Xu Youwei, Department of History, Shanghai University
One
I remember the first time I met with Teacher Chen Dai was at noon in the second half of 1984, on the second floor of the History Department, commonly known as No. 100 fudan university, where he was in the teaching and research department of modern and contemporary Chinese history in the west. My first impression was not that he had learned both Chinese and Western knowledge, but that cup of tea with a few slices of triangular bread and the black toaster.
I entered the History Department of Fudan University in September 1981. According to the regulations of the Department of History, the first two years of undergraduate students in the Department of History are basic courses, and the courses taken by all students are unified, and in the third and fourth grades, it is the elective stage, and students can freely choose the courses offered by each teacher according to their own interests. At that time, I was interested in world history, and the elective course was all the class of the world history teacher.
As the winner of the Fulbright Prize in the United States, Mr. Chen just returned from a study tour in the United States in September 1984 and taught an elective course on "History of the Western Movement" to our fourth-year undergraduate students in the Department of History. I didn't take this course, but I knew Mr. Chen, although Mr. Chen didn't know me at the time.
Looking back now, Mr. Chen's brilliant academic career probably began in 1984, the year he returned to Shanghai from the United States at the age of fifty-six. This is exactly the same age as I was writing this article at this moment. Thinking of the fate of Teacher Chen and his generation of scholars, I couldn't help but sigh.
I forgot what happened, that noon I went to the Department of Modern and Contemporary Chinese History in the History Department and met Teacher Chen eating his Chen-style lunch: a cup of tea and a few slices of triangular bread. Those triangular breads were the work of the toaster on the table. There are so many of these machines in supermarkets now, but you know, it was in China in 1984. It can be said that even if I am a native of Shanghai, this is the first time I have seen it. It is estimated that it is a small piece of the famous "Eight Great Pieces" of the era that Teacher Chen brought back from the United States.
I couldn't help but ask Teacher Chen: Why don't you go to the canteen and eat in the office? Teacher Chen explained slowly: The canteen is too far from the office, there are too many people in the canteen, I will eat in the office. With the world's indisputable, quiet and gentle temperament, this is my first impression of Teacher Chen.
Group photo of the 1985 graduates of the Department of History of Fudan University and all the teachers
Two
After graduating from university in June 1985, I began working in the Social Science Department of China Textile University in Shanghai as an assistant teacher in the history of the Chinese Revolution. When I was in my third year of college, I once took Yu Zidao's "Modern Military History of China". Because I was very interested in Mr. Yu's coursework "Soviet Military Aid during the Chinese Revolution", driven by strong curiosity, I searched all corners of Shanghai for materials, including the Institute of History of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in Xujiahui and the library of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in the East China Institute of Political Science and Law. I remember a teacher at the Institute of History of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and I was very surprised to see such a college student as me asking them for information in a daze. I even went to the home of Jiang Yihua of the Department of History and borrowed Li Yunhan's "Calmly Joining the Communist Party to the Qing Party" by Li Yunhan, vice chairman of the Kuomintang Party History Committee in Taiwan, a package of unbinded copies. Teacher Jiang had just taken it back from the Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. I finally completed a paper of more than 20,000 words, which was used as a project assignment before the summer vacation, and the last one was handed over to Teacher Yu. I was a little embarrassed to think that I was the last of the students who chose the course to submit the manuscript, and Teacher Yu smiled and said in a loud voice, "It's okay, it's okay."
One day after the start of school in September, I happened to meet Teacher Yu on my way to The 100th, that is, outside the building of the English Department. As he walked, he said, if you revise this article, you can submit it to the Fudan Journal (Social Science Edition) to try it. In addition to pointing out to me, Teacher Yu also personally revised it. After the final revision was completed, Teacher Yu saw that I put his name before my name, and as the first author of the paper, he immediately took up a pen and carefully scribbled his name. He then helped me submit a journal. A year later, in the sixth issue of fudan journal (Zheshe Edition) in 1985, I published my coursework entitled "Soviet Military Assistance during the Chinese Revolution." After accidentally discovering that I had this potential, I immediately found the undergraduate thesis of the fourth year of the university under the guidance of teacher Jin Chongyuan and submitted it to the Fudan Journal (Zheshe Edition) myself. In 1987, the first issue of the Fudan Journal (Zheshe Edition) published my article "Robespierre and "De-Christianization".
The publication of these two papers ignited the desire of a twenty-one-year-old young man to aspire to do historical research. As a result, I often went back to my alma mater to read books and look for materials, looking like I was doing research. Once, on the school bus of my alma mater, I met Teacher Chen again.
This school bus, every morning and one night, takes teachers who live nearby in several places in Shanghai to work at the Fudan University campus in Wujiaochang, and returns at 4:30 p.m. This time, I was fortunate to meet Teacher Chen again on the school bus, and I was naturally very happy. He got off at Wuyuan Road, Changshu Road, and later learned that he lived near Urumqi Road, Wuyuan Road.
After a while, it should be one day in the late 1980s, I don't remember anything specific, I came to the home of Teacher Chen on Wuyuan Road for the first time and got close to him.
Three
I remember that at that time, My classmate Wang Shengliang in the History Department of Fudan University had obtained a master's degree under Teacher Chen and worked at the Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House. When we usually meet and chat, we learn a lot about Teacher Chen's life and deeds from him, especially Teacher Chen's prominent family lineage in Luojiang, Fuzhou. In addition, there are some stories, such as: Teacher Chen was a cadre of the United Front Work Department of the East China Bureau in the 1950s, during the "Cultural Revolution" was sent to Huma County, Heilongjiang Province, to "cut in line and settle down" for seven years, and later when Teacher Chen introduced this experience to his nephew, he said that he was "exiled to Ningguta" (friends who have watched the TV series "Yongzheng Dynasty" may still vaguely remember the name of this place), in 1973, the jeep he was riding in fell into a deep pit on the side of the road due to a car accident, almost returned to "Ningguta", and finally miraculously rescued Teacher Chen once took the English version of the Soviet-published "Anti-Dühring Theory" given to him by Ru Xin, an alumnus of St. John's University in Shanghai (who later served as vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), and in the dormitory with black lights and blinding fires, he compared the Chinese version and did not forget his original intention to study English, because the rebels were not yet opposed to reading "Anti-Dühring Theory" and so on.
However, what I saw and heard when I visited Teacher Chen's Wuyuan Road apartment for the first time was beyond my imagination.
Teacher Chen's apartment, from the outside, knows from the outside, although it is a new Shanghai-style lane, but it already belongs to the "old and broken", and the current fashionable adjective is "senior beauty". There are so many residents inside, and the dilapidated and dirty walkways are filled with various objects, as if they were the location of the film "The Crow and the Sparrow", which reflected the old Shanghai in the 1940s. Carefully walk up the winding staircase, and at the end of the third floor there is a small illegal door that I know is installed by myself. Squeak opened this small door, and a paradise where Teacher Chen had been immersed in learning for decades suddenly appeared in front of him.
The two main houses, small but bright, and a kitchen hall full of clutter, with a dining table in the middle. Teacher Ren Peiyi, the mother of Master Chen, who was full of white hair and took a broken step at the same time, "bowed down and bowed" at the same time, chose dishes to cook on the table. Later, when our master and apprentice were pointing out the country in the study, we sometimes heard Teacher Ren outside make a few "talents" praise, and I didn't know who I was talking about.
Later, I learned that Mr. Ren was a middle school teacher before his retirement, a graduate of the Department of Education of Shanghai Daxia University in the early 1950s, and was once a cadre of the Secretarial Section of the United Front Work Department of the East China Bureau and a small colleague of Teacher Chen. When they got married in 1953, the teacher's immediate superior, Chief Dong Hui (Pan Hannian's wife), gave them a delicate knife, and Zhou Erfu, the first deputy director of the United Front Work Department of the East China Bureau, gave them a set of four-volume Chinese translations of Sholokhov's "Quiet Don River". I sometimes think that if Teacher Ren could have worked quietly in the United Front Work Department all the time, it is unlikely that he would have chosen dishes at this table now.
In March 1951, all the staff of the United Front Work Department of the East China Bureau, the United Front Work Department of the Shanghai Municipal CPC Committee, and the researchers of the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee came to Shanghai to take a group photo at the Broadway Building (now Shanghai Mansion): Liu Renren in the front row, Zhou Erfu on the left, Pei Yi (Mrs. Chen Dai) on the left, Chen Dai on the left in the second row, Dong Hui (Mrs. Pan Hannian) on the third row, and Chen Tongsheng on the fifth in the left.
Entering Teacher Chen's study full of various books, after taking a seat on the sofa, I looked back and saw that there were antique fans hanging on the wall, installed in a mirror frame. Whose masterpiece is this? I asked. This is Chen Baochen's fan, Teacher Chen told me.
When I was in middle school, I read the memoir "The First Half of My Life" by Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, and knew that Chen Baochen was Puyi's teacher, and also knew that Teacher Chen was Chen Baochen's nephew. Seeing the works of the last emperor at zero distance now, my heart was quite shocked. Later, Teacher Chen told me a few small stories about the emperor and his students, such as the emperor saw that the student had the habit of shaking his legs, so he warned the students that "the tree shakes the leaves, and the people shake the blessings", teaching him to be steady and behave decently. Now it may be possible to make the following interpretation: Because this student is blessed, it leads to the appearance of this kind of person shaking, shaking and shaking, and finally shaking the Jiangshan Sheji.
Sitting on the couch, in front of you on the right is a row of bookcases that stand tall and are piled high on top of magazines and books. I saw that the magazines had red spines, as if they were a bit like the Journal of Asian Studies (JAS), edited by the American Society for Asian Studies. Stand up and take a closer look, and sure enough, it's good. Teacher Chen told me that this was an expired magazine sent by one of his classmates in the United States to show him. I said that I had collaborated with a British scholar, Phil Billingsley, to write an English paper for The China Quarterly in the United Kingdom and the Modern China in the United States, and that I had succeeded, but that I had contributed to the Journal of Asian Studies, which was ready to sweep the "core" journals of the United Kingdom and the United States, but unfortunately failed. The editor-in-chief of the magazine wrote to comfort us by saying: The success rate of our article submission is ten percent, and the failure of our re-submission to other magazines is more successful. "We do research because we are interested." Teacher Chen listened to my story and said quietly. This sentence absolutely spoke to my heart.
After this meeting and consulting, I visited Teacher Chen many times and sat on this sofa to chat and ask for advice. In the past, I knew that Teacher Chen's family was prominent and his learning was in both Chinese and Western, but he rarely understood the specifics. Hearing him talk about some of his life experiences was an eye-opener for me.
Looking back now, chatting face-to-face or WeChat with Mr. Chen is equivalent to taking several professional courses in modern and contemporary Chinese history for graduate students at the same time, such as the history of Sino-US relations, the history of fujian modern and modern history, professional English, modern and contemporary history of Taiwan, and the history of modern and contemporary Chinese culture and academic history. What Teacher Chen casually mentioned was either everyone in the academic circles of modern and contemporary Chinese history, or a big figure in the political circles. If you don't have a little historical background, you may not understand it at all. For example, he said that his cousin Professor Liu Guangjing (a professor at the University of California and an academician of the Academia Sinica in Taipei) visited Shanghai, never watched TV in the hotel, and still buried his head in learning. Once he also told me that he often had phone conversations with his cousin, Gu Zhenfu (the taiwanese protagonist of the famous "Wang-Koo Talks"), and that everyone was getting older and had fewer and fewer phone calls; in 1980, "Imperialism and The Chinese Railway," by Mi Rucheng of the Institute of Economic Research of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, which was edited by Mr. Chen, was published by the Shanghai People's Publishing House for a set of four-volume "Selected Works of Mao Zedong." The book was highly praised in Japan, and the Japanese side specially sponsored Mi-sensei to take a tour of the Shinkansen.
Mr. Chen mentioned Professor Ye Wenxin and Professor Liu Guangjing in WeChat
Another time when chatting, I don't know what to talk about, Teacher Chen mouthed a Zhou Minister, I asked which Zhou Minister? Teacher Chen replied that it was his old leader in the early days of liberation, Zhou Erfu, the first deputy director of the United Front Work Department of the East China Bureau. I have read the weekly "Morning in Shanghai" and have seen the corresponding film and television works, so I am very interested and immediately ask all the way. Teacher Chen told me that in the 1980s, Zhou Erfu, who was then the vice minister of culture, was punished for being reported to visit the Yasukuni Shrine in Japan, and was rehabilitated many years later. I was impressed by this story, and when I went to Tokyo to visit the Yasukuni Shrine for the second time, I finally had some understanding of the ins and outs of this place. Later, three volumes of "Memoirs of the Past" and his daughter-in-law Wang Zhousheng's memoirs published in Shanghai's "Century" magazine were published one after another, and I found them to read carefully, and finally had a certain understanding of the ins and outs of this matter. To this day, I feel that it is really not easy to study contemporary Chinese history.
Four
Sometimes I go out and meet some people and things, and when I return to Shanghai, I report to Teacher Chen for the first time.
In August 1994, I went to Tokyo, Japan for the first time for a conference. After the meeting, I took the Shinkansen to Kyoto, although the one-way ticket price from Tokyo to Kyoto was about 23,000 yen. At that time, there were some Japanese films released in China, and the story was set in the Shinkansen, such as "SandWare", which was based on the novel of the famous Japanese writer Kiyoharu Matsumoto. I clearly remember the story of Mi teacher that Teacher Chen and I told, seized the opportunity to feel it, and came back to tell Teacher Chen that I bought coffee on the Shinkansen because I didn't know Japanese, and I was not familiar with the size of the yen coin denomination, and I was too lazy to identify it, so I took out a handful of yen coins and let the Japanese salesman on the Shinkansen take away the corresponding few. Teacher Chen laughed when he heard it.
In January 1995, I went to Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou to attend the "Academic Seminar on Modern China and Asia" jointly organized by Sun Yat-sen University and Zhuhai College in Hong Kong. This was the first time I met a Taiwanese scholar. Professor Chen Cungong of the Institute of Modern History of the Academia Sinica in Taipei learned that I was from Shanghai and was a student of Teacher Chen, and immediately talked to me very warmly, saying that Teacher Chen had met with him and gave him a seal as a souvenir. At the end of the meeting, he handed me an envelope and told me to go back and bring it to Teacher Chen. Taipei Teacher Chen's last heartfelt words, I still dare not forget: "How I hope everyone will get rich!" "After returning to Shanghai, I met with Teacher Chen and conveyed the greetings of Teacher Chen in Taipei. Teacher Chen was very happy and introduced to me that Teacher Chen in Taipei was very friendly and knowledgeable. It is reported that this teacher Chen in Taipei has passed away in 2016. I don't know if he has been to the mainland since 1994, but if he sees the changes in the mainland over the past twenty years, he should be relieved.
Once again, I went to the History Department of Nanchang University, where Yuan Lihua, the former head of the History Department, was a 77-level graduate of Fudan University, and Mr. Chen was his class teacher. Brother Lihua invited me to dinner at his house, and said that once Teacher Chen asked him to help find a document, after the matter was completed, Teacher Chen specially sent a box of mooncakes from Shanghai to express his gratitude. "Hey, we, Teacher Chen, are also too polite. We students do little things for the teacher, and even have to pay back the gift. Brother Lihua, who was already over sixty years old, shook his head and said. When I returned to Shanghai, I told Teacher Chen, and he smiled slightly.
I went to Fuzhou on a business trip, visited the famous Sanfang Seven Alleys, and came back to tell Teacher Chen. He said that Yan Fu and his family were in Langguan Lane, and the three large water tanks in Yan Fu's former residence were originally his family, and he raised goldfish in the tanks when he was a child, and donated Yan Fu's former residence many years ago. That time, I brought back a bag of Fuzhou special olives and gave it to Teacher Chen. Teacher Chen asked in surprise: How do you know that Chen Chuan (Teacher Chen's second son) especially likes this olive? In fact, how could I know, but Teacher Chen's licking feelings were inadvertently revealed.
A few years ago, I went to Peking University for a meeting, especially went to see the former residence of Chen Daisun in Yannan Garden, took photos of the appearance of the former residence and the memorial statue of Chen Daisun, and emailed it to Teacher Chen. Teacher Chen told me some of his cousin's past. This photograph of Chen Daisun's former residence that I took was later included in his oral memoirs by Teacher Chen and displayed on the corresponding page introducing chen Daisun's life. It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to do a little little thing for the teacher.
Five
In October 2007, I went to the University of Wyoming in the United States for half a year. I knew this opportunity was rare, so I seized the opportunity to roam the west and east coasts of the New World, especially to the Harvard Yenching Society Library of Harvard University, because there was also a story mentioned by Teacher Chen on his couch at home.
"Civilizations can benefit the old and the new, and psychological things are the same." In the conference room at the end of the first floor of the red brick building of the Harvard Yenching Society Library, hanging high is the couplet written by Chen Baochen at the age of eighty-four. Because of this couplet, in Shanghai in 2004 on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, there was a small storm. That year, Teacher Chen participated in the Shanghai college entrance examination proposition, and when he visited Harvard University, he saw this couplet and was deeply touched, so he designed a college entrance examination topic for a historical essay. However, this year's history test paper of the Shanghai College Entrance Examination involves leaking questions, and there is a lot of discussion in society.
Mr. Chen's email reply
As soon as I arrived at the Harvard Yenchingshe Library, I immediately went straight to this conference room under the guidance of Brother Ma Xiaohe, a 77-level alumnus of the Department of History (director of the Chinese Department of the Harvard Yenchingshe Library, and Mr. Chen, who was once his class teacher in the History Department of Fudan University). After seeing the true appearance of this ink treasure, I took a photo and emailed Teacher Chen, who was very happy. Unfortunately the photos are a bit blurry. When the author wrote this article, he once emailed Xiaohe Xue brother and asked him to go to this conference room to take a re-shot. The enthusiastic little crane brother replied in an email for the first time: The epidemic in the United States is serious, and Harvard University has not been open since the closure of the school in March this year, and it is impossible for us to go to the Harvard campus. Brother Xiaohe also told me: "I used to go to work by car, often arrived early, I did exercises on this couplet, I couldn't be more familiar with it, but I never thought of taking a photo, that is, when I accompanied the visitors to visit, I would introduce them to the ink treasure of the last emperor of China, and most of them would take pictures." Originally, it was planned to put his retaken photos into this article so that readers can see the real handwriting. Now it seems that only regrets can be left.
Six
In January 2016, "Chen Chen's Oral History" in the "Oral History Series of Shanghai Municipal Research Museum of Literature and History" edited by the Shanghai Research Museum of Literature and History was published. As I read it, I found that all these memories that Teacher Chen told me were written into this book, and they were far more detailed and detailed than he told me, sometimes to the point of surprise, such as the menu that invited him to dinner at the Songhe Tower in Beijing in the autumn of 1986. The list goes on and on. I have great admiration for Teacher Chen, who is nearly ninety years old, and has such a superhuman memory.
Oral History of Chen Chen
Although Chen Chen's Oral History is only 250 pages and 210,000 words, many of the records in it are of very high historical value from the perspective of my study of contemporary Chinese history, especially in the history of Sino-US relations and modern academic history. Teacher Chen's writings are equal, and his works have their own value in academic history. And I think that his "Oral History of Chen Chen" also has extremely high academic value. Through this book, friends who study contemporary Chinese history in the twentieth century are enough to find many thought-provoking clues. At the age of eighty-eight, Teacher Chen was able to see the publication of his oral history before his death, compared with the vast majority of his peers, what a blessing. I was happy for Teacher Chen from the bottom of my heart.
Five years ago, Mr. Zheng Shiliang, who was working in the Oriental Morning Post and Shanghai Book Review, interviewed Teacher Chen's article "Chen Dai on the Chen Family in Luozhou" (included in "Centennial Siwen", Zhonghua Bookstore 2015 edition), which also helped us to fully understand Teacher Chen's family lineage. "Entrepreneurship has been arduous, enjoy the load of thinking and energy; deal with profits and overflows, and suffer losses and take advantage." This is a couplet from Chen Baochen's father to his son, which has become the Chen family's family training and has been passed down from generation to generation. Throughout Teacher Chen's life, he is completely in accordance with this family training.
"Centennial Sven", Zhonghua Bookstore, 2015 edition
After the death of Teacher Jin Chongyuan of the History Department of Fudan University, I wrote a reminiscence article "Forever Teacher Jin", which was published in the Oriental Morning Post. After Teacher Chen saw it, he was unusual, not to write an email, but to call me and praise and encourage. Teacher Chen's master's degree student Wang Shengliang laughed after knowing it: Fat man (the nickname of my college classmates), this is Teacher Chen's hint to Nong, and he wants Nong to write a piece to Yi later.
The author of this article took a group photo with Mr. Chen Dai, and You Weiqun on the right of the front school and Wang Shengliang on the right of the back row were both master's students of Mr. Chen
I hope that Teacher Chen, who is now in another world, sees this little article, and if he is still satisfied, he will definitely dream of me. In addition, I am still a little curious, do not know Chen Baochen's fan, still hanging on the sofa of the old place? When I dream, please ask Teacher Chen to tell me at the same time.
(This article contains Fu Dehua and Dai Angang edited "There is tolerance is great, no desire is just -- a commemorative collection of Mr. Chen Dai", Fudan University Press will soon publish)
Editor-in-Charge: Zheng Shiliang
Proofreader: Liu Wei