Sentient Learning: Reading Chen Pingyuan's "Blossoming Leaves and Falling Chinese Department"

Professor Chen Pingyuan of the Department of Chinese at Peking University and his new book "The Department of Chinese with Blossoms and Leaves Fall" (People's Literature Publishing House, 2023). CFP|diagram

The first edition of "Blossoming Leaves and Falling Chinese Department" was published in 2013, when the author Chen Pingyuan stepped down as the head of the Chinese Department of Peking University, and it was also the time when the Department of Chinese said goodbye to the Jingyuan Fifth Academy and moved to the newly completed Humanities Garden. For Mr. Chen personally, this book records and summarizes his brief administrative work experience, "shining a candle or highlighting" a number of teaching and administrative problems, and for the Chinese department, the relocation symbolizes the beginning of a new era. Therefore, the "blossoming and falling leaves" in the title of the book is not so much a personal mood after the change of work, but a kind of nostalgia and reluctance for the passing time represented by the "Chinese Department". As the preface to the first edition says, "It's still a bit sad to say goodbye to the wisteria flowers that pour down like a waterfall in the spring and make people's hearts shake, and the creepers that burn like flames under the autumn sun", suggesting that the author has a different embrace.

Unexpectedly, this embrace is reflected in the reprint of "Blossoming Leaves and Falling Chinese Department" in a warm way: both the article and the binding have been adjusted. Articles related to the work of department heads will no longer be included, and the additional articles will be related to teachers and students. Writing teachers, not only Wang Yao, who is "a person but has a true temperament", Wu Guyi, a "chatter" with witty words, Lin Geng, who has maintained a "childlike heart" and "poetic heart" all his life, but also linguists outside his own major, such as Wang Li, Gao Mingkai, Zhu Dexi, Lin Tao, Xu Tongqiang, etc., although they cannot have a direct dialogue with them professionally, they can sincerely experience the temperament and demeanor of all gentlemen. Writing colleagues, there are Yan Shaoxuan who is "special at talking about the ancients", Yan Jiayan who is "rigorous and tolerant", Sun Yushi who has "poetic temperament", Xie Mian who has "poetic life", and Le Daiyun who is "open-minded". and wrote about their classmates Qian Liqun, Wen Rumin, and his wife Xia Xiaohong, whose writing was obviously relaxed, but also revealed an emotional thoughtfulness. The teachers and friends related to the Department of Chinese at Peking University include Cheng Qianfan, Ren Wanqiu, Wang Furen and other predecessors in the domestic academic circles, as well as Xia Zhiqing, Milena, Wagner and other overseas leaders in Sinology. At first glance, such a "mentor and friend" seems to be about to disclose his "circle of friends", but in fact, the deep affection for his mentor and friend is the focus of the author's best efforts when he writes, and it is probably not an exaggeration to say that this sentiment is vividly displayed in the book.

Mr. Chen Pingyuan is academically galloping and always running at the forefront. In addition to the study of modern and modern literature, he has also crossed over to academic history and education history, and has also made remarkable achievements, and even the research topics of cultural studies such as image studies and sound studies have also made important achievements. The 24-volume anthology recently published by the Commercial Press records 44 of his scholarly monographs and cultural essays. These books have been published in academic research or have had a long history in terms of social impact. And this book containing the friendship of teachers and friends "Blossoming Leaves and Falling Chinese Department" is quite unique: one is to concentrate on writing about the Chinese department, and the other is to focus on the characters I have interacted with, which seems to be very private writing, but in fact has a strong public nature. Regardless of the fact that these scholars are well-known figures in the field of literary studies, they themselves can afford the typicality of their respective academic eras, and the literary style of Mr. Chen's academic theories, such as face-to-face interviews, eloquent explanations, and thorough reasoning, is destined to make this book different from Liang Qichao's "pen end often with emotion" as unbridled and unbridled, and closer to the restrained realism of Lu Xun's Huairen tradition. Lu Xun wrote not only famous works such as "In Memory of Liu He Zhenjun" and "Mr. Fujino", but also "My First Master" and "Two or Three Things About Mr. Taiyan". When Mr. Chen wrote about this group of scholars who had personal contacts and mutual understanding in "The Department of Chinese Blossoming and Falling Leaves", he strived to have both fax and form, and to remember people with their aspirations and to record their history, which was obviously also influenced by Lu Xun's cultural context.

Of course, whether "Blossoming Leaves and Falling Chinese Department" tells the old story of Peking University or recalls the old people in the academic world; whether it recalls the "smoke past" or outlines the "history of alternative systems", it is all based on "Chinese education" and reflects its own "Chinese feelings". This is a big effort under the surface of Huairen's article and in the dark. Ten years ago, the first version still had the "Inaugural Speech of the Dean of the Department of Chinese at Peking University" and "Report on the Debriefing of the Dean of the Department of Chinese at Peking University", but today's new edition hides Mr. Chen Pingyuan's educational topics such as university spirit and literary mission in the words of teachers and friends. It has to be said that this kind of writing strategy, which is constantly involved in cases and has no nostalgia, has a strong practical relevance in the context of liberal arts education in Chinese universities, which is increasingly interfered with by administration, impetuous academic style, and eager for quick success. When today's post-students are very unfamiliar with the humanistic spirit that once existed, especially those represented by the Department of Chinese, "Blossoming Leaves and Falling Chinese Department" opens up this inner world that has been lost but is still worth carrying forward in a way of dialogue with the sages and friends and friends. Just as human beings are the sum total of all social relations, whether it is a spiritual tradition or a practical style, they ultimately need to be reached and touched by "returning to the human being". Mr. Chen said that his university research is "from the aspects of historical memory, cultural interpretation, spiritual construction and social practice, thinking about what the 'university' is, what it has, and what can be done as an extremely important organizational form of human society" ("What is a University?: Self-Order"), this attitude of "taking half a step back" in the face of practical problems and intervening from the perspective of humanistic history and spiritual history coincides with the "human feelings of scholars" that he has always advocated. The choice for cultural institutions to emulate. Therefore, the pen full of warmth and respect in "Blossoming Leaves and Falling Chinese Department" is the result of repeated appreciation and careful appreciation of old gentlemen at home and abroad and the academic tradition of the Department of Chinese, and the mood behind it is the author's consciousness of his own academic mission and his responsibility for the inheritance of learning style.

It can be said that sentient learning is the most vigorous.

Wei Chun

Editor-in-charge: Liu Xiaolei