During the May Fourth Movement, people were listening to students' speeches.
Sidney Gamble/Photo
On May 7, 1919, students of the Beijing Higher Normal School detained during the May Fourth Movement were released and returned to school.
Students of the Beijing Finance and Business School who participated in the parade.
Schematic map of the route of the student parade on the day of the May Fourth Movement. (The source of the map is the 1914 Tianjin Middle East Lithography Bureau", "Map of Beijing")
I dedicate this topic to every capital "I".
There's always a time when people are going to bring it up again and again. Every time you mention it, you will chisel different traces in your memory. May 4, 1919 was one such moment. Although the events that happened that day have long become common knowledge in this country. But we are so familiar with it that the moment can easily be summed up in a few words: three thousand students representing Beijing's thirteen colleges and universities took to the streets that afternoon. They held signs protesting against the great powers presiding over the Paris Peace Conference for breaking their promise of the supremacy of justice and selling Shandong's power to Japan, a long-sought enemy of China. When the road to the foreign embassy was blocked by the police, the students were indignant and rushed to the private house of Cao Rulin, whom they believed to be the traitorous culprit. They broke through windows, destroyed furniture, burned Cao's mansion, and punched Zhang Zongxiang, another pro-Japanese official who happened to be a guest at Cao's house. Instead of ending the campaign, the police arrests of students quickly spread throughout the country, and telegrams of solidarity with Beijing students struck like a blizzard, and students from colleges and universities everywhere carried patriotic banners, and even linked up the same hatred of industrial and commercial groups. Encouraged and deterred by the wave of demonstrations at home, the Chinese delegation chose to refuse to sign the peace treaty on June 28, the day the Paris Peace Conference ended, and the direct purpose of the May Fourth Movement was successfully achieved.
The above passage may be enough to summarize the May Fourth Movement in the eyes of most people. But just like the inscription on the scroll painting, although the author and the title of the painting are clear at a glance, it is only an object in the historical warehouse, even if it is placed in a very conspicuous position, it is taken out and wiped from time to time, but if it is not unfolded, then the past that was once vividly depicted on the scroll will never be presented in front of future generations. And future generations will not know what they have missed in addition to those familiar common sense.
I'm here
A photograph taken by Sidney Gamble is just one fragment of the scroll. When the May Fourth Movement broke out, the American sociologist happened to be in Beijing, capturing many moments with his bulky old-fashioned camera. One of the moments was when people gathered in front of the YMCA building to listen to student speeches. If from the perspective of common sense, this picture is not taken successfully, the students who are the protagonists of May Fourth are almost drowned in the crowd, unable to see their faces, but occupy the main body of the photo by the onlookers who are accustomed to being used as a background, and most of them use the back of their heads to face the camera. But that's where the intriguing is— a braid hangs prominently on the back of a head in the center of the photo. Considering that the Republic of China has been established for eight years, and Beijing is the political center of the republic, this braid appears very out of place.
It must be said that this scene is full of contradictions that do not conform to common sense. The usual impression is that the May Fourth Movement should be attracted by the trendy people, and as for the conservative faction with pigtails, even if it does not curse in secret, it must be avoided. But photos don't lie. The presence of this anachronistic braid at least shows that a person who is outwardly conformist can still participate in this movement that marks the beginning of a new era as he wishes. In this movement, he is not a "kind of person", but a specific individual, who chooses to stand in the crowd and drag his braids to listen to the student preach the meaning and goals of the movement, even if his braids are also one of the targets of the movement.
Bystanders in the background of the movement show their own personality as independent selves, so what about the protagonists of this movement? Their faces seemed more uniform. The mention of these people immediately comes to mind, of course, the flags waved and the slogans chanted, as well as the coordinated expressions of righteous indignation. Taken as a whole, there is nothing wrong with this impression. A student of the Beijing Higher Normal School named Chen Qiqiao also confirmed this in his diary that day, "When he arrived at the door of Cao Rulin's house in Zhao Jialou, the people's hearts became more and more excited, and they shouted: 'Traitor Cao Rulin should die!'" ''Kill Cao Rulin!'' The representatives of the schools prophesied: To the Cao Thief Gate, he will bear the flag of the traitor and throw it in his house to humiliate him. So the white flag flew wildly, mixed with bricks and stones, and the sound of anger and scolding shot straight into the sky."
But in the impassioned group portraits, Chen Qiqiao also has his own feelings. He was suffering from a fever that day, and the original plan was to return to school after listening to the speech of the National Convention. However, "after seeing that the speech has been completed, the students of each school will have a flag in their hands, which will be a parade in the streets." I can still walk ten miles from my physical strength", and only then asked my classmates for a white flag with the words "Return me to Qingdao" and marched with the brigade. Although he was also involved in the destruction of the Cao Mansion and the burning of the Zhao Family Building. But when he was "destroying the murderer", he and another classmate took a detour to another friend's house, and then returned to the university apartment for dinner. He wrote in his diary: "Yu Yi is not very good at roasting, eat a chicken."
The personal feeling of fever is of course irrelevant in the whole exercise. But as a specific person, the fever made Chen Qiqiao have to choose between resting and participating in sports. His fever experience made us realize that this is not a collective march of a thousand people and a uniformity, but a spontaneous action in which individuals with self-perception, guided by self-awareness, consciously participate in it.
They are only insignificant water droplets in the torrent of the May Fourth Movement, but just as the ocean is made up of countless water droplets, they are also an indispensable part of the long scroll of "May Fourth". These vivid faces full of self-experience and experience attract people to unfold this long scroll, and from under the dry inscription skeleton of the cover, they find an era of flesh and blood, where everyone is a living person, rather than a dispensable face drowning in the sea of people.
I see
"The Majestic Pavilion of Tiananmen Square, Zhu Yuanfei represents the solemn atmosphere of the motherland, in front of the square of spring light, gathered a large group of angry sons and daughters of the motherland, thousands of young students of major and middle schools in the city, and issued a roar that shook the heavens!" As Yu Li, a student of the Beijing Higher School, passionately described, it is a matter of pride for the participants of the May Fourth Movement to be in Beijing. Beijing is the best place to embody the "I see" in the May Fourth Movement, and as long as you are in the city, you basically will not miss the historical moment of witnessing.
Meng Xianyi, a senator in the National Assembly, was passing through Qianmen Avenue to Dashilar on the afternoon of that day, "seeing that thousands of students were crossing the road and unable to go, they went to various embassies and said that the Japanese would not return Qingdao, each holding a small flag in his hand, and writing the words 'Ask for Qingdao, Bargain for Traitors'." That night, he heard the news that the students had beaten Zhang Zongxiang and burned down Cao's house.
When the students stormed the Cao mansion, 21-year-old Zheng Zhenduo was taking a nap. The Beijing Railway Management Institute, where he attended, was not one of the colleges involved in the May Fourth Movement. But he also became a direct witness to the May Fourth Movement. As soon as he woke up from his nap, he heard someone shouting that there was a fire outside, "in the thick black smoke, with blood-red flames, suddenly rising upwards." He also saw "a patrol officer wounded on the head, wrapped in white gauze, supported by two companions, into the 'patrol checker'." After a while, I saw a student-like person running and running away. Several patrolmen chased after him, chased him to the empty field, and caught him." The next day, he learned from the newspaper that this was the dramatic "burning of the Zhao Family Building" during the May Fourth Movement.
Those who witnessed it did not hesitate to write and ink to throw the most detailed account into this sacred place at the center of the May Fourth Movement. But the May Fourth Movement was not an isolated incident confined to Beijing. It's more like a stone thrown into a pond, and the ripples of the circle spread across the country. Even those who are not present can have their own perspective to witness the movement.
"For qingdao negotiations, the academic circles are extremely fierce, and there are dead people. The Shanghai Speech gathered more than 100,000 people. President Cai Xiaomin resigned and left due to the student trend in Beijing. The press attacked the government. Hu Jingyi, who wrote this in his diary, could not have witnessed the May Fourth Movement that began in Beijing, and even though he could not even take a step through the gate. The revolutionary, who led the uprising during the Xinhai Revolution, is now a prisoner of Chen Shufan, the overseer of Shaanxi, and is under house arrest on the upper floor of the Bajiaxiang Supervisor's Office in Xi'an, thousands of miles from Beijing. But he can still witness the progress of the movement, even though it has been 25 days since the outbreak of the May Fourth Movement.
Hu Jingyi was able to become a "witness" to the May Fourth Movement by relying on a copy of the Yishi Bao in his hand. In a sense, the May Fourth Movement can be said to be a propaganda revolution set off by newspapers. It was only after seeing Lin Changmin's commentary in the May 2 Morning Post that the students in Beijing embarked on the road of demonstration and protest under the stirring of his call.
The day after the Outbreak of the May Fourth Movement, Tianjin's Yishi Bao, Shanghai's Declaration, and Republic of China Daily already published the whole process of the movement. Newspapers in other provinces also published news about the May Fourth Movement in Beijing. By June 1919, apart from the remote mountain villages where the atmosphere was extremely isolated, it would be extremely difficult to find a man who knew nothing about the May Fourth Movement that was taking place in any small town where newspapers were published. In these places, the May Fourth Movement was also staged in a local form.
In Guangzhou, when the parade team tried to convince the police who came with theory, the police officers loaded up bullets and pointed them at the students. This incident became the most brutal and bloody page of the May Fourth Movement. There are few accounts of the incident, but Zheng Yanfan, a student at Muli English College, recorded everything she witnessed in detail. As witnesses travel through the torrents of the times that came and went in the 20th century, these experiences will also be painted with the color of memory.
I remember
If memory is colored, then for people today, the memory of the May Fourth Movement should be red, the fiery red of the flames that burn the enemy goods and the red of the surging blood in the chest. But after such a long time, it is worth pondering which color is its true color. Time is not a shot in the face, and it does not necessarily allow the narrator to reveal the truth that has settled in memory. Many times, stirring up precipitated memories in the long river of time will make the truth more blurred.
Let's start with the fiery red of the flames. From the moment when the "burning of the Zhao Family Building" became history, it showed different appearances in the accounts of different people. Chen Qiqiao, who had personally experienced the incident, wrote in his diary on the same day: "When the people were trying to destroy it, they suddenly saw a fire in the house. The patrol officer shouted: 'Fire, please return to the team quickly!' In a report published the next day in the Morning Post, it was also said that "it was four o'clock in the afternoon, and I saw the flames rising from the roof of the Cao Mansion, and it was difficult to know exactly what the cause of the fire was, and everyone said it was different." Initial witnesses and news reports agreed that this was an intractable fire accident. A pamphlet titled "Zhang Zongxiang," published in June, tended to say that "the electric light broke and therefore caught fire," that is, it was an accident. The Weekly Review, founded by Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao and other leaders of the May Fourth Movement, pointed the suspicion of arson to Cao Rulin's family. Both witnesses and sympathizers of the students are clearing them of the suspicion of setting fires to the students – at least to show that at the time of the incident, the participants still wanted to cut the righteous act of beating the traitor and the irrational behavior of setting fire to private homes.
But as time passes, the personal memories of those who witness it go astray. Yang Han was one of the participants in the invasion of cao's house that year, and in his recollection forty years later, he insisted that the Cao family set the fire itself, "Once the fire was set, causing the students to commit a criminal offense, wouldn't it be possible to arrest and punish them?" Some people showed concern about "burning the Zhao family building." Mao Zishui, who was in the procession, heard that "someone had set fire to someone, and he had heard that he had beaten a person lying on the ground with a cane", so he "felt that he was not very happy in his heart, so he left alone." Fu Sinian, one of the initiators of the movement, also regarded the burning of the Cao mansion as an irrational act, and voluntarily stepped down as the leader of the movement after the incident. But others reversed their attitudes after the incident, and most of them admitted that the fire was set by the students themselves. The motives, methods, and arsonists of the arson are different.
Kuang Husheng, who was later believed to be the first to break into Cao's mansion, said in his recollection six years later that his classmates set the fire because "Cao Rulin, Lu Zongyu, and Zhang Zongxiang, who were indeed proved by everyone to have not escaped from the meeting, had to burn the nest where they calmly discussed evil in order to vent their anger." Another student, Zhu Yilu, claimed that the reason for the students' arson was out of hatred for the rich: "Seeing that Cao's mansion was richly furnished and dazzling, it was nothing more than money from the traitor, so he burned him to vent public indignation." Others' recollections suggest that the arson was not a temporary one, but had been premeditated.
Yu Jin's recollection points out that the idea of arson had been planned as early as the way to cao's house. "So-and-so" who was walking next to him asked him to "run and buy a box of matches": "I know he doesn't smoke, why do you want matches?" But immediately realizing his intention to buy matches, he quickly left the team to buy a box for him, and this box of matches was indeed used. This was the case of beating Zhang Zongxiang and burning the Zhao family building. ”
Later, another participant pointed out in his recollection that this "certain jun", who had been prepared to set fire to Cao's house before arriving at Cao's house, claimed in his recollection six years later that the students had set fire to Kuang Husheng, who had set fire to Cao, Lu, and Zhang because they had not seen the three traitors of Cao, Lu, and Zhang.
Memory seems to become a snake that bites its own tail, it feeds on its own real experience, but it cannot digest and absorb what it sees and hears in its original form, and the memories that are born from it gradually become legends over time. So that restoring the truth of the details from it has become almost impossible.
But in the face of these complicated memories, is it really so important to look as it is? Although memory is born out of the reality of personal experience, when it is born from the mother, in a sense, it becomes an independent individual, which will be reshaped again and again with the experience and concept of the memory itself. The memory itself grows until it becomes convinced by the memorizer himself.
Just like Kuang Husheng and Yang Han, who became more and more agitated in the future and embarked on the revolutionary road, the May Fourth Movement is a preview of the future revolutionary cause for them, and the huge power contained in it will be released and exploded in the years to come, thus completely changing the foundation of the entire society. Therefore, the memory of "burning the Zhao Family Building" will make them feel as happy as rapture; and for practitioners and thinkers in the history of ideas such as Fu Sinian and Mao Zishui, the reason why they are suspicious and uneasy about the "burning of the Zhao Family Building" is that they are worried. It is because they see May Fourth as an introspection and reflection on China's overall social culture — the rupture and conflict between tradition and modernity, the alienation and integration of the state and the individual, the most important themes of the 20th century are all released in this movement, and how to respond to this doomed trend of the times depends on how to understand this movement. The premise of understanding is memory.
Therefore, it is not easy to dismiss one person's memory as a unique truth, and the memory of others that is different from it is a lie. Because everyone's memory still retains the genes of the original experience. This gene is exactly the self that every witness, witness, has expressed in that movement. Those diverse memories are precisely because the historical events that changed the fate of this country have been integrated into the lives of each individual.
It all started on that long afternoon a hundred years ago—I was there; I witnessed everything that happened; and I remember how this movement changed the fate of me and this country.
Text/Shane Lee