, and Zhang Ailing mentioned Southeast Asia. Ten years later, when Zhang Ailing and Crystal met in 1971, she still talked about the "Nanyang Affair" and asked Crystal about various interesting local customs, which shows that she has always maintained an interest in Southeast Asia. Crystal recalled, "In addition, she opened another jar of sugar-pickled pomegranates, knowing that I had spent time in Nanyang and probably liked tropical fruits"; "As soon as the conversation turned, she asked about my Nanyang and the life of the Dayak. She was very interested in this primitive national custom. She heard me talk about the Daya people who lived in the 'long house', the bamboo floor, the crevices that could see the garbage, human arrows and animal feces in the pits below; and the Malays living by water in Kampong Kampong... The look was focused, like a clumsy child. She said she liked to read documentary books, which in English were documentaries, like the history of humanity in prehistory."
In fact, in the 1950s, Zhang Ailing noticed Southeast Asia. In 1955, Zhang Ailing wrote to Hu Shi: "At the beginning, I was also because the story of "YangGe" was too bland and did not meet the tastes of Chinese readers... Especially readers in Southeast Asia... So I want to write it in English." Because I have to take into account the interest of the average reader in Southeast Asia, I am very dissatisfied." The so-called readers in Southeast Asia, of course, refer to the Chinese and overseas Chinese who can read Chinese; it can be seen that Zhang Ailing has taken the interests of readers, especially overseas Chinese in Nanyang, into account when creating.
She wanted to write a novel about Zheng He's voyage to the West, so Zhang Ailing wanted to go to Southeast Asia to see it, but in the end Zhang Ailing gave up this novel, and Zhang Ailing, who had been to Hong Kong and Taiwan, did not have the opportunity to go to Southeast Asia to see it. But Nanyang flashed in her pen from time to time. The most famous ones are "Red Rose and White Rose" and "Allure of Love".
"A 'Rui' word is scattered, simply three words"
This is a scene in Zhang Ailing's novel "Red Roses and White Roses": Zhenbao couldn't help but laugh when he saw the hostess Wang Jiaorui from Nanyang writing down her name.
In the novel, the overseas Chinese girl Wang Jiaorui is a red rose, her skin is dark, her figure is undulating, she dares to love and dare to hate, and soon fell in love with Zhenbao, who came to rent a house. In the end, Zhenbao retreated. Zhenbao's final choice of wife is the "innocent" Meng Yanli, that is, the white rose, she "slender and tall, straight down", giving people "the first impression is general white", and gradually "becomes a very boring woman" after marriage. Paradoxically, Zhen Bao never thought that his boring wife had an affair with the tailor.
Although it is a novel, when Crystal Night interviews Zhang Ailing about "Red Rose and White Rose", "the characters and stories in 'Legend' almost all have their own roots,' which is what she calls documentaries"; "She is sorry to say that after writing this story, she feels very sorry for Tong Zhenbao and White Rose, both of whom she has seen, and Red Rose has only heard of it." Zhang Ailing also said: "The male protagonist in "Red Roses and White Roses" is my mother's friend, and he told his mother and aunt about things himself, when I was young, he thought I didn't understand, then he knew that I had heard it and remembered it all. What he saw after writing it out, he was probably very angry—he could only blame himself for speaking. ”
Both the red rose and the white rose have strong symbols and metaphors. Compared with traditional Chinese women, overseas Chinese women from Nanyang have been influenced by Southeast Asian traditions: that is, women in Southeast Asia have a relatively high social status, bear important and even prominent responsibilities in politics, economy and family, and also enjoy corresponding rights. Traditional Chinese women, on the other hand, are deeply shrouded under the patriarchal tung oil umbrella, and they can neither see their faces nor even the projection under the sun.
Zhang Ailing grew up in a broken patriarchal family and had no sense of security throughout her life. She had rebelled against her father, who had nothing to do but indulge in opium, and had defected to her mother, who was also rebellious against the patriarchal system; but she was anxious and complaining because she did not get the desired maternal love. When she herself struggled and rebelled under the traditional patriarchal system, she unconsciously cast the shadow of patriarchy on the overseas Chinese girls. Zhang Ailing, who has a deep family learning, studied at Santa Maria Girls' High School in Shanghai and has a good English. As a cultural elite cultivated by Chinese and Western education, she often comments on Nanyang (Malaya) and overseas Chinese students with a sarcastic and mocking tone.
Shanghai Three Girls' High School compiled three books into the "Santa Maria Girls' School" series of books and Zhang Ailing's graduation photo in 1937
Zhen Bao was surprised that Red Rose wrote "Rui" into three words, which is probably not an empty wind, but Zhang Ailing's impression of the Chinese overseas Chinese students. At the wood-style gate of Hong Kong's Happy Valley Cemetery, there was a pair of green clay and yellow wood couplets hanging on it, which read: "On this day, my body returned to my homeland, and his monarch body was the same." This couplet is Zhang Ailing's so-called overseas Chinese tone. In "Red Roses and White Roses", Wang Shihong commented on the name of the red rose, saying: "You overseas Chinese, take out the name, it is really un generous. Zhang Ailing satirized malayan civilization, saying: "Malaya is a civilization with a small family atmosphere on the basis of steaming barbarism, like a bed of too small a flower and foreign cloth quilt, covering the head and covering the feet"; she also mocked the accent of overseas Chinese female classmates, saying: "Their words are not easy to understand, malayan accents are heavy, and they open their mouths and close their mouths ,Man', like the natives of the West Indies, which is equivalent to calling each other 'brothers'"; she also ridiculed one of her female classmates, saying: "Her emptiness is like an empty closed room. Out of the mold of the white powder small room, and it is a small hotel on a cloudy day - overseas Chinese are ideologically homeless, simple-minded people live in a world that is not simple, there is no Beijing, no tradition, so there is no dance. She would dance ballroom dancing, but she would only dance with her father and brother. ”
Without Beijing, that is, free from the jurisdiction of imperial power; without tradition, that is, without being infiltrated by etiquette; without dancing, that is, without experiencing the temptations of the West (modern), to maintain primitive nature. Non-Central Africa and West, non-traditional and non-modern, this seems to be the South China Sea that exists as a third party between China and the West. Therefore, for the portrayal of red roses, Zhang Ailing's pen clearly adopts a bird's-eye view from a high place, with a tone of looking at the edge from Beijing.
"They are overseas Chinese, and there are also disadvantages to Chinese, and there are also disadvantages to foreigners."
Zhang Ailing's "those overseas Chinese" left their hometowns, abandoned their families and children, left their parents' country, and took a boat through the winds and waves on the sea to reach Southeast Asia surrounded by the sea. These overseas Chinese appear as others on the fringes of Greater China and are presented as a contrast of "us." As Fan Liuyuan, an overseas Chinese from Malaya, the protagonist of "Love in the City", claims: "I really can't be considered a real Chinese, and it was only in recent years that I have gradually become Chinese." In this way, the overseas Chinese and the "real Chinese" are separated and juxtaposed, and the other is the other. Therefore, it is not surprising that the title "they are overseas Chinese" appears repeatedly in "Red Roses and White Roses", such as the following dialogue.
Shi Hong laughed and said, "You don't know them overseas Chinese—" Only halfway through, jiaorui slapped him: "It's 'they overseas Chinese again!'" 'Don't let you call me' them! Shi Hong continued, "They are overseas Chinese, and there are also disadvantages to Chinese, as well as disadvantages to foreigners. ”
"They are overseas Chinese, and they have disadvantages in Chinese, and there are also disadvantages in foreigners." Although it is a joke, why not the impression of the public? From the appearance point of view, overseas Chinese are thin and black, as Zhang Ailing said, darker than Chinese, thinner than Indians; while overseas Chinese women are exquisite in stature, full of lips, full of sexiness and carnal desires that are very different from traditional Chinese aesthetics; materially, overseas Chinese are very rich, as the saying goes: Nanyang Bo, there are not one thousand and eight hundred; so whether it is Fan Liuyuan or other overseas Chinese businessmen, they are "rich people in Xingzhou"; from the perspective of culture and education, overseas Chinese have no culture, and their words have a "overseas Chinese tone"; from the perspective of male-female relations, overseas Chinese are more casual That's why Red Rose had two affairs with tenants; and "Malaya boys are the worst, they will prostitute".
Coincidentally, Zhang Ailing's Nanyang was also consistent with the works of many writers at that time. The male protagonist of Ding Ling's famous work "The Diary of a Sha fei woman", Ling Jishi, is "a complete Nanyang man" and has a father who is in the rubber business. At the beginning of Qian Zhongshu's "Siege of the City", a lot of ink is spent to describe Miss Bao, a mixed-race child who returned from studying medicine in Europe. Miss Bao's skin is "dark but not black" and "she wears only a crimson bandeau, sea blue scarf shorts, and reddish nails in her blank leather shoes"; she "has a slender waist, just in line with the conditions of beauty praised by the Arab poets in "Heaven and Night": 'Thin in the body, heavy in the back, and sore in the waist when standing.'" 'A pair of sleepy, smiling, dreamy eyes on the long eyelashes, and a perfect upper lip seem to be bulging to make sex with a lover", this is clearly a red rose that is alive and free. Miss Su, who also returned from studying abroad, is like a white rose, her "skin in the East, to be counted white, but unfortunately this white is not fresh, with some dry stagnation." She removed her black glasses, her eyebrows were clear, but her lips were too thin, and her lipstick was not rich enough. If she had risen from her deck chair, she would have seen a thin figure, perhaps the lines of the silhouette too hard, like the strokes of a square pen." White, thin, thin, hard lines, isn't this the living Zhenbao's wife Meng Yanli?
Qian Zhongshu and Zhang Ailing's pen, the blade is sharp, into the flesh do not know, but then let people feel a trace of stinging, pain through the heart, but can not make a sound. Qian Zhong's writing of Miss Bao's mixed-race origin is actually a metaphor for Zhang Ailing's "they overseas Chinese": the result of mixed-race is that "there are also disadvantages in Chinese, and there are also disadvantages for foreigners." They also invariably highlighted the background of the overseas Chinese girls studying medicine, which made people speculate even more, whether this was the truth at that time, or the mockery of the two without a trace.
Envy, on the other hand, goes hand in hand with ridicule. Overseas Chinese are a symbol of emerging industries, and are the showcase of Nanyang's rubber plantations, tin mines and cross-regional commerce in Shanghai. When it comes to Nanyang and overseas Chinese, people can't help but carry a trace or two of jealousy and envy.
"It's all because my classmates are too broad."
Fan Liuyuan's self-proclaimed "I really can't be regarded as a true Chinese" is a commentary on the cultural other, "they are overseas Chinese"; however, Fan Liuyuan here also symbolizes another manifestation of overseas Chinese, that is, the emerging overseas business opportunities and the wealth they bring.
Fan Liuyuan was "Chinese New Year's Eve two years old, his parents died", and his "father was a famous overseas Chinese, and there are many industries distributed in Ceylon, Malaysia and other places". Not only does the industry and business in Nanyang represent wealth, but even the commercial connection with Nanyang is also the source of wealth in Shanghai (that is, modern China), so Wang Shihong, the husband of Red Rose, said to Zhenbao, an old classmate who came to rent a house: "Some time ago, I didn't have time to tell you, Ming'er I am going to go out, and I have something to do in Singapore." The same is true in Zhang Ailing's film script "Love Field Like a Battlefield".
Because of this, Zhang Ailing once lamented that she was not poor in life, but she often had imaginary embarrassment. She said to her aunt, "In fact, when I was in Hong Kong, I was not embarrassed like that, because my classmates were too broad." Her overseas Chinese classmates, including Ru Bi, who "are Wang Jingwei's nieces"; of course, the children of the rubber kings. Zhang Ailing recalled: "In the school where the children of this rubber king entered, only she did not have a fountain pen, and always brought a bottle of ink to bring, which was very shocking. She recalled: "In Hong Kong, when we first got the news of the war, a female classmate in the dormitory launched an emergency and said, 'What to do?'" No proper clothes to wear! "She is a wealthy overseas Chinese, and she needs different outfits for different occasions in social life, from water dancing parties to grand dinners, but she did not expect to fight." The prosperity of the overseas Chinese classmates made Zhang Ailing, who went to class with an ink bottle, feel relatively poor, and with a hint of jealousy, she sowed and sprouted in her overly sensitive heart since then, and it did not disappear after many years.
The Nanyang and overseas Chinese portrayed by Zhang Ailing can be summarized in the above way, but it is not entirely the case. Seemingly mercurial Jiaorui, taking the child to the dentist on the bus and Zhenbao met by chance, in the face of Zhenbao sneering and sarcastic "You meet nothing more than a man", she was not angry, but said a rather philosophical sentence: "Yes, when you are young and good-looking, no matter what you do in society, you always meet men." But later, there was always something else besides men... There's always something else..."
What else is it? Nature is love. This passage of red rose reveals her grasp of the nature of the relationship between men and women after growing up, which is sad and touching. The performance and growth of overseas Chinese girls such as Su Leijia in the war in Hong Kong also made Zhang Ailing admire. "Surai Ka is a small, brownish-dark-skinned, sleepy eye with slightly exposed white teeth in a remote town on the Malay Peninsula. Like the average convent-educated girl, she was shamefully naïve. She chose the medical department, which wants to dissect the human body, and the dissected corpse wears clothes or not? Su Leijia had been concerned about this layer and had inquired from people. This joke has long been known in school. However, under the bombs of the Japanese army, "Su Leijia joined the defense work and served as a temporary caretaker in the Red Cross branch", and she and the male nurse "suffered together, took risks, joked, she gradually became accustomed, talked more, and people were also capable." War is a rare education for her."
In the same way, the nature of Malaya, on the one hand, symbolizes barbarism and backwardness, and on the other hand, it is also the nature and simplicity that modern people aspire to. In "Love in the Fallen City", Fan Liuyuan said to the tassel: "I will accompany you to Malaya." Tassel asked, "What to do?" Fan Liuyuan said, "Back to nature; I want to take you to Malaya, to the forest of primitive people." "Malaya, the forest of Malaya, undoubtedly represents the primitive and natural state of Nanyang, without the original fake like Fan Liu, nor the tassels and the tricks of her surrounding family.
"All she knows is that when Xingjiapo fell, her second aunt went to India in a refugee boat."
Zhang Ailing's writing about Nanyang is not only Zhang's own concept, but not completely equivalent to Zhang's own concept; and the great vitality of Nanyang and Nanyang characters written by Zhang Ailing reflects the broad social basis of Zhang's impression of Nanyang, which makes people have to ponder the social and psychological background of his knowledge. Zhang Ailing's closest friend in the first half of her life, Yan Ying, was a mixed-race child from Sri Lanka and Tianjin, a witness to her two marriages, and she may have brought Zhang Ailing some indirect tropical knowledge. Overseas Chinese students at the University of Hong Kong are a direct source of Zhang Ailing's Nanyang construction. Another person who can directly share nanyang impressions with Zhang Ailing is undoubtedly her mother Huang Suqiong, and Zhang Ailing calls her "second aunt". The so-called "second aunt" is Zhang Ailing's mother. Because Zhang Ailing inherited from childhood to the uncle's family, she called her parents the second uncle and second aunt.
Zhang Ailing and Yan Ying
Huang Suqiong, later renamed Yvonne. She wrapped her little feet, abandoned her husband, and accompanied her sister-in-law to study in Europe. In Europe, she painted oil paintings and thus knew Mr. and Mrs. Xu Beihong and Jiang Biwei; a pair of small feet that had both slid snow over the Alps and swam in the Mediterranean; she had passed through Singapore several times and had been to Java several times, because "she had a Javanese girlfriend who wanted her to play, so she bent to go to Southeast Asia"; before the outbreak of the Pacific War, she went to Singapore, where she had planned to process the fur of New Malaysia for business; she had a boyfriend, "an English businessman, younger than her, taller", "as if to hear about it in Xingapang"; when japan invaded, Lloyd was killed and died on the beach of Singapang"; she then went to India on a refugee ship, where she worked as secretary to Nehru's two sisters; after World War II, she returned to Malaya, where she "taught for half a year at an overseas Chinese school in Malaya in 1948". In fact, she taught at Khun Shing Girls' High School in Kuala Lumpur, befriended a young female colleague, Xing Guangsheng, and soon went to London. From 1955 to 1956, Wang Miwen, an academic officer at the MalayaHua School, and his wife Ding Yu came to London, and through xing Guangsheng's introduction, they met Huang Suqiong and had contacts. Wang Miwen and his son Wang Gengwu were studying for a doctorate in Cambridge at the time and visited Huang Suqiong with their parents.
Huang Yifan
Her mother's Nanyang experience brought Zhang Ailing colorful Nanyang details. Durian cakes, curries, sandbags, Bali dances, sand cages, Cambodian temples and Buddha statues, and the forests of Malaya often emerge from Zhang Ailing's pen. She wrote in "Love in the Fallen City":
After eating, Yanagihara raised the glass to drink the remaining tea inside, holding the glass high and just looking inward. Tassel said, "If there's anything to see, let me see it too." Yanagihara said, "You look at the light, and the scenery inside reminds me of the forest of Malai." The residual tea in the cup was poured to the side, and the green tea leaves stuck to the glass, slanted sideways, facing the light, looking like a raw plantain. The tea leaves piled up underneath were intricately knotted, like kneeless vines and basil.
This lifelike view of the Malay forest cannot be described by non-witnesses. The author very much suspects that this is the mother's description of Zhang Ailing.
Zhang Ailing's Nanyang impressions and imaginations have both a macroscopic social background and a personal connection. All in all, it is China's development of the overseas world in modern times, especially for the Southeast Sea, which is across the sea. Because of the Nanyang, there are Zhang Ailing's red roses and Fan Liuyuan. Unfortunately, Zhang Ailing did not complete Zheng He's novel in the West in the end, leaving "Zhang Fan" with unlimited reverie. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. After all, for Zhang Ailing, who has never been to Nanyang, the sense of history of this novel is too strong.
Editor-in-Charge: Shanshan Peng
Proofreader: Luan Meng