Gu Weijun in his later years
Gu Weijun's children played in the embassy when they were young.
In his later years, Gu Weijun settled in New York, and his life was leisurely and comfortable.
At that time, Gu Weijun's wife had to arrange a table of cards for her husband almost every week. It is said that Gu Weijun playing mahjong is also called quick thinking, but when someone asks him how his cards are, he always replies: "Nineteen must lose." It's not that my skills are inferior to people, it's because there are many tricks, and sometimes my energy can't take into account the overall situation, so card luck is not very kind to me. However, Dr. Gu, who is still a solid family, does not care about winning or losing. On the contrary, in their later years, the Gu couple liked to entertain guests, and the family often had large banquets and small banquets, and the high friends were full of seats. Of course, Gu Weijun can live such a comfortable life in his old age, first of all, he must have a strong economic backing, and he only saved up this family foundation in his ancient years, and it is said that he must rely on the high salary during the ten-year term of the International Tribunal in The Hague.
Just like Zhang Xueliang, who also settled in the United States in his later years, perhaps the reason why Gu Weijun was slow to be invited to visit the mainland was because of his special considerations or concerns. However, despite this, for his hometown of Jiading, Gu Weijun in his later years was particularly concerned. It is said that whenever he meets anyone from Shanghai, he will ask if he has been to Jiading, and he is always worried about eating the collapsed vegetables and Luohan dishes in his hometown. In 1983, when her daughter Gu Juzhen returned to China for sightseeing, Gu Weijun repeatedly told her to visit her hometown and bring back to the country the inkblots of the Ming Dynasty "Jiading Fourth Mr." and the national righteous soldiers Hou Zhizeng and Huang Chunyao, whom she had treasured for many years. After Gu Juzhen returned to China, she made a special trip to Jiading to inspect two old sites of the Gu Family Ancestral Hall, and also took many photos to take back to her father as a souvenir. When he learned about the great changes in his hometown, Gu Weijun was very excited. In 1984, he also wrote Du Fu's poem "Lu from tonight is white, the moon is the hometown of Ming", which was given to the Jiading County Museum for collection.
In his later years, Gu Weijun also left a memoir for posterity. Like many "super big names" in the political arena of the Republic of China, such as Chiang Kai-shek, Li Zongren, Zhang Xueliang and others, Gu Weijun also recorded his life's experience dictated in his later years. In addition, he has maintained the habit of keeping a diary since he held public office, recording everything he did every day in English, and in addition to the fact that he has kept a large number of first-hand accounts during his diplomatic career, important diplomatic documents have been kept in copies, and after talking with foreign political dignitaries, he has also printed out drafts for archiving, all of which were later stored in a special room at Columbia University. In 1967, after Gu Weijun retired from the International Court of Justice, the famous American publishing houses MacMillan Company, Columbia University Press and Douberday Press came to him and asked him to write a memoir and allow him a generous remuneration, but he refused. But before that, Gu Weijun had already started an oral history project at the invitation of his alma mater. Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Tang Degang of Columbia University and others, Gu Weijun's oral recording lasted for 17 years, and it was not completed until 1976, and his English typing script reached more than 10,000 pages! Looking at the world, only Churchill's Memoirs of the Second World War can match it. At the ceremony of donating the original English manuscript of the memoir to his alma mater, Columbia University, Gu Weijun proudly laughed and said: "My only regret is that my autobiography is too long - about eleven thousand pages!" But I have an excuse, if that excuse is somewhat plausible, that I served in office too early, more than half a century, from 1912 to 1966. ”
Due to the large scale, the United States only recorded Gu Weijun's memories into microfilm, but the publication plan could not be realized. Of course, Gu Weijun himself still hopes to translate his memoirs into Chinese, in his opinion: "Because I have worked all my life in China's foreign relations, if my memoirs can be translated into Chinese, I will be very happy and grateful." This translation is indeed a daunting task, but I hope it will be useful to scholars of diplomatic history in those turbulent times. In 1982, the Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, with the consent of Gu Weijun, decided to translate it into a Chinese based on the micro-volume of the Memoirs, which was published by the Zhonghua Book Company, and by June 1994, all 13 volumes of the book had been published and distributed. Regarding this matter, Tang Degang, one of the main contributors to Gu Weijun's memoirs, also complained: "In 1972, Sino-US relations were normalized and diplomatic activities were increasing. Around 1979, a group of Chinese scholars visited the United States and had dinner with Gu Weijun with Chinese diplomats in the United States. During the banquet, Gu Weijun said that he had a memoir in English, and several scholars of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said, Can we use it to return to China and translate it and publish it? Gu Weijun agreed to come down. Subsequently, the 91-year-old Gu Weijun handed them the manuscript of the memoir, and Columbia University did not know about it. At that time, the purpose of writing "Gu Weijun's Memoirs" was to preserve historical materials, not to publish books, so the memoirs were written in the form of microfilm in English and were specially used for scholars to conduct research. Besides, his book is too big, who can afford it? It is said that many people have been organized in China to translate this manuscript, and several volumes have been published, but regarding the bumpy process of the manuscript into a book and the situation of our writers, the country does not know anything, and we have all become 'unsung heroes'. ”
At 11:00 p.m. on November 14, 1985, Gu Weijun was showering fang bi before going to bed at home, and when he was trying to get dressed, he suddenly fainted and died at the age of 98 (false age). A few hours ago, he had just finished his diary for the last day of his life: "It was a day of peace. For the death of Gu Weijun, the New York Times, the Washington Post and Chinese newspapers all expressed their condolences, and his alma mater, Columbia University, set up a Gu Scholarship to express his remembrance. On November 21, Gu Weijun's memorial service was held at Campbell Funeral Home in New York, and more than 300 Chinese and foreign guests attended the memorial service. Chiang Ching-kuo, Song Meiling, and others sent wreaths. On the afternoon of the 18th, China's Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Consul General in New York went to the Canber Funeral Home on McSon Avenue to offer condolences, and Chinese Ambassador to the United States Han Xu and former Ambassador to the United States Zhang Wenjin also sent condolences: "Elder Gu is an outstanding diplomat of our country, with remarkable achievements. Public opinion on the Taiwan side also greatly praised Gu Lao's life's cause, and he made extremely beautiful remarks. It is rare in modern history for the two sides of the Taiwan Strait to have such consistent evaluations of a prominent figure in the political circles of the Republic of China.
After Gu Weijun's death, her widow, Ms. Yan Youyun, donated 155 of her relics to the Shanghai Jiading Museum and donated US$100,000 to fund the establishment of The Gu Weijun Life Showroom. In November 1986, on the first anniversary of Gu Weijun's death, Gu Juzhen and his wife collected more than 80 photos reflecting his diplomatic career in Europe and the United States, and made the "Mr. Gu Weijun Life Exhibition" page, which was exhibited in Beijing, Tianjin, Jiading and other places. In 1998, CCTV edited the Short Film "Gu Weijun" in Both Chinese and English. On January 29, 1999, on the occasion of the 111th anniversary of Gu Weijun's birth, the Gu Weijun Life Museum was officially opened in his hometown of Fahua Pagoda. This year, the movie "My 1919" premiered in Jiading. At this time, in Gu Weijun's hometown, more and more people were finally surprised to find that there was such a modern celebrity in the history of Jiading. (Yang Honglin)