Chapter 4 1.Aiko

Liang Sicheng was greatly influenced by his father Liang Qichao.Liang Sicheng was shaped by his father's prominence, his thoughts and his care.The son's filial piety to his father is still the basic virtue of every Chinese child, but for Sicheng the reasons for it are different.His father was the leader of the 1898 Restoration Movement, when Japan unexpectedly defeated China in 1895 and the imperialist powers seized spheres of influence in early 1898, threatening to carve up China.That summer, Liang Qichao was with his teacher Kang Youwei, supporting the young emperor's attempt to save China through radical reforms.After Restoration failed in a conservative coup, he went into exile in Japan.At that time, he was a twenty-five-year-old young man in Guangdong, a precocious scholar and activist, but with his popular books, he was becoming an outstanding spiritual leader among his peers.

At that time, only scholars who were familiar with Confucian classics were worthy of the important task of modernizing China's intellectual circles, and this kind of change could only start from within Confucianism.This makes Liang Qichao qualified as a reformer.He published a series of Chinese publications in Japan, introducing Western theories to a generation of Chinese Confucian scholars with revolutionary ideas. When he was less than twenty years old, he married Li Huixian, a woman from Guizhou who was four years older than him.Their marriage was arranged by her eldest brother.He was an examiner who admired the talent of the young Liang Qichao in a Juren examination.Little is known about her other than that she was an ordinary woman of her class.Her feet were bound, of course, and her mind was equally bound.Although living with a husband who made it his mission to explore and open up the wider world, she was content to stick to her traditions. In 1893, she gave birth to their first child, daughter Sishun, in Guangdong.Five years later, she took her children to Japan to reunite with her husband in exile.

After Liang Qichao's turbulent years, life in Japan was relatively stable.Daughters are the apple of the eye, but the dire need for a male heir is also evident.The wife soon became pregnant again and gave birth to the expected boy.But he died shortly after birth.She was already in her thirties at the time, and she had only added a six-year-old girl to the family.Her basic duties are clear.So she was eager to find Liang Qichao a second wife who could help carry on the family line.The young girl was sixteen or seventeen years old, healthy and lively, but illiterate, and her big feet had never been bound.She is a girl who was bought at a young age and raised as a servant at home.This woman was carefully selected as a wife. She should not only be able to bear healthy children, but also understand her humble status in the Liang family and her duties as a servant.

In the end, however, Li Huixian gave birth to a boy as the heir.Sicheng was born in Tokyo on April 20, 1901.He survived and took on the responsibility of being the eldest son, a responsibility he carried through the difficult years that followed.Three years later, the second wife gave birth to a boy, Siyong.The boys played together as children, became good friends as young adults, and became famous scholars as adults. After the wife gave birth to her second daughter, Sizhuang, she died.The second lady was pregnant until Liang Qichao died in 1929, and then his ninth son died at birth.After years of exceptionally prolific and influential writing, my father's life ended prematurely at the age of fifty-six.He had fourteen children, all of whom grew up to be useful citizens, some of whom made outstanding contributions.

The second lady lived many years longer than the wife.She has been in the Liang family all her life and is the backbone who takes care of everyone in sickness and health, and in return, she is also respected and loved by every child.She was illiterate when she came to this scholar's family, and simply waited for her first child to be born before going to school with him.She learned to read and read expressively.She is not only proficient in nursing and housekeeping, but also learned swimming, roller skating, hoop rolling, knitting, lace crochet, playing bridge, mahjong, and acupuncture.

For Liang Qichao, the years in exile in Japan from 1898 to 1912 were full of activities.He continued to write, edit, and publish his political opinions; he studied Japanese and read Japanese translations of Western books.He traveled extensively, meeting overseas Chinese in Hawaii, Singapore, Australia, Canada, and the United States.Sicheng's recollections of these years are of daily life in a quiet family environment, playing with siblings and cousins, looked after by Japanese servants but attending Huaqiao schools. An excerpt from an article he wrote for a Japanese publication in 1964 describes the situation in his own words:

I can remember things from Yokohama.At that time my father was editing an intellectual publication, Xinmin Congbao, and we lived on the second floor of the printing office.Every day I go to the kindergarten attached to the Datong School run by Overseas Chinese to teach The teachers are all Japanese women, they are very kind and gentle, just like mother and sister. Japan has many earthquakes.Every time there was an earthquake, the Japanese aunt would carry me downstairs, because my mother's feet were bound, and it was not convenient to hug me. We moved to Suma when I was about six years old.We lived there in a villa owned by overseas Chinese, with a large garden and a pine forest leading directly to the sea.my father put this place

It is called "Shuangtao Garden" because we can hear both the sound of waves and the sound of wind in the pine forest here. My cousins ​​and I walked from home to the railway station leading to Kobe to go to Kobe Dobun School.The railway conductor was very nice to us, even though we only had one day off from school, he They will also worry, and be sure to ask what happened the next day. During the summer vacation, the whole family went to the beach to swim.A retired naval officer teaches children to snorkel.One summer, my father's teacher Kang Youwei came to see them.The kids didn't like his presence because he was always arguing loudly and furiously with their dad.They retaliated on the beach, sneaking up to him and secretly pulling his beard (Note 1.).

The victory of the revolution in 1911 overthrew the Qing regime, and Liang Qichao no longer needed to go into exile.He returned to China with his family in 1912. Their home in Tianjin was a Western-style house in the Italian Concession by the river.It is made of stone and gray bricks, and the two-story building has many rooms, which can accommodate the growing Liang family and many relatives and guests.There are also auxiliary houses at the back, which are the kitchen, warehouse, sick room, and housing for the many servants who serve the Liang family and maintain the house. After the Liang family returned from Japan, they had a second, even bigger house.Designed by an Italian architect and made of white stone, the house has three floors.The upper two floors are used as libraries for scholars, and the lower floor is the living room, hall, dining room, and other places for receiving guests. Of course, the more important thing is his study.According to the tradition of Chinese scholars, Mr. Liang gave himself a mysterious name or "elegant title" to identify his works.He took the "Ice Drinking Old Man", and hung a plaque on the door of his new study, called "Ice Drinking Room".The label for "drinking ice" is apparently an allusion from the ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi:

Mr. Ye sent an envoy to Qi to ask Yu Zhongni...The Master... said: "If everything is small or big, it will be done happily if there is no way. If the thing is not done, there will be troubles of human nature; if things are done, there will be troubles of yin and yang. If If it is not successful, there will be no patients, only those who are virtuous can do it. "...Now I am ordered to drink ice at night, and I feel hot inside! I have not cared about the feelings of the matter, but I have the troubles of yin and yang; if things fail, there must be troubles of human nature. It's two things, and those who are ministers are not enough to let them go... (Note 2)

When Liang Qichao faced many problems in modern society, he obviously recognized the worries of the ancient sage Zigao and the solution to them by drinking ice, and he was comparable to the ancient Zigao in the study of Chinese studies. In their Tianjin home, there is a family custom that Sicheng loves.When my father was home, the whole family sat around a large round table at 6:30 every night. "While the children scramble through their supper in about twenty minutes, the parents sip old wine. Drinking is slow. For an hour or so, father will talk about the subject he is writing about: poet or other Biography, history, political philosophy, classical literature, Confucian scholars, and scholars of other schools. At this time, he focused on the study of Guoxue again. Foreign issues, which he was quite concerned about in his early years, are rarely talked about now.” A few years later, Sizhong, the fourth son who was studying in middle school, once asked an inappropriate question: "Why did a famous Chinese patriot settle in a foreign concession in a treaty port and build a study room and books?" library?" My father replied, "Don't mix personal matters with international affairs. My main immediate concern, besides my family, is my library. I need my books and I must keep them in service. It is probably safer in a foreign concession in a nearby port city than in a flammable palace that might be unwisely set on fire by some angry student. And to use these books I must sometimes live next to them." Although his academic and political activities attracted much of his attention, Liang Qichao took his father's duties very seriously.Emotions of love play an important role in his behavior towards his children, but at the same time he abides by the Confucian tradition that sons (and daughters, of course) must be especially filial to their fathers.Mr. Leung was so confident in his superior intelligence that he was concerned with guiding his offspring on the right track of thought and conduct, giving them the proper education for the careers he had in mind for them, and enabling them to have a good life. marriage. In his letters and other personal works (collected after his death by his friend Ding Wenjiang, namely "Liang Qichao Chronicle" published in Taipei in 1958), he made it clear that although he loved his whole family, What he loves most is his first daughter and eldest son—Sister Sishun and Sicheng. When the Liang family returned to China from Japan, the eldest sister was already eighteen years old, and it was time for her wedding to be arranged. The husband Liang Qichao chose for her was a young overseas Chinese named Zhou Guoxian who came back from Southeast Asia.He can speak both Chinese and English. When he was nineteen, he was noticed by Kang Youwei and used by him as a secretary.Later he studied in Europe.When he returned to China, Liang Qichao asked him to come over from Kang Youwei to serve as a translator and secretary, and arranged his marriage with his elder sister. According to Confucianism, the father is the head of the family, and he can even arrange the marriage of his children without consulting them.Ten years later, Liang Qichao wrote a letter to his eldest sister (Note 3), showing that he had modernized the traditional practice of marrying two strangers. "I am very proud of your marriage. I think my approach is very good. I first observe a person carefully, then I introduce the two of you, and let you decide for yourself. I think this is an ideal marriage system. ’” The eldest sister’s first child, a daughter, was born in 1915.Zhou Guoxian participated in the work of the Chinese Consulate.And received a series of overseas assignments, which took the couple to Burma, the Philippines, Canada and many other countries. The barrier between father and daughter forced them to communicate frequently.Liang Qichao's letter to his daughter shows that she is a confidant of his.He told her about his observations and worries about the family and other personal matters and asked for her opinion.Although he was still the traditional all-powerful father in his relationship with his other children, he and she were always able to overcome the twenty-year age gap and discuss issues as equals.It meant that she had filled the void left by his first wife and second wife who was busy with housework. In September 1913, Liang Qichao was appointed Minister of Justice.The big house and library in Tianjin are still the old home, but now it is necessary to build another home in the capital Beijing.Find a house with many patios on Nanchang Street next to the Forbidden City.It is located in the city center and can accommodate a growing family and a large group of servants. It is not far from Liang Qichao's office in Tuancheng, at the entrance of Beihai Park. Moving to Beijing has changed the lives of the children a lot.For families like theirs, the traditional way is to let the children go to private schools first.Sicheng attended a Chinese school with his younger brother and cousins ​​in Japan.The modern-minded father decided that his eldest son, now twelve years old, must learn English and prepare for a future life in an international environment.He entered a famous British school in Beijing, where he spent the years 1913-1915. Girls are also sent to a modern school that trains them for the world.The eldest sister is a pioneer.When she got engaged to the bilingual Zhou Guoxian, her father insisted that she learn English.An Englishwoman, Miss Bowdoin Smith, opened a girls' school in Peking, which was just right for this requirement.When the eldest sister learned and demonstrated the benefits of such learning, the mother became an ardent supporter.She made friends with the English headmistress, and arranged for her sisters, cousins, and even friends' children to go to school. Sicheng entered Tsinghua School in the autumn of 1915.The school was founded with Boxer indemnity remitted to China by the U.S. Congress.This fund not only provides six-year preparatory courses and two-year undergraduate courses, but also provides scholarships for outstanding students to study in the United States. The school's curriculum is very similar to that of American high schools.There is a strong emphasis on English and science, but so is art, music and sports.Some of the teachers are American and all teaching is conducted in English.Sicheng excelled both academically and artistically.He obviously had little training in drawing, coloring, and music, but during his secondary school years he learned a good sketching hand, which came in handy later.He was a member of the Tsinghua Art Club and became the art editor of the university's annual report, Tsinghua Journal, in 1923, for which he drew some full-page ink paintings and occasionally a few cartoons.In the student list of the annual report, he is first mentioned as an artist and writer, and then as a "musical master".As for sports, he is strong and fit, and he loves running, jumping, climbing and gymnastics. Tsinghua's campus is located a few miles northwest of Beijing, and transportation is a problem.Rickshaws and bicycles are the fastest, but students think they are expensive.Donkeys and donkey carts can be hired, but they are slow and inconvenient.There is a telephone installed in the school, but they are not allowed to make calls.So they communicated with family and friends by writing letters. Sicheng's relative isolation for such a long time may have played a role in his education at Tsinghua.Twenty-five years later he remarked to me that the eight long years (secondary school and university) had prepared him with a good foundation in English and a general background knowledge of Western science and history, but that the level of education was Low, the course "can be shortened to four years".His view ignores the lifelong benefits he gained from participating in extracurricular arts, music, and sports while at Tsinghua.

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Note 1. "People's China" (Tokyo), June 1964, pp. 79-81. Note 2. See the second section of "Zhuangzi·Human World". Note 3. Edited by Ding Wenjiang: Chronicle of Liang Qichao (published by World Publishing Company in Taipei in 1958), November 5, 1923, p. 650.Hereafter referred to as "chronology".