Chapter 36 harmony

Zhao Yuanren is "sincere in nature, moral, self-cultivated, amiable to others, never competing with others, and has a witty language", he is a modest gentleman.Yang Buwei is "bold and decisive by nature, quick in thinking, outspoken, and has nothing to say." The two have very different personalities, but they have gone hand in hand for sixty years. After Zhao Yuanren and Yang Buwei got married, they went to the United States by ship. When they were bored, they played Go to relieve their boredom.He didn't bring Go, so he asked the boat for two bags of fried rice and fried wheat that he ate in the morning, which could be divided into black and white, and used as chess pieces.

Yang Buwei has lived in the United States for more than 30 years and still cannot speak English well, but Zhao Yuanren is never ashamed of it. He often uses Yang Buwei's words as examples in academic speeches. In 1986, Zhao Yuanren wrote before his book "Chinese Grammar": "To my wife, because she gave some excellent examples of Chinese grammar without paying attention." But Zhao Yuanren asked himself It is extremely strict, and there must be no mistakes in a single word.He tried to correct Yang Buwei's grammatical mistakes, and sometimes Yang lost his temper when he got annoyed, so Zhao Yuanren had to give up.So Zhao Yuanren criticized Yang Buwei not only for not speaking all foreign languages, but also for not speaking all Chinese dialects completely. Yang Buwei always replied to him, it doesn't matter, I am not a dialectist.Yang Buwei felt that what she said was the national language representing the whole country.

In the 1920s, there was a wave of divorce among international students in Europe. Luo Jialun once joked: "Someone saw Zhao Yuanren and his mother walking on the street." In 1946, on the silver wedding anniversary (25th anniversary) of Zhao Yuanren and his wife, Hu Shi, the witness of the two, was unable to congratulate them in person for some reason, so he sent a congratulatory poem "Congratulations to the Silver Wedding" saying: "Twenty years of sweet honey, everyone They all say good marriage. The bride owes me a fragrant gift, remember to ask for interest when repaying it."

In 1961, at the meeting commemorating the 40th anniversary of Zhao Yuanren and Yang Buwei’s marriage, someone compared Zhao Yuanren’s practical spirit of learning to Tang Monk Xuanzang, saying that Xuanzang’s success should be attributed to the protection of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, and Yang Buwei is Zhao Yuanren’s Avalokitesvara Buddha. In 1971, on the 50th anniversary of the golden wedding anniversary of Zhao Yuanren and his wife, they each wrote a "Golden Wedding Poem", which rhymes with Hu Shi's "Happy Silver Wedding".Yang Buwei wrote: "After 50 years of quarreling and quarreling, everyone said it was a good relationship. Yuan Ren owed me the karma of this life, and reunited after reversing yin and yang."

Zhao Yuanren said: "Yin and yang are reversed and reunited, just like the sweetness of the past. In the new century of equal rights between men and women, we will benefit the world together." Zhao Yuanren signed the poem "妧妃", expressing that he will become a woman in the next life. In June 1973, Zhao Yuanren and his wife finally returned to their hometown where they had been away for more than 30 years. Premier Zhou, Guo Moruo, Zhu Kezhen and others met them.During the 3 hours of talking with Zhou Enlai, Yang Buwei was one of the main talkers.Afterwards, Zhao Yuanren said humorously to Premier Zhou: "She is both my Minister of Internal Affairs and my Minister of Foreign Affairs."

Zhao Yuanren was afraid of guilt, and Yang Buwei said: "When the couple argues, if the reasons are the same, I will always win!" Zhao Yuanren has self-knowledge and never competes with his wife. The humorous language replied: "Rather than being afraid, it is better to say love; as deep as love is, so deep is fear." Yang Buwei, who was in his sixties, once talked about an important issue in his autobiography "Miscellaneous Notes on the Zhao Family", that is, who has the final say between Yang Buwei and Zhao Yuanren at home?Yang Buwei said: "I have the right in a small family, but the big things are still for my husband to decide." But later added humorously: "But there are very few big things."

Yang Buwei's "Miscellaneous Notes of the Zhao Family" was published in English, and my husband was asked to translate it and write a preface.The first sentence of Zhao Yuanren's preface is: "Since the 'conclusion' of our family belongs to my wife, then the 'preface' belongs to me." Yang Buwei said that she wrote her autobiography first, and wrote all the interesting things. Said: "Then I will write those that are not fun." Yang Buwei's nephew, who has lived with them for many years, said: "Sometimes they have a little argument, because the aunt has a loud voice and a quick temper, and the uncle obeys and does not argue. gone."

In her later years, Yang Buwei suffered from shoulder pain, so Zhao Yuanren combed her hair every day.When they went out for a walk, Zhao Yuanren often joked, "Borrow whatever pot you have." In 1981, Yang Buwei passed away before him, and Zhao Yuanren was deeply saddened.He wrote sadly in a letter to his friends: "Yunqing passed away, and now she is temporarily living with her daughter Rulan Cambridge. She was in a state of confusion for a while, and did not dare to return to Berkeley immediately, and she could not say that she was going home." The following year , Zhao Yuanren immediately chased Yang Buwei away.