Among the poets of the past, the one I admire most is Du Zimei. His poetry reflects his time. From his collection, we can grasp the tragic situation of the people in the chaotic era, as well as the sad and indignant mood. - Ah Ying, "The Self-Introduction of "Displacement""
Born in 1900, Ah Ying was about twenty years younger than Lu Xun, two years older than Shen Congwen, one year younger than Lao She, and four years older than Ba Jin... There are many people who can be listed here, all of whom make a living from the pen, and in the turbulent twentieth century, they form different relationships between individuals and the times because of different beliefs and choices; in this relationship between relatives and strangers, their lives are intertwined with light and dark, and their reputations are uncertain, like boats on the river at night, and the future is unpredictable. In the end, they also receive their own different fates in this tension-filled relationship.
For most of Ah Ying's life was turbulent, changing with the changes of the times, and at one point he fled in all directions, while he insisted on writing. When the tide of the times ushered in the inevitable receding, what he left as an individual was some novels and plays of uneven quality, some pioneering and slightly rough reviews, studies, a few delicate and true diaries, and the death that came on June 17, 1977 after the tribulations.
This article is from the B09 edition of the Beijing News Book Review Weekly's June 11 feature "For the Memory of Forgetting".
Written by | Zhang Jin
Turn to the beginning of the drama
Ah Ying, formerly known as Qian Xing Estate, was born in Wuhu to a small family of craftsmen. He was literate at home at the age of five, entered a private school at the age of eight, and successively studied with two gentlemen, studying "Three Hundred Thousand", "Analects", "Book of Poetry", "Zuo Chuan", and "Chinese", laying a good old academic foundation for future research work.
At the age of ten, Ah Ying entered Huizhou Primary School to learn a new school, with courses such as history, mathematics, music, and drawing. The combination of old and new learning was also the common point of many intellectual youth in that era.
In 1911, the Xinhai Revolution broke out, the revolutionary upsurge spread throughout the country, the Qing Dynasty fell from then on, and society underwent great changes; in this turbulent tide of change, Ah Ying "excitedly joined the boy scout group and joined his classmates in running for the revolution", although he was only eleven years old at the time. This was probably the first time he "called for the revolution" and epitomized what he did for many years afterward.
After the Xinhai Revolution, various movements and ideological trends surged up, and in the face of these "spirits of the times", Ah Ying always seemed to be able to quickly capture and actively participate in them; he "took the pen as a rong", writing novels, plays, reviews, film scripts, editing publications, expounding ideas, and closely connecting himself with the times almost seamlessly. No matter what kind of creation he is engaged in, the strong contemporary nature reflected in Ah Ying's works is always distinct.
In other words, he put himself at the center of the tide of the times in this way, terrified and energetic. From another point of view, we can also say that when history reaches the threshold of great changes, the unstoppable tide will inevitably involve the enthusiastic young people with ideals and ambitions, and in a chaotic mud and sand, they will go away.
After the Xinhai Revolution, all public schools were suspended, and Ah Ying transferred to St. James's Middle School founded by the church, then to the Provincial First Commercial Middle School, and then to the church school Cuiwen Middle School, mainly to learn English.
It was during this period that Ah Ying read the works of British and American writers such as Dickens, turned his interests to literature, and even began to publish translations in the press in 1915, when he was only fifteen years old.
In 1917, Ah Ying's interest turned to drama due to the influence of Shakespeare, and this turn also became the beginning of his later large number of plays.
Aying.
Join the torrent of national salvation
After graduating from high school, Ah Ying interviewed a postal student at the General Post Office of Shang'anqing at the request of his father, but he resigned after only one year of work, and with the idea of saving the country through industry, he went to Shanghai Zhonghua Industrial College to study civil engineering under the sponsorship of relatives and friends. Only a year later, in 1919, when the May Fourth Movement broke out, Ah Ying, as before, actively participated in the movement, was elected as a delegate by his classmates, attended the city's student congress, participated in the Shanghai Federation of Student Circles, and worked with Zou Taofen as the editor of the Student Union's Journal, writing many articles. As we know, at this time, various ideological trends in China flourished, large and small newspapers and books were launched, and the desire to seek a new world of independence, democracy and equality became the consensus of many people, and Ah Ying, as an intellectual youth, was naturally no exception.
In 1920, invited by a friend, Ah Ying went to Hefei Provincial No. 2 Middle School to teach, launched a new cultural movement, and tried to carry out enlightenment education in the school; later, due to resistance, after several twists and turns, he returned to Anhui Provincial No. 2 Girls' Normal School to teach. During this period, Ah Ying published a number of poems and commentaries in liberation pictorial. On May 30, 1925, another sensational event, the "May Thirtieth Massacre", occurred in the Shanghai Concession, and the news soon spread to Wuhu, on June 5, Ah Ying, as a representative of the Wuhu Secondary School Teaching staff and students' federation, participated in the meeting of representatives from all walks of life in the Municipal Peasants' Association; on June 10, Wuhu City suspended the city, suspended work, suspended classes, demonstrated, and held a national assembly, Ah Ying was elected as the interim chairman, and reported the purpose of the meeting. He "spoke indignantly and passionately at the meeting of the tragic killing of our compatriots by British and Japanese imperialism in Shanghai ... Demand that the perpetrators be punished, that compensation be made for the losses, and that public apologies be made public." In 1926, Ah Ying proposed the establishment of the literary and artistic journal "Cang mang", and published a reading diary "To the Folk" in the fourth issue of the journal, in which he "reviewed the history of the occurrence and development of the 'Go to the Folk' movement in Russia" and "shouted loudly, to go to the people, is to 'popularize his new ideas to all the people, and the way to popularize it is to first go with the people'." This idea somehow determined the course of his life thereafter.
Under the influence of participating in various public activities, Ah Ying was identified as a member of the Communist Party by Sun Chuanfang and ordered to be arrested; ah Ying fled to Shanghai, where he had many contacts with Jiang Guangci, Gao Yuhan and others, and his thinking was deeply influenced, and he became a member of the Communist Party in October 1926. In the immediate period of "white terror", Ah Ying began a long career of escape, starting from his hometown of Wuhu, walking and stopping, witnessing the cruel scene of "terror everywhere, everyone endangering themselves" in Wuhan, and moving many times to avoid arrest, and finally went to Shanghai again in October 1927, until leaving at the end of 1941.
After arriving in Shanghai, Ah Ying officially stepped onto the literary scene and, together with Jiang Guangci, Meng Chao and others, founded the Sun Society, a revolutionary literary society, and published and distributed the "Sun Monthly". In Ah Ying's view, whether it is fiction, poetry, or literary criticism, it is impossible to get rid of political influence. He advocated the revolutionary consciousness and class nature of creation, believing that "the content of creation must be adapted to the slogans of political propaganda and the slogans of agitation", and naturally, most of his works were "closely coordinated with the political struggles of the time", lacking artistic aesthetics and appeal. On this point, Ah Ying personally has a clear understanding, he just chose to create in line with his own creative purpose, as Wu Jiarong, the author of "A Ying's Biography", said: "Ah Ying is not writing for being a writer, but treats writing as a battle." Speaking of this, it is easy to recall Shen Congwen's distinction between "thinking" and "believing" in writing. Written because of "thinking" or writing because of "letter" determines the different ways of writing, and the results are also very different.
The final performance and the curtain
In the summer of 1929, Ah Ying was arrested by the British Concession Patrol House for participating in anti-imperialist rallies, marches, and leaflets, and was released forty days later. On February 26, 1930, Lu Xun, Xia Yan, Feng Xuefeng, Ah Ying and others held a meeting at the Gongfei Cafe to prepare for the Chinese Left-Wing Writers Alliance, and on March 2, the Left League was established, with Lu Xun, Xia Yan, and Ah Ying forming the presidium of the congress, and Lu Xun, Xia Yan, Feng Naichao, Tian Han, Zheng Boqi, Hong Lingfei, and Ah Ying were appointed as members of the Standing Committee. In later life, in addition to founding and editing publications and creating "new popular literary works", Ah Ying also had to avoid arrest, sometimes life and death were on the line, and he had to move home almost every six months. In addition, he was active in film activities, forming film groups and writing many scripts. Shortly after the "July 7 Incident", the Japanese army occupied Shanghai, and the concessions were reduced to isolated islands. In the absence of any freedom of speech, Ah Ying in the isolated island period was mainly engaged in the creation of historical dramas, expressing the spirit of the anti-aggression struggle in a tortuous and obscure way. With patriotic enthusiasm, in the following few short years, Ah Ying wrote "Blue Blood Flower", "Hero of the Sea Country" and "Biography of Yang E" based on the theme of the late Ming history of foreign invasions. These three dramas and another historical drama "Hong Xuanjiao" are closely related to the actual situation, setting off a boom in theater viewing in Shanghai at that time, "Yuteng Lonely Island" (Liu Yazi), of which "Green Blood Flower" was repeatedly banned by the Japanese army.
At the end of 1941, the Pacific War broke out, the Japanese army began to arrest people in the literary and art circles in Shanghai, Ah Ying was forced to evacuate Shanghai, enter the Soviet-Chinese base area, and then at the telegraph of Chen Yi, went to the Headquarters of the New Fourth Army, along the way "all the sea, land, rivers, winds and rains, hardships and hardships, all experienced." After arriving at the Military Department, Ah Ying was still engaged in literary and artistic propaganda, working with others to create a cultural village, carrying out cultural work in the whole army, and uniting people from all walks of life to participate in the creation of the Huhai Poetry Literary Society, and later founding a large comprehensive magazine "New Knowledge", serving as the editor-in-chief, during which he almost "wrote on the desk every day... I really can't write it, and I have to insist on reading some books." Whether in Wuhu, Shanghai or behind enemy lines, he paid attention to the search for books, one of the reasons was that he loved to read (wrote a lot of essays about reading), and the second was to prepare for literary research, and in the long run, he accumulated nearly 100,000 books in decades. In the later years of his life, the books and a large number of calligraphy and paintings were confiscated, which made him heartbroken, but fortunately most of them were later returned.
The war situation changes from time to time. By the summer of 1944, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression had entered the counter-offensive stage, victory was in sight, and Ah Ying, like various organs and units, went to Funing and became "an active participant in mass theatrical activities in Yanfu District and a guide in the drama movement in the anti-Japanese base areas of northern Jiangsu." In the winter of the same year, at the suggestion of Zhang Aiping, deputy commander of the Third Division, Ah Ying responded to Guo Moruo's view of "preventing corruption after victory" and created the historical drama "Li Chuang Wang". The play was first performed on May 6, 1944, and has been staged several times since then.
This was the only one of the several scripts he envisioned to write during this period.
Resources:
Jinghu Water: The Chronicle of Qian Xing Estate, by Qian Ying and Qian Xiaohui, Shanxi People's Publishing House, January 2000
"The Biography of Ah Ying", by Wu Jiarong, Anhui Education Publishing House, December 2009
Edited | Miyako Shin Chan
Proofreading | Xue Jingning