The Great Flowing River Read online

  The war at the Great River in 1925 has long vanished into the dusty corridors of history. The man with shining eyes in the photograph is now resting in peace after a lifetime of turmoil and strife. But his daughter, who left home when she was six years old, became the “guardian angel of literature in Taiwan,” in the words of Kenneth Pai, an internationally renowned overseas Chinese writer. Looking back, Professor Chi once lamented that after embracing Taiwan all her life, she had yet to chronicle the blood and tears of the people from her homeland who struggled and fought so valiantly. Thus The Great Flowing River is a book late in coming. It is a dialogue between a daughter and her father spanning both sides of the great river of life; it is also Professor Chi’s confession to the northeast she can no longer return to and to Taiwan, the island she can no longer leave.

  The Great Flowing River chronicles the history of China and Taiwan in the twentieth century, a period filled with epic events. Yet Professor Chi chose to reminisce in a straightforward and composed tone, exercising restraint and humility even when dealing with the most poignant moments. Many readers in Chinese point out that this is the allure of the book. But besides the narrative style, the historical perspective adopted by the writer is also attractive. Who and what contributed to this particular style?

  Among the many protagonists described in the book, I think four stand out and have influenced Professor Chi’s attitude: Chi Shiying, Zhang Dafei (1918–1945), Zhu Guangqian (1897–1986), and Qian Mu (1895–1990). As mentioned, Chi Shiying’s life is the subtext of this book. Before arriving in Taiwan, he was a very important military and political leader. But after he offended President Chiang, his political career came to an abrupt end. In Professor Chi’s eyes, her father was a proud and honorable man who never made it into the inner circle of power. Yet she thought that what really distinguished him was not his stubborn pride, but more important, his being an authentic person, “gentle and pure.”

  Professor Chi recalls when her father joined the family in Wuhan after the Nanjing Massacre (1937): “His white handkerchief, which was gray with dust, was soaked through with tears. He said, ‘Our country is lost and our family shattered!’” The Chi family lived a meager life in Chongqing during the war. Once after the bombing when it rained hard all night, “my mother was sick and had to lie in her own bed, over which was spread a large oilcloth to keep the rain off. My father sat at the head of the bed, holding an oilpaper umbrella in one hand to cover his head and my mother’s, waiting for day to break.” During his twilight years Chi Shiying was often melancholy, and whenever the fall of the northeast was mentioned, he would weep inconsolably. Those were tears of remorse and regret, tears of integrity and dignity.

  Chi Shiying’s was a turbulent life, yet his daughter, Chi Pang-yuan, learned gentleness and purity from him. Heroes are often made during chaotic times. Some win, some lose, but how many can retain gentleness and purity throughout their lifetime? This sets the tone of The Great Flowing River.

  With quiet dignity Chi Pang-yuan narrates the story between herself and Zhang Dafei. He was also from the northeast. His father was Shenyang’s police commissioner when Manchukuo was established. Because of his involvement in anti-Japanese activities, the Japanese killed him by pouring varnish over him and setting him on fire in public. Zhang Dafei escaped to inland China, enrolled in Chung-shan Middle School, and got to know the Chi family. He joined the air force after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937 and died in air combat in Henan the day before victory in 1945. His courtly love for the young Chi Pang-yuan left an indelible mark on her heart and soul. His fateful and untimely death is violently tragic.

  Under Professor Chi’s pen, Zhang Dafei is a dashing hero who is devoted and loyal. Young and romantic, he is probably the most unforgettable protagonist in the book. Readers will remember how he stood in the pouring rain waiting for Chi Pang-yuan, his devout Christian faith, and his moving farewell letter.

  At the end of the last century, seventy-five-year-old Chi Pang-yuan traveled to Nanjing to visit the cemetery for war heroes. Among the thousands of names on the memorial monument, she found Zhang Dafei’s name. The question that had haunted her for fifty-five years was answered. Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust. Professor Chi described Zhang Dafei’s all-too-brief life as a night-blooming cereus, a flower “blossoming deep in the night and quickly closing to fall to the ground: such glorious purity, such unspeakable nobility.”

  Zhu Guangqian was contemporary China’s most renowned philosopher and aesthetician. While teaching at Wuhan University during the war, he acknowledged Chi Pang-yuan’s talent and encouraged her to transfer from the Department of Philosophy to the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. Most people know Zhu for his books such as Twelve Letters for the Young or The Psychology of Tragedy, but he was also an important member of the Beijing literary circle during the 1930s. Both he and Shen Congwen (1902–1988), the most important lyricist and nativist in modern China, advocated a scrupulous and authentic approach to writing. This gave rise to future contention over his writing. In 1935 Lu Xun (1881–1936), the founding father of modern Chinese literature, criticized Zhu’s “solemn and tranquil” approach, creating quite an uproar. Indeed, talking about the aesthetics of quietude during an age full of sound and fury was out of sync with the times.

  Zhu’s aesthetics had a melancholic undertone, however. When he emphasized a solemn and quiet approach to literature, he was not oblivious to reality. It was a dignity and calmness born out of intense reflection and introspection under pressure, the Chinese spirit of tragedy. Yet in those roaring times, Zhu Guangqian was doomed to be misunderstood. In the 1950s, when his student was in Taiwan reminiscing about her professor’s class in British Romantic poetry, Zhu was undergoing more and more vicious pressure from the Communist Party.

  Qian Mu is arguably the most respected scholar of traditional learning in twentieth-century China. Qian Mu and Chi Pang-yuan’s friendship is another highlight of the book. The two first met when Chi was working at the National Institute of Translation and Compilation. By then, Qian had already retired to his studio in Waishuangshi, the suburbs of Taipei. Both of them were swept into a debate over whether the newly compiled textbook of contemporary Chinese history was blasphemous in its depiction of Yue Fei, a historical figure who had been deified as the god of war. Qian Mu, the master of Sinology, was criticized for having endorsed an academic textbook that was considered a “threat to national security.” During those days, everything was politicized, even history. Despite the criticism, Qian Mu stood firm, unwavering, because he had to remain true to his historical and cultural heritage.

  At that time, Qian Mu’s eyesight was deteriorating, but his mind was clearer than ever. The Cultural Revolution took mainland China by storm, and Taiwan would soon face the Native Soil Movement that would sweep over the island. Qian Mu must have lamented then that time wasn’t on his side. Chi Pang-yuan relates movingly those afternoons when she visited the master, chatting about everything from the humanities to contemporary circumstances. Their friendship marked one of the most charming moments of Taiwan before it was engulfed by national identity politics.

  From the 1930s until the 1990s, Chi Pang-yuan found her place in schools either as a student or as a teacher. She describes her life as climbing up a staircase constructed of books, sentences, and words. Ultimately, she admits, this was actually a staircase to heaven; furthermore, it was dismantled just as she had started her upward climb—not solely because of the war but also due to restrictions imposed by gender and identity.

  After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, masses of students from the northeast became refugees. Chi Shiying mobilized resources to establish the Sun Yat-sen Middle School in 1934, and 2,000 students were admitted the first year. For the first time in her life Chi Pang-yuan witnessed how the fate of a nation was closely linked to education. Most of the students at Sun Yat-sen Middle School had no home to return to. It was no wonder that the teachers and students saw each other as
family. They were committed to one goal, and that was to win the war and recover their homeland from the Japanese. When the Sino-Japanese War broke out, the students followed their teachers from Nanjing to Wuhan, passing through Hunan and Guangxi, and ended up in Sichuan. They were threatened by war all the way, and there were injuries and casualties, but their studies continued without interruption. This was indeed a legendary page in the history of education.

  Sun Yat-sen Middle School was established because of the war. Nankai Middle School and Wuhan University, the alma maters of Chi Pang-yuan, were evacuated because of the war. Nankai Middle School was founded in 1904, and its alumni include two PRC premiers (Zhou Enlai and Wen Jiaobao) and two presidents of Academia Sinica (Qian Si-liang and Wu Ta-you) as well as many scholars and writers. Wuhan University was founded in 1928, and it was one of the best universities in central China. When the war broke out, Nankai Middle School was evacuated to Chongqing and Wuhan University was evacuated to Leshan, Sichuan.

  Chi Pang-yuan was exceptionally lucky that her education was not interrupted by the war. Even when conditions were extremely unfavorable, Nankai insisted on the quality of education. During her six years there, Chi developed strength of character and set high expectations for herself. When she attended Wuhan University, she was able to study literature under the tutelage of renowned professors.

  When recollecting the student movement that took China by storm half a century later, Chi Pang-yuan is solemn and cautious. She was once humiliated in public for not being progressive enough. She knew that there was only a very thin line between idealism and extremism, naiveté and fanaticism. What saddens her is the fact that many of her more progressive classmates in the 1940s later faced harsh prosecution. The price that they paid for what they did when they were hotheaded and idealistic revolutionaries was far too heavy. It is not fair for anyone to judge others with the hindsight of history, but we cannot help recognizing the difficult struggle between intellectuals and the state apparatus.

  Through Professor Chi’s description of her experience as a student and teacher, it is clear that her self-awareness as a woman has always stood out. In the 1930s and 1940s it was already quite common for women in China to receive an education, but not at all easy for them to pursue a career after graduation. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in literature from Wuhan University, Chi Pang-yuan also grappled with uncertainty. She considered going overseas to pursue further studies, but the threat of war in China between the Nationalists and Communists sent her to Taiwan, where she eventually married, became a mother, and started a new life.

  Professor Chi never gave up her dream of pursuing an academic career. She reminisces about her days as a teaching assistant in the Foreign Languages and Literatures Department of National Taiwan University, describing how she was mesmerized by the stacks and stacks of books the moment she stepped into the office. She remembers her time as a teacher at the Taichung First Boys’ High School pensively; she “felt fortunate at being able to ‘steal’ a few hours from the market, the coal stove, baby bottles, and diapers and once more talk about knowledge, precious knowledge.” It wasn’t until twenty years after graduating from college that she got to go back to school, and by then she was already forty-five years old.

  In 1968, Chi Pang-yuan attended graduate school at Indiana University in the United States, where she took advantage of every single “stolen” minute to study. She claims that that was the most exhausting yet most rewarding year in her life. Yet, with her master’s degree almost within reach, she had to give up everything and return to Taiwan for her family. Even her father urged her to make that very difficult decision.

  For Chi, this was the Great River that she couldn’t cross throughout her life. She had regrets, because she knew that she had the ability and opportunity, but even though she could see the other side, it was still out of reach. For Chi Shiying the river was filled with waves of epic proportion, whereas for Chi Pang-yuan, it was totally different. Her “river” consisted of meeting the obligations of a good wife and mother, day in and day out. The quotidian trials of life were so trivial and arduous, yet as daunting as any battle or political struggle. In the temple of knowledge, Professor Chi and her generation of women often worked very hard for compromised results. It took her many years to come to terms with that.

  The Great Flowing River looks back upon the people and events swept up by the tides of modern Chinese history. Having witnessed the chaos and death caused by war, Professor Chi was sustained by poetry, which brought order and dignity to life with rhyme and reason. During her sentimental teenage years, Shelley’s lines, “I die! I faint! I fail!” from “The Indian Serenade” were so different from the more constrained traditional Chinese poetry, yet the wailing lines resonated with her. She wrote, “Not only did I dwell on the life and death of the solitary individual, but I felt that a person’s life and death were inextricably yoked with the world, life, and time that stops for no one. We were so young, but we were drawn into a vast war, one seemingly without end.”

  In 1995, fifty years after the end of the war, Chi Pang-yuan went to Shandong Province in China to attend a conference. Standing at the edge of the Bohai Gulf, she looked to the north, toward the Liaodong Peninsula. Farther north was her homeland, Tieling. Yet she was there attending the conference as a delegate from Taiwan. Due to return theren soon, she exclaimed, “I had been in Taiwan for fifty years, married, had children, and had a career, but I was still a ‘mainlander,’ and like the ‘Flying Dutchman,’ I could never go home.” A line from Du Fu’s poem brought tears to her eyes: “gazing sadly, a thousand years, shedding a few tears.” And E. M. Forster’s concluding lines in the novel A Passage to India, “No, not yet, no, not there,” came to mind. When there is no road ahead, literature can bridge east and west, opening up new horizons and offering new perspectives.

  Fortified by this broader perspective, Professor Chi has dedicated forty years of her life to the promotion of Chinese literature in Taiwan. Taiwan is small, but historical circumstances have given the island an opportunity to rival continental China in the breadth and scope of its literature. Taiwan was thrown into the throes of modernization after the First Sino-Japanese War; in 1949 after the fall of China, two million soldiers and civilians moved to the island en masse. While reading literature in Taiwan, Professor Chi was able to appreciate the pondering of writers like Ssu-Ma Chung-Yuan and Chiang Kuei, who came from mainland China, as well as the sorrow of native writers such as Wu Chuo-liu, Cheng Ching-wen, and Li Chiao.

  The two sides of the Taiwan Strait are no longer at the brink of war. Years later, 1895, 1947, and 1949 might become mere froth in the tides of history. But Chinese literature from Taiwan might very well be the sole survivor that has witnessed a century of suffering. This is what Professor Chi believes in. If Shelley and Keats were able to move a Chinese high school girl during the war, then Wu Chuo-liu and Ssu-ma Chung-yuan might also transcend time, space, and linguistic barriers to move readers in the West. She spent forty years translating Chinese literature created in Taiwan into English, putting Taiwan on the world’s literary map, because she sincerely believes that literature has the potential to overcome historical ambiguity as well as national and cultural hegemonies.

  The Great Flowing River chronicles a woman of letters’ perspective on history. As she reminisces, Chi Pang-yuan evolves page by page, becoming older and wiser. Yet, through her narration, we sense that even though time flows by and people and events sink and float in the currents, there is a voice that doesn’t fade. It is a “pure” voice, transcending history, glistening with emotion and clarity, distilled from a thousand years’ worth of tears.

  Guided by this voice, we readers can reminisce along with Professor Chi and get to know her tall, handsome, and ambitious father; her kind and gentle mother; her selfless husband who dedicated himself to public service; the students in exile from the northeast who sang songs of home; the young girl at Nankai who discovered the joy of litera
ture; the professor who recited the poems of Shelley and Keats with tears in his eyes; the blooming peonies of her homeland in the northeast, the roaring waves of the Great River, the deep and bottomless Yakou Sea, and the young Zhang Dafei who kept looking back over his shoulder in the twilight as he was leaving the girl he loved.…

  David Der-wei Wang

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  Introduction based on an essay in Chinese, “So Sad, So Happy, So Unique,” by David Wang, adapted by Chi Pang-yuan; translated by Michelle M. Wu; edited by Nancy Du.

  1

  MY HOMELAND IN SONG

  In the year before the arrival of the twentieth century, my parents were born in a village twenty li (1 li = .3 mile) from the Liao River basin in China’s northeast. The vast and fertile grassland was their inheritance, the homeland of straightforward and carefree herders, where “blue, blue is the sky, vast, vast is the land, where the sheep appear when the wind blows low the grass.” But much of the two thousand years of Chinese history has been the history of war fought on that grassland. How many Han heroes has it produced since the great Han and Tang dynasties? How many Mongolian and Manchu horsemen have spurred their horses over that grassland, founding the great Yuan and Qing dynasties, which together lasted over four hundred years? The Chi family was of Han Chinese ethnicity and originally from Taiyuan in Shanxi Province, and later settled in Tieling County, Liaoning Province. The family home was near Hetu’Ala, birthplace of the Qing dynasty, and less than an hour from Shenyang by car. I grew up at my grandmother’s side, and I often heard the older generations say that construction on the Great Wall ceased at Tieling. In the seventeenth century, after the Qing entered Beiping, the Kangxi emperor issued an edict stopping construction on the Great Wall. From the Qin to the Han, Tang, Song, and Ming, concern about frontier troubles had never ceased. When the Manchus entered at the end of the Ming dynasty, the Great Wall extended for thousands of miles, but did it stop them?