Once upon a time, "Shanghai Celebrity" became a special cultural phenomenon.
The beauties did everything in their power to chase the imitation, but they never knew how to do it.
Looking back at history, Shanghai celebrities are not at all the same as rouge perfume and high-heeled cheongsam.
They come from extraordinary backgrounds, but they have learned both Chinese and Western, and they have no arrogance and petulance.
They are knowledgeable, but they are independent and self-reliant, yearning for poetry and distant places.
The unique era, only Shanghai, has created those outstanding celebrities.
The most outstanding of them is Guo Wanying, a Miss Qianjin of Yong'an Department Store.
Today, let us walk into the legendary life of Guo Wanying.
She has a bearded eyebrow
In 1909, a beautiful Chinese baby girl was born in Australia.
Seeing that the newborn daughter was so watery, his father gave her a very poetic English name: Daisy.
For the first six years of her life, Daisy lived in Australia.
Warm sunshine, warm sand, endless wilderness, these intoxicating and beautiful images adorned her entire childhood.
When she was six years old, the family company Yongan Company settled in Shanghai, and Daisy followed her father back to China.
Here, she felt heartfelt kindness, because in Australia, she could not see so many people with dark eyes and yellow skin like herself.
When I first met Daisy, someone described it this way:
"Delicate eyes, smooth forehead, pink cheeks, white lotus-like arms, coupled with a delicate white lace skirt, soft soled small white shoes, like a pure little angel." 」
After settling down, Daisy began to experience the customs and customs of Shanghai.
Since she is a little fan of the writer Bing Xin (Xie Wanying), Daisy gave herself a similar Chinese name: Guo Wanying.
As she grew older, her father sent Guo Wanying to the Chinese and Western Girls' School in Shanghai.
This girls' school is not a private school where a bunch of students sit and shake their heads, its specifications are exactly equivalent to that of a private aristocratic school.
Almost all the girls who can enter the school are all local tycoons in Shanghai.
However, after stepping into the school gate, they have to put aside their pampering habits and start rigorous training from eating and living.
Like other female students, Guo Wanying must sort out her own housekeeping, take care of her own clothes, and be clean and tidy and orderly.
In addition, chinese language and English cannot be left behind, otherwise they will not be able to graduate smoothly.
After several years of grinding of private school life and the catalyst of family heritage, Guo Wanying has gone from an innocent girl to a famous girl who knows how to read and write, and is atmospheric and intelligent.
In 1928, Guo Wanying graduated from the Chinese and Western Girls' School in Shanghai, and immediately faced a major choice in life.
There are two paths in front of her:
The first is to talk about marriage early like traditional Chinese women, either to find their favorite ruyi langjun, or to make a lifelong decision under the arrangement of their parents;
The second is to travel far away from the ocean to study in the United States like a famous girl of the same age, and seek self-worth in an open and new country.
Guo Wanying is quite yearning for the second way.
In Shanghai, the most fashionable and foreign in China, she is in contact with dignitaries and social celebrities, bathed in the cutting-edge education of Chinese and Western, and has long been out of the traditional way in her thoughts and opinions, and naturally looks forward to the ideal future.
But her father did not think so, although the rich side and well-informed, but the old man still has a feudal consciousness of male superiority and female inferiority in his bones.
In his heart, the four seas for home, the courage to break through the world are the feelings of the big husband, and his daughter is still good to stay in The country.
In this way, Guo Wanying was arranged by her father to be a lifelong event, targeting the son of her father's best friend.
In the eyes of outsiders, the marriage of two giants is an extremely enviable thing.
Unexpectedly, Guo Wanying rejected the other party's marriage proposal in the blessings of the sky and thousands of favors, which could not help but make people mutter: Is this Miss Qianjin not blessed in the blessing?
In fact, the reason why Guo Wanying refused to propose marriage was because of such a small matter:
The man gave her a delicate gift, and when he opened it, it was a rather fashionable glass stocking, which immediately made a girl like Guo Wanying who loved beauty blossom.
While rubbing the stockings as thin as cicada wings, the man said with a smile:
"Honey, these stockings are so strong that you won't break them even if you wear them for a year or two!"
As soon as these words came out, Guo Wanying's heart suddenly burst with great loss.
Holding a delicate and fashionable gift in her hand, but speaking the most boring and boring language on her mouth, this is not her wishful thinking at all, and it is impossible for both parties to rub out the spark of the heart in the future marriage.
Subsequently, Guo Wanying resolutely refused the marriage, left Shanghai in the Ten Mile Ocean Field, and went to Beiping, which was frozen for thousands of miles.
Good couples are predestined
For life, Guo Wanying has her own ideals and is also full of initiative.
After coming to Beiping, she chose the psychology major of her dreams and successfully entered Yenching University.
More importantly, she met the man who was worth entrusting for life.
This man's name is Wu Yuhua, a descendant of the national hero Lin Zexu, born with clear eyebrows and brilliant talents.
At the age of nineteen, Wu Yujun was admitted to the publicly funded international student with Gengzi's indemnity, and later went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study mechanical and electrical engineering.
In the government's vision, these students should forget politics and concentrate on their studies and life after they go to a foreign country.
Sure enough, Wu Yujun left politics behind in the world of flowers and flowers, either learning in the classroom or wandering in bars and various dance parties, exerting his eloquence and charm to the fullest.
After returning to China, this male version of the social flower is naturally loved by many women.
But on the issue of selecting the other half, Wu Yujun was unusually cautious.
As a well-educated person who returned from overseas, the kind of woman who can only apply grease and powder naturally cannot arouse his interest.
He was waiting for a woman who was very attractive and haunted by his dreams.
When Wu Yujun and Guo Wanying first met, they both decided with each other that the other was the person they were looking for.
In 1934, the twenty-five-year-old Guo Wanying entered the hall of marriage she had dreamed of.
In order to prepare for this wedding, she was busy and busy, and everyone lost a whole circle.
On the wedding day, she wore a white wedding dress and fell in love with Wu Yuhua for life amid the applause and blessings of people from all walks of life in Shanghai.
At this moment, the couple with talented women and good couples has become the most beautiful focus of Shanghai.
Talents and beautiful people, rich relatives, layers of elements one after another detonated the hustle and bustle of good birthdays and auspicious days.
For a period of time after marriage, the world of Guo Wanying and Wu Yujun cannot be described as happy.
But marriage is not like love after all, it requires not only the commitment of the sea oath and mountain alliance, but also the loyalty of the long-term keeping.
For Wu Yuhua, a veteran of the love scene, the word "loyalty" has become a stream that can be crossed at any time.
One night, looking around lonely, Wu Yuhua went on a date with a young widow, not thinking that a soft knock on the door interrupted the two.
When the widow opened the door, Guo Wanying, dressed in a cheongsam, stood impressively in the night.
She smiled and said lightly, "Hello, I came to find my husband." ”
In this way, without shouting and scolding, without tearing and twisting, Guo Wanying quietly took Wu Yujun back home.
Speaking of which, this widow is still Guo Wanying's old acquaintance.
Faced with a troubled husband and a frightened acquaintance, Guo Wanying could have chosen either way to pour out the anger of a married woman at the two of them.
But she did not, and in the most elegant way, she ended a trial that would destroy the marriage.
Since then, Wu Yujun has never looked for flowers and asked willows with his wife on his back, and has begun to concentrate on his career.
After this disaster, although Guo Wanying forgave her husband, she also realized that she should still open up a pattern and live into the self she once was.
So she teamed up with her friends to start a clothing business.
After several ups and downs, the family's situation has finally improved.
First, Wu Yujun seized the opportunity after World War II and started a medical device business with foreigners, and then Guo Wanying also acted as her husband's personal secretary, using her English and insights to help him make the transnational business bigger and bigger.
In just a few years, the devastated land of China has slowly glowed with different vitality, and Guo Wanying's family has also continued to forge ahead in hope and vitality.
Suddenly, one day, Guo Wanying, who was immersed in a happy day, got the shocking news: Wu Yuhua was classified as a rightist.
The golden branches and jade leaves are undefeated
Soon after he became involved in the political whirlpool, Wu Yujun died of illness, leaving behind his wife and a pair of children.
On that day, Guo Wanying put on a neat cheongsam and came to the morgue alone.
In front of her husband's body, she was silent, but quietly took out a clean handkerchief and covered it on his face.
When she got home, her son asked her:
"Mom, without Dad, can we still live in this world?"
She smiled as she stroked her son's forehead: "Child, the sun will rise every day." ”
Since then, she has gotten up at five o'clock every day, gone to bed at ten o'clock, and taken on all the work of the family alone.
Moreover, she also had to pay off the 140,000 debts owed to the state on behalf of her husband.
For many people, those years were difficult and dark, and it was difficult to look back, but Guo Wanying did not think so at all.
As the daughter of a capitalist, she not only had to enter training courses for re-education, but also participated in various manual labors to contribute to the construction of the country.
But no matter what the situation, Guo Wanying was smiling and calm.
Let me clean the bathroom and I will clean the bathroom spotlessly.
Let me build roads in the winter, and I also have to prove that I don't let my eyebrows be shaved.
To prepare herself a sumptuous afternoon tea, she would use an enamel jar.
In order to keep her son not alone, she bought him a chicken as a pet and told him to take good care of him.
For her behavior, the people around her are quite puzzled: they are all so poor and destitute, what else do they pay attention to?
To this, she replied lightly: "Because this is what people look like when they are alive." ”
This Famous Lady of Shanghai, who grew up in the Republic of China, used her own elegance and nobility to embellish the most simple and confusing days with sparkling and fragrant fragrance.
After the storm ended, Guo Wanying got the glorious retirement worker certificate.
When asked if she had ever thought about suicide, Guo Wanying, who was in her sixties, smiled and said, "What is suicide?" I'm still waiting to hold my grandson! ”
Later, her children lived happily, and she became a grandmother as she wished.
In 1998, ninety-year-old Guo Wanying closed her eyes serenely.
According to the agreement before her death, all of her body was donated to the Shanghai Red Cross Society.
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Looking back on Guo Wanying's turbulent life, we seem to see such a woman:
She smiles like a flower, elegant as snow, no matter whether the surrounding scenery is the ultimate beauty, or the Dragon Pond Tiger Cave, she always wears a cheongsam, holds up a parasol, not hurried, not slow, the style walks by.
A woman's greatest confidence is not her appearance, not her financial talent, nor her family lineage, but her infinite open-mindedness to life and her complete acceptance of fate in the depths of her heart.
All this is really in response to the pair of ties that others gave her:
There is forbearance and benevolence, everyone is still beautiful; flowers blossom and fall, and golden branches and jade leaves are undefeated.