Zhu Ziqing's "Back Shadow" is simple in emotion and the text is clear and melancholy, but few people know that Before Zhu Ziqing wrote this "Back Shadow", he and his father Zhu Hongjun were already in the same situation.
"Back" was created in 1925, but it is about 1917. The opening sentence of the article is "I have not seen my father for more than two years", so as a father and son, why did I not see each other for more than two years? Because the contradiction between Zhu Ziqing and his father was too deep before, he interrupted the exchange for a long time. The article "Back Shadow" was written at the beginning of the warming of the relationship between Zhu Ziqing and his father.
His father, Zhu Hongjun, was a scholar who served as an official in Yangzhou and Xuzhou when he was young, and later became the director of Xuzhou's Transportation Bureau, equivalent to the "director of the tobacco and alcohol monopoly bureau". However, he was a traditional scholar and a conservative thinker, believing that the new school was the product of indifference, that learning those foreign things was a plaything and a self-destructive future, and that he strongly opposed Zhu Ziqing's study of English and mathematics.
Only let him read those old yellowed Four Books and Five Classics and classics of Traditional Chinese Studies. This rough way of education has gradually alienated the relationship between father and son. Until Zhu Ziqing left home to go to beijing for university, his relationship with his father was not eased, which was the beginning of the contradiction between the teenager Zhu Ziqing and his father.
After Father Zhu was promoted, he was satisfied, and he did not care that he was nearly old and did not confuse, and frequently took concubines. To his surprise, his concubines actually ran to his superiors to make a big fuss in order to fight for the wind, and as a result, this disturbance caused Zhu Hongjun's officials to be destroyed. Since then, the family has fallen in the middle of the road.
His father's authoritarian education became Zhu Ziqing's failure to pass the Qinghua examination, which was a lead in the deterioration of the relationship between father and son. Tsinghua University was requiring all-round development, such as foreign languages and mathematics, when recruiting students, and Zhu Ziqing was explicitly forbidden to study these by his father. Therefore, in the entrance examination of Tsinghua University, Zhu Ziqing's Chinese language and article writing were very good, but he scored a zero egg in mathematics.
Later, through his own efforts, Zhu Ziqing was admitted to Peking University in 1916. His parents arranged a marriage for him at home, and it was Wu Zhongqian, the daughter of Wu Sanwei, a famous doctor in Yangzhou. Wu Zhongqian is gentle and kind, simple and quiet, always with a smile on her face, and is a rare good woman who is deeply loved by Zhu Ziqing.
In the winter of the same year that Zhu Ziqing was admitted to Peking University, Wu Zhongqian and Zhu Ziqing were married at the Zhu family's old residence in Yangzhou. After the two were married, Zhu Ziqing returned to Peking University to continue his studies, and Wu Zhongqian stayed in the Zhu family to serve his in-laws.
At this time, Because Father Zhu had just lost his job, he was cold to Mother Zhu, and he was even more unaccustomed to the smile of his daughter-in-law. Thinking that the daughter-in-law laughs and laughs every day, she is laughing at herself for taking a concubine and losing her official position, so she speaks to her daughter-in-law with a gun and a stick. Later, the Zhu family became more and more rude to Wu Zhongqian, and even Wu Zhongqian's occasional laughter would be ridiculed by the Zhu family.
Wu Zhongqian simply returned to his mother's house. At this time, Zhu Hongjun's evil man first filed a complaint and wrote to Zhu Ziqing to count down all kinds of dissatisfaction with Wu Zhongqian.
After reading his father's letter, Zhu Ziqing, who did not know the reason, immediately wrote to his wife to express his dissatisfaction and let her go home. Later, the wife told the truth, and Zhu Ziqing went home to pick up Wu Zhongqian and apologized to her.
Because his wife loves to laugh, she is provoked by her family. Zhu Ziqing later wrote an article, "The History of Laughter." In the tone of a woman, it tells the reason why a girl who loves to laugh becomes unsmiling after she arrives at her husband's house, she has to bear the dissatisfaction of her in-laws with herself, to bear the loneliness of her husband's absence, but also to bear the estrangement of her mother's family after the defeat of her husband's family, and the conflicts of many interpersonal relationships.
The contradiction between father and son escalated again because Zhu's father secretly took Zhu Ziqing's salary. After graduating from Peking University, Zhu Ziqing served as the director of the Academic Affairs Office at a school in Yangzhou, during which Zhu Hongjun actually relied on his personal relationship with the principal to directly receive a salary for Zhu Ziqing without greeting him. Zhu Hongjun, as a scholar cultivated by the feudal system, believes that it is a matter of course for Lao Tzu to spend his son's money, but Zhu Ziqing, who has accepted the new idea, believes that his father's actions are overbearing and unreasonable.
In this war, Zhu Ziqing, who was extremely disappointed, took his wife and children and angrily left Yangzhou to teach in Ningbo, completely getting rid of the control of his parents. Since then, the father and son have also torn their faces on the surface, and neither of them has refused to give in to each other, Zhu Ziqing later said in the article "Destruction": When I was worried about the fierceness of the defeated family that would come, and the hatred between flesh and bones for a year, (looking at each other with blood eyes), the burden of life on my shoulders was pressed to the point that I could not breathe...
Later, Wu Zhongqian followed Zhu Ziqing to many cities, and no matter where he went, the couple loved each other as before. Later, Wu Zhongqian died of a vicious disease, and Zhu Ziqing was very sad and wrote an article for her "To the Dead Woman". In the text, the author poured out a thousand kinds of tender feelings of mourning in his chest, and he recalled the wisdom and kindness of his wife, not only suffering for her husband, raising children, but also using his jewelry to fund her husband's education, running housework for him, and following him to and fro. It's a tear-jerking read.
Around 1925, Zhu Hongjun wrote a letter to Zhu Ziqing, saying: "Today, when I lift a pen, there are many inconveniences, but the pain in my arms is severe, and the period of about the big departure is not far away." Zhu Ziqing thought of his father and couldn't help but burst into tears, so he wrote "Back Shadow". In 1928, at the age of 30, Zhu Ziqing published his first collection of essays, "Back Shadow". At this time, Zhu Hongjun, who was more than sixty years old, saw this essay in the newspaper, and immediately burst into tears and cried bitterly.
Zhu Hongjun, a representative of the standard father of the old era, is arbitrary and self-respecting. The entanglement with a son who was baptized with new ideas was a microcosm of the society at that time.
My father was the hero we admired in childhood, he could do everything. But this hero will also have twilight years, and his shoulders can shield you from the wind and rain, but they can't stop the passage of time. The article "Back Shadow" is a valuable cultural heritage for future generations, but for Zhu Ziqing, it is a good medicine to cure the estrangement between father and son.
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