Chapter 4 From New Literature to Historical Artifacts

—— Lecture at St. John’s University in the United States on November 24, 1980 Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends, I am a person who has never read a book. I came to your school to talk today. It is not a lecture, but to report that in the past fifty years, especially from the 1920s to the 1930s, due to the relationship between work and study, I have a little know.Talking about it is very trivial, but the issue of contact is a stage of the most drastic changes in China in the past fifty years—from the early 1920s to the 1930s. I came from the smallest place that is not often seen on the map. Historically speaking, that place was the place where the Wuxi Man was located in the Han Dynasty. A small political unit was not established until the eighteenth century. At that time, it was only a three thousand In the small town where people don't reach, except for part of the army, the other part is the place where exiled and criminals are exiled.Until the 1920s, the population of this small town was less than 10,000, but there were 7,000 soldiers stationed in this small place, mainly units that oppressed the Miao people.Therefore, when I was very young, I had the opportunity to witness large-scale massacres, especially during the 1911 Revolution.This has had a long-lasting impact on me—that is, I believe that there should be no wars, especially massacres, and that no one in the world has the right to kill another.

This will also affect my work attitude for the next fifty years, and I will invisibly disapprove of this unfair political method.When I was able to express my opinion with a pen, I reflected on this problem.But the society as a whole is in the midst of great turmoil, and my ideal job of reflecting problems with a pen is unsustainable.According to my original ideal, I plan to study for 50 years, maybe it can be regarded as graduation, and I can make some satisfactory grades.But the times are moving too fast. I have only been studying for 20 years, and the society has undergone great changes. My original job is not easy to adapt to the requirements of the new situation, so I changed jobs. This is the past 30 years. professional reasons.

Today, looking back at the development of Chinese literature over the past two decades since the 1920s, there are really too many problems.I was teaching this question in a university for 20 years. Now I want to compress the various changes in such a long period of time into less than an hour. I can only talk about a rough impression, so there will be many deficiencies. place.Now, in our new country, many monographs are being compiled since the May Fourth Movement, and I can only talk about a small part, that is, the part related to my study and work. I was born in 1902 and arrived in Beijing in 1922.Before that, I was a soldier for five years, and what I saw at that time was closely related to my future writing.This period of time was the most chaotic and corrupt era of warlords in modern Chinese history. I have a clear impression of the rise and fall of the small local warlords and even the largest warlords in Beijing.

When I first arrived in Beijing, I didn't even know punctuation.The ideal I pursued at that time was the ideal of the literary revolution proposed by the May Fourth Movement.I deeply believe in the contribution of this literary ideal to the country.On the one hand, it is more or less influenced by Russian novels of the nineteenth century.When I arrived in Beijing, I lived in a very small guild hall, mainly because I didn't need to spend money.At the same time, develop a good habit in the army, that is, don't care if you don't have food.This is not easy, because any ideal will be damaged at that time.But I have been in the army for a long time, and I have never been discouraged by this.This is the reason why I lived near Peking University and soon won the approval of many friends.The winter in Beijing is more than 10 degrees below zero, and the lowest is more than 20 degrees below zero. I wore very thin single clothes and stayed there.It is not easy for others to understand, but for me, it is very common.I never get discouraged or complain, because I know this society has always been like this.

Of course, just looking at Tolstoy's work will not last long.It was mainly because some friends gave me encouragement and help, including three universities: Peking University, Yenching University and Agricultural University.When I really can't support it anymore, I rely on them and be an uninvited guest.In this case, many people who have a better understanding of society feel that revolution is necessary.I came from the countryside, so I firmly grasped the words of Hu Shih's literary revolution.I really believe what Mr. Hu Shizhi said: the new style can replace the old styles of the Tongcheng School and the Mandarin Duck and Butterfly School.However, many people are needed to carry out this work. It is not enough to run a few publications, such as "New Youth", or just a few writers. Instead, many people should use various efforts to test and gradually achieve success. successful.Therefore, many of my friends think that only "social revolution" can solve the problem. I realized it relatively late, and my intelligence is relatively low, but I can still feel the deep impression of the words "literary revolution", which will become the foundation of future literature. mainstream.According to the conditions at that time, it was impossible for me to participate in such a job. I didn't even understand punctuation marks. The only possibility was to trust my eyes and mind. activities are full of interest.

I happen to live in a small street outside Beijing's Qianmen. Going to the right is the cultural center, where there are hundreds of antique shops.Looking at it now, it can be said that it is a cultural museum for three thousand years.Walk from home in about fifteen minutes and see everything there is to see.Walking to the left for 20 minutes leads to another world, which represents the lively market since the Ming Dynasty for six centuries, and it can also be said to be the Humanities Museum of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.Because this period was only 12 years after the abdication of Xuantong, since the 17th century, all the clothing and utensils that symbolize the dignity of the dynasty have been treated as waste products here, such as emeralds, agates, ivory, pearls, etc., are omnipresent.On one side is the ancient humanities museum, up to three or four thousand years ago; Learned a lot of things that I wanted to learn.This has a deep meaning to me, and it can be said to be the basis for me to turn to the history museum to study cultural relics in the past 30 years. Because it is impossible for young people to have such a good opportunity to see so many rare and precious treasures. items.

According to social habits, when a person enters a history museum, it means that he himself has become history, that is to say, he is scrapped.But for me, this is an opportunity to look at the six thousand years of Chinese cultural relics and the achievements of the working people in an orderly and systematic way.Personally speaking, it seems a pity for me to engage in archaeology, because I already have a foundation in writing; but for the country, my change of job is beneficial rather than a loss, because the method of my research in the temptation, No one has ever done it. I would like to take this to correct the legend outside.Those legends may be well-intentioned, but they are not quite correct, that is, after the founding of New China, I was abused and oppressed, and could not write freely. This is not correct.In fact, because I can't adapt to the new requirements, the requirements are different, so I turned to the study of historical relics.From my personal understanding, I think it is more meaningful than writing a novel.Because under the new requirements, some novel writers are novices, young people with rich life experience and good thinking can fill this vacancy, and their writing will definitely be better than mine.But from the perspective of cultural relics research, most of the issues I study are relatively new issues, which are generally related to history, art history, and archaeology, and have not had the opportunity to touch issues until now.I personally feel that if this work is done with a better foundation, it will give a new beginning to the study of Chinese culture, and it will also make a certain contribution to the study of world culture.Because culture is holistic, not isolated.The research problem goes back thousands of years, but its new development still has its usefulness in the new society.It's not that I have any great strengths personally. The main thing is that I have good opportunities and good conditions.In any department of cultural relics: jade, silk, lacquerware, porcelain, paper, metal processing... there is a chance to see hundreds of thousands of real objects.At that time, I was still in good health and had a particularly good memory.It's a pity that I was too hasty to go abroad this time, and I didn't have time to bring some small topics to discuss with you.If I have a chance in the future, I can present one or twenty topics that are relatively well-understood in my research, with thirty or fifty slides. I believe you will be interested.

Because our new country has clear regulations on the management and protection of cultural relics. With the construction of the country's industry and agriculture, ancient relics have been discovered on a large scale.On the whole, it pushes the origin of Chinese culture forward by about two thousand years.According to recent discoveries, gold was known to be used about 4,000 years ago, and lacquerware and silk were invented at the same time, and patterns and designs on clothing at that time were also known.My job is to study the development of patterns on silk over the past four thousand years.Because of the relationship between studying silk, it also made me study the basic patterns of Chinese clothing.A collection has recently been published, and it is likely that additional books on different issues will be published in the future.I am seventy-eight years old this year. With my interest and concentration, and if my health is good, I can expect to work for at least another five or six years under the new conditions.

Let me give you an example that will be of interest to everyone: in the Shang Dynasty, around the sixteenth century BC, from the newly unearthed cultural relics, it was known that the hair of the ladies was curly.Because there are a lot of materials, I use a new method to do my research. I don’t pay attention to the literature first, and only look at the problem from the unearthed materials; I don’t talk about the conclusions, but first talk about the real objects, so as to provide the latest information to various departments.This can only be regarded as doing odd jobs for other research departments and doing logistical work, which can't be called any real research achievements.

Friends who are abroad and brothers in Taiwan, I hope you have the opportunity to go back and visit.Everyone knows that China has the so-called "Twenty-Five Histories", but no one pays attention to the things that have been excavated from the ground now, which are more than ten "Twenty-Five Histories". Those who are interested in studying the history of Chinese culture, art and craftsmanship are worth going back to visit.There are a lot of materials in any department, which are stored in the warehouses of provincial museums, waiting to be sorted out and studied by interested people.Most of these have never been mentioned in the past literature, and we are only conducting preliminary explorations.But this work obviously requires the joint efforts of a large number of friends who are interested in Chinese culture.The in-depth progress of this kind of research is very obvious that it can enrich, enrich, and correct the deficiencies and inaccuracies of the "Twenty-Five Histories", enriching and enriching with new content.The words on the literature are fixed and dead, but the things unearthed underground are alive, first-hand and diverse.Any friend who studies culture and history should not ignore this extremely rich treasure.

It is a pity that so far, there are too many things in China itself, and coupled with the turmoil in the past ten years, it is a bit too late to pay attention to many tasks.It wasn't given the attention it deserved until recent years.Some of you here probably study historical materials of Ming and Qing Dynasties. As far as this issue is concerned, we still have 10 million historical archives to be sorted out and studied.According to colleagues from the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a hundred historical researchers need to study this aspect alone for a hundred years. Everyone knows that the three grottoes in Dunhuang, Longmen and Yungang are treasures of Chinese culture and art since the Middle Ages.In fact, there are more prehistoric and medieval and modern murals unearthed, which will gradually be made public in the future.According to past habits, we think we already know a lot about cultural relics from the Han and Tang dynasties; but comparing with newly unearthed cultural relics, we find that we knew too little before.For example, although women's clothing in the Tang Dynasty is often mentioned in the literature, it is not clear exactly what it is.Because the literature is only relatively reliable, not comprehensive enough.So now it is not too difficult to distinguish the basic differences in women's clothing in the Early Tang (Era of Wu Zetian), the High Tang (Era of Concubine Yang) and the Late Tang (Era of Cui Yingying).Therefore, these studies can not only enrich our knowledge of the history of Chinese national culture in a big way, but also help us correct the identification of the age of many famous paintings and albums in a small way. That's why even though I was approaching eighty, I never thought of retiring.I hope to do this kind of research for at least another ten years, and in the future I will have the opportunity to ask all the experts and friends here for advice on some topics in the study of cultural relics. Just now, Professor Jin Jiefu seemed to praise my work too much. I am actually a person with extremely low ability.This is what Professor Jin Yuelin said to me.I also hope to use this spirit to study for another five or ten years.As for my literary works, it should be said that they are all out of date.The situation in China is different from that in other countries in the world. It changes too fast, as the saying goes: "A little change in three years, a big change in ten years." All my works were outdated thirty years ago .Today I can only say that I left some ordinary stories about various aspects of society around the 1930s when the writing was relatively mature.It's the eighties now! Many friends in Japan and the United States feel sorry for me not writing novels, but in fact it is not worth regretting.Because society has changed too much, the reason why I have the opportunity to talk about these stories with you here today proves that I am not discouraged by social changes.Social change is inevitable.There is a saying in China: "If you lose your fortune, you will lose your fortune!" During the drastic changes in China in the past 30 years, many of my good and successful old colleagues and colleagues have not had time to adapt to the environment. The new changes become the ancients.I am now here to happily talk about these things with you, which proves that I have at least made a healthy choice in terms of adapting to the environment, and it is not a passive retreat.In particular, the country has undergone major changes and the process of social change has been too intense. After many people have sacrificed in the movement, it is even more necessary for someone to work harder to preserve some things.In the process of social change in the past thirty years, there are always rumors outside that I was wronged and depressed for a while; now I am standing here talking and laughing, and those good friends who used to worry about me can stop worrying!I live a very healthy life, this can't be faked!I always believe that human beings are always peace-loving in the end.We must seek development and progress from peace.China is no exception so forward.The audience asked: "Excuse me, Mr. Shen, where can I buy your first masterpiece recently published?" Mr. Shen replied: The latest publication in Hong Kong is about clothing.This manuscript was almost burned during the Cultural Revolution.The title of the book is "Research on Ancient Chinese Costumes". It was a task given to me by Premier Zhou Enlai at that time, and it was completed in 1964.There are more than 200,000 words of description, more than 400 pictures, from the Shang Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty, there are more than 3,000 years.English and Japanese translations may be available in the near future.However, the material used in it may be too deep and difficult to understand, and some deletions will be made in the translation.I do hope that some editions can be used unabated and used as research materials; many issues remain to be discussed. My second collection of cultural relics is also in progress. Should I use dating?Still classified?It's not decided yet.I am doing this job now, the conditions are really good, and I have received quite a lot of funding. I have given two positions as associate research fellows, but it is not easy to choose an assistant. He must know history and cultural relics, and must have knowledge in various aspects , You must have knowledge of literature and art in order to synthesize data and put forward new views.The training of such personnel is not easy.The materials are scattered all over the country, and everything is brand new.For example: In the past, we thought that the inlaid gold and silver on bronze wares originated from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, but now we know that it existed in the Shang Dynasty.In addition, I also made a point of using mirrors in China. I compiled a book "Bronze Mirrors of Tang and Song Dynasties" more than 20 years ago.In the past, mirrors were also thought to be products of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Now there are seven or eight Shang Dynasty mirrors unearthed, and mirrors existed 3,300 years ago. Another example is the flower gauze clothes unearthed in Mawangdui, each weighing only forty-eight grams, less than one tael.Like the same cultural relics, there are actually thousands of species unearthed in modern China.The level of craftsmanship achieved is much more difficult than imaginable exquisiteness.Much work is in progress.All of us are very interested in the terracotta warriors and horses in the tomb of Qin Shihuang. In China, there are many similar new cultural relics.In addition, the mausoleum of Zhu Hongwu's seventeenth prince in Shandong is believed to be from the early Ming Dynasty, but it is not all. We who are engaged in clothing know from the large number of burial clay figurines. The costumes of the horse-leaders are similar to the official uniforms of the Song Dynasty.The reason is that Chinese dynasties throughout the history often stipulated that the most noble-grade clothing of the previous dynasty was the lowest-ranked clothing of the current dynasty, expressing an insult to the previous dynasty.Another example is the establishment of the capital in Luoyang in the Northern Dynasties, striving to be Chinese, and the emperors also wore "lacquer sarong crowns", which have been used until now, but in the Tang Dynasty, lacquer sarong crowns were worn by lower-level officials.This is what I said, although I "do not understand politics", but these issues involving politics, I have to understand a little bit. (Fortunately, I only know this little bit. If I know a little bit more, I may not come here to talk at this time.)