Chapter 25 2. The Beginning of the Great Journey

After graduation, I went to teach at Tsinghua University in Beijing.Living in Beijing is equivalent to getting in touch with the real Chinese society and seeing the truth of ancient China.Beijing's clear blue sky, splendid temples and palaces, and happy and peaceful people give people a sense of contentment and a comfortable life.Dynasties have changed, but Beijing is still there.The reclining Buddha sleeps in the West Mountain, the Yuquan Mountain emits crystal fountains, and the Drum Tower awakens the night watchmen.What does man ask of God?Given the gift of life, what else can one ask for in this world?Beijing, with its yellow-roofed palaces, russet temple walls, Mongolian camels, the Great Wall, and Ming Tombs, is China, the real China.It is atheistic and has the joy and satisfaction of an atheist.

What does it mean to be a Christian in China?I was raised in a protective shell of Christianity, and St. John's was the skeleton of that shell.I regret to say that we went into a world of our own, intellectually and aesthetically disowned from that contented and glorious pagan society (which, while full of evil, corruption, and poverty, was also joyful and content).To be brought up to be a Christian is to be a progressive, western-minded person who agrees with new learning.In short, it means accepting the West, and especially admiring the Western microscope and Western surgery.It meant a clear and firm stand in favor of education for girls and against concubinage and footbinding. (Women who convert to Christianity start by letting their feet go, and my mother, a pagan girl, had her feet put on a pair of socks.) It signifies affirmation of education and democracy, and the idea of ​​"can "Speaking English" is a mark of good breeding.It meant at the same time the romanization of writing and the abolition of knowledge of Chinese characters, and sometimes of all knowledge of Chinese folklore, literature, and drama, at least in Amoy.The romanization system is a wonderful thing. We have a complete seven-tone romanization system in Xiamen, which is a mockery of the sinologists who oppose it.My mother can read the entire "Bible" through the Roman alphabet. In addition, she also used this method to learn Chinese characters by herself, and she once wrote to me in perfectly clear Roman alphabet.Romanization is not impossible, but psychologically we don't want it.

At the same time, Christian education has its disadvantages, as we will soon see.We not only need to be insulated from Chinese philosophy, but also from Chinese folklore.It is acceptable for Chinese people not to understand Chinese philosophy, but it is obviously ridiculous to not understand goblins and ghosts and Chinese folk tales.It just so happened that my childhood Christian education was perfect.That's because my church is Calvinist.I am not allowed to listen to the beautiful ancient stories sung by Zhangzhou blind troubadours with guitar accompaniment.These blind singers, sometimes men but most often women, pass by the streets at night, carrying a pair of castanets and a lantern in their hands, and tell tales of ancient Chinese magic and wonders of history.My mother, who was brought up in a pagan home, told me stories of this kind, but I never heard them from the troubadours.When we boys passed a stage on Gulangyu Square, we thought we should look straight at the stage instead of walking along.Now, the stage is a common medium for educating Chinese people (both illiterate and non-literate) about their history.Any Chinese laundryman knows the heroes and heroines of the Three Kingdoms better than I do.Even in my childhood I knew that Joshua's trumpet blew down the city of Jericho.When I learned that the widow in Qiliang died when she found out that her husband was confiscated to build the Great Wall, and the tears she shed melted a large section of the Great Wall, I was very angry.I was scammed of national heritage.This is the "good thing" that Puritan education did to a Chinese child.I resolved to resist and sink into the mighty current of our national consciousness.

Thus began my great spiritual journey.We often stay in the Christian world to live, move, and settle down, and we are also satisfied, just like the pagans in Beijing are satisfied.But as a Chinese Christian, walking into what I call the real Chinese world, opening his eyes and opening his heart, he will be stung by shame, his face will be red all the way to the root of his ears.Why must I be deprived?Things are not as simple as I describe.Even the issue of foot binding and concubinage is not as straightforward and simple as I imagined.Before I listened to Gu Hongming's strong defense of these two, I actually did not appreciate the ethics and aesthetics of concubinage and footbinding.Before the end of this book, I will say a lot about Gu Hongming.

Here I must mention two things, opium and ancestor worship - one of which causes a deep sense of humiliation and disgust for the West in the Chinese, the other causes a Chinese Christian to be Feeling deprived of nationality.Chinese Christians are not close to opium, those missionaries certainly condemn it.Its dramatic and tragic element was brought in by our fellow missionaries and held at gunpoint by us.When that great and fearless Chinese official Lin Zexu (my famous cousin) was governor of Guangdong, he burned many crates of opium on the docks of Canton, which started the Opium War.After the failure of the Opium War, Lin Zexu was exiled to Xinjiang and died in a garrison, and China was greatly opened up.Crates of opium were rolled in brazenly in large quantities.But the problem is that when the missionaries entered China, the Chinese people were awakened by the stench of opium.Then a third factor was added—that both the missionaries and the opium benefited from the shadow of the warship, and the situation became not only deplorable, but utterly comical.The missionaries were very against the businessmen; and the businessmen were very against the missionaries; everyone thought the other was crazy.All a Chinese can see is that the missionaries were concerned with saving our souls, so when the battleships blast our bodies to pieces, we are sure of going to heaven, and that cancels each other out.

Now I come back to ancestor worship, which is a fundamental part of being Chinese.Chinese Christians are prohibited from participating, which is tantamount to expelling themselves from Chinese society, and makes the accusation of "eating foreign religions" true.This question is fundamental and central, and asks how far a careless church can harm its members.Ancestor worship was the only visible form of religion when Confucianism was recognized as a religion; worshiping Confucius in Confucius temples was often the preserve of students and those who passed the exams.But even so, there is no reason for Chinese Christians not to participate, and in any case, no reason to exclude themselves from Chinese culture.

Ancestor worship existed before Confucius, as anyone who has read the Chinese classics should know.When Confucius attempted to reconstruct the forms and laws of ancestor worship established by the Zhou dynasty seven centuries before him, he was in fact doing archaeological work.The founder of the Zhou dynasty is further from Confucius than Jose is from modern scholars, and a little closer than the Beowudt epic.Ancestor worship, in the eyes of the Chinese, is the reverence and connection to the past, the concrete manifestation of the long-standing family system, and therefore the motivation for the survival of the Chinese people.It is the criterion for all people to be a good person, seek glory, seek progress, and seek success in society.In fact, the motivation of Chinese behavior is: "You should do well so that your family can be honored by you; you should refrain from evil so that you will not disgrace your ancestors." Reasons for a son, a good brother, a good uncle, a good citizen.This is the reason why the Chinese want to be a Chinese.As for the form of worship, only by stretching the imagination as far as possible can it be called "idolatry" as the Chinese church calls it.Comparing it with the bad custom of enshrining images of gods in certain Christian cathedrals (especially in Italy and France), these square wooden plaques bearing the name of an ancestor seem like some unimaginative rationalism. author's works.There are only a few words on it, fewer words than a Christian tombstone.There is a sacrificial table in the ancestral ancestral hall, and a pile of these wooden plaques are placed behind it. These wooden plaques look like a bunch of extra-large rulers, and the marks on them are the seats of the ancestor spirits of each male and female.During worship, candles and incense are lit on the sacrificial table.As for kneeling in front of these wooden plaques, this is actually the main objection of the Christian church, because they have forgotten that the Chinese knees are often much easier to bend than Westerners. parents and grandparents kneel down.Bowing the knee is a sign of submission.Confucius said: "Practice one's position, practice one's rites, play one's music, respect one's respect, love one's relatives. Death is like life, death is like survival, and filial piety is the ultimate." You wash a person clean , you will find that there is a kind of pride of being proud of the ancestors that cannot be washed away.

Now, non-Christians in Xiamen are tolerant of us.There is no social exclusion there.The Christian society in Xiamen and Zhangzhou lived closely with the local people, as if all were members of the same parish; they were progressive and successful, and their children, whether boys or girls, had greater convenience in studying.If there is hostility, I think it is because of ancestor worship.We are not imprisoned, but we imprison ourselves and cut ourselves off from society.In a modern city, this does not matter much, but in the countryside, this is the most embarrassing personal problem for a Chinese Christian.Some Christians have approached my father in the most earnest manner, if they could donate a little money for plays at social festivals.What these Christians are really asking is whether they want to cast themselves out of society in the eyes of their cousins, uncles, and others in their clan.This is forbidden by the Christian church, but they celebrate Mother's Day and Father's Day joyfully while their parents are alive; and after their parents die, they do something very close to idolatry-substituting actual photos for wooden objects like Mitachi. Card.There is a Chinese proverb that goes: "When drinking water, think of the source".Are Chinese Christians only allowed to drink water from the tap, and not allowed to think about the source of the water?

As a child, I was too young to feel any hostility and the fact that Chinese Christians had cut themselves off from the society they belonged to.In school days, we study happily so as not to feel anything.But I remember that some non-Christian leaders in my village were hostile to the church.These incidents are trivial and amusing - without erupting into the brutality and hatred known as the Boxers Rebellion.A year after my father had finished building the church, an opium-smoking scribe who had failed his exams and was unemployed intended to raise money to build a Buddhist temple on the same street as the church, which he did.He is a poor man, I don't know if his wife refuses to wash his clothes for him, or he himself wants to show his supernatural power by his filthy face; what I remember most is that he is full of black teeth, wearing a filthy shirt with only buttons Long shirt with half buttons.Whether he wants to be clean or not, he always intends to let people see his face that never washes. I believe he wants to preserve the joy of sponge bathing in a Buddhist paradise after death, although there is a clear stream that flows right past him. temple.But at least the poor man had his wit, and he lived by it.Our church had a bell donated by an American, for which we built a bell tower about fifty feet high at the front door; and this unemployed scribe later had a drum in his Buddhist temple. It is uncommon (bells that he cannot provide are commonly used in Buddhist temples).When church bells rang on Sundays, he also took care to beat his drum.As he said: "Jesus jingle Flonglong".We kids were determined not to let him win.We took turns helping pull the rope while listening for when the drums stopped.We continued this competition until Father thought we were crazy and stopped us.The next year, I came back from school and the drum was gone.The man with the yellow teeth must have sold it for opium.So we won.

Another non-Christian leader, more respectable because of his age and his beard.He's the gentleman of the whole valley.My father maintained a friendly relationship with "Eunuch Kim", but Eunuch Kim never came to church and prevented others from coming to church.The river comes down from the mountain, and there is a bridge at the bend of the river. On one side of the river is Banzai Street with many shops. It stands high on the embankment and is always threatened by the erosion of the river, because when the flood comes, it will be affected. The full blow of the whirlpool; on the other side of the river is a rocky shallow where the region's reincarnation fair is held every five days.At the foot of the bridge on the other side of the shoal was Eunuch Jin's house. Under such circumstances, he could say that the bridge belonged to him.The bridge was of wood, roughly laid with logs, but not with planks.Because the bars were not perfectly straight, one could see the river below through the gaps, and the women with bound feet had to walk carefully lest their heels get caught in the bridge holes.I know that bridge is a source of income for Eunuch Kim because he also smokes opium and needs money to buy it.If there is a great flood, the bridge will either be washed away or repaired.Every time there was a flood, Eunuch Jin would go out to collect money from the villagers to repair it, and when the bridge was completely washed away, it was of course a windfall.Flooding in autumn water is quite common in our village now, and it has provided Eunuch Jin with an endless source of money.Also, since he often noticed the cracks in the structure of the bridge and knew the fragility of the bridge's joints, Eunuch Jin could conclude that the bridge was very sensitive to slight changes in the level of the river.The only thing to wait for is the cooperation between Eunuch Tian and Eunuch Jin.I remember Eunuch Kim as a gentle and reasonable man, and the only reason he was hostile to Christianity was that he started a gamble, and my father tried his best to prevent Christians from gambling.So he also had to prevent those gamblers from becoming Christians.

It is a natural expectation for an educated Chinese to join the traditional mainstream of thought in his country and not to be a Chinese who has been deprived of his nationality.I graduated from the best English university in the country - so what's the big deal?Because I inherited my father's court training from a young age, I have a good foundation in Confucian classics, and I have kept them in my heart.Every educated Chinese is expected to remember what Confucius said in the book, which is an important part of the conversation of learned people, but my calligraphy is bad, which is the most obvious mark of uneducated people in China.My knowledge of Chinese history, Chinese poetry, Chinese philosophy, and Chinese literature is full of holes.Now I am in Beijing, the center of Chinese culture.I felt like a first year English student at Cambridge talking to his tutor.The tutor smoked him and babbled on about Swinburne and Keats and Horseman.The student has only a general understanding of these writers.The first thing a bright young man does after such a session is to go to the library and read Sven, Keats, and Horseman; so that he will not appear so rustic and ignorant at the second session.This is the normal procedure of what we call a real university education, by heart-to-heart association, and even by contagion.With shame, I immersed myself in the study of Chinese literature and philosophy.The vast world of pagan wisdom opened up to me, and the real post-college education process—the process of forgetting what had been learned in the past—began.Such procedures include stepping outside the constraints of the Christian faith. Outwardly I am an accomplished teacher, and I did a good job at Tsinghua University.Tsinghua University, founded with the Boxer indemnity returned by the United States, has grown by leaps and bounds to become one of the most modern and best-equipped universities in China, and it was just beginning to build a magnificent library.It has an extraordinary Chinese principal and a group of good professors from China and the United States. It is located in the garden of a former Manchurian prince outside Beijing.But mentally I was clumsy and not well adjusted.Up to that time I was sometimes considered a Puritan by Dr. Hu Shih.I am a Puritan, and I expect kindness and friendship from a non-Christian poet or scholar.I am not in a constitution for alcohol; it dries out my eyelids.As for the pipe, I will forever defend the trustworthy comforter of the spirit.Though I call myself a heathen, such things as Dionysian festivals were beyond my power then, and still are.Reclining on a couch to eat a bouquet of grapes brought up on a golden plate, I have remained a spectator at a sort of Roman general's banquet.As for women, training in Puritan education had certain benefits.While some of my colleagues went to prostitutes on Sundays, I taught a Sunday school class at Tsinghua University, which is a non-Christian university.A fellow professor called me a virgin, and I still was when I got married.That's why I love striptease in Parisian nightclubs so much.No one can properly appreciate striptease quite like a good Puritan.I'll never be as refined and confident as the rich kid in college, and while I've learned in later life to be at peace and natural in a society of men and women, I still won't learn to give a guy a hard slap on the back action.I think it's because the spirit of the mountains haunts me forever, and I'm essentially a country boy, which is the true meaning of the etymology of the word "pagan."To this day, I still enjoy walking on the carpet in my department's office in socks as one of life's greatest luxuries.I thought man's feet, that is, because God made them for man to walk, were perfect.For them nothing can be improved, and wearing shoes is a degenerate form of man.Thomas Wolfe fondly wrote in Look Home Bward that Angel's toes are turned up because he was born that way.Sometimes, walking down the streets of Manhattan at night, I get angry at my wife for a loud yawn, or a sudden, deliberately drawn-out scream.Because although I walk on the sidewalks of Manhattan's Minnesota, my eyes still see the unfettered space on the top of the mountain, my ears still hear the sweet laughter of the mountain spring, and I am not afraid. I often think, to be a kid from a rich family, you have to be gentle, you have to know when to shut up, and you have to know how to wait quietly for promotion.Because in China, to be a student is to become a member of the ruling class.I once saw a colleague from an official family whose origin and future were beyond doubt in the officialdom.But I'm from Fujian - not from Shanghai or Beijing.Throughout Chinese history, we have produced poets and scholars, who put their own lives and beauties, but no high-ranking officials. During my brief time at the Foreign Office, I found that this colleague had learned to keep his mouth shut, to be polite to everyone, to be gentle and natural.He was in the office, telling the time ① In the previous generation, three great Chinese writers came from Fujian: Yan Fu, the translator of Adam Smith, Montesquieu, and Huxley; Lin Shu, the translator of Scott and Dickens, About him, I have already mentioned above; and Gu Hongming (see below). ——The author's own note.Spent drinking tea and reading newspapers.I said to myself that this person would definitely become the head of a province in the future, and the result was exactly as I expected.I often want to thoroughly understand the relationship between this mystery of silence and the magic of shutting up and promotionism.And the conclusion I have come to is: a soldier gives his blood to the country, but never gives up his honor; a truly successful official gives up his honor to his country, but never gives his blood.A soldier's duty is to do nothing but die, a good statesman's duty is to do it and never talk about it.All he did was love his country. My brief theological studies had shaken my faith in dogma.A professor tried to convince me of the theological necessity of the Holy Spirit by saying that if there is A and B here, there must be a connecting line C between them.This scholastic arrogance and spiritual dogmatism hurt my conscience.These dogmas spring from a pedantic mind, which treats spiritual matters as well as material ones, and even equates the justice of God with the justice of man.Those theologians were so confident that they thought their conclusions would be accepted as final, sealed and boxed for eternity.Of course I resist.Many of these dogmas are irrelevant and cloud the truth of Christ.In terms of canon order, Paul knew more than Peter, and the fourth-century church fathers knew more than Paul.By comparison of their truths, Jesus knew the least. I have lost my faith in faith, but I still cling tenaciously to my belief in the Fatherhood of God.When I presided over the Sunday school class at Tsinghua University on Christmas, how the big star led the three oriental doctors to the street where the manger was located, this kind of imagination has been very difficult for me.I can only appreciate the symbolic beauty of the midnight singing of the angels in Santayana's sense.Santa Claus is a myth that has lost its charm, but a beautiful one nonetheless.Even so, something had to happen before I could cut myself off from the Christian church. In Beijing I came into contact with two men of first-rate intellect.They have given me an indelible influence and made different contributions to my future development.One is Dr. Hu Shih, who represented the Chinese Cultural Renaissance in 1917.Cultural revival, and other more important things, are strictly anti-Confucianism.Dr. Hu Shi, who was a graduate student at Columbia University at the time, fired the first shot in New York. This shot completely changed the trend of Chinese thought and Chinese literature of our generation.This was a literary revolution, a signpost in the history of Chinese literature, advocating the replacement of classical Chinese with the national language, and using the national language as the normal medium of literary expression.At the same time, Chen Duxiu, a professor at Peking University who believed in communism, edited "New Youth".Hu Shi returned to China to teach at Peking University and won applause from all over the country.I met him at Tsinghua University, which was like an electric shock experience.I have an intuitive sympathy for the whole progress of this movement.Chinese scholars of the same generation, Liang Qichao, Cai Yuanpei, and Lin Changmin, all participated in this movement.Then Paul Monroe and John Dewey visited Peking University before I went abroad to study. (I returned from Germany in 1923 to teach at Peking University, where Mao Zedong was a librarian—but no one paid attention to him, and I never saw him.) In short, cultural renaissance is a liberating force, a comprehensive break with the past made by Chinese intellectuals.On the one hand the warlords were at war, and on the other hand the Chinese intellectuals were dominated by the tension of a challenge and struggle against themselves.Beijing is full of vitality.Lin Shu, the great translator whose works my sister had read, was then at Peking University, denouncing the vernacular as "the language of the charioteers and pulpers."Where there is struggle, there is vitality, there is the impetus of thought and research, and there is a doctrine to fight for or resist for it.The young China was completely shaken.The communist Chen Duxiu continued to denounce the entire Confucian system, in particular the sacrifice to Confucius and the observance of widows.And Hu Shi, a typical rationalist, based on scientific research, is actually more moderate, writing articles like a scholar.Chen Duxiu condemned superstition, such as the shaman.Of course, "New Youth" could easily make an effort against footbinding, because we are already living in the era of the Republic of China, so this kind of effort is a bit of an afterthought.One enthusiastic student wrote: "We all have to carry the little feet (responsibility) of all Chinese women on our shoulders"—an unusual task indeed for neoliberal fighters.Think about it, in fact there are at least 50 million pairs of Chinese women's little feet to carry, and this young man may have a pair of weak knees.I couldn't help but be attracted to Peking University, and after I returned from overseas, I taught there.In the midst of this intellectual turmoil, I buried myself in Chinese philosophy and linguistics—everything I could get my hands on—for my own salvation.I was floating in the fury of China's awakening. However, there was one person who did not join in the shouting.He returned to China in 1885 after studying at the Universities of Berlin, Edinburgh, and Oxford. He was a generation older than me. In his opinion, we young upstarts in the Republic of China were ignorant and humble, even if we are not called today. Corrupted by the modern mass-worship of Democracy, the soul has been tainted to furtiveness.He said that we are "fashionable Chinese without braids in modern times, returning overseas students" and "people who have learned from the people of Britain and the United States, not following the rules, but misbehaving people".He's a monster but not obnoxious because he's a man of first-rate intellect, and above all he has insight and depth not found in this day and age.No one in China can write in English like him.His challenging conception, defiant style, the kind reminiscent of Matthew Arnold's poised and methodical way of presenting his ideas and repeating a sentence, coupled with Thomas Karl Lyle's dramatic words, and Heine's subtlety.This person is Gu Hongming.Gu Hongming is a child of Xiamen, like a glass of red wine before cooking a Chinese humanism feast.Since he turned everything upside down, he played a carping role in the direction of my beliefs. I think it's best to quote Somerset Maugham's description of him.Maugham did not mention Gu Hongming's name, but replaced it with "that philosopher" in his book "On Chinese Screens".Maugham met him in Sichuan province on the upper Yangzi, about 1921.The following is a vivid description, which can very well show the main points of this person's character. Here lived a famous philosopher, and one of the motives of my somewhat strenuous journey was to meet him.He is an authority on Chinese Confucianism.He is said to be fluent in English and German.For several years he was secretary to one of the Queen Mother's governors, but has now retired.Several days a week, the doors of his home are open to those seeking knowledge, preaching the teachings of Confucius.He had a group of disciples, but not many, for most of those students liked his simple house and its nobility in its simplicity.Mention to him of the buildings of foreign universities and the applied sciences of those savages only led to his contemptuous expulsion.From all I have heard of him, I conclude that he is a man of character. When I proposed to meet this famous gentleman, the host immediately arranged, but there was no news after many days.When I asked, the host shrugged. "I sent him a note telling him to come here," he said. "I don't know why he hasn't come yet. He's a very grumpy old man." I don't think it's appropriate to approach a philosopher in such a haughty way, so I'm not surprised he brushed off the call.I send one I wrote to him and asked him in the most polite words I could think of if he could let me meet him. Just two hours later, I received a reply from him and agreed at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. When the philosopher came into the drawing room, I immediately thanked him for his gift.He pointed me to a chair and poured me tea. "You want to see me as a kind of flattery to me," he replied, "people in your country only deal with coolies and compradors, and they think that every Chinese must be that if not one kind." I want to risk protesting, but I don't know what he really means yet.He leaned back in his chair and looked at me with a mocking expression. "They thought if they just nodded, we'd have to go." I knew he was still upset at my friend's hasty announcement.I didn't know how to answer, so I murmured some compliments. He was an old man, tall, with thin charcoal-colored braids and large bright eyes with heavy bags under the lids.His teeth are chipped and discolored.He was excessively thin, and his hands were graceful and small, withered like bird claws.I was told once that he smoked opium.He wore a black gown, a little black hat, all in tatters, and dark gray trousers tied at the ankles.He is watching, not quite knowing what attitude to adopt, it is a state of alert. At a certain slack I felt from his demeanor.He is like a person who stands upright and waits for someone to take a picture of him, and he returns to his naturalness only when he hears the shutter of the lens.He showed me his book. "I did my Ph.D. in Berlin," he said. "Then I did another period at Oxford. But the English don't have a big appetite for philosophy." Although he made it sound like he was apologetic, he was obviously quite happy to say something that everyone more or less disagreed with. "We've had some philosophers who have had a slight influence on the intellectual world," I reminded him. "Hume and Berkeley? These two philosophers, who taught at Oxford when I was there, were afraid of offending their theological colleagues. They would not pursue the logical conclusions of their ideas for fear of jeopardizing their standing in university society." position." "Have you ever studied the development of philosophy in modern America?" I asked. "You mean pragmatism? It's the ultimate refuge for those who want to believe in the unthinkable. I like American oil more than American philosophy." Then there were more such vitriols.I think Maugham's character is true (I have vowed not to use the empty phrase "insightful" that critics love to use), he said: "His study of Western philosophy can only satisfy his so-called The idea that wisdom can only be found within the confines of the Confucian classics." Once my friend saw Gu Hongming in the True Light Cinema, with a bald Scot sitting in front of him.White people are respected everywhere in China, but Gu Hongming humiliated white people to show that Chinese people are superior.He tried to light a foot-long Chinese pipe, but he ran out of matches.When he recognized a Scot sitting in front of him, he tapped the Scot's bald head lightly with his pipe and pointed, open fingers, and said quietly, "Light it, please! "The Scot was terrified and had to follow Chinese courtesy.Gu Hongming is familiar to the Chinese, probably because of his ingenious defense of the concubine system.He said: "Have you ever seen a teapot with four teacups, but have you seen one teacup with four teapots?" It is also said among us that if you want to see Gu Hongming, don't go to his residence, go to Bada Hutong You can see him in the red light district.This is not the gesture of an old prodigal son, but a belief in some important philosophical claim.He advised those ignorant Westerners to visit the Eight Great Hutongs. If they want to study the real Chinese culture, they can prove the dignity, shyness, and beauty of Chinese women from the singers there.Gu Hongming was not wrong, because those singers, like Japanese geisha, can blush, but modern college girls can't. Gu Hongming used to be Zhang Zhidong's "translator". Gu Hongming, with his thin hair, walks alone in Central Park.One would think he was a down-on-his-luck eunuch, or that no one noticed him at all.What a lonely and proud heart!Even so, I feel unworthy to approach this expert on Matthew Arnold, Ruskin, Emerson, Goethe, and Schiller.Although I was in St. I admired him a lot in college.Koo was a consensual royalist and out-of-band supporter, while Chen was a revolutionary.Both are masters of invective and impeccable command of English.Chen Chenggu was a quack and copyist, but Gu called Chen a lackey and a half-knowledgeable Indian gentleman (a half-British Indian who lost his nationality) because Chen was born in Trinidad and spoke Chinese like a foreigner .When I was studying in Germany, the First World War had just ended, and I found that Gu Hongming was still very famous in Germany.His little book "VeteidigungChinasgegenEuropa" (if I remember well, a German translated his book as "The Spirit of Chinese Culture") is well known in cultural circles.Written in 1915, shortly after the outbreak of the Great War, although he denounced Prussian militarism in very unequivocal terms, he first blamed the war on vile British imperialism and London mob worship.He said something sympathetic to the Germans, saying they were "loves of justice," neat and orderly, and "moral in character."He knew Goethe and Schiller well, and was a great admirer of Frederick the Great and Prince Bismarck, so that although he was completely unknown in America, the Germans liked to hear what he had to say. Gu Hongming is a piece of hard meat, which cannot be absorbed by a weak stomach.To Westerners, his works especially resemble bristly porcupines.But his depth and insight make many of his faults forgiven, because there are very few people who are truly insightful.His great achievement is the translation of three of the Four Books of Confucianism, not just a faithful translation, but also a creative translation, in which the light of ancient classics is infused with a deep and clear philosophy.他事实上扮演了东方观念与西方观念的电镀匠。他的《孔子的言论》，饰以歌德、席勒、罗斯金、及朱贝尔的有启发性的妙语。有关儒家书籍的翻译，得力于他对原作的深切了解。中国的古经典从来没有好的译本。那些外国的汉学家译得很糟，中国人自己却忽略了这件事。把中文翻成英文是困难的。观念不同，思想的方式不同，而更糟的，是中文文法的关系只用句子的构造来表示，没有字尾变化，且没有常用的连接词及冠词，有时更没有主词。因此中国哲学的"源头"，直到今天，仍被覆盖在似雾的黄昏中。结果使剑桥大学前任中文教授赫伯特·吉利斯说孔子可能只是一个好吹牛、平凡、陈腐的三家村老学究。在哲学观念上翻译的陷阱是很大的。仁的真意（benevolence？mercy？humanity？manhood？）义的真意（Justice？right？righteousness？）礼的真意（ritualism？courtesy？goodform？socialorder？）甚至还不被人了解。 谈到这里请大家宽恕我介绍一段经过翻译的迂回累赘的话。它是采自詹姆士·来兹的儒家经典的译本，已被编入为麦克思·缪勒所编辑的《远东的圣书》中。来兹作了一次对文字的盲目崇拜，一种真正的外国远古气氛，比意义更是显明忠实的标志。孟子所说的在中文刚好是十二个字，当军队列阵拿着利矛坚盾攻袭敌人城堡的时候，他说："天时不如地利，地利不如人和。"（theweatherlessimportantthan terrain，andtheterrainlessimportant thanthearmymorale．）如果有人宁愿逐字直译，那就可把它译为"sky－timesnotsogoodasground－situation； ground－situationnotsogoodashumanharmony．"对于任何中国孩子"sky－times"是指天气而不能作别解；"ground－situation"是指地势，而"humanharmony" 是指士气。但按照来兹所译，则孟子是说："opportunitesof time（vouchsafetyHeavenarenotequaltoadvantagesofsituation（affordedby）theEarth，andadvantagesofsituation（affordedby）theEartharenotequalto（theunionarisingfrom）theaccordofmen．"（天所惠赐的时间上的机会不如地所提供的形势上的好处；而地所提供的形势上的好处不如人的团结一致。）辜鸿铭的翻译却永远站得住，因为它们来自对两种文字的精通，以及对于它们较深奥意义的了解，是意义与表达方法二者愉快的配合，辜鸿铭的翻译是真正的天启。受过马太·安诺德、喀莱尔、罗斯金、爱默生、歌德、及席勒等人的陶冶，辜鸿铭自信在他之前，没有人能像他这样了解儒家。他的中心观念是绕着雅与俗的问题转。雅是意指孔子对于君子的理想；而俗，用罗斯金的话，简单地说就是"身体与灵魂的死硬化"及缺乏感觉。使他的治与乱的辩论成为有效是由于白人帝国主义一方面用武力攫取中国的土地，另一方面它的使徒（当然包括某些基督教的传教士在内）又武断地说"中国是信邪教的"，他们具有开化中国文化的使命，这种情形特别是在拳匪之乱以后特别明显。用"门户开放"的名义，公然抢夺中国土地而伴以他所谓"英国的芜词滥调"来谈及文化，当白人在《北中国每日新闻》辱骂皇太后的时候，辜鸿铭大大地被激怒。他狂猛地抨击他所谓"伪善的英帝国主义"，攻击那些迎合伦敦人经商攫取钱财及"暴民崇拜"的天性，更抨击英皇帝"吃人的殖民政策"。他说他们集竖子、小人于一身，他们的灵魂十分需要拯救。这是充满了激动及报复心在内的国家主义，加上一种忠心拥护帝制反对民主的偏见（喀莱尔的影响）。 辜鸿铭认为，拳乱是人民之声。这些议论在他一九○一年出版的《总督衙门来书》一书中表露出来。这时他正处在从迷惑中醒觉过来的心态。当然，拳乱是由传教士、鸦片、及战舰等三项因素所引起，这是不争的事实。我们必须记得因为杀害一个教士，中国要偿付威廉大帝青岛港口及山东全省的铁路建筑权。白色帝国主义是无约束的。当中国的统一受威胁时，辜鸿铭只是用全力来批评及攻击英国暴民崇拜的宗教及该撤走的殖民政策。他著《近代传教与新近动乱之关系》一书，声音喊得天般高。《总督衙门来书》包含了一篇最长的文章——《中国问题的新近纪录》（初在横滨《日本邮报》发表）。这篇文章已证明对英、法、德、美等国的文化及其衰颓作了一次历史性的考验。他的声音是尖锐的；他的灵魂中没有和蔼，充满了烈酒般的讽刺。下面这一段话，是他对在中国的英国人轻微的嘲弄。 自贝康思菲尔特爵士死后，英国贵族阶级再度成为无望，他们的领袖索尔斯柏利爵士，遇见了一位有伦敦人才智的伯明罕青年。这个伯明罕的伦敦人曾企图以模仿贝康思菲尔特爵士的帝国主义旗号来谄媚英国贵族的优越感，并想在高处挥舞这个旗子以取悦安格鲁撒克逊族的自信心！真的，如果美好的英国老贵族的情景不是这般悲惨的急需金钱、理想、和主意，一个小伯明罕的伦敦人用他安格鲁撒克逊自信心的破布来领导，将会造成像苏格兰"一个兰恩血统的一文不名的少女"一样滑稽的情景①，他把自己人生。 ①此文及下面一段引用文是采自１９０１年在上海出版的《总督衙门来书》。——引者自注。 辜鸿铭用敏捷的，印象主义的笔触，探索德国及法国知识分子的没落。 腓特烈之后，普鲁士就是德国。德国是欧洲的苏格兰，普鲁士人是住在平原的低地苏格兰人，缺乏想象力。 普鲁士的气温冷酷得多，因此那些普鲁士人除了缺乏想象力外，还有一种可怕的食欲。俾斯麦王子说："我们家庭中每一个人都是大吃家。如果许多人都有像我们这样的食欲，国家将不可能存在，我会被逼得迁居。"……腓特烈没有想象力。但他除了天才之外，有法国的教养，那种源自法国的心灵颤动及清醒。腓特烈之后，普鲁士的清教徒因为缺乏想象力不能继续做全德国的保护领主。 而拿破仑必须回来在耶拿光荣复职。……爱默生曾以伟大的卓见，谈及拿破仑被送到圣赫勒那不是由于战败，而是因为他身上那种粗鄙的味道，中产阶级的气质，及伦敦人的派头。当拿破仑以散布革命自由观念者的身份出现的时候，欧洲所有的绅士都对他高声欢呼。可是等他们发现这个科西嘉岛的小资产阶级不过是想建立一个皇朝时，所有欧洲绅士都对他大倒胃口。然后普鲁士的清教徒穿着"Vor-Warts"（前进军）的军服，加入欧洲绅士对这个科西嘉小资产阶级的追捕。……当"Vor- Warts"（前进军）把拿破仑逐出德国时，他同时想把法国革命伟大的自由观念也驱逐出去。为抗拒这一点，全德国的知识分子都起来和他作战。这就是"文化斗争"的开始。……法国革命的真正伟大自由观念是在政治上的"门户开放"及在宗教上的"开展"。但"Vor-Warts"（前进军）的苏格兰低地人的自私倾向使他们不喜欢"门户开放"，而普鲁士人想象力的缺乏，也妨碍他们了解宗教上"开展"的真正意义。 辜鸿铭继续娓娓而谈。他连跳带跑通过了近代欧洲史的种种背景，而达到值得注意的结论："今天世界的真正动乱不在中国——虽然中国忍受它的影响——而是在欧洲及美洲。"他向欧洲人大喊："注意，欧洲人！照顾你们神圣的文化珍宝吧！" 辜鸿铭并不攻击耶稣基督的教训，他尊敬真正的基督教，但他猛烈地攻击耶稣会与法国军队，及德国主教与德国军队在拳匪之乱时的主动合作。下面是他痛恨的一例： 基督教最初是一种力量，足以减低德国苏格兰低地人的自私心及庞摩尔兰尼亚省大吃家的可怕的食欲，但现在在德国的基督教死得像一个老顽固。他们已经正式设立一个主教安沙尔，胶州的名人，国家社会党，及那些歌颂德皇所说"我们怎样处置那五万投降的中国人呢？养他们吗？不成！"在名为（Zukunft）诗篇中写最后一章的政客们的基督教来代替它。因此，当我们遇见五万毛毛虫的时候，我们怎样做呢？用一个滚压机来压死它们。讨厌的工作！But there is no way.我们不知道耶稣会怎样说。如果他不是生在一个和平的世界，而是战争的世界。依照这个牧师的见解，耶稣也会变成食肉的动物。 下面是他说及真基督徒和真基督教的话。他引用孔子的话说： "人能弘道，非道弘人。"无论你是犹太人、中国人、德国人，是商人、传教士、兵士、外交家、苦力。若你能仁慈不自私，你就是一个基督徒，一个文化人。但如果自私、不仁，即使你是世界的大皇帝你仍是一个伪善者，一个下流人，一个非利士人，一个邪教徒，一个亚玛力人，一个野蛮人，一只野兽。 然后辜鸿铭进而引用歌德在《虚伪与真实》中的观念——歌德认为基督教是进步的，基督教的文化在乎仁慈、体贴他人，以人道胜过不人道。他说："我们将会知道，无论欧洲人或美国人，要处理中国的问题时，采用歌德的关于文化的概念，抑或采用想使耶稣基督成为食肉动物的德国政客的滚压机！" 真正的基督徒是因为爱好圣洁及基督教里面一切可爱的东西而自然成为基督徒的。而那些因为害怕地狱之火而做基督徒的，是伪善的基督徒。那些只是为了想进入天堂饮茶及与天使们共唱圣诗而做基督徒的，是下流的基督徒。现在的那些耶稣会教士是那些自己不大相信天堂、天使、及地狱之火，但却想让别人相信这些东西的基督徒。 这些文章十分激烈；很容易刺激一个青年读者的思想。它是好文章，但同时具有一种特别刺激灵魂的本质。因为人常会问什么是基督教的本质？究竟什么是儒家？这样他们就可以宽心和愉快的倚在椅子上，舒适地多读对于不同的国家的奇怪的批评。 美国人难以了解真正的中国人及中国文化，因为美国人通常是宽大、单纯，但不够深刻。英国人不能了解真正的中国人及中国文化，因为英国人一般是深刻、单纯，却不够宽大。德国人也不能了解真正的中国人及中国文化，因为德国人深刻、宽大，但不够单纯。至于法国人，在我看来是能了解并已经是最了解真正中国人及中国文化的。……因为法国人在心灵的性质上曾达到一种卓越的程度，这是上文中我所曾提及的其他国家的人所没有的——那是一种想了解真正中国人及中国文化所必需具有的灵慧。一种精细的灵性。 从我在上文所说可以看出，如果美国能学习中国文化，将会获得深度；英国人将会获得宽大；德国人将会获得单纯。而所有美国人、英国人、德国人，由于学习中国文化，研究中国的书籍及文字，将得到一种精细的灵性。我放肆地说，在我看来，他们通常都没有达到这样卓越的程度。 它是令人安慰而又真实的。我对于中国宽宏或宽大这一点，想提出异议，但他们的确单纯、精细、且有深度。但有人会被这样的文章所刺激，再去发现自己的国家，且在中国思想的茂密森林中探索旅行，来试着达到某种了解。