Chapter 70 my heart is a mirror

I was also born late, and I did not see the beginning of the 20th century.However, today, seven years later, the 21st century will come.Judging from my current physical and mental aspects, I can see the handover of the two centuries without any problem.In this sense, I can also say that I have been with the 20th century, so I am qualified to write "I and China's 20th Century". For the passage of time, everyone's heart is a mirror.My heart is certainly no exception.I consider myself to be a rather sensitive person. Although I dare not say that every detail will be obvious in this side of my mind, it is indeed not dull.I believe that my mirror reflects the real situation for 90 years of the 20th century, and I can completely rely on it.

I was born in 1911, the year of the Xinhai Revolution.Two months and four days after I was born, the "last emperor" was invited down from the throne.Therefore, I often jokingly refer to myself as "the legacy of the Qing Dynasty".As long as I can remember, I still sometimes hear the villagers talk about Beijing's "imperial court" (the emperor in the peasants' mouth) in awe, as if they are still on the throne.I don't understand what a "court" is. He seems to be a man, but also a god. Anyway, he is a very authoritative and powerful animal. This is the afterimage of the Qing Dynasty reflected in my mind mirror.

My hometown, Qingping County, Shandong (now owned by Linqing City) is a well-known poverty-stricken area in Shandong.Our family is a dilapidated farmer.Grandparents died early and I never met them.I have never tasted the love of a grandfather.They left three sons, my father was the eldest (seventh in the eldest line).The two uncles, the youngest one has no father and no mother, was given away and changed his surname to Diao.The remaining two, who have no parents, are lonely and dependent on others, their difficult situation is unspeakable.I'm afraid I haven't had enough to eat any day.When they were so hungry that they couldn't help it, the two brothers went to the jujube grove in the south of the village to pick up the rotten dates that fell on the ground and chatted to eat.I don't know much about this period of history, because neither of the brothers has ever told me about it.Probably because it was too terrible and tragic, they didn't want to expose the scars of the past, and they didn't want to let the next generation leave shocking memories.

However, in any case, it is impossible to stay in the countryside, and it will only become starvation.For some unknown reason, the two brothers agreed to go outside to the big city to find a way to survive.The nearest big city is Jinan, the capital of Shandong.The two brothers arrived there, two hairy young men, two country bumpkins, in a densely populated big city, unaccompanied.How many difficulties and twists and turns they encountered.I don't know much about this period of history, probably for the same reason, none of them told me about it. Later, when my uncle established his foothold in Jinan, he could only be like a grass in the crevices of the rocks, struggling with difficulty.So the two brothers discussed that the younger brother would stay in Jinan to earn money, while the older brother would return home to work in agriculture, hoping that one day he would make a name for himself.

However, farming requires land, which is the simplest common sense.But what our family lacks is the field.Probably my grandfather left a few acres of land, and my father lived off of that.As for how he tended this land and how he built his family, this period of history is another mystery to me. I came to the world at this time. There is always a way out.At this time or a little earlier, my uncle lost his job in Jinan and lived in Kanto.I bought the Hubei flood lottery ticket with the only one yuan I had on my body, and won the first prize. It is said that I got several thousand taels of silver.Our family became an upstart overnight.My father bought 60 mu of land with a well.For the sake of showing off our might, we need to build a big house.When there were no bricks for a while, he announced to the whole village: Whoever is willing to demolish his house and sell him the bricks, he will pay dozens of times the price.As the saying goes: "With great rewards, there must be a brave man." Others' houses are demolished, and our houses are built.There are five rooms in the east, west and north rooms.The gate faces south and is very grand.The two brothers finally won this breath.

But the good times didn't last long. My father was a first-class figure in the Zhu family and Guo Xie in the village.Sometimes when he went to the market in other villages, on a whim, he invited all the people who were drinking and eating in the shed.It is said that not long after, 60 mu of good fertile land was sold, and the east and north houses of the newly built house were also demolished, and the bricks and tiles were sold.These bricks and tiles are bought like gold and sold like dung. A spring dream finally came to nothing.Our family has become a dilapidated household again. For as long as I can remember, our family has been impoverished to a considerable degree.They can only eat "white" (referring to white noodles) once or twice a year, and the most eaten are red sorghum pancakes, and stick noodle pancakes have also become treasures.In spring and summer, I cut grass or chopped sorghum leaves, and carried them to the second uncle's house to feed his old cattle.Lai stayed there, waiting for a meal of stick noodle pancakes and a dozen tooth offerings.In summer and autumn, Aunt Ning and Aunt Ning from the opposite door always took me to the fields in the outer villages to pick up wheat and beans, and handed over the pitiful handfuls of wheat or beans I picked up to my mother.I don't know how many times I have saved up, I can barely break out some wheat grains, grind them into flour, and have a meal of "white".Of course I feel like eating dragon liver and phoenix marrow.However, I never remember my mother taking a bite.She just sat there, watching me eat, her eyes seemed a little moist.How could I understand my mother's mood at that time!However, I also made a vague determination: one day, when I grow up, I will let my mother eat some "white food".However, "the tree wants to be quiet but the wind doesn't stop, the child wants to support but the relatives don't wait."Before I was able to let my mother eat "white food", my mother left me, leaving me with a spiritual scar that will never be healed, and I will hold grudges all day long!

In our family, from my father's generation, there are 11 older brothers.Six of them went to Kanto because of poverty.Since then, there has been no news.There were only five left, and one was given away, as I said above.Among these five people, only the eldest son had a son who unfortunately died early. I have never seen him.After I was born, I became the only boy.In feudal society, everyone can naturally understand what this means.My uncle in Jinan has only one daughter.So the two brothers discussed to send me to Jinan.I was too young to understand what my mother was feeling at that time.Many years later, I heard someone tell me that my mother once said: "If you know that you will never look back, I will try my best not to let the child go!" This sentence was not what I heard with my own ears. echoed in my ears. "Who said that the heart of an inch of grass can be rewarded with three springs?"

I finally left home when I was 6 years old. A person's life is bound to be strange and strange.The path an individual takes is sometimes not determined by oneself.If I stayed at home back then, I would have taken the road of a poor peasant.Life may be hard, but the risks are never great.How is my way today?I broadened my horizons, learned about the world, learned about life, and gained a false name.I have walked through the Yangguan Avenue and the single-plank bridge; it was ups and downs, but it was quite smooth, until I was an octogenarian.If I had been allowed to choose my own path back then, which one would I have chosen?It's hard to say!

When I left my hometown, what was left in my mind was an afterimage of a rural family who was extremely poor, lucky for a while, and then collapsed immediately. After arriving in Jinan, a whole new world appeared before my eyes.Needless to say anything else, just seeing the mountains in Jinan made me both surprised and happy.I originally thought that the mountains were just huge stone pillars. Uncle is of course very concerned about my education, and I am the only one in the Ji family to carry on the family line.I went to a private school for about a year, and then entered a new-style elementary school, the Primary School Attached to the First Division of Jinan.Everything is relatively smooth.The May 4th Movement spread to Shandong.The headmaster of the first division was a figure of the new school, who first adopted vernacular textbooks.There is a fable in Chinese textbooks called "The Camel of Arabia".Coincidentally, this text was read by my uncle. His face changed and he shouted: "How can a camel talk! This is nonsense! Transfer to another school!" So I transferred to Xinyu Primary School.At that time, transferring schools seemed to be very easy, and it seemed that I transferred without going through any back door.There was only one oral test, and the teacher wrote a word for "mule", which I knew, but my relatives who were one year older than me didn't.I was directly inserted into the first year of high school, while he was sent into the third year of junior high school.Just one letter difference, I just got a year of glory.This is called life!At first the textbook was still in classical Chinese, but later the vernacular was changed according to the trend of the times. Not only camels could speak, but even tortoises and toads could speak, but my uncle ignored it.

Uncle is a very talented man.He had no formal education.In the ups and downs, relying entirely on self-study, he gained knowledge and skills.He can compose poems, fill in lyrics, write characters, and carve seals.I also read a lot of ancient Chinese books.According to his background, he should never be interested in Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism anyway; however, he became interested, and it was extremely intense, which is extraordinary.I am still baffled by this matter.Every time I saw him sitting upright with a dignified appearance, when I was reading a very boring book like "Huangqing Jingjie", I felt ridiculous.

This certainly affected my education.I am the only seedling of the Ji family, he probably wants me to pass on my poems and books to the family. ,,, etc., he considers them to be "idle books" and absolutely forbids them to read them.Probably out of a kind of rebellious psychology, I love to read these books.I secretly read dozens of old Chinese novels, including, etc.He didn't go home after school, he hid in the pile of bricks and rubble, and watched with a flashlight under the covers.It's been like this for a few years. The uncle's education was another matter.When I was in Zhengyi, he paid me to read ancient Chinese, even "Zuo Zhuan" with a Chinese teacher after class.After returning home, after dinner, I immediately went to Shangshi English Institute to learn English until late at night.In this way, it will take a few years to turn around every day. Uncle believes that "the middle school is the body", that's for sure.But do you also believe in "Western learning for practical use"?I can't tell you that.Anyway, the society at that time believed that learning a little foreign stuff could lead to promotion and fortune.This is a kind of pragmatism "worshiping foreigners", but not "favoring foreigners".The "distinction between Yi and Xia" in my uncle's mind is very obvious. Around 1926, I graduated from Zhengyi Middle School and was admitted to the High School Attached to Shandong University in Beiyuan Baihezhuang to study Chinese.The faculty here can be described as a very short-term choice.Chinese teacher Mr. Wang Yu, English teachers Mr. You Tong, Mr. Liu and Mr. Yang, mathematics teacher Mr. Wang, history and geography teacher Mr. Qi Yunpu, ethics teacher Mr. Ju Simin (Principal of Zhengyi Middle School), ethics teacher Mr. Wanyan Xiangqing (No. 1 Middle School) Principal), there is also Mr. "Great Qing Dynasty" who teaches scriptures (because the nickname is too loud, his real name is forgotten), and the other is the former Qing Hanlin.The two gentlemen taught "Book of Books", "Book of Songs", and never brought textbooks to class, and they could recite the Five Classics and Four Books even with annotations fluently.These teachers are all outstanding.In addition, the school environment is like a fairyland, surrounded by lotus ponds and weeping willows covering the sky, it is the best place to study. I study hard consciously and start from here.I am a person who is easily dominated by circumstances.When I was in primary school and junior high school, my grades could not be considered bad, and I was always in the top of the class, but I never got the first grade in the exam.I didn't care, I still fished and touched shrimps.When I was in high school, my Chinese composition was inadvertently praised by Mr. Wang Yu, and my English was the first in the class.It is not difficult to get high scores in other courses, just a little memorization, and you can handle Yuru.As a result, for the first time in my life, I got a first-class test, with an average score of more than 95 points, and I was the only student in the school.At that time, Wang Shoupeng, the president of Shanda University and the director of the Shandong Department of Education, wrote a pair of couplets and a fan award for me.Being pointed out by others like this, my vanity was lifted.From then on, pay attention to the exam rankings carefully, and don't take it lightly.As a result, within two years, in the four final exams, I got the first place in four first-class exams, and my reputation was greatly improved. During this period of time, the outside world was not peaceful.The warlords are in chaos, and dogs and chickens are restless.The Zhifeng War and the Zhiwan War, the current situation is changing rapidly, "I will appear on the stage after you sing."One year Shanda offered sacrifices to Confucius, and we high school students were ordered to participate.It was the first time I saw Zhang Zongchang, who was then the bandit governor of Shandong, who didn’t know how many soldiers he had, how much money he had, and how many concubines he had.This scene is still in front of my eyes. In 1928, under the guise of "revolution," Chiang Kai-shek used Mr. Sun Yat-sen's signboard as a new force. From Guangdong to the Northern Expedition, with the assistance of the Communist Party, he swept all the way with thunderous force, like a strong wind sweeping through the clouds, and the army occupied Jinan. .At this time, the Japanese militarists wanted to take advantage of the fire to loot and sent troops to Jinan, resulting in the famous "May 30th Massacre".High schools closed their doors. During this period of time, the shadow reflected in my mind mirror was feudalism and reform education plus warlord melee. The Japanese invaders occupied Jinan, and the Kuomintang troops withdrew.Schools are not allowed to open.I lived as a temporary subjugated slave for a year. At this time, the Japanese army was of course the supreme and sole ruler of Jinan.Like all unjust rulers, they are ruthless and ruthless, and they are very afraid of the Chinese people, to the extent that they are afraid of the wind and the trees are like war.As if facing a big enemy every day, they often conduct some surprise attacks and search residents' homes.As soon as we heard that the Japanese army had come to search a certain place nearby, the house seemed to be boiling.Some people advocate closing the door, while others firmly oppose it.The former said: If you don't close the door, the Japanese soldiers will say: "How dare you be so bold! How dare you open the door!" So he stabbed him.The latter said: Close the door, and the Japanese soldiers will say: "You must have done something shady; otherwise, the imperial army will arrive, and you should open the door to welcome it!"The result is that the door opens for a while and closes again for a while, like sitting on pins and needles, and like ants on a hot pot.This situation is absolutely incomprehensible to those who have not personally experienced it. I also have a personal experience.I have no school to go to, and I know that the Japanese hate Chinese students the most, and the "culprit" who burned Japanese goods in Shandong is the students.So I shaved my head and pretended to be a shop boy.One day, walking on Dongmen Street, a group of Japanese soldiers came to check the passers-by.I know that you must not run away at this time, you must be calm, otherwise the swords and guns will be merciless.I seemed to step forward calmly.A Japanese soldier searched my whole body and found a belt tied around my waist.He laughed grinningly as if he had found a treasure, and said, "Your, cunning Dadi. You are not an apprentice, you are a student. Apprentices don't wear belts!" I explained to him: Now the young disciples have also made a fortune, and some of them can tie belts.He firmly does not believe it.While we were arguing, another Japanese soldier came over, probably a level higher than that one. After hearing what the Japanese soldier said, he seemed a little impatient, and waved his hand: "Let him go!" The yin and yang world turned back again.How much sweat I have, only I know. During this year, what was shown on my mind mirror was the image of a temporary or candidate subjugated slave. In 1929, the Japanese army withdrew and the Kuomintang re-entered.On the road of studying, I have opened up a new world since then. At this time, Beiyuan High School closed its doors, and a new Shandong Provincial Jinan High School was established, which is the only senior high school in the province.I didn't take the exam, so I entered the school. A group of Kuomintang officials have been replaced in the school, and the "party" spirit is quite strong, which is annoying.But the overall mental outlook is completely new.The most obvious one is Chinese class. The "Great Qing Dynasty" is gone, scriptures are no longer read, and classical Chinese composition has been changed to vernacular.Most of the Chinese teachers were well-known new writers at that time.My first Chinese teacher was Martyr Hu Yepin.He seldom gave lectures, and every lecture was to promote "modern literature and art", also known as "Persian literature", that is, proletarian literature.Some young people, including me, were very excited and openly set up a table outside the dormitory door, calling for everyone to participate in the "Modern Literature and Art Research Association".I was preparing to publish a publication, and I wrote an article for this purpose called "The Mission of Modern Literature and Art", which swallowed some sentences from the so-called Marxist literary theory translated from Japanese.The translation is like a heavenly book, and I probably can't understand it, but the article is full of revolutionary indignation and slogans, but it was written in an open manner.Before the article could be published, the Kuomintang wanted Mr. Hu. He fled to Shanghai in a hurry, and was killed by the Kuomintang a year or two later.My dream of revolution burst like a soap bubble, and there was no "revolution" from then until Liberation. The person who picked up Mr. Hu was Mr. Dong Qiufang (Dongfen).He is a little friend of Lu Xun. He graduated from Peking University and translated a copy of "The Waves of Struggle for Freedom", with a preface written by Lu Xun.Somehow, the composition I wrote got his attention. He discovered my writing "genius" and thought it was the best in the class and the whole school.I'm a little swayed, which is natural.Up to now, in the long process of 60 years, no matter what kind of research work I do, I have never put down the pen to write prose.It doesn't matter if it's written well or not.For myself, articles can express my feelings, express my joy, relieve my anger, and stimulate my ambition.Such benefits are not too small.I will always miss my respected teacher! In this year, what my heart mirror reflected seemed to be my new life. In the summer of 1930 our high school class graduated.Dozens of candidates jointly "go to Beijing to rush for the exam".At that time, there were all kinds of universities in Beijing, including national, private, and church-based universities.The level is extremely variable, and the attractiveness is also very different.The most respected among them, exactly as they are today, are Peking University and Tsinghua University, the two "national" universities.Therefore, all the applicants who rushed to take the exam in the country did not fail to apply for these two universities.These two universities seem to have become dragon gates, and the threshold is terribly high.Often one out of dozens of people is admitted.The title of the gold list that was admitted, the carp turned into a dragon.On the day I came to apply for the exam, there was a fellow from Shandong who had applied for the exam five times, and failed in Sun Shan every time.This year, he applied for the exam with us again, that is, the sixth time, but the result was still no name on the list.He was mentally disturbed, and he wandered around the Xishan area in a trance for 7 days before he woke up.Since then, he gave up his college dream and returned to his hometown in Shandong, where he disappeared. Of course I also applied to Peking University and Tsinghua University.Different from other high school students, I only applied to these two schools, as if I was very confident-in fact, I didn't think so much at the time, I did it almost instinctively-other students applied to many universities, second-rate Some people report to as many as seven or eight institutes.I have taken hundreds of exams in my life, from primary school to the highest degree; but I have had good luck with exams, and have never failed.This time, I ran into the god of joy again. I was admitted to both Peking University and Tsinghua University, and I became the envy of people for a while. However, Peking University and Tsinghua University have become fish and bear's paws for me.Where do we go from here?It became a head-scratching problem for a while.I think left and right, and it is always difficult to make this move.At that time, the "study abroad craze" was no less than today, and I couldn't escape it.If you consider it from the perspective of studying abroad, Tsinghua University seems to have a long day.At least that's how people saw it back then. "I followed the crowd" and finally decided on Tsinghua University, and entered the Department of Western Literature (later renamed the Department of Foreign Languages). In old China, the Department of Western Literature of Tsinghua University was famous all over China.The main reason is that the professors are almost all foreigners, and the lectures are of course in foreign languages, and Chinese professors also mostly use foreign languages ​​(actually English) to teach.This is very attractive.In fact, almost all foreign professors are ignorant and incapable of teaching in middle schools in their own countries.Therefore, among all the required courses in this department, there is no one course that I am satisfied with.On the contrary, it was the two courses I attended and took as electives that I will never forget and benefit from for the rest of my life.The audience was Mr. Chen Yinke's "Buddhist Scripture Translation Literature", and the elective was Mr. Zhu Guangqian's "Literary Psychology", which is aesthetics.Among the Chinese professors in this department, Mr. Ye Gongchao taught us freshman English.His English is probably good, but sometimes he deliberately slovenly, as if he wanted to learn from the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, which did not leave a good impression on me.Mr. Wu Mi's two courses "Comparison of Chinese and Western Poetry" and "British Romantic Poets" left a deep impression on me. In addition, I also attended or eavesdropped on many classes of foreign departments.For example, I have listened to the classes of Mr. Zhu Ziqing, Yu Pingbo, Xie Wanying (Bing Xin), Zheng Zhenduo, etc., and the length of time varies.In this kind of audition activity, I have had successes and failures.The most failed time was being kicked out of class by Mr. Bing Xin politely with many male classmates.The most successful is to attend Mr. Xidi's class.Mr. Xi Di is open-minded, treats people with sincerity, has no airs of teaching, and has no sense of helping others.Several of us young college students—Wu Zuxiang, Lin Geng, Li Changzhi, and myself—had personal contact with him through attending lectures.Together with Ba Jin and Jin Yi, he edited the large-scale "Literary Quarterly", which was a major event that caused a sensation in the literary world at that time.It is a great honor for us that he should let us little-known nobodies serve as editorial board members or staff writers of "The Quarterly", and our names are printed on the cover of the magazine.As a result, we became friends with Mr. Sidi and maintained our friendship for life until he was killed in a plane crash in 1958.Today, when we think of Mr. Zheng, we can't help feeling sad. The political situation was very tense at this time.Chiang Kai-shek is desperately trying to "settle down the interior", and the Japanese army has weakened Gubeikou, making waves in the northeast, let alone. After "September 18th", I also participated in the hunger strike of Tsinghua students lying on the tracks, and went to Nanjing to petition, demanding that Chiang Kai-shek send troops to resist Japan.We were full of enthusiasm, but we were teased by Chiang Kai-shek who was full of lies, and we returned home in defeat. The beautiful and quiet Tsinghua Garden is not quiet either.The struggle between the students of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party was fierce.At this time, Comrade Hu Qiaomu (formerly known as Hu Dingxin) was studying in the Department of History and was in the same class as me.He is carrying out revolutionary activities, but he is actually not very concealed.Every morning, the leaflets stuffed into our washbasins are from his hands.This is an open secret, and everyone knows it.He once sat on my bed late at night and persuaded me to join their organization.I was timid and afraid of getting into trouble, so I didn't dare to promise.He only agreed to go to the night school for workers' children hosted by him. The struggle between the two factions of the Student China and the Communist Party is fierce, and I don't know the details.I'm a left-of-centre peripatetic, and I don't get involved, and I'm not interested in getting involved in this kind of struggle.However, according to my observation, the students of the two factions also have joint actions, such as going to the villages in Shahe and Qinghe to promote the resistance against Japan to the peasants.I have participated a few times, and it seems that students who are inclined to the Kuomintang also participated in the memory.The reason is probably that although Chiang Kai-shek did not fight against Japan, young students are still more patriotic.Among Chinese intellectuals, the tradition of patriotism has a long history and is deeply rooted. In the past few years, our family's financial situation has been quite bad.Every year when I go home during the winter and summer vacations, and when I return to school, I take great pains to raise tuition and board expenses.Tsinghua is a national university, and the cost is not much.The tuition fee is 40 yuan per semester; but this is just a formality. The school will return the full tuition fee to the students when they graduate, and use it for graduation trips.There is no dormitory fee, and the board fee is 6 yuan per month, and there is meat in every meal.Even so, I can't afford it.In Qingping County, my hometown, I am probably the only one of the national college students. They regard me as a "county treasure" and give me an annual allowance of 50 yuan.In addition, I can write some articles and get some manuscript fees, which can greatly reduce the burden on the family.In this way, I spent four years in a rather poor situation, graduated, put on a rented bachelor's cap and had a picture taken, and my college life ended. At that time, there was a popular word called "job problem", and there was also a popular saying, "you will be unemployed after graduation". Except for a very small number of children of high-ranking officials and wealthy businessmen, everyone will encounter this problem of life and death. I I have been troubled by this since the third grade. I am faced with the heavy responsibility of taking on the main financial burden of my family. However, I have no way to play and run around. In the dead of night, it seems that my head is boiling, but the result is that I can’t do anything . It was almost the summer of 1934, and I was about to leave school.It’s like rain in a year of severe drought. The principal of my alma mater, Jinan Provincial High School, Mr. Song Huanwu, asked someone to invite me to his alma mater as a Chinese teacher.The monthly salary is 160 yuan, which is double that of a university teaching assistant.Probably because I published some articles, I was considered a writer, and writers must be able to teach Chinese, this was the logic at the time.I was really flattered by this move, but my heart opened up: I am a student of Western literature, can I be a high school Chinese language teacher?What's more, my predecessor was "framed" by the students (a term used by students at the time, meaning "drive away"), which shows that students are not easy to deal with.I am undoubtedly asking for trouble, asking for trouble, it is tantamount to jumping into a pit of fire.I thought about it left and right, and finally hesitated and dared not answer.However, time is not forgiving.The summer vacation is just around the corner, and leaving school is a foregone conclusion. Finally, I gritted my teeth and made up my mind: "If you have the courage to ask, I will have the courage to undertake it!" So in the autumn of 1934, I became a Chinese teacher in a high school.The principal treats me well, and the relationship with the students is quite harmonious.But the Chinese teacher who was traveling with me was trying to squeeze me.The school has 3 grades, 12 classes, and 4 Chinese language teachers, each of whom teaches 3 classes.Here comes the problem: the other three teachers are much older than me, and one of them is from my teacher's generation.But each of them teaches three classes in one grade, and there is only one head for lesson preparation.I teach the remaining class of the three grades, and there are three heads of lesson preparation. The difficulty and inner awkwardness are obvious.So in this year, although my income was very good (the purchasing power of 160 yuan is about the same as today's 3,200 yuan), my mood was depressed.The study abroad in front of me disappeared without a trace, and the job in my hand seemed to be flying away.This kind of mood is really not humane. But luck, if any, is on my side.When I was desperate, my alma mater, Tsinghua University, signed a contract with the German Academic Exchange Office to exchange students. I was so overjoyed that I immediately wrote a letter and signed up, and I was admitted.This is different from the mood of being admitted to the university's gold list, and it's not a feeling in my heart.Years of worries are swept away, and a lifetime of happiness is finalized.It seems that the golden rice bowl is already in your hands.Once you are gilded on your body, you will be able to go both ways, and you will have nowhere to go.Everything I look at now has a rosy sheen. However, people cannot be divorced from reality.My reality at the time was: my relatives were old, my family was poor, and my children were young.I have come to the biggest fork in my life.Where do we go from here?Difficult to decide.This fork in the road, for me, is really of great significance.If you don't move forward, you will be destined to be a middle school teacher for a lifetime, and you may not always be able to hold the job in your hands. If you move forward, you will be in another realm. "Peach blossoms before the horse, snow after the horse, how dare people turn back?" After painful ideological conflicts and careful family negotiations, it was decided to move forward.Fortunately, the original time limit was only two years, so I came over after gritting my teeth. So I left home in the summer of 1935, went to Peiping and Tianjin to complete the formalities for going abroad, took the Siberian train, passed through the Soviet Union, and arrived in Berlin.My own mood is: the second person who casts thousands of miles away. During this period from university to teaching to going abroad, what I see in my mind mirror is: Chiang Kai-shek’s rampant anti-communism, the Japanese army’s brutal invasion, the current situation is turbulent, and the students are polarized. Such a very complicated and contradictory image . The peach blossoms in front of the horse are very bright when viewed from a distance, but not necessarily so when viewed up close. I stayed in Berlin for a few months. There are quite a lot of Chinese students studying abroad.Since Chiang Kai-shek, many senior officials of the Kuomintang have children who "study abroad" in Germany.These high-level "yamen" look down on me, and I despise this group of walking corpses even more, and I am ashamed to be with them. "This place believes in my land", and in late autumn, I left Berlin and went to Göttingen, a small town and a famous city of science.Since then, I have lived here for 7 years and never left. Germany gave me 120 marks a month, about 40% of the rent, and about the same amount of food.There is almost no money left.Compared with the 800 marks a month for government-funded students, it really pales in comparison.I have lived in Germany for such a long time, and I have never had a winter or summer vacation, and I have never traveled. One is because I am "shy", and the other is that I cherish every inch of Yin and want to study more. I came all the way from afar to learn.But what to study?At first, I didn't have a very clear plan.In the first semester, I chose Greek, which seemed to miss European classical languages ​​and literature.In this respect, however, I cannot compete with the German pupils, who have learned eight years of Latin and six years of Greek in high school.I hesitated. In the first semester in the spring of 1936, I saw Waldschmidt's elementary Sanskrit class on the schedule, and I was overjoyed.When I was in Tsinghua University, influenced by Mr. Chen Yinke's lectures, I became interested in Buddhism.But at that time, no one in China taught Sanskrit, and now I have learned it by accident, how can I not be ecstatic?So I immediately took a Sanskrit class.In Germany, if you want to get a doctor of philosophy degree, you must take three departments, one master and two associates.My main departments are Sanskrit and Pali, and my two sub-departments are English Linguistics and Slavic Linguistics.I have since embarked on the path of formal learning. In 1937 my fellowship expired.At this time, the Japanese army launched the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, with the intent of annexing all of China and Asia.I am looking forward to my hometown and sighing, but it is hard to return home.But there is no such thing as a path, and Xia Lun, the head of the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, invited me to be a Chinese lecturer.This lecturer doesn’t have much work, so I will still be my student. My study base is still at the Institute of Sanskrit, and I occasionally come to the Institute of Sinology.This situation continued until I left Germany in the autumn of 1945. In 1939, World War II officially began.I originally thought that such an extremely cruel massacre of human beings, which kills so many people and piles up rivers of blood, should shake the three worlds, shake the five continents, make animals tremble, and make human beings lose their color.However, I was lucky enough to be there, and only heard the howls of the fascist leaders a few times - which was commonplace in Germany at the time - as if they had just woken up from a dream and entered the war silently.In the early stages of the war, the victory of the German army drove the Germans crazy, and it was a blow to me.Every time they win, I take sleeping pills at night.Accumulated for a long time, insomnia became a disease, and became a lifelong chronic disease that has tortured me for decades. Life wasn't affected much at first.Slowly meat and butter were rationed, slowly bread was rationed, and slowly other daily necessities were rationed.Before you know it, the screws of life are getting tighter and tighter.By the time people clearly feel it, the screw has been tightened very tightly, but except for a very few anti-fascist people, I have not heard a single complaint from the common people.The German fascist leaders are skilled in ruling, and the German people are also a very strange nation. To me, it is like a mystery. Later, the flames of war spread, Germany was blocked on all sides, and supplies became increasingly tight.I starved every day, and dreamed every night, dreaming of Chinese peanuts.I have no ambitions when I was young, even eating.People with high ambitions must dream of swallow saliva and shark fin. How can a worthless person like me only dream of peanuts?When I was very hungry, I felt like I was in the hell of a hungry ghost, wishing I could swallow the whole earth. I still continue to study and teach.In addition to starvation, bombing from the sky was initially very rare.I finally finished my doctoral thesis.At this time, Professor Waldschmidt was conscripted into the army, and his predecessor, the retired old professor Prof. E． Sieg (Sigg) for his class.It took him decades to master Tocharian, and he became famous all over the world.In terms of age, he is equal to my grandfather.He was totally a grandfather to me too.He must pass on to me all the good things he is good at: ancient Indian grammar, Vedas, and without my disagreement, he must teach me Tocharian.Taking advantage of Professor Waldschmidt's sabbatical, I passed the oral exam, Braun's oral exam in Russian and Cyrillic, and Rodel's oral exam in English.After passing the exam, he is still studying under the guidance of Professor Sick.We met every day, and at dusk in winter, on the snow-covered long street, I helped my eighty-year-old teacher from a foreign country and sent him home.I forgot the flames of war and hunger, and I only had this old man beside me in my heart. Of course I miss my country and my family.At this time, the post office has long been cut off.Du Fu's poem: "For three consecutive months, family letters are worth ten thousand gold."In fact no letters were received at all.This greatly intensified my insomnia, and the amount of medicine I swallowed at night increased day by day. The only comfort I had was my research work.At this time, British and American bombing had become commonplace, and I wrote several papers during the hunger and bombing.The university has become the world of girls, and the boys are all arrested and enlisted in the army.Not long after, some of the boys came back, but they were either missing a hand or a leg.The sound of crutches hitting the ground echoed back and forth in the classroom building, forming a unique ensemble. By this time, the frontline had suffered repeated defeats, and although the fascist leaders were brazenly bragging about it, it was empty and weak.From the perspective of us foreigners, the game is doomed, and no one can recover from it. What about the German people?After ten years of observation and experience, I feel that the Germans deserve to be one of the best people in the world.Culture is prosperous, science and technology are at the forefront of the world, great writers, great philosophers, great musicians, great scientists, no modern nation can compare with it.Moreover, he is upright and simple, and everyone is honest and honest.Politically, they are relatively simple, and the vast majority of them sincerely support Hitler.What baffles me is that Hitler vilified the Chinese to such an extent that they regarded them as destroyers of civilization.It stands to reason that I should have had a lot of trouble in Germany.In practice, however, I had no trouble at all.I heard that in the United States, it is very difficult for Chinese people to break into American society.But I am in Germany, I have been in the German society from the beginning to the end, I live in the German family, my German teacher, my German classmate, my German colleague, my German friend, never treat me as my own, no No discrimination at all.This is something I will never forget. How does such a nation now view the defeat of the war?They seldom talked to me about the war. They seemed indifferent to the extreme hardship of life and the extreme brutality of bombing. They were a little dazed and indifferent.Until the spring of 1945, when the American army invaded Göttingen, fascism was completely finished, and the Germans were still indifferent, resigned, and seemed to have been hit in the head. Confused. The thrilling world war, which lasted for six years, is now finally over.When I was in shock, I immediately thought of my motherland and my family. I have been away from my motherland for 10 years, and I felt the calling of my motherland to me, an overseas wanderer, deep in my heart.After several negotiations, the U.S. occupation authorities agreed to take us to Switzerland in a jeep.When I said goodbye to my teachers and friends from Germany, I felt very painful, especially Professor Sick. I saw this octogenarian with a sad face and trembling hands. We all know that this is the last time.I didn't even dare to turn my head back, and my eyes were filled with tears.My landlady burst into tears at me.Her son is away, and her husband is dead. After I leave, the house is empty, and she is the only one left.In the past few years, she and I have actually depended on each other for life. Now, how will my life be?When I left her, I didn't dare to turn my head back, and boarded the American jeep with tears in my eyes.I put an old poem in my mind and thought it into a poem: Studying in Germany has been ten frosts, Return to the heart day and night to recall the old state. crossing the border into Switzerland without reason, The guest tree looks back into the hometown. In the past 10 years, the fascist rule, the extremely cruel world war, and the afterimages of nostalgia for wanderers have been reflected in my mind mirror. In October 1945, we arrived in Switzerland.Been here for a few months. In the spring of 1946, he left Switzerland, passed through Marseille, France, and arrived in Saigon, Vietnam on the British giant ship that transported French troops.I stayed here until the summer, and then returned to Shanghai by boat via Hong Kong. After leaving my motherland for nearly eleven years, I finally came back. At this time, I have come to work at Peking University through the introduction of Mr. Chen Yinke and the consent of Mr. Hu Shizhi, Mr. Fu Sinian and Mr. Tang Yongtong.I wrote to Professor Sharon, an old friend of Göttingen who was teaching at the University of Cambridge in England, and I declined the offer from Cambridge and decided not to return to Europe.The same family also got in touch and sent some money home.I am grateful to my uncle and aunt, as well as my wife Peng Dehua. After 11 years of hard work, our family was able to stay intact and healthy. At that time, the Second Revolutionary War was raging and the traffic was interrupted. I couldn't go back to my hometown in Jinan immediately to visit relatives.I lived in Shanghai and Nanjing for one summer.I met Mr. Chen Yinke in Nanjing, and met Mr. Fu Sinian at the Academia Sinica. In the late autumn of 1946, I took a boat from Shanghai to Qinhuangdao, then took a train to Peiping, where I had been separated for 11 years.Late autumn is lonely and cold, and the streets are full of fallen leaves. My heart is full of ups and downs, ups and downs, and I can't tell what it feels like.Mr. Yin Faru picked us up at the station and temporarily placed me in the Red Building of Peking University.On the second day, I met Mr. Tang Yongtong, dean of literature.Mr. Tang told me that according to the regulations of Peking University and other universities, scholars who have obtained a degree and returned to China can only be awarded the title of associate professor. Mr. Fu Sinian also told me the same thing when he was in Nanjing.Being able to come to Peking University, I am already satisfied, how dare I ask for it?But not long after, about a week or so, Mr. Tang told me that I had been designated as a full professor and the head of the Department of Oriental Languages ​​and Literatures. I was 35 years old at the time.I am afraid I have set a new record for the short time I have been an associate professor.This is totally beyond my expectations.I secretly made up my mind: work hard, write actively, and live up to the hard work of my teachers and seniors in cultivating me! The current situation is extremely bad.The Kuomintang, headed by Chiang Kai-shek, stripped off all its painted skins, became corrupt, bribed public companies, engaged in "five sons enrolling in the imperial examination", accepted high-ranking officials everywhere, "legal currency" depreciated every day, and created a set of silver dollar certificates, gold dollar certificates, etc. Fancy, useless.People live in dire straits, and university professors are no exception.The wages received in the hands will depreciate after an hour.Everyone exchanged for silver dollars, for US dollars, and then for French currency when they used it.Whenever I hold a few big heads in my hands, I feel warm in my heart, as if I have gained a sense of security. Among the students, the struggle between old and new forces was extremely fierce.The Kuomintang was dying, and progressive students attacked violently.At that time, there was a saying that there were two liberated areas in Beiping, one was the Democracy Square of Peking University, and the other was Tsinghua Garden.I lived in the Red Building, and on several occasions I was threatened by gangsters from Tianqiao gathered by the Kuomintang’s Beiping City Party Headquarters to break in and make trouble.We blocked the entrance of the building with tables and chairs at night, waiting in full force, causing panic, which we found both hateful and ridiculous. However, corrupt things will eventually perish. This is a law of evolution in human beings and nature. In the spring of 1949, Peking was finally liberated. During these three years, what I saw in the mirror of my heart was the darkness before dawn. If my life is divided into two parts, I am used to saying that the first part is the old society, a total of 38 years.The latter section is the new society, and the number of years is still uncertain. I don't want to go to Babaoshan for a while, and I can't draw a close to my life. Why should it be divided into two parts?It must be that the two societies are so different that a gap must be drawn in the middle.In fact, like the middle-aged and elderly intellectuals who stayed behind and did not go abroad or went to Taiwan at that time, I didn't know much about the Communist Party, and I didn't necessarily yearn for communism, but we knew about the Kuomintang.Therefore, we welcome the People's Liberation Army to enter the city, and we are excited in our hearts. We hope and feel that we have changed the world from now on.In the early days of liberation, the politics were clear and bright, and many measures won the hearts of the people.The many muddy waters left by the old society have been cleaned up.We all feel that since then, the river will be clear and happiness will come to the world. However, we also had an adaptation process.I don't know the true mood of other intellectuals who are older than me.As for myself, I was only 40 years old at the time, and I was just entering middle age, but there were many obstacles in my mind to overcome.Going to the conference and shouting slogans like "Long live", I couldn't open my mouth at first.Even such a trivial matter as taking off his coat and changing into a Chinese tunic suit felt extremely awkward, he knew it.Is there anyone better than this?I feel extremely ashamed.Even my smattering of so-called learning—if there is any—is extremely disgraceful. For me, this adaptation process was not long, and I didn't feel any special difficulties. I seemed to be a different person all of a sudden.I feel that everything is beautiful and kind.I think the sky is very blue, the grass is very green, the flowers are very red, and the mountains are very green.The whole of China seems to be full of beautiful roses, and the future of the Chinese nation is bright and bright. I seem to be 10 years younger, and I have become a big child.During meetings and parades, shouting slogans and shouting "Long live", my voice is no less than anyone else, and my passion is no less than anyone else.Looking back now, it was the happiest period of my life. But, looking back at myself, I feel useless.Deep down, I consider myself a true "Peach Picker Pie".The Chinese people stood up, and straightened their backs accordingly.Any thought similar to Jia Gui was swept away.I enjoy the happiness of "liberation", but what have I done?What did I contribute?I did not become a traitor, nor did I join the Kuomintang, nor did I succumb to German fascism.However, when the outstanding sons and daughters of the Chinese nation hung their heads on their waistbands, fought bloody battles and sacrificed heroically, I was hiding in a foreign country thousands of miles away, pursuing my own famous career.Shame on the world I thought about it, felt guilty, felt guilty, and felt that intellectuals were really unclean.I seem to have become a Christian, convinced of the "original sin" statement.For many, many years, this sense of "original sin" was deeply imprinted in my soul. At that time, I had a whim, I hoped that the wheel of time would be turned back, back to the war years, and give me a chance to make meritorious deeds and atone for my crimes.I will not hesitate to sacrifice my life for the revolution and the nation.I even have crazy fantasies: If our leader encounters a life-and-death crisis, I will definitely stand up and use my blood and life to defend the leader. I am ashamed of myself everywhere.At that time, there were three kinds of people I admired and admired the most: veteran cadres, the People's Liberation Army, and the working class.For me, their image is supreme and sacrosanct.In my eyes, they are all "the cutest people", people who I can't catch up with even if I study all my life. In this way, I carried the heavy cross of "original sin" and was always ready to dig deep into my thoughts, transform my bourgeois thoughts, and truly establish a proletarian thought—except for "not self-serving, only benefiting others", I went to Today, it is impossible to say what is proletarian thinking—to be reborn, to be a new man.Ups and downs, ups and downs, mountains and rivers recover for a while, and the willows are dark and the flowers are bright for a while, it has gone through a long 30 years. The first large-scale political movement in the early days of liberation was the Three Antis, Five Antis, and Thought Reform Movement.I took part in it with seriousness and piety.I will never embezzle a penny from the public in my life, and I have nothing to do with the Three Antis and Five Antis.But thought reform, I thought that my task was arduous and urgent... At that time, public examination of one's thoughts was called "bathing", and there were three basins for "bathing", small, medium and large.I am the head of the department, and I have to wash the middle basin, that is, to conduct public inspections at the department-teacher-student meeting.Because I didn't have any public anger, I didn't get promoted to the "big basin", that is, I didn't check at the school-wide teacher-student meeting. In the medium basin, the water is also hot enough.Everyone spoke very fiercely, some out of sincerity, some not necessarily.For the first time in my life, I passed through this formation, and every sentence was like a sharp arrow, shooting into my soul.However, because I seem to have become a Christian, with a pious sense of "original sin", it seems that the more intense the words, the more comfortable I feel. I am so comfortable that I am sweating, as if I am in a Turkish steam bath.After the conference finally allowed me to pass, I was so moved that I shed tears, felt light and healthy, and bourgeois thoughts seemed to be really cleared up. There are still many devout believers like me, but there are also those who want to get away with it.There is a professor who washes large basins, small basins and medium basins. I don’t know how many times he has washed them.He broke the boat and wanted to pass the test in one fell swoop.The self-criticism was hearty, and he scolded himself bloody, and his bourgeois parents were affected. He said a lot of very nasty things to his parents.The crowd was greatly moved.However, by coincidence, the chairman caught a glimpse of his review draft written with a few big characters "crying" in red pen.Every time he came to this place, he cried loudly.As soon as the chairman made the announcement, the crowd went into an uproar.It goes without saying what the result is. Then came the criticism of the movie "The Legend of Wu Xun", the criticism of "Early Spring and February", and the criticism of bourgeois academic thought. Hu Shi and Yu Pingbo were both on the list.The latter is to expose and criticize Hu Feng's "counter-revolutionary clique", which is a matter of conflict between the enemy and ourselves.Apart from Hu Feng himself, many people were involved, both in the art world and academia.Incidentally, a campaign to clean up historical counter-revolutionaries was carried out, and people who committed suicide were often heard.A car driver at Peking University told me that at such a time, one must be very vigilant when driving at night, lest someone jump out of the darkness and be willing to be a ghost under the wheel. In 1957, the political movement reached its first climax.From the point of view of scale, from the point of view of momentum, from the point of view of the scope of involvement, and from the point of view of the duration, it is truly unprecedented. ………… I don't know exactly how many rightists were drawn at that time.I heard that the rightists have quotas, and this quota reaches every grassroots unit. If it is not completed, it must be supplemented.Legend has it that many jokes have been made.Leave it alone.One thing opened my mind a little: this campaign, like the ones before it, was aimed at intellectuals.With a deep-rooted sense of "original sin", I wholeheartedly support this movement. By 1958, the vigorous counter-rightist movement was gradually coming to an end.However, the car could not stop, the horse could not stop, and a new movement was immediately launched, and this movement surpassed the previous ones in many ways.This time, both the spirit and the material must be grasped, not only to liberate the productive forces, but also to eliminate bourgeois ideology.The latter is mainly aimed at the professors in the school, and it is called "pulling the white flag" by the euphemistic name. "White" represents backwardness, retrogression, and bourgeois ideology, and is opposed to "red" which represents progress, revolution, and proletarian ideology.Some "bourgeois professors" in universities and the Chinese Academy of Sciences were ruthlessly raised the white flag. The former is manifested in large-scale steelmaking.As for the people's communes, they seem to have both. "Communism is heaven, and the people's communes are bridges" was the most resounding slogan at that time, and the large-scale iron and steel smelting was actually a huge disaster.The people of the whole country responded to the call and searched for scrap iron everywhere and smelted it. There is nothing wrong with it.However, after the scrap iron was picked up, in order to meet the target, the complete ironware, including the cooking pot, was smashed into "scrap iron" and returned to the furnace for smelting.All over the country, the small furnaces for steelmaking are shining like stars, and they are always on day and night, making them a grand sight of the universe.However, what was smelted was a furnace of waste residue. Everyone wants to go to heaven in the morning, so people's communes spread all over the country overnight, and when the grain harvest coincides, everyone eats with open belly.All personal stoves were removed, and they all ate together in the public canteen.Some grains rot in the ground and no one harvests them.The power of the mass movement is exaggerated to the limitless, and the power of man's victory over the sky is also exaggerated to the limitless.The sparrow was designated as one of the four evils, and people all over the country rose to fight it.The grain yield per mu is also infinitely exaggerated, from a few hundred catties, a few thousand catties, to tens of thousands of catties.Various places competed to cheat and release "satellites".Some people say that if the yield per mu is tens of thousands of catties, it is completely unbelievable that only wheat grains or grains in one mu of land will have to be spread thickly. At that time, I was already forty-seven or eighteen years old, and I was no longer a child; I was a university professor with a higher education and had stayed abroad, but I firmly believed in all of this. "How bold a person is, how productive the land is", I firmly believe.In my heart, I still secretly laughed at those "cowards" who "have not liberated their minds", thinking that I am the only one who is alone, and I am the only one who can break the law. Three years of disaster followed.Is it really a "natural disaster"?From today's perspective, it may not be so.Anyway, everyone was starving.I suffered from starvation for 5 years in Germany, "there was too much water in the sea", and now I don't feel bad at all, and I haven't said a single strange thing. Judging from the national situation, the policy at that time had reached the point where it could no longer be left, and the top priority of course was to oppose the left.It is said that the central government also intends to do so.However, at the Lushan meeting, Peng Dehuai suddenly appeared.He got into the "Wan Yan Shu" and said a few truths, which caused a catastrophe.So an anti-left turned into an anti-right.To this day, among the founding fathers, the one I admire and respect the most is General Peng.He is a rare tough guy who risked his life without flattery, representing the awe-inspiring righteousness of the Chinese nation. Since the above calls for anti-rightism, then so be it.Intellectuals, after more than ten years of continuous exercise, have become "athletes", and have become experts in sports.This time I will punish you, next time you will punish me, everyone is used to this routine.So it was chaotic, sometimes loose and sometimes tight, sometimes strong and sometimes weak, all the way to the social education movement. In my opinion, the social education movement is actually the prelude to the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution".I will now put these two movements together. The socialist education movement, Peking University is a pilot, a step ahead, soon after the movement started, the school was clearly divided into factions: those who were punished and those who punished people.I also ignorantly joined the ranks of the whole person.But there is one thing I don't understand, and I can't figure it out. For the first time after liberation, a little "reactionary thinking" sprouted: the leaders of the school are all old party members and cadres sent from above, and we bourgeois intellectuals can't play much role. Why does it mean that we "rule" the school?I could not understand. Later, the Beijing Municipal Party Committee intervened and held an international hotel conference to rehabilitate the criticized school leaders. This is where the cause of the "Cultural Revolution" lay. In the autumn of 1965, after attending the International Hotel Conference, I was sent to Nankou Village on the outskirts of Beijing to engage in the rural social education movement.We have really become leaders here, and all the power of the party, government, finances and documents is in our hands.But the requirements are also very strict: you are not allowed to cook by yourself, and the whole village takes turns to eat pies, and fish, meat and eggs are not allowed.My identity and salary were not allowed to be revealed. At that time, the daily wages of farmers were only three or four cents, and my salary was four to five hundred. I let them out like this, so as not to surprise the farmers.After 30 years, today, when we go to the countryside, we refuse to disclose the amount of our wages, for fear of making farmers laugh.Looking back at the present and recalling the past, I really can&