Chapter 3 Section 3 My Self-Study History: Birth

The first series of my autobiography Section 3 My Self-Study History: Birth 1. I was born in such a family Fifty years ago, I was born in Beijing.It was Guisi in the 19th year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty, 1893 in the Western calendar, which was the year before the Sino-Japanese War of Sino-Japanese War.The Sino-Japanese War was the biggest juncture in the history of China for nearly a hundred years, and all kinds of drastic changes started from this.And most of my life happened to be spent from that Sino-Japanese War to this Sino-Japanese War. My family was originally from the city of Guilin.But since my grandfather left Guilin, my father and we have all grown up in Beijing.My mother was also born in the north; my grandfather Zhang's family was from Dali, Yunnan. Since my grandfather left Yunnan, he never went back.My grandmother is from the Liu family in Bijie, Guizhou.In China, it is said that southerners and northerners are quite different in temperament and customs.Therefore, when people from the south look at us, they always think that we are from the north; and when people from the north look at us locally, they think we are from the south.My family has both northern and southern flavors, but is full of an intermediate nature.  In terms of ethnic origin, we were originally the clan of the Yuan Dynasty.After more than 500 years in the Ming and Qing dynasties, not only others did not know that we were Mongolians, but even our own family did not know through the genealogy.After hundreds of years of marriage with the Han nationality, we have merged two different bloodlines, which seems to have an intermediate nature.  In terms of social class composition, the three generations of great-grandfather, grandfather, and father were all officials from the so-called Juren or Jinshi background.My grandfather was also a Jinshi and an official.Both my grandmother and mother have read many books and can write poems and essays.This is the so-called "scholar's family" or "eunuch's family".But the great-grandfather resigned as a foreign official (for Beijing officials), and had no money but debts.Grandfather came to pay off the debt, but died before the debt was cleared.At that time, my father was only seven or eight years old, and it was extremely miserable to rely on my grandmother to teach a few elementary school students in the Mengmeng Hall.When my father was nineteen years old, he taught in the "Yi Xue" and still lived in poverty. His official habits were wiped out here; Unsatisfied, the situation has not stretched.Therefore, in terms of living habits and consciousness, our descendants have not been limited to a certain class.My parents gave birth to us four brothers and sisters.I have an older brother and two younger sisters.My eldest brother studied abroad and graduated from Meiji University in Japan.The two sisters also graduated from the "Jingshi Women's Junior Normal School" in the last year of the Qing Dynasty.Our education expenses are often paid for by selling our mother's dowry. For such a multifaceted family, living in Beijing, the political and cultural center of the country, there is no danger of remoteness, and in such an era of drastic changes, it is very convenient for self-study.