After divorcing Xu Zhimo, she ushered in the birth of a big hostess

In 1983, when Zhang Bangmei, a Chinese woman, was studying "Introduction to Chinese History" at Harvard University, she was surprised to find that the names of several of her own parents appeared in the text, and the Zhang family members who were recorded in history, in addition to her second grandfather Zhang Junjiao and fourth grandfather Zhang Jiayi, who had contributed to the political and economic fields, and a woman, Zhang Youyi. In the book, Zhang Youyi is described as "the woman who completed China's first modern divorce with the poet Xu Zhimo."

This name reminded Zhang Bangmei of the familiar face in her memory. In 1974, when Zhang Bangmei visited her fourth aunt's house in New York, she noticed an old woman wearing big glasses sitting in the corner, who was "dignified and had no shelves", which made her feel very kind. Later, she learned that the grandmother was Zhang Youyi, the second aunt who had just come to the United States to settle down. Since then, Zhang Youyi has visited Zhang Bangmei's home from time to time, and she has always brought the latest recipes to cook with them and enjoy food together. Zhang Bangmei couldn't imagine that this amiable second aunt was a hero who dared to be the first in the history books.

So, the next time Zhang Youyi came to Zhang Bangmei's house, Zhang Bangmei began to beg her to tell her more stories. Over the years, Zhang Bangmei chatted with Zhang Youyi many times and has been recording the story of this legendary woman. In the process, she saw the woman's unique experience that was both traditional and modern. In 1986, Zhang Bangmei went to Shanghai to visit relatives and friends, wanting to see Zhang Youyi's past living habits. In the process of recording Zhang Youyi's career, she brought her own mental journey into the story, and she felt that this unusual "second aunt" was deeply affecting her both before and after her death.

In 1996, Zhang Bangmei's biography of Zhang Youyi, Little Feet and Suits: A Memory, was published in the United States and soon translated into Chinese publication. In August 2023, the biography was renamed An Zhiruyi: Memoirs of Zhang Youyi and was published again in Chinese mainland. Through this book, people recall Zhang Youyi, who did not have many opportunities to stand in the spotlight, and her wonderful life that was completely independent of her ex-husband Xu Zhimo.

Zhang Youyi wears a black cheongsam and takes this portrait in Shanghai (circa 1937), when she was the vice president of the Shanghai Women's Commercial Savings Bank. Photo: An Zhiruyi: Memoirs of Zhang Youyi, CITIC Publishing House, 2023 edition

Passive divorce of the "poet's ex-wife"

When it comes to Zhang Youyi, many people's first reaction is the dignified and conservative "poet's ex-wife" played by actor Liu Ruoying in the TV series "April Days on Earth". Zhang Youyi in the play has undergone a huge transformation, before the divorce, she obeyed her parents and husband's family in everything, and after the divorce, she quickly transformed into an entrepreneur and bank manager, her career made great strides, and her relationship with Xu Zhimo was eased, and she also fulfilled her responsibility to raise her son and support her parents. It seems that this character got the script of the "big heroine", but in fact, these experiences are not theatrical fiction, they are completely real. Zhang Youyi in history has indeed undergone such a metamorphosis. What led to this transformation was her and poet Xu Zhimo's groundbreaking divorce case.

It all started in 1922. That year, in Berlin, Germany, 22-year-old Zhang Youyi gave birth to her second son with almost no one to accompany. Just after giving birth, her husband Xu Zhimo appeared with divorce papers. During Zhang Youyi's pregnancy and childbirth, he only asked someone to bring Zhang Youyi a note, which mentioned: "Each other has the heart to improve society, each has the heart to benefit mankind, they first set an example, they are brave and decisive, respect each other's personality, free divorce, stop suffering, and omen happiness. Xu Zhimo means that he hopes that the two will be brave for social ideals and create a history of free divorce. When she met Xu Zhimo, who came to ask for a divorce, Zhang Youyi was still in postpartum weakness, but she finally decided to sign the document.

Before the divorce, Xu Zhimo had been expressing his disgust for this arranged marriage, and he even described Zhang Youyi as a "dirt bun", which did not fit the image of a modern woman in his mind. But this marriage is not something that Zhang Youyi can choose. In Zhejiang in 1915, Zhang Youyi, a 15-year-old Baoshan girl, was in charge of her family and married Xu Zhimo, the only son of a rich family in the Jiushi area of Haining. The marriage was facilitated by Zhang Youyi's fourth brother, Zhang Jiayi, who picked Xu Zhimo's essay roll at a glance in the school when he was the secretary of the governor of Zhejiang in Hangzhou and felt that he was extraordinary. So, Zhang Jiaying began to inquire about the Xu family's family situation, and found that the two families were in pairs, so he immediately proposed to marry, and Xu Zhimo's father readily agreed.

At that time, the Republic of China had been established, but the May Fourth Movement had not yet taken place, and although new changes and loosening had begun to occur in society, the vast majority of people were still bound by traditional morality and practiced "door-to-door", even the rich and culturally rich Zhang family. Most of the brothers in Zhang Youyi's family have received a good modern education, Zhang Junjiao and Zhang Jiayi have overseas study experience, but the sisters of the Zhang family do not receive the educational support of their parents, and they only want the girls to "marry a good family". And Zhang Youyi herself, who has been indoctrinated with traditional concepts, does not have the modern concept of "divorce" in her brain. Therefore, even though Xu Zhimo soon showed impatience with her, she still lived in the Xu family serving her in-laws and giving birth to children, and never thought of resisting.

In 1918, Zhang Youyi gave birth to Xu Zhimo's first son and completed the task of "inheriting the family", so Xu Zhimo, who was studying at Peking University, obtained the consent of his parents to study in the United States, and later to the United Kingdom. The May Fourth Movement soon broke out, new ideas spread throughout the country, and the circle of overseas students was the position where new ideas were born. As Hu Shi said, Xu Zhimo's simple beliefs in life are love, beauty and freedom. From then on, the melancholy revealed in his letters back to China began to unease the family, so the family decided to send Zhang Youyi to England to see what was wrong with Xu Zhimo.

After reuniting with Xu Zhimo in the UK, Zhang Youyi had already guessed that the other party wanted to divorce, and she remembered that Xu Zhimo had mentioned to her that his troubles were rooted in the constraints of the old system on people, and he was determined to be the first batch of divorce Chinese. At this time, Zhang Youyi is not worried about being divorced, but about herself who may be "abandoned". This idea is actually the real feeling of the vast majority of people at that time when they faced marriage problems. Among Xu Zhimo's predecessors, Hu Shi and Lu Xun, who had studied abroad, had arranged wives, but they did not make the choice of divorce. Because most of them consider that in the old morality, women will encounter accusations such as "unchastity" when divorced, and will also lose their financial resources, if they divorce first, although they can win an advanced reputation, but in real life, the real unlucky may be the woman who does not have the ability to live independently.

But Xu Zhimo is not Hu Shi and Lu Xun, he has lived a rich life since he was a child, has always been taken care of, has not suffered hardships in life, and his pursuit of freedom is more self-centered and idealistic. After going to Peking University, his desire for love, beauty and freedom became stronger, and his imaginary wife should be a talented woman who can compete with him, not a conservative woman like Zhang Youyi. At this time, there were already relevant laws on divorce in China, and the Draft Civil Law of the Great Qing Dynasty already stipulated that men under the age of 30 and women under the age of 25 could take effect if they voluntarily divorced with the consent of their parents, and the laws of the Republic of China followed this provision of the Great Qing Dynasty. However, except for characters like Gu Weijun, almost no one dares to choose to fight with their parents and divorce.

Xu Zhimo was determined to fight the feudal tradition to the end. But the price behind this was first borne by Zhang Youyi. In 1921, Zhang Youyi became pregnant with Xu Zhimo's second child in England, but Xu Zhimo, who had long wanted to divorce, coldly persuaded her to kill the child, and began to travel around Europe and never go home. Zhang Youyi began to feel afraid, afraid that her fate after being "abandoned" would be as miserable as those of traditional women without education. She wrote to her second brother Zhang Junjiao, who was studying in Paris, and Zhang Junjiao advised her not to have an abortion, saying that she could help raise the child, so that Zhang Youyi could feel at ease.

Compared with Hu Shi's wife Jiang Dongxiu and Lu Xun's wife Zhu An, Zhang Youyi was not only one of the few Chinese women who divorced at that time, but also "divorced" during pregnancy abroad, which was a difficult encounter. But fortunately, she is not a completely old-fashioned woman, and the divorce has completely triggered the modern factor in her body. When she was a child, she resisted foot binding with the help of her second brother Zhang Junjiao, and also fought to go to middle school on her own, and saw a lot of the world after going to Europe. After Xu Zhimo "disappeared", Zhang Youyi began to follow her second brother who was studying in Europe, living in Paris, Berlin and other places, in the process, Zhang Youyi's personality changed, she ignored Xu Zhimo's opinion for the first time and decided to give birth to her second son.

At the same time, the favorable conditions of the Zhang family and the openness and thoughtfulness of the brothers and sisters also gave Zhang Youyi a choice other than "abortion". Zhang Youyi's second brother Zhang Junjiao was a bachelor at the time and could not take care of the pregnant Zhang Youyi, with his help, Zhang Youyi began to live with a scholar couple in the countryside, began her self-reliant life, and it was under the influence of this couple that she experienced the joy of learning for the first time. Later, Zhang Youyi's seventh brother Zhang Jingqiu, who studied in Europe, accompanied her to live in Berlin. During Zhang Youyi's pregnancy, Zhang Jingqiu took on housework, took care of her, and gave her strong support.

In her later years, Zhang Youyi recalled that from the time she went to Paris alone to find her second brother, the suffering of little help and Xu Zhimo's cold attitude forced her to start thinking with her own head. And divorce seems to have slowly become part of her own demands from the needs of others. In the eyes of outsiders, she divorced without asking her parents' opinions, and was forced into a desperate situation by Xu Zhimo, but it can also be said that this time she did not listen to her parents and made the decision to divorce as an independent person. This seemingly passive choice has completely ushered in a new turn in Zhang Youyi's life.

Zhang Youyi and Xu Zhimo took their first group photo in Europe in 1921, and the two divorced the following year.

Wonderful second half of life

Zhang Youyi once said to her niece Zhang Bangmei: I was born in an era of change, and I have two faces, one listening to old speeches and the other listening to new speeches. Part of me stayed in the east, part looked west. I have the intrinsic qualities of a woman, and I have a masculine character.

Looking back now, Zhang Youyi's life can indeed be divided between the divorce case at the age of 22 and the old. Before the divorce, she stood on the side of traditional thinking and did not dare to resist; After the divorce, in order to survive and be dignified, she began to strive to learn everything in the new world. She never wants to go back to the life of the past, when Xu Zhimo laughed at as a "dirt bun".

Eighteen-year-old Zhang Youyi and eldest son Xu Jikai.

From an old woman to a new woman, it is definitely painful at first. After signing the divorce agreement, Ms. Zhang first lived with a foreign woman in Germany, and with the help of her roommate, she was able to take preschool classes at a college and take care of her children at night. After three years of such tiring days, her studies progressed, but her second son died abroad. Under the grief, Zhang Youyi decided to return to China and live with her relatives in China. Ironically, Xu Zhimo could not help Zhang Youyi when his son died, but after returning to China, Zhang Youyi still had to help deal with the marriage of Xu Zhimo and his new wife Lu Xiaoman. Because after the two divorced, Xu Zhimo's parents had no way to take their wayward only child, they could only rely on Zhang Youyi, who was doing things safely, and even recognized her as a goddaughter, and even asked for her opinion on the marriage between Xu Zhimo and Lu Xiaoman.

Zhang Youyi and her grandchildren were photographed at their home in Haige Road, Shanghai.

In an era of alternation between the old and the new, it is easy to spread new ideas, but there must always be someone who is diligent and responsible for the concrete life. Zhang Youyi is the responsible person in the eyes of relatives and friends. And Zhang Youyi has gradually found that if she applies this innate sense of responsibility to business, she may also usher in many opportunities. After returning to China, in addition to handling household chores and taking care of her eldest son, Zhang Youyi also began to look for work. Soon, she became a German teacher at Soochow University in Shanghai and the general manager of her eighth brother, Zhang Jiazhu's "Yunchang" fashion company. "Yunchang" slowly became famous under their care, and at its most powerful, almost all the celebrities at that time, including Xu Zhimo and Lu Xiaoman, celebrity Tang Ying and others, would go to "Yunchang" to make clothes. Slowly, Xu Zhimo began to be impressed by Zhang Youyi, and in his letter to Lu Xiaoman, he vigorously praised his ex-wife for "having ambition and courage."

Although the relationship between Zhang Youyi and Xu Zhimo has long been not a husband and wife, she still has a sense of responsibility for Xu Zhimo himself, and even for all of Xu Zhimo's relatives. In 1931, Xu Zhimo died in a plane crash, and Zhang Youyi presided over the overall situation at the request of Xu Zhimo's parents and dealt with Xu Zhimo's posthumous affairs. Although she did not like Lu Xiaoman, in the days since, she has been using her own money to support Lu Xiaoman until 1944, because she feels that Lu Xiaoman is her son's stepmother, and she is fulfilling her responsibilities for her son. Xu Zhimo's parents insisted on living near Zhang Youyi, and Zhang Youyi eventually sent them to the end. It was not until 1953 that she remarried in Hong Kong and lived her own little life.

Perhaps because of the memory of being "abandoned" in a foreign country, Zhang Youyi has been fighting for the rest of her life to help her contemporaries develop their careers. As early as when she went to teach at Soochow University, Zhang Youyi became the vice president of the Shanghai Women's Commercial Savings Bank at the request of a group of women, using her connections to help them manage the bank's assets. During the war, she also used her credit to help the bank save a sum of money. She also worries about the women in her family all the time. After her eldest son got married, Zhang Youyi began to sponsor her daughter-in-law to study, encouraging her to remain self-reliant. In this way, Zhang Youyi found her own happiness in the second half of her life of working hard and helping others.

Happiness and peace in old age

One winter day in early 1989, Zhang Youyi completed her life journey in the United States. In the eyes of her niece Zhang Bangmei, Zhang Youyi's later life in the United States was happy and peaceful. She maintains a healthy habit: waking up at seven-thirty in the morning, doing forty-five minutes of gymnastics, and eating a breakfast of cereal with eggs. She enjoys reading newspapers, hanging out with her family, learning as enthusiastically as she did when she was younger, signing up for courses for the elderly such as German and flower arranging, and making new friends as a result. Occasionally, she would play mahjong, allowing small bets to add to the joy of life.

On Christmas Day 1986, Zhang Youyi and Zhang Bangmei took photos in Zhang Youyi's apartment in New York.

The night before Zhang Youyi's death, Zhang Bangmei took care of Zhang Youyi for one night instead of relatives and friends. She knows that in years of companionship and listening, they have established extraordinary friendships, and can even talk about many topics beyond their ancestors and grandchildren, for example, Zhang Bangmei has never understood the Zhang family's "excessive worship" of Xu Zhimo since she was a child, and the most obvious person is Zhang Bangmei's grandfather, Zhang Youyi's eighth brother Zhang Jiazhu, who adored Xu Zhimo from childhood to old age, and even ignored his sister's feelings to attend the wedding of Xu Zhimo and Lu Xiaoman. In his later years, Zhang Jiazhu even told Zhang Bangmei that he should be "kind" to Xu Zhimo when doing a biography of Zhang Youyi. Thinking of the pain that Zhang Youyi had suffered because of Xu Zhimo, Zhang Bangmei was angry with this kind of worship.

Regarding the attitude towards Xu Zhimo, Zhang Youyi is gentle and honest. She thanked Xu Zhimo and complained. She was very much in favor of the advanced ideas he advocated, and genuinely felt that she had benefited from them. Because she once said: "I want to thank Xu Zhimo for the divorce, if it were not for the divorce, I might never have been able to find myself and grow up." He liberated me and became a different person. But when Zhang Bangmei asked her what she thought of Xu Zhimo's gorgeous article to his deceased second son, Zhang Youyi still confessed that judging from Xu Zhimo's behavior, he was not worried about her and her child's life at all. Because Xu Zhimo never took care of the child from beginning to end, nor did he support it. "Well, the literati are that virtue." She commented with a slight humor.

Oral narrated by Zhang Youyi, niece Zhang Bangmei, "An Zhiruyi: Memoirs of Zhang Youyi", CITIC Publishing House, 2023 edition.

Today, Zhang Youyi in Zhang Bangmei's eyes is no longer the amiable grandmother in the family, nor is she exactly a heroic figure who dares to be the first in the book, nor is she a "poet's ex-wife". She spent many years writing a more authentic and assertive Zhang Youyi into history: a girl born in old China without small feet, a strong woman who raised her son alone after divorce, an excellent entrepreneur, a person with a great sense of responsibility and love to learn. As Xu Zhimo's teacher Liang Qichao commented on Zhang Youyi in the article "On Xu Zhimo": She spent her years silently and strongly, her responsibility to her husband, her husband's family, and her son's responsibility - everyone who fulfills their responsibilities deserves respect.

(Reference: An Zhiruyi: Memoirs of Zhang Youyi, CITIC Publishing Group, June 2023)

Reporter: Qiu Guangyu