Xiao Mengneng's magazine Wenxing

On behalf of the release also explains the origin of the naming of "Wenxing":

"As for the naming of the 'Wenxing', it is because of the legend that it is the asterism in charge of the luck of the literati, also known as the 'Wenchang Star'. Du Fu's poem has: 'the north wind with the cool air, the South Dipper avoid Wenxing' line. In Greek mythology, there is also a god equivalent to the Chinese star of literature, named Apollo, who is said to be a beautiful young man in charge of poetry and music, that is, the god in charge of literary luck and art. We are ready to do a little more in literature and art, so we collected Chinese and Western myths and stories to set this name".

On the idea of "not following the rules", the editors mean to run the magazine not according to the rules. The reason is that "Wenxing" is neither backed by an official organization nor a special financial support, it is a purely private and independent publication without color. Therefore, the editor said, "Those great people who made history would not have made so many great achievements if everyone played his cards right." In the same way, if The Literary Star did not operate in a worldly manner, it would not have innovated and developed. In the first four years after the founding of Wenxing magazine (November 1957-October 1961, i.e., Issue 1 to Issue 48), it was in a period of sprouting and thriving. In the budding period of Wenxing in the first two years, Wenxing tried not to touch the taboos of speech at that time, and thus was rather self-restrained in the selection of manuscripts, and devoted itself more to the introduction of literary creations and translations of Western literature (Lin Haiyin, Yu Lihua, Mute, Yu Guangzhong, Mute Yin, and Xia Jing were all published), and less time was devoted to expository texts. Commentaries on current affairs are mostly published in the form of readers' submissions, and there is no lack of good articles criticizing current politics. In the third and fourth years of Literary Star, after the editorial policy was changed from "life, literature, and art" to "thought, life, and art" in the 25th issue, there was a gradual increase in the number of articles on thought and academic writings, with a clear emphasis on the demands of thought. After the change from "thought, life, and art" to "thought, life, and art", there was a gradual increase in the number of essays on thought and scholarship, clearly emphasizing the appeal of thought. The editor's explanation for removing the word "literary" and replacing it with "intellectual" was that the word "literature" was integrated into art and life, thus strengthening the weight of the word "intellectual", while the word "art" was replaced by "thought, life, art". The editors explained that they wanted to integrate "literature" into art and life, so they emphasized "thought" and "exploration of thought" would be the main editorial policy in addition to life and art. In terms of cover design, which represents the face of the magazine, most of the people on the cover of each issue of Wenxing are newsworthy or of contemporary significance. They include prominent figures in the fields of literature, politics, philosophy, science, music, and ......, and are accompanied by a "cover profile," which is quite ingenious. The cover characters chosen for The Literary Star were mainly "existing, first-rate, and less familiar to readers, and able to fit in with the news." In the first four years, the cover characters of The Literary Star were mostly American and British, including Ernest Hemingway, Maugham, Camus, Ivar Andrzejczyk, Sai Zhenzhu (a literary scholar), Russell (a philosopher) and so on, and there was only one Chinese, Mei Yiqi, and no other Asians "showed their faces". From here, we can see that the basic tendency of "Wenxing" has long tended to be more westernized, modernized, and not respecting the traditional (but not yet anti-traditional) psychological factors. It can be seen that Mr. and Mrs. Xiao Mengneng operated the Wenxing Bookstore and the Wenxing Monthly with slightly different concepts, which can be seen in the reprinting of the following appendix of the Wenxing Bookstore, "Wenxing Collected Journals", the first series of 100 titles "A glimpse of the world's ancient and modern academic classics, in which in addition to the British and Americans, there are many Asians, such as the Chinese Du Dingyou, Yuan Hongdao, Qian Ji Bo (literary scholar), Zhu Guiyao, Jiang Xichang, Wang Chong, Xie Wuliang, Li Jiannong, Jiang Baili, Liu Haisu (painter), Wang Guowei (nationalist), Huang Kan (nationalist), Wu Mei, Fu Zhenlun, Wang Fuchi, Huang Xianfen (historian), Meng Sen (historian), and Wang Zhenlun (historian). Historian), Monson (historian), Wu Yong, Zhang Xiaoruo, Yung Hong, Guo Dengfeng, etc., up to more than 50 people; Japanese Hattori Unokichi (psychologist), Yoshimatsu Toraji, Hashida Kunihiko (medical doctor); Indians Gandhi (statesman). All these reflect that Mr. and Mrs. Xiao Mengneng's philosophy of running the Wenxing Bookstore was to promote world academics and culture, while their philosophy of running the Wenxing monthly magazine was obviously more in the promotion of westernization. This philosophy was carried forward with the addition of Li Ao in 1961.

The smooth and gentle Wenxing, in the "Editorial Office Report" of the 37th issue in its fourth year, had this to say:

"In the past three years, we have had no 'sweetness' to speak of, but all we have is 'bitterness'. 'Bitter'. To run this magazine, we can say that we have gone through a lot of pain and suffering ...... A publication of this style like Wenxing is almost impossible to be 'a paper of Luoyang' in our depressed society. The reason why we should knowingly do not do it is based on the fact that we readers of books to society, to the times to do their due diligence. Being in a degenerate age, if intellectuals also have to give up their responsibilities, then our future will be even more pathetic. Therefore, the readers must be self-conscious and arouse the rational awakening of the society at large. Thus, we founded Wenxing. We know full well that this voice is weak, but it is sincere, and its existence always has its value." (1)

The proprietor of Wenxing, Xiao Mengneng, and editors such as He Fan, Lin Haiyin, and Chen Lifeng here express their courage to defy setbacks and to use the style of Wenxing to arouse the responsibility of readers to revitalize society. Generally speaking, soon after the publication of Wenxing, it began to be loved by intellectuals who love literature and art, and in the process of gradually thriving and enriching, Wenxing was widely recognized by authors and readers. The readers of Wenxing covered a wide range of ages, from the old to the young, from university professors to high school students, and from businessmen to military personnel. All intellectuals who cared about the social environment and Taiwan's situation at that time almost never knew about Wenxing, and no one did not read Wenxing. In 1961, Mr. and Mrs. Hsiao Mengneng discovered Li Ao and invited him to join Wenxing. Li Ao gladly joined the alliance. As Li Ao joined the editorial ranks, his articles gradually appeared in large quantities in The Wenxing, and the style of The Wenxing then underwent a significant change from what was labeled as "Life, Literature, and Art" to "Thought, Life, and Art". "The influence of the monthly magazine expanded rapidly, and its reputation became so strong that it became the main position for the "Sino-Western cultural debate" in Taiwan in the 1960s. Based on the idea of "total westernization", Li Ao aimed his criticism at traditional Chinese culture and the Kuomintang (KMT), which claimed to be the orthodox successor of Chinese national tradition and culture. From November 1962 onwards, Li Ao published articles in Wenxing magazine, such as "Treating People Talking about Chinese and Western Cultures", "I Want to Continue to Treat People", and "An Answer to the Trend of Chinese Thought". "In a series of articles, he attacked traditional Chinese culture and advocated "total westernization". He believes that the conservatism and narrowness of Chinese culture have directly produced the backward group consciousness of the Chinese people, and as the material carrier of this group consciousness, the Chinese people generally have eleven kinds of diseases: one is the "Boxer Rebellion Disease" which is blindly xenophobic, the second one is the "China is better than the West Disease" which is exaggeratedly crazy, and the third one is the "China is better than the West Disease" which is enthusiastically advocating westernization. The first is the "Boxer Disease" of blind xenophobia, the second is the "China over West Disease" of exaggeration and fanaticism, the third is the "Ancient Disease" of eagerness to compare and contrast, the fourth is the "Sino-Turkish Fluid Disease" of full of lies, the fifth is the "Disease of Last Resort" of carefulness and optimism. Sixth, the "sour grapes disease", seven, the most demagogic "secondary school for the body, Western learning for the use of disease", eight, the shallow "Eastern spirit, Western material disease", nine, the "consciousness of emptiness", "the disease of the past", and so on. Nine is the empty consciousness of the "hostage to external self-importance disease", ten is the dreaming madness of the "reunion disease", eleven is the false pretense of the "transcendence of the forward disease". He believes that since he wants to get people's "gourds, onions, tomatoes, clocks, glasses, Simmons, and the reserve officer system", he has to "put up with syphilis, fox stench, bars, car accidents, divorces, eunuchs, lap dances, and the craziness that comes with the swinging"; he advocates that we should "cut all the pieces together". It advocates "cutting off the umbilical cord of tradition with a single cut and learning directly, step by step, and subtly from those modernizing countries" and "everything else is impractical except learning from the foreign devils with all one's heart and soul."

Starting from the denial of traditional Chinese culture, Li Ao went on to direct his struggle at the corrupt bureaucracy and authoritarian dictatorship of the Kuomintang, linking reflection at the ideological and cultural levels with his dissatisfaction with social reality. He published articles such as "The Elderly and the Stick", "Seeking Answers to China's Thought Tendency", and "Monologue under Tradition" in Wenxing magazine, saying that the KMT was "hanging sheep's head, selling dog meat, and the dog meat is also sold as mutton for others to eat, and they themselves eat the American aid"; those who are full of "four dimensions and eight virtues", and those who speak of Confucius, Mencius and Zhu Zi, in fact, don't really believe in Chinese culture, and all of them are materialistic admirers of the foreign countries and panderers to foreign countries. They are all hypocrites. The "government" shouts every day that it will select the best people, but "there is no reasonable voting law"; it advocates that "you don't have to hide it in your own pocket", but "there are more crooked merchants hoarding money than anyone else". ". He even said, "You are old, you have fought this battle, won and lost, and you have left this battle behind", and asked, "Don't trip over the big lords, get out of the way", openly challenging the ruling authority of the Kuomintang, and asking the Kuomintang to step down. Li Ao also criticized some KMT dignitaries and celebrities by name, including Zhang Qiyun, Chen Lifu, Tao Xisheng, Hu Qiuyuan, Ren Zhuoyi, Zheng Xuejia, Qian Mu, Mou Zongsan, etc., which caused a great shock in Taiwan society.

In response to Li Ao's fierce criticism, Hu Qiuyuan, Ren Zhuojia, Zheng Xuejia, and other named individuals, conscious of their reputation and personality, were greatly humiliated, so they also wrote articles and counterattacked in the Wenxing magazine, which resulted in a lively polemic. Among them, the one between Li Ao and Hu Qiuyuan was the most intense. After Wenxing ended in the 1960s, Xiao Mengneng switched to real estate. Back then, Xiao Mengneng, Zhu Wanjian and Li Ao were known as the "Iron Triangle of Wenxing". In July 2001, Xiao Mengneng went to Shanghai. on July 23, 2004, Xiao Mengneng died of heart and lung failure in Shanghai.

Xiao Mengneng was a member of the KMT's princeling party. His father, Xiao Tongzhi, was the president of the KMT's Central News Agency from 1932, and was known as "Xiao Sanzhi" (萧三爷).