Chapter 10 Hu Shi and our "Small Objects"

Because of Hu Shi's death, I was reminded of a small magazine I ran with my friends more than 30 years ago, and a cartoon I drew on that first issue. This cartoon is about Hu Shi, and the title is "Wiping Glasses".The title of this painting was originally the title of an article written by Hu Shi himself, which was probably published in "Modern Review" or "Independent Review" and other publications.At this time, he was becoming an official addict, expressing that he had a new view on the current situation, which was the result of "wiping his glasses".

My cartoon was satirized based on this point.The drawing is not very good, and the reason why I still remember it is because of the little publication itself.And since then, I seldom paint with a brush. Opening a volume of my own essays published more than ten years ago, in a short article entitled "Reminiscences of Fanzhou and Others", I mentioned the above-mentioned small publication: "Prior to this, around 1929, Zhou Quanping, who had not seen him for many years, returned to Shanghai from the Northeast and brought a few hundred dollars, so we organized a "Xingxing Bookstore" and published "Mo Ruo" Ruo Complete Works", and at the same time, Hannian and the other three edited a small magazine called "Small Objects". Because at that time, several publications stopped, there was nowhere to speak, and no one dared to speak. The editor of "Small Objects" It’s really small, only about one inch wide and two inches long, with forty or fifty pages printed on Dorian paper, with a cover and illustrations. This is probably the smallest magazine since the New Literature Movement. Published At that time, we only published three or four lines of extremely narrow advertisements in the newspaper, but the first edition of 3,000 copies sold out within a few days. However, perhaps the format was too small to attract attention. Not long after the second issue came out, someone asked us to stop publishing with official documents, so we had no choice but to mourn."

What I want to explain here is: that "official document" is actually a prohibition order from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Nanjing Kuomintang.I used the word "please" because the essay was published in Shanghai at the time.Even if the word "please" is used at that time, some people may still be unhappy after reading it. Later we learned that the reason why "Little Objects" was banned so quickly was related to the "wiping glasses" cartoon. It turned out that Hu Shi got angry when he saw it. A publication can print 3,000 copies and sell out in one go. This was a rare thing at the time. We were very happy that they banned the second issue unexpectedly, so we have always had a bad impression of this "pawn crossing the river" .

I only met Hu Shi himself once. It was around 1925. Mr. Duff was in Shanghai. He was going to teach economics at Peking University. Invitation." Naturally, I followed, and when I arrived at a western restaurant in the French Concession, I realized that it was Hu Shi who was in the treat that day.I was only twenty years old at the time, and I disturbed him with such nonsense.