Today, in 2003, Mr. Su Buqing passed away at the age of 101.
Mr. Su Buqing, a famous mathematician and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has been engaged in the research and teaching of differential geometry and computational geometry for more than 70 years, adhering to the combination of education and scientific research, known as "the brilliant mathematical star rising in the Eastern country", and one of the main founders of modern mathematics in China.
What is even more valuable is that Mr. Su Buqing is also an excellent poet, with books such as "Su Buqing's Amateur Poetry Banknote" and "The Fusion of Numbers and Poetry". He is a famous scholar and science in China's scientific circles, not only has remarkable achievements in mathematics, but also has a very deep literary foundation, and is known as "the best poet in the mathematical community and the best mathematician among poets".
On January 8, 2000, the romantic Mr. Su Buqing published a small essay in the seventh edition of Wen Wei Po, recounting the story of his acquaintance, acquaintance and companionship with his wife.
When I was young, I studied abroad at Tohoku Imperial University in Sendai, Japan. Soon, he met Professor Matsumoto's beloved daughter, Yonako Matsumoto.
During the cherry blossom season, we are married by falling in love. She was twenty-three years old.
Her father was not very sympathetic to our marriage, but her mother was very supportive. When we got married, for fear that my relatives would laugh at me as a Chinese, I didn't dare to reveal my true nationality. Until I got my Ph.D. in science, Japanese newspapers reported on the achievements of a Chinese student, and they didn't know my true nationality, and they secretly said, "Why didn't such a powerful Chinese tell us earlier?" ”
After I got my degree, I decided to go back to China. At that time, many people advised me not to return to China, and they kept the salary of a lecturer and a bursary for doctoral students for me, which was enough for our family. But she told me that she liked me very much, and she supported me to go back to China, for the sake of the education of our two children, and we should also go back to China. Soon, our family arrived in Hangzhou City on the shore of Xizi Lake. Since then, she has lived on the land of China until she left the world.
When she first arrived in China, she was very unaccustomed to life, so she said to eat, at first she hated milk rot and said it was too dirty. I said it was a pity not to eat such a good thing, so I took advantage of her lack of attention to "transform" the milk rot: removed a layer of skin from the milk rot, and added sugar. Later, she loved to eat. Skin eggs, neither in Japan, slowly, she also got used to that special fragrance. At that time, the Japanese consulate in Hangzhou told her through various connections that you are Japanese and it is inconvenient to eat in China, so come to us in the morning to eat. But in a few years in Hangzhou, she had not been there once. Let's talk about bathing, the Japanese habit is to wash every day, after arriving in China, there is no such convenient condition. In order to solve this contradiction, I asked someone to make a bathtub out of an iron barrel, but it was only enough for her to wash it once a week, and she later became accustomed to it.
After the beginning of the War of Resistance, the peaceful life was shattered by the cannon fire of the Japanese invaders. Since then, we have begun a difficult life. I moved to Guizhou with the school, and my wife returned to my hometown of Zhejiang with the children alone. Although there are beautiful mountains and rivers, how can people living in war and chaos have the heart to appreciate the scenery of nature? Instead, she faced a new difficulty: she did not understand The Zhejiang dialect.
The people of her hometown welcomed the daughter-in-law with great enthusiasm, and they helped her to take care of all the housework, washing vegetables, collecting rice, cooking, and often quietly helping her. She lived in warmth and established a strong friendship with the villagers. She often used her meager strength to do something for the villagers. Until the founding of New China, she and the villagers still maintained that sincere feeling. No matter how far away relatives come to my house, she will personally greet them, arrange food and accommodation for them, and never show boredom. Until now, people in my hometown sometimes say: If it weren't for Mrs. Su, we really wouldn't be able to enter the Door of the Su family, Mr. Su is too busy. Whenever I hear this, I feel blushing. Because I myself sometimes get bored with the frequent visitors.
Life during the war was very hard, I was busy with teaching and research all day, and I rarely cared about my family. The family could no longer afford a babysitter, and she was left alone with several children and many chores. A rich Japanese woman, in the years of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, who Chinese, silently devoted herself to a Chinese family.
I remember that at our wedding, she wore a very beautiful dress. But since the War of Resistance, she no longer had the heart or the opportunity to make a better set of clothes. What she had in mind was the warmth of me and the children.
When she was a teenager, she was a high-achieving student in a senior girls' school, and she had a relatively high cultural literacy and artistic attainment. Playing guzheng is one of her hobbies, and I heard that she often goes to the radio station to broadcast. After getting married, she brought a thirteen-stringed guzheng with me to China. To this day, the piano is still in my room. Whenever I stroke the body of the piano and play a burst of piano sounds, I feel as if I see her sitting in front of the piano again, playing slowly and slowly, immersed in the melodious sound of ancient music. However, in that era, the body of the piano was covered with layers of dust, and she no longer had time to touch it.
At that time, she also gave up her beloved art of calligraphy. She is very skilled in calligraphy, and once one of my students said to me, "Master Su's words are much better than Mr. Su's." "It was under her influence that I seriously practiced words and made some progress. In our later years, I used to go upstairs with a banner I had written for my friends and ask her to look at it, even though she was lying in bed, her eyes were still so sharp, and she often pointed out shortcomings of one kind or another.
She sacrificed everything to help me achieve a little success in teaching and scientific research in the difficult years, and she also took on the task of educating eight children. I have always believed that without my wife, I would not have been able to train so many students and achieve results in mathematical research.
Author: Su Buqing
Editor: Yingjie Zhu