Statue of Lu Xun on the campus of Xiamen University. (ICphoto/Photo)
This autumn, when I was making a group photo of the faculty and staff of Xiamen University in 1926, I noticed that Lu Xun's famous article "Mr. Fujino" created in the Xiamen University period was hidden.
"Mr. Fujino" was written on October 12. During the same period, Lu Xun and Xu Guangping wrote a large number of correspondences, which were later included in the later "Book of Two Places". Unlike published articles, the content in private correspondence tends to be more straightforward. Compared with the two, several grass snake gray lines in "Mr. Fujino" seem to reflect some of Lu Xun's mood during his time at Xiamen University.
Lu Xun presented a photograph of spear dust.
noisy
"Mr. Fujino": But in the evening, there is a floor in [the Chinese Students Association] that often makes a loud noise and a room full of smoke and dust; ask someone who is proficient in current affairs and reply, "That's learning to dance." ”
Book of Two Places, September 20: I really can't imagine how shallow there are in the world. They look beautiful, and the language is tasteless, and they have to play with phonographs at night, what Mei Lanfang and so on.
Lu Xun used to work until late at night, just imagine the "noise" of the phonograph outside the window at this time. This kind of scene is similar to the noise of students learning to dance in the Chinese Student Association hall in the Sendai period, and the floor is "banging and banging to the heavens", and the impression left on Lu Xun is equally bad. Moreover, many of the professors employed by Xiamen University are international students who have returned to China after completing their studies.
maguey
"Mr. Fujino": Fujian wild aloe vera, as soon as you arrive in Beijing, please enter the greenhouse, and call it "agave".
Lu Xun had taken three photos in the middle of the cemetery in Xiamen, and the hill was full of tequila. One he sent to Shanghai and quickly printed it in his new book "Grave", which is said to be the first Lu Xun work (Huang Qiaosheng) to include Lu Xun's photographs. After an inscription, he gave it to his friend Spear Dust (Zhang Tingqian), and both single photos have eye-catching agaves in the foreground. Lu Xun has been interested in plants since childhood, and when he was a translator for botany teachers at the Zhejiang Normal School, he once collected plants and studied specimens.
Lu Xun likes agave, it has strong vitality and can withstand harsh environments. He once said: "Xiamen University is only proud of such a rich treasure (that is, agave) around it." You Minnan people, you are really proud. If this plant in Beijing, relying on the power of the Manchu Qing Emperor, can only see one or two plants in the so-called 'royal garden'. The flower language of agave is "blooming hope, parting pain and giving everything for love." These three meanings are exactly in line with Lu Xun's mood in The Xiamen period, so the mention of agave here is likely to be a metaphor, just as Lu Xun attached importance to the Book of Two Places and specially reprinted it. Lu Xun, a warrior, also has a tender side, and he cherishes this feeling.
mosquito
"Mr. Fujino": The early winter was already quite cold, but there were still many mosquitoes, and later I covered my whole body with a quilt, wrapped my head and face with clothes, and left only two nostrils to vent. In this breathless place, the mosquitoes could not interject, and actually slept peacefully.
Book of Two Lands, September 20: There are not many mosquitoes, probably because I am on three floors.
Xiamen University is located on the southeast coast, with a hot and humid climate. In the early days of the school, the health situation was not good, and Lu Xun once called on his classmates to conduct a three-day health campaign on campus. Lu Xun said that there are few mosquitoes upstairs, which means that there are still mosquitoes downstairs. The Sendai residence is the Sato House on the edge of the Hirose River, perhaps because of the proximity to the river, the fierce mosquitoes in winter have left a deep memory for Lu Xun. In his other articles, he also appeared many times as a pesky blood-sucking animal such as a mosquito.
mess
"Mr. Fujino": Unfortunately, I always have to drink taro soup that is difficult to swallow every day.
Book of Two Places, September 14: The food here is always light and tasteless (the meals on campus are not edible, we have hired a cook, who is paid ten yuan a month, ten yuan per person for meals, but still light and tasteless), so I still have to eat some minced peppers, but I still want to improve.
Book of Two Lands, October 4: But since I bought the fire wine lamp, I have also been a little busy, because whenever there is water to drink, I must boil it once before using it, because I am busy, and boredom seems to be reduced. Soy sauce has been bought, and canned beef is often eaten, so why save money!!! I didn't want to eat the ham, and I was scared when I was in Beijing.
"Book of Two Places" October 12: Since I bought a fire wine lamp, there is no problem with boiling water, but the food is always not good. From the day after tomorrow, it is time to change the cook, but it is probably still the same.
Lu Xun didn't care about eating, but "there was more hot sauce." Because of his poor family at an early age, he only clipped his pants to spend the winter when he was studying, and had to eat peppers to resist the cold, which gradually became a hobby, which damaged his health over time and became a lifelong tiredness. The food in Sendai and Xiamen was also not to his liking.
Missing questions and plagiarism
"Mr. Fujino": Because of the need to hold a meeting at the same level, the officer wrote an advertisement on the blackboard, and the last sentence was "Please do not miss it when you arrive at the meeting", and added a circle next to the word "leak". Although I felt ridiculous at the time, I didn't mind at all, and this time I realized that the word was also mocking me, as if I had a topic leaked by the instructor.
On January 30, 1926, Chen Yuan published a letter to Xu Zhimo in the Morning Post Supplement entitled "Several Letters Drawn from the Gossip of Gossip", arguing that Lu Xun's "Outline of the History of Chinese Novels" copied the novel part of the Japanese scholar Shioya Wen's "Introduction to Chinese Literature", and Lu Xun refuted it with "Not a Letter".
For writers, the most intolerable accusation is "plagiarism". Lu Xun was grumpy about this "crime of wanting to add", whether he missed the topic or was accused of plagiarism, it was a great shame, and the results of these two things were the same, and he "left" after counterattacking.
leave
Mr. Fujino: At the end of the second school year, I went to Mr. Fujino and told him that I would not study medicine and leave Sendai.
"Book of Two Places" October 10th: Now it seems that it is necessary to resign resolutely, and why should people be so bitter that they are self-contemptuous and self-deprecating because of others' plans! Life here is also really boring, and almost none of the teachers in the provinces have made long-term plans, and they are also gone.
"Book of Two Places" October 16: However, the situation in this school is really too bad, Gu Jiegang and his ilk have already occupied a big power in the National College, and Zhou Lan (Zhou Kunsheng) is coming here again to be the head of the law department, and from then on, the color of "Modern Review" will pervade Xiamen University. In Beijing, the Department of Chinese Literature is fighting, but the National Academy here has a large number of Hu Shizhi Chen Yuan and the like, and I think there is no hope. ...... In this way, we individuals are naturally excluded. So I would like to leave Xiamen University at most at the end of this semester. They really have the intention of being here forever, and the situation is worse than Peking University.
On October 10, before writing "Mr. Fujino", Lu Xun decided that in the future, he would "always have to resign resolutely", and on the sixteenth day, it further developed to "at most at the end of this semester, leave Xiamen University". The psychological fluctuations of "leaving" run through the entire creative process of "Mr. Fujino".
Lu Xun satirizes others in his works, not without other examples, such as "Casting Swords" and "Li Shui". And these few places in "Mr. Fujino" seem to have a different meaning. Mr. Fujino is the ideal image of a good teacher in Lu Xun's mind, although clumsy, although frustrated, but sincere. It is probably not a coincidence that Lu Xun wrote this article while he was in Xiamen.
Xu pride