Chapter 3 Shi Jingqian: Preface

It is not difficult to find that this is a century of astonishing waste: wasted opportunities, wasted resources, and wasted lives.How can there be purposeful nation-building when the misery of foreign aggression, invasion and occupation is intertwined with such injustice at home?How can there be balanced economic growth when the poverty of the masses is compounded by the excesses of philistines at some times and the extreme totalitarianism of states at others?In a society chronically turbulent and unimaginably censored, how could individual creativity and intellectual exploration be universally unfolded? The story of Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin probably proved the above pessimistic view from the beginning.A large amount of social waste from different levels not only breaks their lives, but also devours their lives.How many times has there been little room for them in this world.However, when we savor the stories about them carefully, from the touching and intimate details that Fei Weimei showed us, we will more clearly feel the bursting out of this strong but repressed couple. light of life.We hear the laughter mingled with the sound of cups and plates in their crowded living room, we see the meanings of ancient architectural texts gradually deciphered by their indomitable academic research, we appreciate the deft Fingers control the drawing pen to navigate every detail of the same elegant Chinese and English characters. We also see that the buildings that have disappeared regain their proper positions in the consciousness of Chinese people. We feel that even in Amidst the pain of illness and illness, their humor and perseverance remained intact. Both Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin were born in China in the early twentieth century, where hope and hesitation coexisted, and tradition and modernity clashed together.Lin Huiyin's father was a talented political visionary and seeker of new things.Since his original wife failed to bear him an heir, he married two concubines, Lin Huiyun being the only surviving child of the first concubine.She received an informal but good education. In 1920, her father was appointed director of the Chinese League of Nations in Britain.He brought 16-year-old Hui Yin as his companion and housework helper.But when the poet Xu Zhimo fell in love with her passionately, her father brought her back to China so that she could be with Liang Sicheng again.Liang Sicheng is the son of Liang Qichao, and Huiyin has already been betrothed to him. Liang Sicheng was born in Tokyo in 1901, when his father was wanted by the declining Qing Dynasty and forced to flee to Japan. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, Liang Qichao's family returned to China.In the bewildered years of the early Republic, he gave full play to his talent and political enthusiasm.Sicheng was sent to Tsinghua University to study in the preparatory school for studying in the United States. At the same time, he received strict instruction in Chinese studies from his father. Liang Qichao also asked him to translate H. G. Wells' "Outline of World History" into Chinese. In 1923, he was involved in a tragic accident while riding his brand new Davidson motorcycle, which left his legs slightly disabled due to improper treatment and forced him to wear a steel waistcoat to stabilize his back.Huiyin was officially engaged to Sicheng at this time, and Xu Zhimo had also returned to China and became an influential poet, but Huiyin did not change their past friendship.Together they received Fritz in the living room where they gathered together.Her smiling face.There are unfinished poems on the desk.There are plans to visit unknown ancient temples in the next few months in my mind.I also saw that Sicheng and Huiyin trudged through the inaccessible mud by train, truck, or even in a mule cart, until finally we climbed between the beams of the Chinese historical building together, feeling the warmth between our fingers. The marvel of fine woodwork and at-the-hand, and subtlety of an art that may never be recovered.

(Translated by Lai Delin)