Wang Shanyang-text
At the end of last year, Mr. Qian Jiang released a "subscription notice" in the circle of friends, and Mrs. Qian's "Quiet Streams of the River: Memoirs of Zhou Zhiqin" will be printed soon, and interested book friends can give it away for free. Seeing this notice, I immediately left a message to book, and Mr. Qian Jiang readily agreed. About a month later, I received the books from Mr. Qian Jiang's express.
Unwrapping the express, a simple and elegant book immediately comes into view. The title of the book is inscribed on the left side above the cover, and on the lower side is a Chinese painting, near which is a bird with an independent branch, looking at a few leaves in the distance across the river and a few flat boats.
The winter night in the south of the Yangtze River is cold and biting, but reading with a book in your hand is another pleasant. Especially when reading memoirs, listening to the author's narration and telling about the past hidden in the depths of history, you can better feel the mental journey of individuals in the torrent of the times. Memoirs, as a kind of folk private history, are not only an important supplement to the official revision of history, but also an indispensable part of historical memory. "Streams and Rivers: Memoirs of Zhou Zhiqin" is such a folk private history, it is in the torrent of the times, being coerced, and then agitated, but it is like the stream and river in the water town south of the Yangtze River, the still water flows deeply, quiet and far-reaching.
If you want to talk about Mrs. Qian, you still have to start with her eldest son, Mr. Qian Jiang. In March last year, when the school was preparing for the "Wuxi Cultural and Historical Materials Exhibition", Mr. Liu Guiqiu introduced me and asked me to contact Mr. Qianjiang. However, he had already made arrangements at that time, and more than a month later, he was able to meet at the 2023 Wuxi Binhu Historical Literature Academic Symposium. Mr. Qianjiang, tall and burly, doesn't look like a southerner, but like a Shandong man. Although he has retired, he is not like an official, but also a gentle and humble scholar. In recent years, Mr. Qian Jiang has been committed to the collation and research of local education literature in Wuxi, and has presided over the publication of "Binhu Centennial Old School", "Selected Historical Materials of Wuxi County Middle School", "Compilation of Historical Materials of Primary Schools Affiliated to Wuxi Normal School", "Cultural Series of Accumulated Experimental Schools", "Hundred People and Thousands of Books: Preliminary Bibliography of Modern Education Works in Wuxi", "Chronological Catalogue of Mr. Hou Hongjian's Works" and other documents, and also authored "Research on Educational Inspection in Wuxi County in the Late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China (1906-1926)" and other books. In addition, Mr. Qian Jiang also edited the country's first county-level library, Binhu Library. I have a lot of these books, either as a gift from Mr. Qianjiang, or from other sources such as Kongwang. Looking at these tomes, I was thinking, how many cold benches I have to sit on, how many ancient documents I have to crawl and comb, and how many ancient documents I have to pick up and fill in the gaps, before it can be completed.
Perhaps, Mrs. Qian's memoirs can tell us an answer. The Zhou family is located in Houxixi, which is located in the back shell of the turtle in Wuxi, although it is not a rich businessman, but it is also a well-off family that does not worry about food and clothing. The Zhou family has a simple style and a good family education. The memoirs contain more than 20 letters written by the rich old lady to Qianjiang, and between the lines, there is not only the mother's ardent concern for the wanderer who left home, but also the details of words and deeds.
This memoir is divided into two parts, the first part describes the first half of the author's life from birth to retirement, and the second part focuses on the retirement years and the family of his children. Among them, the first chapter, "Childhood and Youth", talks about the local customs of Wuxi with personal experience and experience, which is a precious historical material for studying the local culture of Wuxi during the Republic of China. The second chapter, which describes the author's study in Wuxi County Girls' High School, is a precious historical material for the study of secondary school education in Wuxi and the Republic of China. The third and fourth chapters describe the author's work in the Wuxi Municipal Party Committee and Chong'an District organs, grassroots and people's congresses, which are of important reference significance for understanding the office work, grassroots party building work and people's congress work after the founding of New China. Chapter 6, "Three Relocations of Housing", from Park Road to Sibao Bridge to Watermill Bay, has a certain reference significance for the history of housing and urban construction in Wuxi. The author's style is concise and simple, without any ornamentation, eloquent, fascinating, as if it is a homely style, with a natural and fluent sense of language.
Since the late Qing Dynasty, the torrent of the times has been mighty and rushing forward. With the small size of the county, Wuxi has led the trend and created many miracles of national industry and commerce and township enterprises. Time has passed, although the place name of Xixi is still there, Xixi River has long been landfilled. However, the Xixi River with the details of life that has lasted for a long time still exists in the historical memory of Wuxi people, with still water flowing deep and quiet and far-reaching.