As a woman and a researcher in the history of literature and literature, gender, home country, self, history... Are all confused, forcing me to look for the future. How can true justice be sought from the point of view of being a woman and how can self-worth and social orientation be balanced? All these reflections have focused my attention on a particular group: the professors' wives of the south-west assembly。
They're of great research value
They were at the crossroads of the new and old times, linked to the fate of the top of the chinese intellectual class at that time, and were experienced and involved in shaping that special history. Their choices, whether they be major or daily, are embedded in the spirit of the south-west assembly, reflecting the thinking of china's intellectual community on the future of the nation and nation and explaining the significance of sacrifice and dedication in the survival of civilization. They are the living specimens of the chinese human spirit, the implementers of the wisdom of women's survival in the troubled world, the heirs of traditional virtues, and the builders of modern consciousness. Using them as a clue, we have been able to touch more subtle and real aspects of the history of the south-west assembly。
More importantly, an in-depth look at this group reveals that many of the difficult propositions in modern society are resolved in a simple way. They have never been an accessory, and their existence is much more than a half-lift. In them, they see the dream of the intellectuals, the unique form of the transformation of farming civilization to modern civilization, and the unreplaceable positive significance of women in different social forms。
Unfortunately, the unique historical value of these women has long been overshadowed by a single label of “family”. In terms of the dimensions of historical research, they have an independent research perspective and deserve their own historical identity。
They're almost in the dust of history
A few of them are themselves excellent literary workers, such as fengko, zhao loo-chung and yang-chung, whose names have been left behind in the history of literature. A few others have written widely shared memoirs, such as yang bei wei and han winghua, whose texts have been widely inducted and whose names are often mentioned. There are also a few who are no less successful than their husbands in their professional achievements, such as the animal morphologist choi hsien-ran, the nuclear physicist wang zhong zing, who have had to seek separate jobs because of the old rules of the south-west congress, which have been adopted by qinghua's “neither husband nor wife can go to school”, but whose achievements are still recorded in academic history. There are also women, such as zheng fong, who have written a number of articles before their lives and whose husbands and sons have prepared and published them for life, thus giving them a fuller picture。
However, the vast majority of them exist only in the corners of journals, letters and memoirs, many of whom are unable to find even their names. Mr. Tang lan, an academic scholar with the literature, history, arts and crafts, published a collection of 12 volumes, with a wealth of life and academic research material, which is available for review throughout the literature, except for a photo taken in "tomland's encyclopedia of dissertations" with the phrase “a photo taken with mrs. Zhang jianxiang”. In order to verify the name zhang jianxiang, i have consulted the national museum's family donation list of tangland and confirmed that it is correct. However, her life history is almost non-existent, and she would have disappeared completely in this history had it not been for sporadic references in the memoirs。
The few who can leave more details. The majority of professors' wives have documented that, even when there is a single account of them, many of them are remembered by their children or students, with a strong emphasis on their good wives and mothers, and experiences during the period of resistance are similar and obscure. In order to restore their individual image of independence, i have tried to collect a variety of historical information, especially from local sources, but many efforts have finally failed。
Historicists, named by name as a concubine, whose wife should not have had no history of marriage, but could not even find her name. In his memoirs, the son of the skin named zhongping referred to the strangeness of the father's love book, while the mother spoke only of “goodness”, with no details whatsoever. For that reason, i found some letters from pi zhongping at the auction, and unfortunately nothing, and mrs. Pi to leave her name behind. Liu xianchu, professor at the south-west general assembly college of engineering, who was the rector of the university of the north, left her only one name, “tai muqiu”, and only six words, “long-term housekeeping”, were recorded. The achievements of the physicist, mr. Meng joo-young, have been recorded in history, but his wife has not even kept her name, and the interview with mr. Meng was conducted in the late 1980s, with the participation of mrs. Meng, but the interviewee was named “mrs. Meng joo-young”。
This in itself illustrates the very nature of this group — they play their part in the cracks of history with patience, perseverance and inclusion. Writing about this group of women, who have long suffered from a lack of attention, during the difficult process of discovering history, the plight of the current generation of women has also become inexhaustible. So, at the beginning of writing, i hoped that the book would emerge from a rigid academic paradigm, closer to the sense of human life。
They're, like, reminiscing the social landscape and life
The book covers a lot of people, and i try to clarify their relationship. Among the wives of southwest assembly professors, the proportion of family members is extremely high, with a complex relationship between relatives and windows. The well-known families of zhang jia, han, zhou, yang and sun, all of whom have daughters, are married to their families as professors of the general assembly, and each of them deserves an independent book。
The story of the han winghua's wife, who sold the cake, is well known, and many know that she partnered with mrs. Pan and mrs. Yuan to make and sell the cake, but few know the reason for her collaboration: yuan is han winghua's cousin, who taught them to cook the cake, zhao shichang, who is the brother of mrs. Pan guangtan. The intricacies of the professor's wives are not only an expression of the bonds and interactions between the generations, but also an indirect reflection of china's modern political and academic patterns。
The book focuses on the period of the south-west assembly, where the professors ' wives are classified in separate chapters, mainly on writing, and less on general comment. For well-known and historically well-known individuals, the core of their work is written; for less well-known women, greater effort is devoted to documenting, as far as possible, their birth histories, educational experiences and marital situations. Because if they are not recorded again, they will be completely lost in history. So, whenever there's a trail, i try to write it down, but it's a shame that history is so limited that i can't avoid it。
The book is accompanied by a large number of images, many of which are rare and of historical value. These images not only satisfy the reader's curiosity, but also make up for the deficiencies of the text, as well as interesting little discoveries. For example, when the general assembly arrived in kunming, the 2nd daughter of yang was seen as a flower girl, while his 2nd son-in-law, huang baeyun, was at the forefront of the team as a small captain. Later, the two daughters who were naturalized in the united states returned to the mainland with their husbands, living and dying in isolation from their parents, and became the bond between zhao and yang. Lifetime encounters tend to be a thousand miles away, with a passion for organizing events and perhaps, inadvertently, scheduling the fate of daughters. The sadness in the old picture and the story of life cannot be fully conveyed in words。
(author: researcher, academy of social sciences, zhejiang province, visiting scholar, stanford university)
