Chapter 121 The first three years after my return

When I returned to my motherland, I first lived at home in Shanghai where my cousin Fangyuan came to pick me up.My relatives and friends in Shanghai treated me to several sumptuous feasts.When I returned home in Beijing, my elders and relatives, of course, bought "Jiefeng wine" one after another, which made my stomach, which is used to eating bread and butter, greasy and diarrhea persisted for a long time.Both Chinese and Western medicine have been used to treat it, but it hasn't had much effect yet. Yenching University is about to start school in early September, so I am very anxious.

At this time, our landlord, the old lady Qi Renqi, came to see me and said, "Miss, you have to listen to my advice and take a medicine, and you will be cured once you take it." My parents and I were very happy to hear that, Thank you quickly.That afternoon, she brought a very kind old bannerman lady and a pair of exquisite opium lamps and bongs. On my hospital bed, I lighted cupronickel carvings and a thick glass cover. The smoke lamp, and handed over a black bong with a green jade tip. The pipe has already been filled with bubbles, and let me just light it up and smoke in it.I inhaled and choked very curiously, only to feel that it was bitter and fragrant, and gradually I became confused. It is said that I fell asleep for eighteen hours that day, and when I woke up, the dysentery was cured.When I returned to Yanda, many teachers and friends asked me how I managed it in the end?I dare not say that I smoked opium!

I returned to my alma mater to teach. It was the first year that Yenching University moved to the new campus in the western suburbs. The school building is a Chinese-style building with green tiles and red doors. The plaque, the entrance is a small bridge and flowing water, it is really beautiful!The best thing is that there is also a lake on campus.It is said that the school site was bought from Chen Shufan, the then governor of Shaanxi, and it was one of his properties in Beijing.At that time, there was no water in the lake, and there was no pavilion on the small island in the lake, only a stone boat beside the island.I remember when I first lived in the campus, when I returned from Langrun Garden to No. 53 Yannan Garden where I lived one night, I still walked straight through the bottom of the dry lake.Not long afterward, the lake was filled with water, and this piece of shimmering light added a lot of spring to the school scene!

At that time, in the four girls' dormitories called "Yuan", there were two-bedroom and one-living units for female teachers, and they could also eat the "small stove" in the girls' restaurant in the dormitories. Almost female teachers of Chinese nationality, such as Jiang Xianqun, a teacher in the Department of Biology, and Chen Keming, a teacher in the Department of Education, all lived in the house.I came a little late, so I had to live in the small building where the British and American female teachers lived at No. 53 Yannanyuan.Of course, the food in this building is all Western food. I had breakfast on the 53rd, and I went to the second courtyard of the girls' dormitory to eat Chinese food for two meals.It is also convenient for me to live in No. 53 Yannanyuan, because in the reception room of the female dormitory, "male guests are not allowed". Male guests visiting girls can only talk at the entrance of the courtyard, while the reception room at No. You can entertain male guests.At that time, my second brother Wei Jie had already been admitted to Yanda University, and my third brother Wei Ji was studying in the preparatory course. They could come to No. 53 to see me anytime.

The new teachers and new students who moved into the new school building this year...everyone feels elated and full of vigor, and everything looks fresh, beautiful and happy.In particular, male and female students live on the same campus—the male dormitory consists of six buildings, facing east from west, and built along the lake.My two younger brothers both live there, and they both like the dormitory by the lake very much, saying that it is very convenient for swimming and skating.So there are many activities, such as singing troupe, drama troupe, etc. It is really lively. In my article "The Happiness of Being a Teacher", I mentioned that I was a "baby" in the professor's association, but I was very comfortable and happy in the student group, and I made many close friends.Needless to say, the first-year freshmen, they almost treat me like a sister.We have contacts with us now, such as Wang Yingying who won the World Nurse Honor Award, a top student who graduated from Union Medical College, Chen Meibo who became a devout Christian in his later years, etc., as for Lin Yaohua who is now teaching at the Central University for Nationalities, etc., because they live close to each other. , more contacts.

I remember that the elective course I taught for senior students was "European Theater History". I’m only three or four years younger. When we talked, we didn’t look like teachers and students at all. I remember one day at eight o’clock in the morning, he came to class—most of the teachers in the Chinese Department of Yanda University were old gentlemen. Therefore, the Academic Affairs Office arranged my homework schedule between 8:00 and 10:00. There is a hat that hasn't been taken off!" The classmate looked back and laughed, and he also smiled and quickly took off the hair pressing cap and stuffed it into his sleeve.

Because I like listening to Beijing opera, I often talked about Beijing opera in my extracurricular conversations with Jiao Juyin.After he graduated, he opened a Chinese drama school.The place where the students practice is at the Auspicious Theater in Dongan Market.Jiao Juyin reserved a box upstairs for me in the theater, saying that Mr. Xie could go to the theater anytime he came to town.The rankings of the four grades of this opera school are: De, He, Jin, and Yu.So the later famous actors such as Wang Jinlu, Li Hezeng, Li Yuying, etc., I have watched all the plays they acted in when they were young.The treatment of students is also very equal. Those who played the leading role in the previous play may play a trick in the next play.

I think he is a very respected principal of the students.After the July 7th Incident, I left Peiping, and since then our news has been cut off.Regarding Jiao Juyin's later deeds, I still want to inquire carefully. The day before yesterday, I received a copy of the second issue of "Journal of Tai'an Teachers College" in 1987. There was an article "Critical Biography of Gao Lan" in it, which reminded me of my student Guo Dehao. His pen name for writing poems was Gao Lan!In this article, when it was mentioned that Gao Lan was influenced by me when she was a student, there were many praiseworthy words, so I will not put gold on my face.But there is a passage in it that reminds me: "When Bing Xin taught him the freshman "Chinese" and "Writing"... She had a unique way of instructing... Once she gave students a composition question-"The Beauty of Ideals" ", she asked the male students to write "My Ideal Beautiful Woman" in the article, but the female students wrote "My Ideal Beautiful Man", in order to criticize the society at that time for setting various restrictions on students who were free-minded... She thinks that love should be firm and pure and beautiful..." I really don't remember that I would give such a question to freshman students at that time, and there was another time when my female student Pan Yumei - she is also in her seventies - came from Shanghai When I came to Beijing, I came to see me by the way, and I also mentioned with a smile, the composition topics I gave them, and said, "Whether it is personal experience or fiction, you can write." I have completely forgotten these things, I think At that time, I was so bold that I was "unique". I don't know what the parents of the students said about me as a young female teacher, and I didn't hear any warnings from the old gentlemen of our Chinese Department. Be a "children's head" and "children's words are not taboo".

After I returned to China in the first year, I also used one hundred yuan of "Spring Water" manuscript fees to move our home in Beijing, which has lived in Beijing for more than ten years, from Zhongjianzi Lane to a large house facing south in Yuanen Temple. .I forgot the number of this house, but the house is indeed not small, because at that time my father was promoted to the vice-minister of the Admiralty, and I had more contacts with friends. At the same time, my eldest brother Wei Han was getting married again. The house was not enough, so a friend of my father introduced the house in Yuanen Temple, saying that there was an elementary school that wanted to rent it, because the landlord was afraid that the elementary school students would ruin the house, so he suggested renting it to us.I remember that my parents lived in three rooms in the north room, Brother Han and his wife lived in three rooms in the south room, I lived in three rooms in the east wing, and Jiedi and Jidi lived in three rooms in the west wing.

The fifth paragraph I wrote, "The Sister-in-Law Who Called My Old Man", was set in that house as the background. I said: The second room is a quiet place for weekends, and it is neatly tidied up. There are rattan beds and bamboo chairs in the same color, two pots of wintersweet on the flower stand, and narcissus on the desk. …Looking up at the clock suddenly, it was half past twelve, and the new house in the south room was still full of people’s voices… In the second year after I returned to China, my father’s students came to pick him up and went south to Shanghai to be the head of the Shanghai Hydrographic Survey Bureau , concurrently served as the director of Haidao patrol, and left the Beiyang government.Our family also moved to Xujiahui, the French Concession in Shanghai, just across the river from my father's office in China.This house was also found by my father's students.This year, Brother Han went to study in the United States.

I still teach at Yenching University in Beijing, and Jiedi and Jidi attend Yanjing University's undergraduate and preparatory courses.At that time, there were no trains to Pinghu, so we took sea boats from Tianjin to visit relatives in Shanghai during the winter and summer vacations.None of my siblings get seasick, and we still sleep on the deck in a cot in summer.After two or three days of sea travel, I felt bored. I remember that we also made up a small book of "Xiehouyu", such as "The Luo Guoer Goes Up the Mountain-Qian Duan", "The Papermaker Goes to the Sky - Paste Cloud (Hu Yun)", " Town God’s Temple was converted into a church—the ghosts and ghosts come and go”, “The old lady got in the car—don’t rush it”, “Zhu Bajie looks in the mirror—the front and the back are not human”, etc. We thought of a sentence, wrote it down, and laughed for a while .At the same time, I also found that there are still a lot of allegories about "Old Lady" and "Zhu Bajie". During the past three years, Wenzao and I have been in constant communication.His letters were sent to my home in Shanghai, and my mother locked them in a drawer for fear that someone would open them and read them.Of course, there is no problem sending them to the school.Colleagues who live in the same dormitory only know that there are often letters from the United States, and the sender is W. T． Wu.They also didn't know whether this person surnamed Wu was a man or a woman, and of course I didn't say either.Now these letters are stored in the book boxes on the teaching building of Yanda University. After the Pearl Harbor incident, the Japanese army stationed in Yanda University and burned all our books. As I write about the past, I can't help thinking that not only my elderly parents, but also Wen Zao and my three younger brothers have left me at this time! "The past is like smoke", my body will always be wrapped in a cloud of sadness! November 30, 1987