KOO HONG MING, the late Qing dynasty master of the Republic of China's nostalgia

Regardless of where it is, it doesn't really matter much to Koo himself. For most people, it is difficult to find out exactly where their ancestors migrated from, and the so-called ancestral home is not necessarily the "root", but a symbol of nostalgia after a long time. And the university, gave Koo a nostalgia of the figurative.

Peking University teaching six years, Koo lived in the Dongcheng District, 26 Cypress Hutong. Cypress Hutong 26, the old door plate is Tsubaki Hutong 30. According to housing records, the yard in the hutong west section of the south side of the recessed into the small mezzanine, covers an area of more than 130 square meters; street door face west, is a with the wall "small doorway"; courtyard of the three north room is the ridge tiled room, a south room is a grey roof platform, the floor area *** count 60 square meters. 1980s, the cypress tree alley In the 1980s, No.26 Cypress Hutong was expropriated together with the neighboring courtyards and converted into the Wangfujing Hotel.

According to an article in the Beijing Evening News, Koo's former residence "in the western section of the hutongs on the south side of the concave in a small mezzanine, covering an area of more than 130 square meters; street door to the west, it is a with the wall of the 'small doorway'; the courtyard of the three north room is up ridge tile room, a south room is a gray-roofed platform, building area **** of 60 square meters. In the 1980s, No. 26 Cypress Hutong was expropriated together with the adjacent courtyard and converted into the Wangfujing Hotel. From the gate of No.24 courtyard, there is still a parking lot with grass and trees between No.24 and No.30 buildings, and it is not known whether this is the land that Koo Hongming stepped on in those days. Now the cypress hutong, no cypress trees, not to mention Tsubaki trees, but a lot of acacia trees, and the former residence of Koo Hongming with its door number also disappeared.

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But Koo is indeed a historical figure we should not forget. According to Koo's chronicle, he accompanied Zhang Zhidong to Beijing in 1907 to serve in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, later taught at Peking University, and finally died in 1928, during which time he lived in Beijing for almost all of the last 20 years of his life, except for short stays in Shanghai, Qingdao, and Japan. A number of famous figures, including internationally renowned writers such as Maugham, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, and Rabindranath Tagore, visited his "Jinan House" in Tsubaki Hutong (now Cypress Hutong). But because from the May Fourth Movement, Koo Hongming as royalists, cultural conservatism was criticized as a representative figure, its scholarly status and value has long been ignored, its former residence is naturally difficult to protect the preservation of the hutong nameplate can now stay a, is also considered rare!

Koo's braid is a "unique landscape" in China in the early years of the Republic of China. Zhou Zuoren in the "Peking University Records of the old" on this "landscape" made a vivid description: Koo Hongming "was born with a pair of deep eyes and a high nose of the foreigners look, a handful of yellow hair on the head, but braided into a pigtail, wearing a large-sleeved square waistcoat in winter date-red silk, wearing a melon hat; not to mention that in the Republic of China in ten years Not to mention in the Republic of China ten years before and after Beijing, is in the former Qing Dynasty, the road met such a small city of Chinese dress clergyman like figure, we can not help but look out with eyes wide open it. Especially wonderful is that the chartered car driver, I do not know from where the countryside to find a special, or Xuzhou braided soldiers of the residual is also unknown, but also a back drag braided man, with the master of the classroom is exactly a pair, he sat on the car outside the gate of the red building, waiting, but also not lost in the team of car drivers a special character."

Liang Shiqiu depicted this more vividly: "The first master likes to levy by the music, Gu do not trim, both hanging long braids, and date red robe and azure lab coat on the grease, especially can be seen, charmers stand in front of them, do not have to take the mirror, that is, there is the joy of looking at the shadow of self-pity."

Some people say that Koo's braid complex represents his conservative, stubborn. This is only part of the truth. I am the last representative of old China." He called the "civilized West" the "four barbarians", and his "alternative image" was an "alternative reaction" to modern civilization. ". Koo Hongming said: foreigners will never respect us just because we cut off our braids and put on a suit. We do not go to the evaluation of how Koo Hongming "alternative", single on his courage to fight, the courage to stand firm, is today's Chinese people are not as good as, because the resistance and perseverance in today's Chinese people, especially the Chinese literati have been extinct.

But his "alternative image" was not tolerated by the people of the time, and was also subjected to a lot of ridicule. Back then, Koo Hongming dragged his braid in the Peking University lecture, attracting students coaxing. Koo Hongming said to the students, "I head of the braid is tangible, you heart of the braid is intangible." Similar words were later said by him in Taiwan. In Taiwan in the course of lecturing, "when he is old and excited, will chatter endlessly talk about some hilarious words, clothing is very peculiar, always wearing a set of blue cloth tunic; wearing a red top hat, but also keep a long braid, at first glance, who believe that he is a Chinese foreign students old-timers it? He sometimes scolded people: 'Do you think you are modern enough to wear a suit and have fashionable hair?'"

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Koo Hong-ming is not only superbly educated, as a professor at Peking University, his classes are also very popular with students. Koo's teaching was equally strange. If you look at it from today's perspective, he was clowning around in class. His weird and wacky style and hilarious behavior would certainly make him an unqualified teacher today, and he would certainly have to be "dismissed" from the class.

Let's take a few examples: Koo first met Hu Shi at Peking University, and there was a conflict. You know, Hu Shi is Dewey's disciple, received 36 doctoral titles, his new wave of ideas make the young doctor in the United States overnight burst of fame, is the time of the red. But Koo Hongming and Hu Shih, a meeting, asked: "What do you do?" Hu Shi said: "Teaching at Peking University." Koo said, "We are colleagues." Then he asked, "What do you teach?" Hu Shih said, "I teach the history of Western philosophy." Koo then switched to speaking to Hu in Latin. Hu Shih said, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Latin." Koo said, "Ancient philosophy is based on Greece, modern philosophy is based on Germany, Hu Shih doesn't know German and doesn't know Latin, isn't teaching philosophy a lie to children?" He also criticized Hu Shih for learning lower-middle-class American English. Hu Shih was quite angry, and from then on, these two masters have been knotted up, often fighting wars of words and pen and ink lawsuits.

Koo Hung-ming in the Peking University class, always with a child servant for him to load cigarettes and pour tea. He did not use textbooks in class, and even if there were textbooks, they were just for show. Because his mind is loaded with too much knowledge, his mind is too active, how can he look at the dead materials? He took his first class with a braid dragging behind his head and a dirty tunic, drawing bursts of laughter from the students. He had his students turn to page one in the first period and continued to do so until the end of the semester, when he lectured on English poetry, with a wide range of ideas, humor, jokes and insults. When he got carried away, he either sang a little song or took out a few peanut candies and chewed on them. Therefore, his class is always the most popular. He was very strict with the students, every class should be the first with the students about three rules: (a) he entered the classroom, the students must stand up and salute; after class, he left first, the students and then go; (b) if the students can not memorize the book, not allowed to sit, stand until the end of class; (c) can be constrained to listen to the class, can not be withdrawn from the classroom before it is too late. He gave the students assigned English homework, but also quite absolute, actually let the students in English translation of the "Three Character Classic", "Thousand Character Classic".

As a teacher, his image and demeanor is unqualified, but he taught his students the most knowledge. From this perspective, he was better than the conventional teachers, not to mention those who read from the book and thought nothing of it. The fact that Koo was able to become a professor at Peking University, one of the leading universities in China, is naturally attributable to its president, Cai Yuanpei. Without Cai Yuanpei, there would have been no Koo. Today, there are many professors in Chinese universities, but no masters. One of the reasons is multi-faceted, but the lack of Cai Yuanpei type of educator when the university president, I am afraid that is an important reason.

Koo Hung-ming respected Confucianism to the point of no return, and articulate, everywhere reflecting his wit and humor. "He taught Latin and other subjects at Peking University, and could not bring his orthodox ideas into play, so he had to find an opportunity to give vent to them whenever and wherever he could." Once, he hosted a banquet for European and American friends at his home in Chunshu Hutong, the small courtyard is shabby enough, the lighting is still kerosene lamps, dim and smoky, and the group of European and American friends are not clear about the real meaning of the "Jin'an send hut". So, someone said: "kerosene lamps are not as bright as electric lamps and vapor lamps." Koo Hongming know: "We Oriental people, seek to understand the heart, the Oriental people's hearts bright, oil lamps since the light. Oriental people do not specialize in superficial work like Westerners do." Koo Hongming's some of the theory, but also really his friends in Europe and the United States to the bluff.

Nowadays, many people still talk about Koo's pigtails and his strange habit of loving small feet, but forget that in that era of broken rites and music, the stormy times, this stubborn old man, who did not look very Chinese, made his voice heard to the world, and opposed the Western philosophy that advocates profit, so that the Eastern civilization in the Western world to blossom, and the famous American sinologist Aikai in the Chinese language in his book, "Cultural Conservationism - Anti-Modernization Thinking" (文化守成主义论--反现代思潮潮). Aikai, a famous contemporary Chinese scholar in the United States, commented in his book "Cultural Conservatism - Anatomy of an Anti-modernization Wave of Thought" written in Chinese, "In the atmosphere of pessimism and disillusionment of wartime and post-war Europe, it was Koo Hung-ming, not Liang Shuming or Liang Qichao, who became a famous saint-philosopher in the East along with Rabindranath Tagore and Okakura, and so on. In those days, Koo was extremely popular, and his books were required reading in the philosophy programs of European universities and were translated into many European languages. A number of Western philosophers cited his book as an important authority; Western guests visited him to honor his teachings."

Today, think about it, only the sparseness and madness of the act of being remembered by future generations of Koo Hong-ming, why not sad? If the nostalgia of ordinary people is a figurative, then Koo's nostalgia is probably an ideal place called "China".