On May 24, the Memorial Hall of the Left Alliance issued an obituary saying that Chen Ming, a retired cadre of the Beijing Film Studio, died of illness in Beijing at 1:50 a.m. on May 20 at the age of 102. Chen Ming created a large number of dramatic works as early as the Yan'an period, and he was also the successor husband of the famous modern female writer Ding Ling, and the two spent forty years together.
<h2>The gentry family came out of the literary and artistic backbone</h2>
Chen Ming, whose real name is Chen Zhixiang, was born in 1917 in Poyang County, Jiangxi Province, to a family of squires, and studied with his uncle in Beijing and Shanghai. In 1933, at the age of 16, he was admitted to Shanghai Myron Middle School (now Jiguang Middle School), during which he served as the president of the drama club, and also participated in the "12.9" Anti-Japanese Salvation Movement as one of the founders and leaders of the Shanghai Secondary School Students Anti-Japanese National Salvation Federation. For safety reasons, he began to use the name "Chen Ming".
After graduating from high school, Chen Ming was admitted to the Shanghai Business School, but soon he went to Yan'an to study at the local Anti-Japanese Military and Political University. Chen Ming, who had just entered school, successfully played "Son Bohuier" in Tian Han's drama based on Gorky's novel "Mother", with his theater accumulation, which attracted the attention of people in the literary and art circles.
After the "July 7 Incident", the Northwest Field Service Regiment (hereinafter referred to as the "Western War Regiment") was established, led by the writer Ding Ling, and Chen Ming was recommended by people to become the head of the propaganda unit, and was regarded by Ding Ling as a right-hand man.
<h5>In 1939, Chen Ming was in Yan'an. </h5>
In the second half of 1938, Chen Ming returned to Yan'an and successively served as the head of the propaganda brigade of the Political Department of the Left Guard Corps in the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia region, the captain of the Beacon Drama Society, the deputy director of the Yan'an Cultural Club, and the researcher of the news office of the Academia Sinica. In the spring of 1944, he was transferred to the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region Literary Association to specialize in the creation, and his "Ping Demon Record", which he wrote based on folklore, borrowed from the form of folk music and art, and was published by the Liberation Daily. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Chen Ming went deep into the factory and the field army to experience life, cooperated with Ding Ling to complete the script of "Kiln Worker", and wrote "Night Battle dafengzhuang", "Ma Wenli" and other communication reports.
At the beginning of the founding of New China, Chen Ming entered the Script Creation Institute of the Central Film Bureau, and transferred to the Beijing Film Studio after the unit was abolished. During this period, he created the film script "Harbor Career", which depicted the struggle between the dock workers in Dalian and the Japanese Kou, and adapted the stage play "Gate Six" into a film script of the same name, both of which received good response after their release, and the latter was also selected for the Czechoslovak "Chinese Film Week" and won the third prize of the Ministry of Culture's Excellent Film Award.
In 1955, Chen Ming adapted Ding Ling's important book "The Sun Shines on the Sangan River" into a film script.
<h2>Acting as a "behind-the-scenes change" for his wife Ding Ling</h2>
In 1937, the 20-year-old Chen Mingchu came to Yan'an and met the 33-year-old famous female writer Ding Ling at the first meeting of the "Western War Regiment", and was very fond of her enthusiasm and directness. Later, Ding Ling told him that when she watched the drama "Mother" rehearsed by the students, she had remembered the "Berhuier" on the stage.
Their love affair was once regarded as a "big woman and a small husband", and Chen Ming himself had concerns. In "Fifty Years of Me and Ding Ling: Memoirs of Chen Ming", Chen Ming, who is in his nineties, wrote: "In fact, my consideration is not because she is a celebrity and has a higher status than me, nor because she is older than me, but because I am not mentally prepared for this..."
The love affair with Chen Ming was picked out by Ding Ling: "Can't the two of us do it?" In "Chen Ming's Memoirs", he wrote that he was "shocked" after listening to it, but after trying to understand, Chen Ming said: "Ding Ling is worthy of my life to love." I admire her personality, her work in the Western War Corps, her life's work, and I hope she will continue to succeed..."
In 1942, Chen Ming and Ding Ling got married in Lanjiaping, Yan'an, and there was no banquet. After marriage, in order not to hinder their work, they did not have any more children, and Chen Ming regarded One of Ding Ling's sons, Jiang Zulin and Jiang Zuhui, as if they were his own.
<h5>Family photo in 1953 (Ding Ling and Jiang Zuhui in the front row, Jiang Zulin and Chen Ming in the back row). </h5>
As a playwright, Chen Ming often served as the first reader of Ding Ling's works, and Ding Ling jokingly called him "Changing His Family". In 1948, after the first edition of "The Sun Shines on the Sangan River" was published, she specially left a copy for her husband to sign: "Left for Chen Ming." Because you have given me a lot of help, so that I can write this book with fewer errors and shortcomings, and when I write, it will not affect my emotions from the outside world, and I should thank you. ”
On April 3, 1986, six years after her comeback in the literary world, Ding Ling, 82, died of malignant complications of diabetes. In the same year, the China Ding Ling Research Association was established, and Chen Ming served as a consultant. In his later years, Chen Ming successively completed the proofreading of the first to tenth volumes of the "Ding Ling Anthology" and the editing of the seven to ten volumes; edited and published Ding Ling's collection of works in the Yan'an period, "When I Was in Xia village", the collection of letters "Shuyu: Ding Ling Chen Ming Love Book"; wrote and published "I Say Ding Ling" and "Fifty Years of Me and Ding Ling: Memoirs of Chen Ming".
The historian Chen Jiazhu visited Chen Ming's apartment several times in the 1990s. He once wrote: "On the living room table is a pot of evergreen trees, and on the front wall hangs a large color photo of Ding Ling with a smile." When chatting with visitors, the topic always revolves around Ding Ling's writing and life in her later years.
<h5>In the winter of 1981, Chen Ming and Ding Ling went to Canada to view Niagara Falls. </h5>
Only in the final publication of "Memoirs of Chen Ming" did the old man make a confession for himself: "Half a century and she experienced the ups and downs of life, tasted the joys and sorrows of the world, tempered the will never to retreat, even in adversity, never wavered regret." I can say with a clear conscience: I have not wasted this life. ”
Written by: Nandu reporter Hou Jingjing