Republic of China "strange woman" Chu Songxue

From December 14 to 17, 2018, the 130th Anniversary of Dr. Zhang Jingsheng's Birth and the Academic Seminar on "Zhang Jingsheng and Modern China" were held in Chaozhou, Guangdong Province. More than 150 experts, scholars and social figures from Peking University, Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Sun Yat-sen University and other units attended the meeting. I was also fortunate to be invited to participate in this symposium.

Zhang Jingsheng is a native of Raoping, Guangdong, one of the first doctors to study in France in the Republic of China, and a prominent figure in the Chinese ideological and cultural circles in the 1920s and 1930s, a philosopher, aesthetician, sexologist, writer and educator. He was a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Peking University, the first to propose and establish customs in China, the first to translate Rousseau's Confessions, the first to publish a research paper on the naked human body, and the first to propose family planning. In the history of modern culture, Zhang Jingsheng is a controversial cultural celebrity.

Before the seminar, the organizers collected academic papers on "Zhang Jingsheng Research" and compiled a "Collection of Papers", which included more than fifty papers (outlines). The "Strange Woman" Chu Songxue that I wrote had the honor of being included in it, and it was also the only paper at this seminar that was not Zhang Jingsheng's special topic.

I paid attention to Zhang Jingsheng because I paid attention to Chu Songxue (Chu Qingjuan). Chu Songxue was born in Tianguan Arch, Jiaxing District. She and Zhang Jingsheng had a brief marital relationship. The two lived together for only three years, and because of many factors such as differences in life goals and personalities, they soon parted ways. After that, the two went from love to hate, from hate to forgetting each other. The short marriage and the ensuing enmity and resentment became an episode in their respective life paths.

When I received the invitation from the organizer of the seminar, I hesitated whether I should participate: Chu Songxue and Zhang Jingsheng, before their lives, they were old and dead, and behind them, was it necessary for others to help them to join in this hilarity?

However, when seeing that the research on Zhang Jingsheng in recent years involves the issue of Chu Songxue, most researchers are on the side of Zhang Jingsheng, and their evaluation of her is often biased, and there are many misunderstandings. Among these cultural researchers, there are many Zhang Jingsheng research experts, and the phenomenon of researchers quoting data from each other and following the clouds of people abounds. I have paid attention to Chu Songxue for many years, excavated a lot of her historical materials, and believed that I had more say in her life and achievements than others, and I could not see others making up Chu Songxue's life experience. At the end of 2016, I published at my own expense the "120th Anniversary of the Birth of Chu Wenjuan" (the second issue of "Silverfish"), presenting her "writer's side" to a wide range of readers. But this is far from enough, and being able to justify the name of "strange woman" Chu Songxue at the national Zhang Jingsheng Academic Research Conference should be the best opportunity to speak out.

At the same time, Professor Kong Lingbin of Hanshan Normal University, the organizer of the seminar, invited me to participate in the exhibition of the historical materials of Chu Songxue at the Zhang Jingsheng Memorial Hall, and asked me to write a chronology of Chu Songxue's life and writings. From this, I once again sorted out the life of Chu Songxue.

Chu Songxue (1896-1993), also known as Chu Wenjuan. His father, Chu Chengyu, was a scholar of the 28th year of Guangxu (1902), a poet of gong, especially a work fu, who participated in the founding of the Jiaxing Academy, and after the Republic of China, he served in the Zhejiang High Court, and authored "The Discussion on Changing the Law", "The Theory of Self-Improvement", "Fuyi Caotang Poetry Cun" and so on. His mother, Zhu Zhuang, was the principal of Jiaxing Public Girls' School. In his early years, Chu Songxue was influenced by new ideas, dissatisfied with the shackles of the feudal family, and determined to "do something beneficial to society." After dissolving the arranged marriage, Chu Songxue left her home in Beijing. When she was the principal of a primary school in Yanggao, Shanxi, she was discovered by Zhang Jingsheng, who was working as a professor in the philosophy department of Peking University. Zhang Jingsheng identified her as a "strange woman" in China and introduced her to Peking University to study, exposing her to revolutionary ideas and getting acquainted with a group of revolutionaries such as Li Dazhao and Zhang Rulan. During the first period of kuomintang-communist cooperation, Chu Songxue relied on his outstanding talents to successively serve as the women's minister of the Kuomintang Beijing Executive Department, the women's minister of the Kuomintang Shanghai Special Party Department, and the women's minister of the Kuomintang Wuchang City Party Department. During the second Kuomintang-Communist cooperation period, Chu Songxue served as the director of training and education of the women's brigade of the War Cadre Regiment and a member of the design committee of the Political Department. She has published a series of articles on the women's liberation movement and the implementation of women's work, and is a pioneer of the women's movement.

Later, Chu Songxue entered the military circles with his talent, edited the military journal "Kaixing", and successively served as the confidential secretary of Chen Cheng and Luo Zhuoying. Her good sinology literacy and pragmatic work style have won the appreciation of high-level officials, and she has become the highest-ranking woman in the military. She is also good at writing new genres such as poetry, novels, essays, and literary criticism, and in her later years, she wrote a memoir " Flowers Fall in Spring "Flowers Fall in Spring", which is full of love and text, and makes people cry. Such a talented woman of the Republic of China, her magnificent life trajectory, among women in the same period, is unparalleled.

The paper I wrote summarized several important cities where Chu Songxue lived and worked as the coordinates of his life. Combined with the theme of this academic seminar, I particularly emphasize that the reason why Chu Songxue was attracted to Zhang Jingsheng in the first place was because she was Zhang Jingsheng's ideal "strange woman". Unfortunately, Zhang Jingsheng knew the strange woman, but he could not control the strange woman, and in the end he could not enter the heart of the strange woman. Especially after the publication of "Sexual History", Zhang Jingsheng's situation made him hit a wall everywhere, frustrated by everything, coupled with personality defects, emotional loss of control, and the ideal lover image in Chu Songxue's mind was getting farther and farther away. Chu Songxue did not seem to be swayed by the environment, and even became more and more courageous, and has been striding forward in his established direction. At the academic seminar, I made an exchange speech at the seminar on this paper entitled "Strange Woman" Chu Songxue.

On the second day of the academic seminar, the participants came to Zhang Jingsheng's hometown - Darongpu Village, Fubin Town, Raoping County, visited Zhang Jingsheng's tomb, visited Zhang Jingsheng's former residence, and participated in the opening ceremony of Zhang Jingsheng Memorial Hall. In 2017, I took advantage of a business trip to visit here and visited the former residence accompanied by Mr. Zhang Chao, the second son of Zhang Jingsheng. In just over a year, it has been a new look. With the former residence as the center, the "Zhang Jingsheng Cultural Park" with an area of more than 40 acres has been built. The Zhang Jingsheng Memorial Hall is located in the Cultural Park, and the memorial hall displays the Chronology of Chu Songxue and the Brief List of Chu Songxue's Works.

In the carefully arranged Zhang Jingsheng Memorial Hall, chu Songxue can be given a place, and I think the organizers are well-intentioned and very discerning. Chu Songxue is a woman who could not get around when introducing Zhang Jingsheng, although he once hated her to the bone and publicly insulted her before he died, but Chu Songxue never denigrated him, even if he broke off friendship with him, he politely called him "Jingsheng Jun". Chu Songxue is a "strange woman" discovered by Zhang Jingsheng, and the greater her achievements, the more it shows Zhang Jingsheng's good vision. As for the two people's grievances, let's leave it to posterity to comment.

After the seminar, I saw a teacher at Hanshan Normal College post a message in the WeChat circle of friends: "I read the biography of Zhang Jingsheng before, and the biography wrote Chu Songxue very badly and had doubts. Zhang Jingsheng is such a special person, it is impossible to find a layman. During the seminar, I found a special paper dedicated to Chu Songxue, which confirmed my suspicions..."

I think that my efforts were not in vain!