The most virtuous wife, the most talented woman: the biography of Yang Jiang

Chapter 18 Years of Forgotten Classics · Life and death will never leave the motherland (2)
Once Qian Zhongshu went to Nanjing to report on work and came back much earlier than usual. Yang Jiang was very surprised. Qian Zhongshu said: "Today's dinner, I want to shake hands with "Jifeng" (Chiang Kai-shek), so I slipped back early."
During this period, Qian Zhongshu and Yang Jiang had many opportunities to leave the mainland. Taiwan University wanted to hire him as a professor, but he declined; Hong Kong University asked him to be the dean of the Faculty of Arts. It is appropriate"; Britain also sent an invitation to hire him as a senior lecturer. He said "the harsh climate in London"... Many people don't understand why they insist on staying in a place where the haze of war has not dissipated, and the answer Perhaps only the people at that time could understand, that is "they love this land deeply"!Once, when Mr. Yang Jiang was discussing the meaning of life choices, he mentioned that after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the Kuomintang government had promised Qian Zhongshu a UNESCO post. The results of the work have been affirmed and have reached the world level.But Qian Zhongshu flatly refused. He explained: "That's a carrot." He didn't want to be lured by the "carrot", nor was he willing to be driven by the "big stick".

Regarding his love for the motherland, Qian Zhongshu always used Liu Yong's two poems to explain it, that is, "the belt is getting wider and you will not regret it, and you will be haggard for Iraq." The motherland is the "Iran" he can't bear!
Later someone asked them, after experiencing so much suffering, did they regret not leaving?Mr. Yang said: "There is nothing to regret. People don't necessarily live for happiness."
Yang Jiang said in "Six Chapters of Cadre School": "Our country was a weak country at that time, and was bullied by all powerful countries. Your generation didn't know how many national humiliation days we had in a year. Let us go to foreign countries to do it. Second-class citizens are of course unwilling. We have no sense of fear when the Communist Party comes, because we are just ordinary people. We have no extravagant hopes, just want to sit on the bench. Die in your own country."
Perhaps the wanderers who have traveled far away from home know more about the deep affection for their homeland. "The Chinese language is what we drink when we drink milk, and we are not willing to give up no matter what." Only by giving up what should be given up can we have the opportunity to choose what should be chosen.Life has something to give up and something to give up, and you are willing to give up!
In May [-], Shanghai was officially liberated. Tsinghua University, their alma mater, sent an invitation letter to be a professor of foreign languages. This was a dream, an honor, and affirmation for the two of them.

Ah Yuan was 12 years old at the time, and followed her parents on the train going north, holding a doll in one hand and a handbag in the other, which was her favorite toy.In the handbag were the clothing decorations she made for the doll, and she hugged the doll tightly all the way, because the doll's belly contained a few taels of gold, which was her secret.

Tsinghua University is the place where the couple made love, and it is also the starting point for the two to confirm their life direction.The last time it was two people who left, this time it was a family of three who moved to Beijing. This time, it was a lifetime, and they never left until now.

Tsinghua University has long stipulated that the husband and wife cannot be formal professors here together, so Qian Zhongshu joined the job as a formal professor, teaching English for sophomores, and opened "History of Western Literature" and "Philosophy of Classical Literature", and To tutor and guide postgraduate study.Yang Jiang worked as a part-time professor, teaching Selected Readings of British Novels.Although the wages are less, but she is free, she laughs at herself as a "casual worker".The advantage of exclusive casual workers is that many meetings can be legitimately skipped, but the course schedule of this casual worker is no less than that of a full-time teacher.

The founding of New China, the whole country celebrates this rare peace, and the Chinese can finally be their own masters.The education industry that has been abandoned for a long time has been revived. Tsinghua University is more lively than when they were there. Many familiar friends have returned to work here. Because of the common experience, everyone cherishes their current life.

Although both of them are professors of well-known universities in the country, they live a very simple life. They have never cared about these things. There is only one thing that is most important to them—studying.

At that time, many fashionable women on campus began to catch up with the trend. At that time, the popular dress was gray trousers, and the jacket was a Lenin suit with two rows of buttons on the chest and a belt around the waist. Many people dressed like this. Du Yangjiang is still wearing a Shanghai cheongsam, which is very eye-catching in the crowd.If you take a rickshaw, you will also hold a small umbrella, which is very elegant.He speaks slowly, has a gentle attitude, and always smiles, giving people a kind feeling.

The Qian couple's home is very simple, with a long western-style table, a few chairs, and no furniture. The most abundant books in the house are books borrowed from the library of Tsinghua University, which are scattered around the corners of the house.The two of them don't find it difficult, and love this small family very much. Except for necessary travel, they basically spend their time studying at home and enjoy this lifestyle very much.

Yang Jiang's translation career began after the end of the Anti-Japanese War, and the first published translation was praised by Fu Lei.At that time, she was reading Oliver Goldsmith's prose "Citizens of the World", picked a passage, and then added a Chinese-style title "Follow Tie Da Shao Home" and published it on "Observation" .Unfortunately, the manuscript at that time is no longer available.

Because of this praise, Yang Jiang was also "blame" by Fu Lei. When Yang Jiang heard Fu Lei's praise, she thought he was just perfunctory, or simply polite, so she replied humbly as usual, and Fu Lei endured it for a minute. Then he said in a deep tone: "Yang Jiang, do you know? My praise is not easy!"
Yang Jiang once used his spare time to translate the first tramp novel in the history of Western literature──"Little Lame".Yang Jiang chose this novel because the literary expression in the book is very humorous, which is her favorite style, and it is easy for people to accept a profound story with humorous language.

This book reflects the decay behind the prosperity of Western society in the sixteenth century by telling the protagonist's wandering life, all kinds of people he met, and all kinds of things he encountered. "Little Lame" has an important position in the history of literature development. Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" and Cervantes' "Don Quixote" have all used the passages in it, or mentioned the existence of this book.But as to who the original author of this book is, there has been no accurate answer.

Yang Jiang attaches great importance to this book and has translated two versions successively and revised it many times.At first, the French version was translated, and then the original Spanish version was translated, trying to be as close as possible to the original, but with the special Chinese literary flavor.

At this time, Qian Yuan, who had grown up, came to Tsinghua University and was very happy, as if she had discovered a paradise. She felt that Tsinghua University was the most beautiful place.Although she is only fifteen or sixteen years old, she is well aware of her parents' hobbies and has inherited this. She is full of curiosity about the books on her mother's desk, and she also began to roughly read some works in foreign languages.Yang Jiang supported her reading very much, she said: "Zhong Shu is our teacher, and Ah Yuan and I are both good students. Although we are close at hand, if we have any problems, we can solve them by just asking, but we will never disturb him." ."
Once, Qian Yuan encountered a problem that he didn't understand while studying, so he went to ask his father for an answer.Dad didn't tell her the answer directly. He hoped to cultivate the habit of finding answers for his daughter, so he asked her to look it up in the dictionary by herself.Ah Yuan obediently went to look it up. She didn't find one, and then another. She didn't find the answer she wanted until she checked the fifth dictionary.She also understood her father's good intentions and realized how to "learn".

"Congress of Complaints" in Reality
The peaceful life did not last long, and the intellectual thought remolding movement began.On the occasion of the [-]th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, there was a climax of studying "Selected Works of Mao Zedong".Colleges and universities around the world took the lead in carrying out ideological remolding within the scope of teachers, launching criticism and self-criticism, and intellectuals became the first batch of targets for remolding.

For this reason, Zhou Enlai made a special report on "On the Transformation of Intellectuals" at the Beijing-Tianjin University Teachers' Study Meeting.Intellectuals need to reform their thinking, study hard, stand on the standpoint of the working class, and become warriors on the cultural front.

In such a movement, almost every intellectual at that time participated.Yang Jiang's "Bathing" just recorded some things that happened at that time and some of her own thoughts. Trousers, tail cut", but the word "take off trousers" is really not suitable for intellectuals, so it is jokingly called "bathing".

"Bathing" is Yang Jiang's only novel so far, with a total of 18 characters. Shi Zhecun praised it as "half of "Dream of Red Mansions" and half of "Scholars", and said (Yang Jiang) "using The dialogue is similar to that of Cao Xueqin." "The characters in "Bathing" are all members of the "Confucians". But the best part, the triangular story of Xu Yancheng, Du Lilin and Yao Mi, was something that Wu Jingzi could not write ".

Although this is a novel, there are no real people in it, and there is no shadow of Yang Jiang, she just accurately described a story that happened in the social background at that time, "the atmosphere is completely real".

Shu Zhan said that Yang Jiang is "a big fan of all styles in the field of literature and art, literature, martial arts, Kunming, and chaos are unstoppable, and life, Dan, Jing, and Moman come"!It is really admirable for a 70-year-old man to write such a work, but Yang Jiang replied with a proverb in her hometown: "That's called "pig's head meat, three bad things"!"
During this process, people have developed a relatively "left" way of dealing with some things, and the definition of things that need to be reformed and criticized has been confused, and some things that should not be opposed have also been dragged in.At the very beginning, intellectuals didn't quite understand what the purpose of the "Three Antis" movement was. They only knew that they specialized in their own majors and did not participate in political-related activities. How did they become "criticized" What about the object?
Yang Jiang was also affected by this event.At that time, the whole Tsinghua University no longer had the peace and tranquility of the past, especially the place she and Qian Zhongshu loved most—the Tsinghua University Library.Many Western literary works are defined as cancerous tumors of "rotten bourgeois thinking", and Yang Jiang really doesn't understand what went wrong.

Specific ideological remolding includes three stages, which are the ideological mobilization stage, the brewing discussion stage, and the denouncing and accusation stage, and the most tangled stage is the brewing discussion stage.Yang Jiang has participated in several "preparation meetings", the main content of which is that several people discuss what other people need to be reformed and accused, and collect relevant information, which makes everyone involved in a very serious situation. Cruel ideological struggle, after all, they were good colleagues and friends before, and doing so can easily put the person under discussion into a "difficulty".

Yang Jiang not only participated in the "brewing meeting", but was also attended.Yang Jiang was already conducting a thought review at that time, because she had always been "indifferent to the world" and was just a "casual worker" who also pursued being a good wife and mother, so her problems were relatively simple and not serious, and the review was passed in one go. There is no repetition.

The complaint meeting was held after dinner on the day that Yang Jiang passed the inspection.She originally thought that nothing else would happen if she passed the review once, but a "Cheng Yaojin" appeared on the way and stood up to accuse Yang Jiang:
"Mr. Yang Jikang doesn't talk about workers in class, he only talks about love."
"Mr. Yang Jikang taught us that we should not be able to eat or sleep when we are in love."
"Mr. Yang Jikang taught us that when we meet our lover, our face should be pale and our legs should be weak."
"Mr. Yang Jikang even taught us that married women should also fall in love."
Yang Jiang was very surprised, this female student was full of righteous indignation and preached loudly, but she was not Yang Jiang's student!Thousands of people present were frightened by this scene, and all looked at Yang Jiang.She obviously didn't expect the sudden situation, so she had to pretend that she didn't hear it and remained calm.Because there are still people to sue, this "wave" passed quickly.

When the conference was over, Wu Dayuan, director of the Department of Foreign Languages, came over and asked Yang Jiang in a low voice: "Did you really say that?" Yang Jiang replied, "You think about it, do I?" But under the general environment at that time, he couldn't say anything more. He just nodded and expressed his trust in Yang Jiang, but he didn't dare to say anything else.

Yang Jiang returned home with a stomach full of inexplicable things, her family was asleep, she lay down quietly, recalling what happened that night, and said to herself: "If I were a delicate woman, what face would I have to face others? I had no choice but to close the door and hang myself! Ji Bu is a strong man, he is not ashamed to be humiliated, because "if you want to be useful, it is not enough". I have no such ambitions. I am just full of anger, like a bulging ball, unable to press the concave I don't feel the slightest bit of shame in my heart to bear this insult." Thinking of this, she also felt relieved.

The next morning, Yang Jiang specially picked out a festive dress, washed it carefully, and went out in a glamorous manner.If it were someone else, who was "accused" as a sinner in front of everyone one day, he must be hiding at home the next day, not wanting to see anyone.Yang Jiang alone was not like this, she chose to go to the vegetable market with the most people and the most noisy, but she wanted to see how these people reacted.It may also be that having such an optimistic and strong personality is the real Yang Jiang, the one who treats life with a "comedy" attitude.

Not long after, the "People's Daily" published an article about female students commenting on Yang Jiang at the complaint meeting. Yang Jiang thought that her teaching career was over when this happened.As a result, in the next semester, not only the course was not cancelled, but more people took her course. I have to thank the "People's Daily" for publicizing her.

Yang Jiang never explained too much for herself, she felt: People who know me know anyway; those who don't know, let them do whatever they want.In life, grievances are inevitable.In this movement, Yang Jiang came here by stumbling, and she was considered lucky. In this special "movement", she gained more tenacity.

Lady luck did not favor everyone, and many people did not persevere to the end in this struggle, and chose some extreme ways to end their lives.Yang Jiang once wrote "Recalling Mr. Gao Chongxi", which told us about the withering of life that she and Qian Zhongshu experienced.

Mr. Chongxi was also a professor at Tsinghua University, worked in the Department of Chemical Engineering, and concurrently served as the director of the chemical factory at that time. He was very professional, and he was good friends with Qian Zhongshu and his wife at that time.He was also involved in the wave of ideological reform at that time.Yang Jiang recalled that it was an autumn weekend. Yang Jiang and Qian Zhongshu went out for a walk with nothing to do, so they went to Gao's house near the chemical plant. Only Gao Chongxi was at home, and he was sitting there. Unexpectedly, they were invited to sit down and poured water.Qian Zhongshu asked about the situation of the ideological remolding and accusation conference in his factory, he said: "It's nothing, it's almost over."
Yang Jiang felt that Gao Chongxi seemed to be in a low mood and looked a little embarrassed, so she excused that there were other things, and pulled Qian Zhongshu to get up and leave.Gao Chongxi did not continue to keep them, but sent them away again and again, out of the living room, out of the corridor, out of the yard, until the gate of the factory, and then he stood at the gate watching Yang Jiang and Qian Zhongshu.

On the way back, the two of them chatted about this matter, and they both felt a little strange. Gao Chongxi was not a rigid and indifferent person, he must have encountered something, and both of them felt that he was a little strange today.

The next day, a bad news came that Gao Chongxi committed suicide by taking potassium cyanide.Yang Jiang who heard the news regretted it very much, saying: "I only hate that we were confused and didn't understand in time." Similar things happened one after another during that time, and life seemed to suddenly become fragile and unable to bear the weight of life.

The love of literati is always beautiful, not because they can always catch up with a good time and a good background, but because they know better about the romance of "making fun in bitterness" in life.Smooth sailing is just a beautiful blessing, but the scriptures that are difficult to recite are also so real.

Fate gives us a lot of suffering, not to make us disappointed in life, but to make us stronger to meet a better life.When Yang Jiang and Qian Zhongshu were living in the wilderness, they completed their life experiences optimistically.If they also chose to give up lightly at that time, what we lost would not only be a few classic works, but the noble soul of a generation of literati.

(End of this chapter)