Chapter 17 14.take a breath

The Japanese government's denial of aggressive intentions in North China in late 1935 was seen as little more than a temporary respite.However, for a year and a half thereafter, until the sudden invasion in July 1937, life in Beijing returned to a semblance of normalcy. Meanwhile, at the end of 1935 it became apparent that the Japanese were about to seize Beijing, prompting the National University to prepare to move south.Tsinghua University is already packing scientific instruments into boxes.Staff were told to return books deemed important by the library, students were in and out between the shelves, and books were being moved under their robes.Fairbank said sadly, "The best university library in China is disappearing."

Zhu Qiqian has no intention of leaving Beijing.But Sicheng knew that in order to protect the Zakusha's precious collection from destruction or falling into Japanese hands, they had to be crated and ready to be moved to a safe hiding place.With the help of the staff of the academy, the work started. At the same time, the Liangs knew that if Tsinghua University moved south, Lao Jin and all their close friends would follow.From their experience in Shenyang, they knew too well what a Japanese-occupied Beijing would look like, and they would never have put up with it.So they also started tidying up their personal stuff.

"Sicheng and I have spent hours sorting through old papers and things. Such a pile of clutter from all these years of life! I look at so many old stories and they are made by so many people and so many lovely people. and now that they are all threatened, we find it indescribably sad. Especially since we are now hanging on the wretched end of things, with only very vague expectations of what lies ahead... "If our national disaster came very quickly and cruelly, we had to rise up and take the initiative to fight immediately. There must be difficulties, but we will not sit there doing nothing, just clenching our fists secretly, and our' Face' is threatened with humiliation every minute."

While they were packing up and heading south, we were preparing to leave China for England and America.Since our studies in China were to end in 1935, we decided to leave on Christmas. We did not foresee that Japan would suddenly step up its threat of aggression when autumn came.Sicheng and I embarked on a project we had long considered to translate his architectural thesis from Chinese to English.His English is so clear and fluent that he hardly needs me.But my presence can increase his confidence, and I can also find some small mistakes.We both loved the work, and I also agreed to help find a publishing house in the United States.

On November 21, 1935, Huiyin was surprised to hear that Tianjin "Ta Kung Pao" was ordered to cease publication indefinitely by the Japanese. This is an excellent newspaper, and its literary supplement is the most advanced publishing medium for contemporary Chinese writers.The United Asia Herald was formed to replace it.Huiyin received a newspaper and asked her to write for the newspaper's literary supplement.She was annoyed to discover that there were about fifty Chinese working for the paper. "Don't they know what they're doing?" Sicheng threw the newspaper into the stove.

Our best friends suffer immediate disaster, and we are the outsiders.They keep us informed of how things are going, but our involvement in the blues does them no good, nor us.With an idea, I introduced Huiyin to ride a horse. Fairbank and I sometimes rode horses imported from Mongolia by foreigners for playing polo. (The only Chinese people on horseback seen in Beijing were the occasional cavalry unit.) Stable boys led saddled horses to customers just outside designated city gates.From there riders can set out to explore the countryside.At that time the crops on the Great Plains were grown all the way to the city walls.In the fields, scattered villages with low earth houses are connected by deep loess roads.People sitting on horseback, in the shimmering air, can clearly see the blue west and north mountains on the edge of the great plain, and sometimes pagodas and abandoned temples or burial circles marked by thick shade can be seen in front.Our study tours took us through the countryside to these fascinating targets, or sometimes just for a quick run in one of two barren places, either to the west where the Summer Palace burned, or to the north where the Yuan Dynasty wall ended. The grassland surrounded by the ruins of the earthen city.

Huiyin used to like to ride a donkey slowly in Shanxi, and told us that she often did so later.She was fantastic on horseback.Apparently riding a donkey gave her confidence and a "sit".The horse's sensitive response to the rein gave her the fright of a normal person.When she came back she had flushed cheeks and shining black eyes from her fast ride against the freezing wind.Far from detrimental to her health, this physical exercise benefited her body, and her spirit was nourished in the beauty of nature.We were only six weeks away from the day we were due to leave, and with the national crisis lingering, we were still able to go riding as often as we could until the last minute.Huiyin bought a pair of riding boots, a set of warm shirts and trousers, and a comfortable leather hat, and happily played her new role-the female jockey.

After we left, a letter from Huiyin reproduced our experience of the past two months: "Since the two of you have been around us and given me new vigor and hope for life and for the future, I've become so much younger and more alive. Whenever I think about what I've done this winter Everything, I am very grateful and amazed. "You see, I was brought up in two cultures. It is undeniable that the contact and activities of the two cultures are essential for me. Before you actually appeared in our three (Beizongbu Hutong) Before in my life, I always felt a bit lost, a feeling that something was missing, a spiritual poverty that needed to be filled. And your 'blue notice' fits that need perfectly. Another question is, My friends in Beijing are older and more serious. Not only can they not give us any fun themselves, but they have to look to Sicheng and me for inspiration or to make things livelier. How many times have I felt exhausted!

"The picnics and horseback rides (and trips to Shanxi) this autumn or rather early winter have changed the world for me. Thinking how I would have survived the pressures of our frequent national crises without all this. All the excitement, panic and depression that came! That horse ride was also very symbolic. Out of the Xihuamen, it used to be just the Japanese and their prey for me, and now I can see the country lanes, the endless winter Plain landscapes, thin silvery branches, quiet little monasteries and little bridges that one can cross with legendary pride." Sicheng did not write a letter, but we know that the respite brought by the student demonstrations has revived the partially packed construction society.He participated in the preparation of the Chinese Architecture Exhibition to be held in the new Municipal Museum in Shanghai, Huiyin assured us, "Sicheng is a constant presence, if he does not write to you as often as I do, you will still You can feel him here, as sweet and lovely as ever - he's doing a lot of lovely work (and I'm really involved in my own way, though no one will believe it's true)."

Not surprisingly, the next time Huiyin wrote to me, her life was full of family disputes. "For me, March is an eventful month...mainly because of my aunts and aunts. I really envy Weimei for marrying an only son (not to mention Zhengqing)...One of my sister-in-laws (Yanjing students protesting leader) was facing arrest, so I had to use all kinds of ingenious methods to hide her and send her to the south. Another aunt came with a child and a Cantonese old woman to live in for a long time. We had to get out of our already crowded house Give them a house. Still have to find a lot of time out of the time I can't squeeze anymore! There's noise and mess everywhere. The third is my oldest aunt who comes in the middle of the night to take her The daughter who was studying in Yanjing was taken away, out of jealousy, she said nonsense, and the daughter was crying all the time. She complained that her daughter would not tell her when the student political situation was tense. Comes to town from school, 'she likes to run out to her uncle and aunt so much, why doesn't she let them pay her tuition' etc. And when she's gone, throws the final bomb: she Don't like her daughter picking up that radical view of love and marriage from her uncle and aunt's friends who are so radical that they don't even believe in marriage—meaning Lao Jin!"

There was a happy interlude in April when the American architect and urban planner Clarence Stein and his charming wife, the famous actress Elena McMahon, came to Beijing.Huiyin wrote, "We fell in love with them, and they fell in love with us almost at the same time." Sicheng went to Shanghai on a business trip to pick an exhibition, and Huiyin accompanied them to the Summer Palace and enjoyed flowers in the back mountain.Lao Jin went together, and he wrote to us describing his impressions: "They're brilliant in a way. I can see attractive qualities in them, even though I don't talk to them much. Especially Mr. Stein. He's a very sensitive, taciturn, very humble man. A person who is a man, almost always maintains a kind of absent-minded interest in what he encounters in front of him. We went to the Summer Palace a week ago. When we arrived at the Garden of Harmonious Interests, we saw pavilions and corridors around the pond. Rising in the sky, eyes sparkling, he muttered in surprise and delight: 'Oh, oh, oh...what a beautiful building on the water.' It's good to see reality, and I don't want to do it again just for the sake of polite, old-fashioned talk and draw him out of his meditations." Through Clarence Stein, Sicheng was prompted to read and think about urban planning, a subject that would be crucial in his later years.At the same time, when the Japanese pressure on North China was temporarily suspended, he was determined to continue his field research work. "The love and preservation of antiquities is completely irrelevant to the Japanese warlords. Although people in their country also love our ancient culture (which is the source of their own culture). Even as early as 1931 and 1932, my Every study trip is interrupted by the sound of a new round of Japanese artillery that is getting closer and closer. It is clear that our days are numbered when we can work in North China. Before we are prevented from doing so , we decided to go all out in this area.” In early autumn Sicheng and Huiyin set off together for another study trip, this time to the famous Buddhist cave known as Longmen.Huiyin wrote: "Now I am sitting under the dragon gate of the largest open-air grotto. The nine largest Buddha statues, whether sitting or standing, whether still or moving, are all staring at me (I also step on them)... The fear that comes from the scene is overwhelming." Then they went to Kaifeng and planned to go to twenty-three counties in Shandong. "We set off to a place between heaven and hell like in Shanxi. We were excited by the beauty of art and humanities, but disappointed by the filth and smell of the place we had to eat and live (but we had to sleep well , so that I have the energy to continue working). I have never forgotten the famous idiom quoted by Wei Mei: 'If you make trouble, you will grow old'-in fact, I stick to this motto in order to maintain my youthful appearance... This time Traveling always reminds us of the happy times when we went through muddy water together in Lingshi (Shanxi)."