Shu Yi once recalled to the "Global People" reporter: "I am an engineer, not a writer. After his father was rehabilitated, many people should understand his origins and understand his childhood. He himself did not write a very complete autobiography, nor did he have a biography of him. I accepted the task at that time. ”
| Author: Mao Yufei Liu Xinyin
| Editor: Curry
The Museum of Modern Chinese Literature issued an obituary that Comrade Shu Yi, the son of Mr. Lao She, died in Beijing at 14:16 on April 21, 2021 at the age of 86 due to ineffective medical treatment.
Ji Lei, deputy director of the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature, said in an interview with the media that Shu Yi was sent to the hospital 6 years ago due to a sudden cerebral hemorrhage, and the effect after craniotomy was not ideal. After a year of recovery, his condition deteriorated and he remained in the ICU after being transferred to Tongren Hospital, where he was mostly in a lethargic state. On April 20, the hospital reported a critical illness and died the next afternoon.
For the news of Mr. Shu Yi's death, the friends around him are mentally prepared. Yang Liangzhi, an editor at beijing publishing house who has known Shu Yi for many years, said: "I thought of this day, but this day came too suddenly. ”
Obituary issued by the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature.
The engineer turned to literature and studied his father
In 1935, Shu Yi was born in Qingdao, Shandong Province, and two years later, the "July 7 Incident" broke out, in Shu Yi's own words, "good days passed for two years", and then, like all Chinese people, they encountered poverty, soaring prices, and displacement...
Shu Yi's growth process was deeply influenced by the family atmosphere: although the material conditions were harsh, the people he came into contact with were active in thought. He once recalled that his mother had brought two or three paintings of Qi Baishi with her when she fled from Beiping, and she would follow them with two strokes. Father admired this interest, and he felt that no matter what, one must have his own strengths.
Shu Yi, who spent his childhood in turmoil, studied in the Soviet Union in the 1950s, specializing in forestry chemistry, and later served as a senior engineer at The Guanghua Timber Factory in Beijing, where he was responsible for leading the research room and the central laboratory.
In interviews today, Shu Yi used to call his father "Mr. Lao She". He said it had something to do with his current status as a researcher at Lao She. In fact, Shu Yi only began to engage in literary creation and research after the age of 43.
Since 1978, Shu Yi has collected a lot of information on his father's life, interviewed more than 100 of his father's old friends and insiders, and done a lot of investigation. In 1980, Shu Yi wrote the essay "Lao She's Childhood", which was serialized in the People's Daily supplement "Dadi".
He once recalled to the Global People reporter: "I am an engineer, not a writer. After his father was rehabilitated, many people should understand his origins and understand his childhood. He himself did not write a very complete autobiography, nor did he have a biography of him. I accepted the task at that time. ”
Shu Yi in front of the portrait of his father Lao She.
While doing historical material work, Shu Yi wrote a series of extremely insightful academic papers. Shu Yi's first paper, "Lao She's Writings and the City of Beijing," stemmed from what he discovered while reading his father's works. Shu Yi combed through more than 240 place names mentioned by his father, thus opening up the road of "literary geography" of Lao She's works.
Shu Yi's other expansion of the field of Lao She's research is manifested in the study of Lao She's "Manchu literature". Before 1949, Lao She rarely mentioned that he was a Manchu, and he never marked which character was Manchu in his creation. Through careful reading, Shu Yi tasted the strong Manchu temperament in Lao She's works, and wrote the article "Implicit Manchu Literature", which opened another aspect of Lao She literature.
"Talent for humor" inherited from father
Lao She was originally named Shu Qingchun, and his works such as "Tea House" and "Four Generations Together" can be called classics in modern Chinese literature. Lao She's work "Beijing flavor" is very strong, and is considered to be a representative of the Beijing school of novels, and some people call him "a well-known humor master in Chinese and foreign literary circles". In Shu Yi's eyes, although his father is serious most of the time, as long as "someone comes to the family, or goes out to a party, Lao She becomes the most humorous, enthusiastic, and interesting person."
His father's humor and enthusiasm also seem to have been perfectly inherited to Shu Yi. After Shu Yi's death, Ji Lei recalled Shu Yi's daily work in an interview with the media, describing him as a "funny, cheerful, and particularly easy to get along with" person. "He also doesn't have a leadership shelf, we all enjoy listening to him chat, especially when the meeting, I feel very funny, his eloquence is really ..."
Shu Yi data map
In 1984, Shu Yi was transferred to the Chinese Writers Association and participated in the preparation of the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature. After the opening of the museum in 1985, he successively served as deputy curator, executive deputy curator and curator, and his research on Lao She gradually deepened.
"He himself said that he had no merit in this person, that is, he was industrious, and I had easily accepted this statement before. Don't think like this now, the biggest feature of Lao She is that he has great love, a very broad heart, and is a great humanitarian. ”
Shu Yi once said that Lao She has a nature to mingle with laborers, "He is always waiting for people, so he can write things that can be passed on and made everyone like and move." Shu Yi recalled: "We lived in bungalows at that time, and every year we had to go up to the house to repair the house, pull grass, and there were bricklayers working on it. He came out of the writing break, the two men talked, and the two-sentence bricklayer came down and ran to smoke and drink tea with him. He had a completely friendly and affectionate relationship with these people. ”
Shu Yi said: "One of Lao She's hobbies is that he likes to entertain and make trouble. Bring everyone in, such as celebrating birthdays, festivals, flowers, paintings, moons, and then having a special dinner. This kind of gathering usually ends up with Lao She alone saying there, and everyone is quietly watching him. Ye Shengtao said in his diary: We like to be with Mr. Lao She, and if he doesn't finish playing, we will never withdraw. ”
Shu Yi once told the "Global People" reporter that another hobby of his father was reading, often reciting English novels aloud at home. Lao She wrote the script and immediately brought the director, director, and actor of the theater to listen to him recite. The actors looked for the basis for future acting from the posture and language of Lao She's recitation. Lao She believes that the best of his works is "Four Generations Together", the best one before is "Divorce", and there is another one he wrote in Chongqing, called "Homecoming xi". He said that these three works were his favorites. ”
The widely circulated photo of Lao She writing in the study of Dan Persimmon Courtyard.
Remembering his father: he was once a "freak"
In recent years, Shu Yi's life is very simple, in addition to creating and participating in social activities, he is painting at home. When not chatting, Shu Yi looks very serious, but as long as he talks about his father, his language immediately becomes vivid and interesting.
Shu Yi said that Lao She was "a strange person in the literary and art circles at the beginning of the liberation" and that "at that time, people wore cadre uniforms." He had just returned from the United States, suit, tie, three-joint leather shoes, cane, fan, this dress is definitely a monster. "However, Lao She, who wears foreign schools, actually retains a lot of Manchu habits," at home, he wore a fox-skin cardigan jacket, a pair of cloth shoes and a large felt slippers, and the whole Chinese old man. ”
Lao She also likes folding fans, often fan without leaving the hand. Because the fan itself is a combination of several kinds of art, the fan bone, fan surface, and fan pendant are very exquisite. "You see his pictures with fans. Let's say he has three events a day, he changes them three. When Chairman Mao received him, it was not hot at all, and he also took a fan. Chairman Mao didn't look at him at all, at the fan. ”
In 1960, Mao Zedong received Lao She (first from right), Mei Lanfang (second from right), and Tian Han (third from right).
As the former director of the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature, Shu Yi also saw the representativeness of his father in the context of the times. "This group of them, that is, the enlightenment of May Fourth, just caught the last train of the private school, so the Tang poems, Song Ci, the 'Four Books' and the 'Five Classics' are all backwards, and the classical cultural literacy is profound." At the same time, these people have also studied abroad and learned a lot of Western political, scientific, and cultural knowledge. It can be said that it is precisely that era that has created their group of people. ”
In Shu Yi's view, Lao She can be said to be a typical example of this group of people: he lived for 67 years and spent nearly 10 years abroad. In the past 10 years, Lao She has accepted a large number of Western ideas, and has also formed a unique perspective on issues. It is this kind of independent thinking and personality that makes him literary and artistically never abandoned by the times.
In his later years, he devoted himself to the "protection" of the city of Beijing
Immersed in his father's works, Shu Yi gradually embarked on his own artistic path.
In May 2000, the new museum of modern Chinese literature was completed, with Shu Yi as the director, who worked hard for the preparation of the new museum. At this time, Shu Yi was already an old man, but he was energetic and creative at work.
He had considered building the Literature Museum into a garden-style literary hall, from architectural design to garden greening and writers' sculptures. Under his planning, the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature also specially introduced film and television talents to conduct follow-up interviews with the older generation of writers, leaving valuable video materials.
After this, Shu Yi began to gradually devote himself to his interests. His hobbies, like his father's, are also closely centered on the "city of Beijing". "He inherited his father's familiarity with Beijing, his propaganda for Beijing, and his love for Beijing, which was strongly expressed in him." Zhou Ming, former deputy director of the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature, once said so.
Beijing is the source of Lao She's writing, he loves Beijing, and his works are full of strong "Beijing flavor", and Shu Yi is also aware of these bits and pieces.
In 2000, in the face of the rapid demise of hutongs and courtyards in Beijing's old city, Shu Yi and several members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference jointly put forward "Ten Urgent Suggestions for Protecting Beijing's Famous Historical and Cultural City" and assumed the historical responsibility of protecting old Beijing. In the years since, Shu Yi has been committed to the protection of the city's cultural relics and cultural heritage.
It seems that the interest of childhood was stimulated, and Shu Yi's interest in painting became more and more intense in his later years, but he was not limited to ink or oil paint, but a unique mix of Chinese and Western styles, painting the Forbidden City in Beijing and other scenic spots. His friend Yang Liangzhi commented on his paintings: "With aura, he paints grass in the cracks of the stone bricks of the Forbidden City, and often looks at the life phenomenon of ancient ruins with a unique eye. ”
In his later years, Shu Yi lived near Andingmen, which looked south at the sparkling moat. He often walked by the moat, keeping all the beijing grass and trees in his heart and turning them into moving prose and paintings.
Some sources: Global Network, The Paper, Beijing Daily client