Shortly after dad was born, Gonggong Feng Zikai published one of his cartoons for the first time, and the artistic career of a generation of masters began.
Father-in-law (right) and Father (left) pose in a park in Shanghai in 1956
01
Our father-in-law (Zhejiang Shimen dialect calls grandfather as father-in-law, grandmother as mother-in-law) Mr. Feng Zikai is well known for loving children, he not only cares for his children, but also the early cartoons and articles are often based on his children, and many of his famous paintings are full of innocence, childlike fun, and full of joy. In 1926, he expressed his admiration for children in the article "To My Children": "I have never met someone like you in the world who shows his lungs and liver. The people of the world are united, and they are never as completely true and pure as you are. ”
My father-in-law's three-year-old father was sketched
At the same time, the father-in-law anticipates with keen insight that the relationship between children will change as they become adults. In 1928, my father-in-law wrote in "Children": "What will I do to them when they become adults? I can't know it myself now, but I can infer that it must be different from now" "The world thinks that there are children under their knees as happiness, and hopes that their children will continue their selves, I really don't understand their psychology." I think that the relationship between people in the world is the most natural and reasonable like friends. This is an extraordinary view, and even in today's Chinese society in the twenty-first century, it is probably rare for parents and adult children to live on an equal footing like friends. It can be seen that the father-in-law has such a unique insight! When we were young, we often listened to our father-in-law tell us the story of my father's past, and we also witnessed my father-in-law provide him with life and spiritual comfort in his later years. Looking back on the father-son relationship between the father-in-law and the father-in-law, we deeply appreciate the father-in-law's love for the father-in-law, the changes in their relationship with the passage of time, and the equal communication relationship between the father-in-law and the father-in-law in his later years, as well as the equal communication relationship like a friend.
02
Dad was the fourth eldest among the children of the in-laws and mother-in-law, and the front was all girls, and Dad's grandfather happily named his father "Hua Zhan". The father-in-law told us that his father's grandfather specifically explained that "support" meant abundance, obviously reminding him to earn money to support his family, which made the unknown and poor father-in-law feel a lot of pressure. However, the father-in-law still pursues the love of art, indifferent to glory and wealth, so the father's birth did not immediately improve the family's economic situation, the father-in-law joked that this is blamed on the fact that "Hua Zhan" is often written wrongly, in order to spread false rumors, evolved into "Hua Zhan". In fact, shortly after his father was born, his father-in-law published one of his cartoons for the first time, "After people disperse, a crescent moon is like water", which was a turning point in his career, and the artistic career of a generation of masters began, and the family's situation gradually improved. The father-in-law joked that after all, his grandfather had a good name, and his father really brought fortune to the whole family.
The zhan zhan of this father-in-law painting is a widely circulated masterpiece
Dad followed his father-in-law to live between Shanghai, Jiaxing, and Tongxiang and other places at an early age, and in the warmth of the family, he cultivated a loyal and honest, indisputable character, which was more appreciated by his father-in-law, and his innocent and imaginative childhood became a common subject of his father-in-law's paintings. Paintings such as "Zhan Zhan Di Che - Bicycle", "Zhan Zhan Di Che - Rickshaw", "When Dad Is Not At Home", and essays such as "Hua Zhan's Diary" and "To My Children" have become representative works of the father-in-law's love for children, showing the environment for his children to grow up mainly in play and play. Father-in-law told us that among his children, his father had the strongest interest in various things when he was a child, the strongest feeling, the strongest desire for knowledge, and the most serious work, studying the "Five Dictionaries of Wang Yun" or playing games, and forgetting to eat, and the deep affection between words and conversations left us with an unforgettable impression. According to our father, when he lived in Shimen Bay before the War of Resistance, his father-in-law not only encouraged him to read and write from an early age, but even "bribed" him to read, and when his father began to learn to read the student dictionary, every time he found a word, his father-in-law gave him a dime, which shows that his father's enthusiasm for learning has been praised and encouraged by his father-in-law since childhood. Dad was so dedicated and devoted to the things he was passionate about, and later we can see in his teaching and research work on Fudan University that Dad's serious, enthusiastic and hard-working attitude of curiosity is undoubtedly the result of public education and training, which can really be described as "having a father must have a son".
03
During his father's school age, when the anti-Japanese war was raging, the family fled to and fro, he could not continue to go to school to complete formal education, and it was only by relying on the father-in-law's family education that he did not abandon his studies. Father-in-law not only taught his father classic works such as "Analects" and "Mencius", read Tang poems and Song Ci, but also taught him English, geometry and algebra, so most of his father's enlightenment and adolescent education came from his father-in-law. My father-in-law once proudly told us that my father was able to be admitted to the central university where there were many masters at that time, not only in Asia, but also in the world, because he had a good godchild, and his father was a "school bully" who was personally educated by his father-in-law.
Although dad was mainly engaged in English at that time, his chinese language was also very good, and he participated in the national college student academic competition and won the chinese language championship. "JoongAng Daily" misreported that "Feng Zi Kai Ling won the champion of the Chinese language" became a laughing stock, and the father-in-law wrote a poem for this matter, and between the lines, his heartfelt happiness jumped on the paper: Sven chased the tide of the river day by day, and picked up mustard to win the championship. When the trees wither, Hsinchu is beautiful, and the hills are low and the hills are high. Mandarin ducks flutter with the spring water, and emeralds are confused by the purple nest. Song Yu's face is multi-yili, teaching people to mistake it for Ban Zhao.
In 1945, the father-in-law wrote a poem written by the "JoongAng Daily" that "Feng Zi Kai Lingyuan won the Chinese language championship"
As early as 1943, the father-in-law realized his father's love for literature and his budding literary talent, and foresaw that his father would make a difference in literature in the future, and wrote a poem "Sending the Eldest Son Hua Zhan" to encourage the following: Remembering the early days of Ru, and inheriting two generations of pity. Milk frolicked during the day, and carriages slept in the night. Gradually free from exile and suffering, rejoicing in the weak crown year. Childlike but do not lose, the promised land is the literary world. Since childhood, his father, who inherited the court training of his father-in-law and was constantly encouraged by his father-in-law, did not live up to his father's expectations, and later made great achievements in the literary world, especially in the field of translation and comparative literature. We can see that between the father-in-law and the father in his youth, the father-son relationship has added a teacher-student relationship, and the father-in-law not only cultivates the father into a "school bully", but also opens the door to the gorgeous literary world for the father.
04
After the father-in-law fled to Chongqing, he could not find a house to live in, and built a "construction-resistant" bungalow in the desolate place of Shapingba. We heard my father-in-law say that the house was very simple, the walls were covered with white soil on cheap bamboo pieces, far less spacious and comfortable than the Yuanyuan Hall in their hometown, but it was the most stable period of their eight years of exile, and he read and painted freely every day, and used evening drinks to comfort the daytime pen cultivation. My father, who went to college in Chongqing, went home every weekend and holiday to continue to learn classical poetry from his father-in-law, and to discuss poetry and learn to compose poetry together. Classical Chinese poetry has always been their common hobby, and it is also a special connection between their father and son for many years.
In 1937, the father-in-law (right) took a group photo with his father (left) and friend Zhang Shanzi (center) at Nanjing Railway Station
Under the influence of his father-in-law for many years, and with his own talent and love for literature, his father is familiar with the rhythm of poetry, remembers a large number of poems, and becomes a good partner in the game of guessing poetry in the father-in-law family. It is said that this kind of game is a tradition in the past family, the typical way to play is to let the father leave the room first, and the others discuss a poem, such as "Nine Mile Mountain Front Battle Field", and then let the father come in and guess. The answer to the first question must contain the word "nine", the answer to the second question must contain the word "inside", and all the answers must be logical and cannot answer what is not asked. Usually after three questions and answers, Dad can accurately deduce the whole poem. This is a game that ordinary people can't wait for, how much poetry cultivation is needed! As the father-in-law expected, as Dad grew older, their relationship continued to change, and Dad gradually became an independent partner with similar interests in all aspects.
05
After entering the middle and elderly, the father-in-law has the same view of the relationship between parents and adult children. As early as 1948, the father-in-law made a pact with the children, stating that adult children "have no obligation to provide for their parents, and parents have no obligation to provide for their children" and that "after the independence of the children, there is more than enough to live and provide for their parents, or the parents have more than enough to live and provide for their children, all of which are of a friendship nature and absolutely no obligation." Long before the Cultural Revolution, Dad, with his own hard work, had long been independent of his father-in-law in career and economy. However, during the most difficult period of the Cultural Revolution, the father came to their side to accompany them, provide material, economic and spiritual support, and shield them from the wind and rain. In order to protect his father-in-law, he endured verbal and physical humiliation, so that his father-in-law would be less frightened and afraid, and he would spend his old age as peacefully as possible. Dad did this out of his pure heart of "not even a layer of gauze" and his innocent love for his parents. Dad also became the object of discussion of classical Chinese poetry, literature and foreign languages in his later years. In addition to seeing them often talk and appreciate poetry together, fill in the words and compose poems, or sing and poems in their hometown Shimen dialect, we often see them discussing problems in Japanese translation together. Although dad was a major in English, he knew several foreign languages, including Japanese, as well as his father-in-law, who was translating "The Tale of The Rocks", "Taketori Monogatari", and "Ise Monogatari", so they studied Japanese a lot. When they consult on how to accurately translate a sentence or a certain word, they express their opinions and carefully consider them until they come up with the most appropriate way to express it. The father and son are serious about their work, strive for excellence, and for the sentences or words that have been translated, they will continue to think about it afterwards: "How should this sentence be translated to better be faithful to the meaning of the original work?" "Sometimes we see days later and they come back to the same question they had before. In the evening, when Dad came back from work, his father-in-law always shared with His Father the Japanese translation problems he thought about during the day, or discussed new Japanese vocabulary. The father-in-law's rigorous and serious attitude towards education undoubtedly had a huge impact on Dad, and Dad's meticulous attitude towards work is well known in Fudan. In 1979, the Department of Foreign Languages of Fudan University published a collective translation of the book "Far East 1942-1946", with a total of 550,000 words, and specially designated Dad alone to make the final revision of this book. The common hobby and academic attitude made the father-in-law communicate with his father as a friend on an equal footing, and the relationship between their father and son was sublimated to a higher level. In addition to academic discussions, Dad often told his father-in-law various information he heard in Fudan, jointly analyzed the new trends of the "Cultural Revolution", and helped his father-in-law prepare to cope with the new situation. For example, once my father went home after listening to the report of his superiors and told his father-in-law that the policy would change, and the elderly intellectuals would be treated as an internal problem, returning the materials copied from the family and paying salaries. After analyzing the situation, the two of them felt that the situation was changing in a better direction, and the father-in-law listened to the spirits and told us that he felt that the day of liberation was approaching. Dad also brought news of his father-in-law's old friends from Fudan, such as Professor Zhao Jingshen, Professor Chen Wangdao and Professor Su Buqing, and sometimes when Dad came home from work, he would tell his father-in-law that "today he happened to meet someone..." The father-in-law who has been living at home for many years is concerned about the recent situation of his old friends, and he is also very eager to hear all kinds of news outside, and this kind of communication has also become an important part of their father-son conversation. Over the past few decades, the father-son relationship between father-in-law and father-in-law has evolved and sublimated with time. Dad was the object of his father-in-law's care and love in his childhood, when he was a teenager, he inherited the father-in-law's court training, added the feelings of teachers and students to the family affection, and the father-in-law added close friendship to their family affection after he became an adult, reflecting the father-in-law's idea of "I think that the relationship between people in the world is the most natural and reasonable like a friend".
In his later years, his father-in-law and his father got along as friends as equals, and the scene of discussing problems together in the Sun Moon Building still often appears in front of our eyes, which is an unforgettable memory for us. Now that the father-in-law and his father have become ancient and rested together in Shanghai's Fushou Garden, the father-in-law has his beloved Zhan Zhan to accompany him like in his lifetime, and he is with the amusement garden, experiencing the taste of poetry, and continuing to study and study, which must be a great comfort to the father-in-law. Family affection is innate, can be harmonious and harmonious, can also become a shackle that cannot be thrown away and cannot be shaken off, and friendship is self-chosen, cannot be imposed, and is not constrained, so it is even more precious. In his early years, the father-in-law had a profound insight into the relationship between parents and adult children, and traveling through time and space still reminds us to think deeply about how to view and deal with the relationship between the family and children.