Chapter 5 "Mr." Tells a Story

Children are playful by nature.However, when Hu Shi was a child, he was seriously ill in Taiwan for half a year. His body was very thin and he lacked the ability to play lively games.He behaved politely, and the adults in the village praised him as a gentleman, so they jokingly called him "Mr." His favorite games are mostly quiet ones.Or play cards, or use thin bamboo paper to cover the lithographs in the novels to imitate the heroes and beauties in the books.Or make wooden knives and bamboo guns with some classmates, borrow a few fake beards, and act in the fields at the entrance of the village; Hu Shi often plays characters such as Zhuge Liang and Liu Bei. Huarong fell from the chair with an arrow.This is probably the most lively game of Hu Shi's boyhood.And his favorite game and the best game is "throwing copper coins", or "throwing copper coins".

According to Mr. Shi Yuangao of Jixi, the coin toss game requires high tactics and skills.The number of participants ranges from three to four to as many as six or seven.Each person throws the copper coin of his choice to the stone pillar, and the copper coin bounces back. The one that bounces the farthest "eats" the second farthest, and "eats" each other in turn. Within an inch is "eating".So, put the copper coin of the person who was "eaten" on the stone slab, and then use your own copper coin to hit it down, and make it fly out, the farther the better.The person who is "eaten" has to lick his own copper coins with his lips and throw them forward, until they connect with the flying copper coins, and the game is considered to be over①.

Hu Shi was good at this kind of game and was often the winner.But he has cherished his feathers since he was a child and has self-esteem.Ever since he got the nickname "Sir", he felt that since he had the name "Sir", he had to pretend to be "Sir", so he didn't dare to play to his heart's content.Once, he was throwing copper coins with a group of children at the door of the house. An elder from the same family walked by and said with a smile: "Sir, do you also throw copper coins?" identity of.Under the influence of traditional concepts and old education, for this poor self-esteem, the fun of children's games was sacrificed.Except for reading and writing, he has not been able to get the opportunity to develop in other aspects throughout his life. ②

Hu Shi's greatest interest in his youth was still reading books and novels.It was triggered by chance - when I was nine years old, I was playing in the east cottage of my fourth uncle's house one day.The front of this hut is our school, and there is a bedroom at the back.When guests come, they live here.There was no class that day, and I went into the bedroom by chance, and saw a tattered book peeking out from the pile of waste paper in a Mobil kerosene crate under the table.I picked up the book by chance, and the ends were bitten by rats, and the paper was torn.But this broken book suddenly opened up a new world for me, suddenly opened up a new world in the history of my childhood life!

This torn book turned out to be the fifth talented scholar on a wooden board with small characters. I remember it very clearly. It started with "Li Kui beat Yin Tianxi to death".I already knew who Li Kui was on the stage, so I stood by the broken Mobil crate and finished reading the fragmented copy in one sitting. This broken book aroused Hu Shi's great interest in novels.From then on, he borrowed novels everywhere, exchanged them with friends, and competed to read novels.Every autumn, Hu Shi and his concubine went to the fields to "supervise the harvest" (the landlord supervised the tenants' harvest), and he always sat in the shade of a tree and read novels.Hu Shi read novels in a wide range, including Tanci, legends and notebook novels.What he has seen are:

(1) (Fifth Talent Book) (2) (the first wit book) (3) "Emperor Zhengde Going to the South of the Yangtze River" (4) (5) "Shuangzhufeng" (6) (7) (8) (9) "Jing Guomei Tan" (translated version, written by Hiyano Ryuki, translated by Zhou Hongye, for Hu Shi's first foreign novel.) (10) "Pipa Records" (11) "Ye Yu Qiu Deng Lu" (12) "Night Tan Sui Lu" (13) "Lan Tiao Guan Wai Shi" (14) "Ji Yuan Ji Suo Ji" (15) "Yu Chu Xin Chronicles (16) "Xue Rengui's Expedition to the East" (17) "Xue Dingshan's Expedition to the West" (18) "Five Tigers Pingxi" (19) "Fenzhuanglou" ④ Hu Shi was so addicted to reading novels that he was also interfered by the elders in his family. Forbidden.He had no choice but to read it in secret, so he cheated:

There are two harms covered by the poisonous poison, which cannot be rescued for life.One of the obtained novels is mixed with good and bad, and there are many obscene books in it, such as "Meat Fu Tuan", which does a lot of harm.If the family members do not regard novels as taboos and make good choices, then this harm can be avoided.Second, Yu often secretly read novels in the dead of night, and his lithographed books hurt the eyes the most, and he is still affected by them. ⑤ Fortunately, there were also people in the family who helped Hu Shi borrow novels, such as his fifth uncle, brother Shouhuan, third sister Zhou Shaojin, elder brother, sister-in-law, second elder brother, and third elder brother, all borrowed novels for him or gave him novel books.And the one who contributed the most was his uncle Hu Jinren.Jinren was four years older than Hu Shih. He was quite gifted and knew how to read. There was quite a collection of books at home, and he was Hu Shih's best friend when he was a child.The two of them each have a small handbook, registering the novels they have read, and after a while they will exchange and compare to see who has read more books.By the time Hu Shi left his hometown, there were about 30 novels recorded in his notebooks⑥.

People often think that novels are "idle books", but it is not true.The novel book has given Hu Shi a lot of benefits, the main thing is to help him write the article smoothly.He read a lot of novels, and he found a good opportunity to tell the stories of these novels.Some of his sisters, like fourth uncle’s daughter Qiaoju, Mr. Yuchen’s sisters Guangju and Duoju, Zhu Fengshu’s daughter Xingxian, and my nieces Cuiping and Dingjiao, etc., a group of teenage girls , often get together, embroider and make shoes, and often invite Hu Shi to tell stories.What Hu Shi told them most was about Fengxian, Lianxiang, Jiangcheng, and Zhang Hongjian.All the girls praised Hu Shi, so they went to soak fried rice and make fried rice with eggs to reward Hu Shi.Telling Liaozhai stories in this way forced Hu Shi to translate ancient Chinese into Xi dialect, so that he could better understand the grammar and structure of ancient Chinese; a large number of vernacular novels gave him preliminary training in vernacular prose.Therefore, when he left his hometown to study in Shanghai, he was able to write decent articles.As for his later advocacy of vernacular literature and textual research novels, the roots were planted early.

① See Ishi Yuangao's "Gossip about Hu Shi" "Three Hu Shi's Children and Youth", contained in the second issue of "Yitan" quarterly in 1981. ② On March 6, 1916, Hu Shi wrote in Volume 12 of "Zanghuishi Notes" "30 Yi Li'er's Theory that Education Should Pay Attention to Faculty Training": "The serious disease of our country's old education lies in abandoning faculties and reading He didn’t teach him anything other than calligraphy. I still recall that when I was young, I was fond of drawing portraits, but I had neither teachers nor models. The originals were only portraits of lithographed novels. To show people. One day I was seen by the school teacher, and I was severely criticized. All the portraits on the table were searched, so I dared not do anything more. Music has no chance to learn. I still remember one year, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, There should be a Kunqu opera band for boys, and Uncle Hanxiang wanted Yu to be included in it. Later family members thought that my children should not learn to play bombs and be with "children" (commonly known as "actors" for "children"), so it didn't work. Thinking about it until now, I think it's a pity. I don't know if I have the talent for painting and music. But even if I have it, after 20 years of repression and setbacks, how much more will I be able to do? In the future, those who improve education should know what they are doing." (see "Zang Hui") Notes from the Chamber of Commerce, Yadong Edition, page 856)

By November 1930, Hu Shi wrote about these two things again in the chapter "Nine Years of Hometown Education" in "Forty Self-Reports", see (page 28 of Yadong Edition). ③ "Nine Years of Hometown Education" in "Forty Self-Reports" (Page 23-24, Yadong Edition).Regarding Hu Shi's first accidental reading of novels, he himself has various memories and statements. On March 15, 1954, he gave a speech "The Meaning of Vernacular Chinese" at Taiwan Provincial Taipei No. 1 Girls High School, talking about "when he was seven or eight years old" (see "Speech" in "Selected Works of Hu Shi", Taipei Wenxing Bookstore, 1966 June edition, p. 175). On May 4, 1958, he gave a speech on "Chinese Renaissance Movement" at the eighth anniversary meeting of the "Chinese Literature and Art Association" in Taipei, and said that it was "when he was eight or nine years old" (Liu Xinhuang's "History of Modern Chinese Literature" collected here The speech is "Preface", published by Taipei Zhengzhong Bookstore in 1971).The difference of two or three years before and after is due to inaccurate memory.Fifty or sixty years later, when recalling childhood events, such errors are unavoidable.The memories and records of "Forty Self-Reports" may be relatively recent.

④According to the list of "Nine Years of Hometown Education" in "Forty Self-Reports". ⑤ "Zanghui Room Notes", Volume 12, "30 Yi Li'er's Theory of Education Should Pay Attention to the Training of Faculties", Yadong Edition, p. 857. ⑥ These figures are not very accurate.Hu Shi said in "Forty Self-Reports" that he had "more than thirty novels" (page 25 of the Yadong edition); while in "Notes on the Canghui Room" he said that he had "read forty or fifty kinds of novels" (Shanghai Yadong edition, p. 856).