In the spring of 1937, Wu Mi took a photo in Tsinghua Garden
Wu Mi (1894-1978), a master of traditional Chinese studies and educator, studied Harvard in her early years, studied English literature, and taught in many colleges and universities such as Tsinghua after returning to China. Li Yonghui, a librarian at the Research Institute of Literature and History of the Sichuan Provincial People's Government, wrote an article recalling the fragments of his interaction with Wu Mi, admiring Mr. Li Yonghui's scholarly personality of being knowledgeable and independent and free, and contemplating the fate of the next generation of intellectuals invaded by the wind and rain of the times. This article is from the first issue of Century Magazine in 2015.
In 1965, I was admitted to the Department of Foreign Languages of Southwest Normal College (now Southwest University). Before leaving my hometown, Mr. Liu Changhe, a graduate of the Department of Foreign Languages of the Western Normal Division and a teacher at the Dafeng Middle School in Xindu, Sichuan, came to congratulate me and introduced to me: The Xishi campus is very large, the scenery is very beautiful, and the teaching force is very strong, especially Mr. Wu Mi, a famous scholar, poet, red scholar, translator, and the father of Chinese comparative literature studies, teaches here, adding a glimmer of color to the famous school of the Western Division.
After listening to Mr. Liu's story, I solemnly respected Mr. Wu Mi and decided to visit him and ask him for help after arriving at the school.
Go to the door and ask the teacher for advice
After arriving at the West Division, I inquired that Mr. Wu Mi had a habit of living in a few stereotypes, that is, every night after dinner, he had to come out of the cultural village of his residence and walk along the road from the big playground to the Three Teaching Buildings, so he invited his classmate Tang Yongqi to go to the big playground with me to "wait" for a glimpse of this heroic scholar. After waiting for more than half an hour at the edge of the large playground, Mr. Wu Mi did appear. He was in his seventies, thin, clean-faced, bald, wearing a pair of very ordinary glasses, wearing a gray cloth shirt, wearing round cloth shoes on his feet, without any big professor's style, just like the Sichuan people called "glutinous rice old man". But if you look closely, it is not difficult to find something different: he walks with a crutch hanging from his left arm, which looks a little foreign. He walked not slowly, but made small steps one by one, walking very fast, resembling "Divine Taibao". When he walked, his eyes were staring directly at the road, and he never looked left or right, and his spirit was as focused as if he were learning.
The teacher who taught us Chinese language and literature was Mr. Yang Xin'an, professor of the Department of Chinese. Because I love Chinese literature and have good grades in my studies, Mr. Yang likes me a lot. When I became more familiar with Mr. Yang, I told Mr. Yang and asked him to take me to visit Wu Mi. Unexpectedly, Mr. Yang refused my request on the grounds that he was "busy with academic affairs". After all, the old master was the old master, and after all, he could not withstand my death and entanglement, and he finally agreed. So one night not long after, Mr. Yang took me to the Cultural Village and met my favorite Wu Mi.
Wu Mi's room is not large, there are only two rooms, the outer husband lives, and the inner living nanny. The room where the gentleman lived was extremely simply furnished, with only a bed, a writing desk, a bookcase and a wicker chair, which looked a little chilly. Mr. Yang immediately cut into the "right topic" after greeting Wu Mi: "This is Li Sheng of the Department of Foreign Languages, my student, a native of Xindu, Sichuan. Li Sheng admired Mi Gong very much, so tonight he took him to visit you and listen to you. ”
Wu Mi heard this and waved his hand and said, "Mi is old and decaying, and he is ashamed to be ashamed, Xin Gong is very knowledgeable, and he must study with Xin Gong well." "The new capital is the land of Wenchang, and the Ming Dynasty produced a title called Yang Sheng'an." Mr. Seongan is a university inquirer, and he is very dignified and very remarkable. A poem written by Mr. Sheng'an on his way to exile to Yongchang (present-day Baoshan, Yunnan): "The monk's house is full of winter flowers, and the monks go out of the temple to chant the sun shadow obliquely." The twelve streets are full of spring snow, and the horseshoe is now going to fall into whose house. He let out a long sigh, revealing that he was the same as Mr. Sheng'an at that time, huai cai did not meet, full of sorrow and sorrow.
The second time I went to my husband's house was a winter night, and I asked him how to learn how to use words and words well. Sir told me: "It is not difficult to master the use of words and words, as long as you read more, remember more, use more, especially in combination with daily life, you will be able to learn well." He immediately used the word "zhi" as an example, taught me several uses of it, and appeared to make a sentence: "For example, if I send you to Chongqing, I can say ' I send Li Sheng's Chongqing'." The 'of' here is the verb, meaning 'to go' and 'to'. "I benefited a lot from this listening and will never forget it.
The third time I visited mr. gentleman's house was on a spring night in 1966. I sent a two-thousand-word essay I wrote, "Spring to Jinyun Mountain," to mr. For correction. The gentleman bowed down under the lamp, read the article carefully twice, and then smiled and said to me: "Prose is difficult to write, and short prose is even more difficult to write." This short story is acceptable, and it would be better if you used straight books and traditional characters instead. "The reason why my husband asked me to use traditional characters was that I later learned that he was dissenting the use of simplified characters.
At that time, I was too young and simple-minded, and every time I went to my husband's house and came back, I had to tell my classmates the truth. Unexpectedly, this "telling the truth" has caused me some trouble. Out of concern for me, one of the "league cadres" in the class warned me: "Aren't you trying to join the Communist Youth League?" Komsomol members must have a keen sense of politics. Wu Mi was very reactionary, and the 'Four Qings' movement had been criticized the year before, and if you continued to mix with him, you would lose your class position and ruin your political life. What "Tuan Gan" said really frightened me, and from then on I never dared to go to Mr. Wu Mi again.
He was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution
Wu Mi in the Cultural Revolution
In 1966, the central government issued the "May 16 Circular", and the fire of the "Cultural Revolution" soon spread to the West Division, and the quiet campus boiled up in an instant. Wu Mi bore the brunt of it and could not escape the disaster. As far as I know, there are probably five crimes woven by the "young revolutionary generals" of the Chinese department to Wu Miluo: First, in the twenties of the last century, when Mr. Wu edited "Xueheng", he actually set up a banner of rebellion against fashion and led the wind and fought a pen war with Lu Xun. Second, during the "three years of difficulties" when the whole country was suffering from famine in the last century, when Mr. Li taught the students the use of the word "not to mention" in class, he made up a sentence to say, "Three or two is not enough, let alone two or two." He used this sentence as an example sentence, which was described as "venting dissatisfaction with reality" and "viciously attacking the party's food policy." The third is that Mr. Li teaches, writes articles, and even writes a lost notice because of the loss of a bunch of keys, all of which use traditional characters and never write simplified characters. Simplified characters are promulgated by the state, and not writing simplified characters is "opposing the reform of the party and the government." Fourth, he often sent money to his brother's deceased friend, the son of the famous poet Wu Fangji, to help him solve his difficulties in life, and from time to time he also helped teachers with "political and historical problems" and poor lives. Therefore, he went online and accused Mr. Hou of "taking the people's hard-earned money to feed the filial piety of the bourgeoisie." Fifth, after the death of his beloved wife Zou Lanfang, every birthday and death day, Mr. always had to put up a pair of dishes and chopsticks to express his sorrow when eating, and sometimes went to Beibei Street to watch movies, and also bought an extra ticket to put on the seat next to him to show that he accompanied his wife to share entertainment. It was not surprising that these ways of commemorating his deceased wife were described as "obsessed with the mood of petty-bourgeois life." In order to grasp the "current" and find the "steel whip", the Chinese revolutionary young general also raided Mr. Wu Mi's home. However, the "battle record" is not good, only from under the bed of the gentleman copied out some diaries with cigarette box paper, the contents of which are all "one or two breakfast porridges, two steamed buns, two chicken eggs" and other life accounts. The "young generals" looked at the crying and laughing, and left with their bare hands.
The summer of 1966 was a frenzied period for the young revolutionaries to carry out "great exposés and great criticisms." I personally witnessed some of these "critical" scenes: First, the "group of ugly people appeared", that is, dozens of "bourgeois roaders" and "cows, ghosts, snake gods" in the whole hospital, including Wu Mi, got black cards on the tennis court, wore top hats, and "sat on a jet plane", exposing the sun to the sun, and one by one was tossed out of breath, sweating, and suffering. The second is to parade the streets to show the public, that is, to escort dozens of "gangsters" from the whole hospital, including Wu Mi, who are hung up with black cards and have been put into another book, to tour the streets of Beibei to carry out personality insults, and if anyone does not bow his head or walks slowly, he will be reprimanded or even beaten. The third is to "open a small stove", that is, to criticize Wu Mi alone in the large auditorium. Although the field was filled with a strong "smell of gunpowder", the gentleman always buried his head, squinted his eyes, and did not say a word. A "young general" saw that Mr. Was so "stubborn", he rushed to the stage in a hurry, waved his belt and jerked at his head. He covered the top of his head with his hands in pain, looked at the "young general" and said, "Classmate, don't fight, it's already bleeding." So several "young generals" rushed up, dragged the gentleman off the stage in a round of slogans, and got him to the school health department to bandage. Witnessing my husband being beaten so badly, I couldn't bear to watch it, and my heart was very sad.
In 1970, I graduated and left the Western Division, never to see Wu Mi again. Sir's later situation, I know something sporadically from the teachers of the Chinese Department. It is said that in the 1974 "Batch Forest Batch Kong" movement, there were very few people in the Chinese academic circles who dared to stand up against the "Batch Hole", and Wu Mi was one of them. Listening to a teacher of the Department of Chinese, one day the department held a meeting of "Approving Lin And Approving Kong," and a "rebel faction" jumped up to ask Wu Mi to criticize Confucius's "self-denial and retribution." Unexpectedly, this stubborn old man stood up without fear and loudly praised Confucius's idea of "self-denial and retribution in one day, and the whole world should be benevolent," and said passionately: "'Self-denial and retribution' is a very high moral standard, Lin Biao is a counter-revolutionary, and he will never be able to do it!" This remark of the gentleman caused an uproar in the whole audience, and this "rebel" was gray and slippery, indignantly scolding, "Old stubborn, reactionary to the top" and left. Another time, when criticizing Wu Mi, a rebel faction scolded Mr. Wu Mi as a pile of that does not despise human beings. When he heard this, he was very dissatisfied and immediately stood up: May I ask the revolutionary comrades, what does the word 'toothless' mean? The rebels replied, 'Disdainful' means looking down on you. The gentleman laughed when he heard this: "False, great absurd, this 'dishonorable' is actually the meaning of 'not being in the same line'." 'Teeth', column also. After the criticism meeting, a kind teacher persuaded Mr. Why should he chew words with such unlearned and unskilled people, and Mr. Li said sternly: "Regardless of the size of the knowledge, the important thing is to distinguish its authenticity and falsity, and not to let the word 'toothless' fallacy circulate." In such a harsh political environment, when he was deeply persecuted and devastated, he was able to ignore his own honor and humiliation and life and death, adhere to his academic thinking, and adhere to the position of traditional Chinese culture.