Those stories about Leshan, this time, we will tell you. Let's calm down together, travel back to the former Jiazhou together, and listen to that history.
Spring is in Jiazhou, and the year is in Leshan. This time, let's listen to the leshan story!
Today's story comes from the third chapter of Leshan writer Xu Shan's "China Jiading Past": The Jiading Feelings of the Wen Youzhang Family.
The Jiading feelings of the Wen Youzhang family
Located at No. 72 Baita Street, Leshan City, the former residence of Wen Youzhang, I believe many Leshan people know, and when it comes to baita street kindergarten, it is even more well known. But who is Wen Youzhang? What is his relationship with Leshan? Wen Youzhang, a Canadian, was born in 1898 in Baita Street, Jiading District, Sichuan. And the reason why he was born in Jiading, we must first talk about his father Wen Huanzhang.
Wen Huanzhang, a native of Devonshire, England, was also the first person in his family to come to Jiading, China, and since then, his family has had a special relationship with Leshan for three generations.
Wen Huanzhang's father was a farmer who cut grass for the owner of the manor, and it was very difficult to raise 11 children. When Wen Huanzhang was 17 years old, he did not want to repeat his father's poor and humble way of life, and resolutely left The United Kingdom to Join his eldest brother in Canada and become a painter.
Although Wen Huanzhang had nothing, he had a naturally good voice. Singing one day at a street rally, his loud baritone attracted a lively and cheerful Irish woman, Sarah. Sarah warmly invited him to the choir, which he gladly accepted. This coincidence not only determined his life, but also determined Wen Huanzhang's future life path.
Wen Huanzhang, who graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in 1893, although he received a gold medal, did not continue his studies. Restless with the status quo and eager for a challenging life, Wen Huanzhang decided to go to distant China. Two weeks after Wen Huanzhang and Sarah were married, the two embarked on a long journey to China together.
In 1895, Wen Huanzhang arrived in Jiading with his wife, but before they could breathe a sigh of relief, they ran into trouble. People kept throwing stones and garbage into the yard where they lived, banging on the gate and shouting "Down with the dogs!" Kill the big nose of the eating doll!". After deliberating, Mr. and Mrs. Wen Huanzhang decided to leave Jiading for Shanghai. The next day, when the wooden boat sailed to Jiangxin, they saw smoke billowing over Jiading City, and the center of the fire was the Baita Street where they lived.
It was not until a year later that Wen Huanzhang and his wife came to Leshan again, armed with shangfang's sword, the documents of the new governor of Sichuan, purchased land on Baita Street, and built a church, a pharmacy and a school. This is also the predecessor of Baita Street Kindergarten. Wen Huanzhang has since taken root in Jiading and has worked and lived for many years. His second child, Wen Youzhang, was born in Baita Street in Jiading District.
Wen Youzhang spent a pleasant childhood in Leshan, Chengdu, Renshou, and Chongqing, and returned to China with his parents for a vacation in 1910, but unexpectedly, when the holiday was over, his little sister was seriously ill, and the whole family had to stay in Canada temporarily. Soon after, Wen Youzhang's father, Wen Huanzhang, had to settle in Toronto due to changes in his job.
His father's salary was not high, and in order to supplement the family, Wen Youzhang dropped out of school to work in an arsenal. Working 12 hours a day, the labor intensity is very high, and the fatigue is exhausted. This made Wen Youzhang feel that he was not a human, just a cog in the machine. Later, he organized negotiations with the foreman to reduce working hours or increase labor treatment. Unexpectedly, he was attacked and knocked out a front tooth.
At the age of 18, Wen Youzhang joined the army and was sent to serve in France a year later. After the war, he entered the University of Victoria, hoping to return to China where he lived as a child like his father to spread the spirit of love. At this time, the appearance of a woman prompted his desire. The woman's name was Mary, two years older than Wen Youzhang, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, who had always wanted to go overseas to broaden her horizons, especially in the East of China, Japan, and India. When she and Wen Youzhang met, they fell in love with each other.
After some twists and turns, Wen Youzhang married Mary in June 1925. Soon after their marriage, they embarked on a trip to China. Wen Youzhang gave his wife a Chinese name, Yuehua, which means "the brilliance of the moon", and added his Chinese surname to the name according to Chinese customs, called Wen Yuehua.
Legend has it that Wen Youzhang had not yet disembarked from Shanghai to Chongqing by boat, and several young men shouted on the docks, "Down with the foreigners!" They are not allowed to go ashore. Wen Youzhang did not panic, and pulled up his throat and said, "What a crazy thing, crazy hole!" The porter who was doing business at the docks was immediately happy to see a foreigner speaking such an authentic dialect, imitating Wen Youzhang's tone and shouting to several young people on the docks: "What a crazy thing, crazy hole" (in dialect). The people who came and went on the dock laughed, and the hostility was eliminated in the laughter.
In September 1939, the aircraft of the Japanese invading army bombed Luzhou, suffering heavy casualties. Wen Youzhang immediately organized a medical team of 10 people to go and selflessly carry out the work of saving lives and helping the injured. He also used the 1,000 yuan he raised to set up a temporary porridge office to give porridge to refugees every morning and afternoon. Afterwards, someone wrote in his memoirs: Mr. Wen's Chinese dialect is clear and fluent, with a local accent of Leshan.
Wen Youzhang was like this, often fluent and easy-going Sichuanese, coupled with his unique affinity, so that the people who interacted with him from all walks of life to the pawns of the traffickers felt very kind. Just as Guo Moruo later commented on him: "Wen Youzhang is one of the few foreigners who can talk about Chinese in the same way as Chinese."
One of the major contributions of the language-gifted Wen Youzhang to China was the reform of English teaching. The textbook "English Direct Teaching Method" compiled by him was not only adopted by the English Department of Chongqing University, but also published in large quantities. His co-edited New French-English Dictionary was printed more than forty times, millions of copies, from its publication to 1976.
It is also through English teaching that Wen Youzhang has come to know many celebrities in the field of education, and even Chinese officials, and has increasingly stepped onto the Chinese political stage. In 1940, Wen Youzhang served as a political adviser to Chiang Kai-shek, but later resigned after feeling the corruption of the Kuomintang. Later, he founded the English-language journal Shanghai News And Communications, which was distributed to the West and publicized the leadership of the Communist Party of China.
As gunfire grew closer and closer throughout the North China Plain and civil war broke out, friends urged Mr. and Mrs. Wen to leave China as soon as possible for security reasons. On June 19, 1947, Mr. and Mrs. Wen Youzhang left China, where they had been deeply attached and lived for 22 years, which coincided with their wedding anniversary.
Back in his hometown, Wen Youzhang is still committed to the cause of world peace and friendship. In 1965, the Chinese Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries awarded him the title of "People's Friendship Messenger", which is the highest honor given by the Chinese government to foreign friends.
On November 27, 1993, Wen Youzhang died in Canada at the age of 95. In accordance with his will, his family took part of his ashes to Leshan and threw them into the Dadu River, fulfilling Wen Youzhang's wish to return to his hometown.
Source: Heng Travel Network