作者：蒋梦麟
出版社：外语教学与研究出版社
格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT
西潮试读：
“博雅双语名家名作”出版说明
1840年鸦片战争以降，在深重的民族危机面前，中华民族精英“放眼看世界”，向世界寻求古老中国走向现代、走向世界的灵丹妙药，涌现出一大批中国主题的经典著述。我们今天阅读这些中文著述的时候，仍然深为字里行间所蕴藏的缜密的考据、深刻的学理、世界的视野和济世的情怀所感动，但往往会忽略：这些著述最初是用英文写就，我们耳熟能详的中文文本是原初英文文本的译本，这些英文作品在海外学术界和文化界同样享有崇高的声誉。
比如，林语堂的My Country and My People（《吾国与吾民》）以幽默风趣的笔调和睿智流畅的语言，将中国人的道德精神、生活情趣和中国社会文化的方方面面娓娓道来，在美国引起巨大反响——林语堂也以其中国主题系列作品赢得世界文坛的尊重，并获得诺贝尔文学奖的提名。再比如，梁思成在抗战的烽火中写就的英文版《图像中国建筑史》文稿（A Pictorial History of Chinese Architecture），经其挚友费慰梅女士（Wilma C. Fairbank）等人多年的奔走和努力，于1984年由麻省理工学院出版社（MIT Press）出版，并获得美国出版联合会颁发的“专业暨学术书籍金奖”。又比如，1939年，费孝通在伦敦政治经济学院的博士论文以Peasant Life in China—A Field Study of Country Life in the Yangtze Valley为名在英国劳特利奇书局（Routledge）出版，后以《江村经济》作为中译本书名——《江村经济》使得靠桑蚕为生的“开弦弓村”获得了世界性的声誉，成为国际社会学界研究中国农村的首选之地。
此外，一些中国主题的经典人文社科作品经海外汉学家和中国学者的如椽译笔，在英语世界也深受读者喜爱。比如，艾恺（Guy S. Alitto）将他1980年用中文访问梁漱溟的《这个世界会好吗——梁漱溟晚年口述》一书译成英文（Has Man a Future? —Dialogues with the Last Confucian），备受海内外读者关注；此类作品还有徐中约英译的梁启超著作《清代学术概论》（Intellectual Trends in the Ch’ing Period）、狄百瑞（W. T. de Bary）英译的黄宗羲著作《明夷待访录》（Waiting for the Dawn: A Plan for the Prince），等等。
有鉴于此，外语教学与研究出版社推出“博雅双语名家名作”系列。
博雅，乃是该系列的出版立意。博雅教育（Liberal Education）早在古希腊时代就得以提倡，旨在培养具有广博知识和优雅气质的人，提高人文素质，培养健康人格，中国儒家六艺“礼、乐、射、御、书、数”亦有此功用。
双语，乃是该系列的出版形式。英汉双语对照的形式，既同时满足了英语学习者和汉语学习者通过阅读中国主题博雅读物提高英语和汉语能力的需求，又以中英双语思维、构架和写作的形式予后世学人以启迪——维特根斯坦有云：“语言的边界，乃是世界的边界”，诚哉斯言。
名家，乃是该系列的作者群体。涵盖文学、史学、哲学、政治学、经济学、考古学、人类学、建筑学等领域，皆海内外名家一时之选。
名作，乃是该系列的入选标准。系列中的各部作品都是经过时间的积淀、市场的检验和读者的鉴别而呈现的经典，正如卡尔维诺对“经典”的定义：经典并非你正在读的书，而是你正在重读的书。
胡适在《新思潮的意义》（1919年12月1日，《新青年》第7卷第1号）一文中提出了“研究问题、输入学理、整理国故、再造文明”的范式。秉着“记载人类文明、沟通世界文化”的出版理念，我们推出“博雅双语名家名作”系列，既希望能够在中国人创作的和以中国为主题的博雅英文文献领域“整理国故”，亦希望在和平发展、改革开放的新时代为“再造文明”、为“向世界说明中国”略尽绵薄之力。外语教学与研究出版社人文社科出版分社
序言
这是一本充满了智慧的书。这里面所包含的晶莹智慧，不只是从学问的研究得来，更是从生活的体验得来。
读这本书好像是泛舟在时间的洪流之中，一重一重世间的层峦叠嶂、激湍奔涛，都在我们民族和个人的生命中经过。而且这段时间乃是历史上一个极不平凡时代的新序幕，举凡人类中各个集团的冲突，乃至东西文化的磨荡，都集中在这风云际会。
时代的转变愈快，被人们忽略的史实愈多。若当时的人不予以记载，则后起的人更无从知道，无从了解。这种忽略和遗忘都是人类很大的损失，因为在不断的历史的过程中间，以往的经验，正是后来的教训。
了解这种意义，才能认识蒋梦麟先生这本书所蕴藏的价值。他生长在这极不平凡时代已经过了七十年了。他从中国学究的私塾到西洋自由的学府，从古老的农村社会到近代的都市文明，从身经满清专制的皇朝到接受革命思想的洗礼，他多年生活在广大的外国人群里面，更不断生活在广大中国人群尤其是知识青年群众里面。他置身于中西文化思想交流的漩涡，同时也看遍了覆雨翻云、沧海桑田的世局。经过了七十华年，正是他智慧结晶的时候，到此时而写他富有哲学内涵和人生风趣的回忆，其所反映的决不是他的一生，而是他一生所经历的时代。《西潮》这本书里面每一片段都含有对于社会和人生的透视。古人所谓“小中见大”正可于此中求之。其将东西文化相提并论之处，尤其可以发人深省。著者好举平凡的故事，间杂以微妙而不伤人的讽刺，真使我们感到一股敦厚淳朴的风味。这种风味在当今是不容易尝到的了。至于其中的妙语妙喻，不断的流露，正像珍珠泉的泉水，有如粒粒的明珠，连串的喷了上来。
这本书最难达到的境界，就是著者讲这个极不平凡时代的事实，而以极平易近人的口吻写出来，这正像孟邻先生做人处世的态度。若不是具备高度文化的修养，真是望尘莫及的。我何敢序孟邻先生的大著，只能引王荆公两句诗以形容他的写作和生平。诗云：“看似平常最奇绝，成如容易却艰难。”罗家伦1959年12月6日
PREFACE
This volume will try to tell the story of what has happened in China during the last hundred years, from the cession of Hongkong in 1842to the blitzkrieg of Pearl Harbor in 1941, with emphasis on the latter half of that period. A century is a long time, but of China's more than four thousand years of history it is but a small fraction, less than one fortieth. Yet the change China has gone through in that brief span is unprecedented in her long life. And now more rapid changes on a still larger scale are about to take place.
Since the first exchange of gunfire at Marco Polo Bridge the attention of the world has been drawn to China. The heroic resistance at Shanghai, Taierchuan, and Changsha has evoked sympathy and admiration in the hearts of millions of China's friends throughout the world. The part China is destined to play in the affairs of nations will be of great interest to the world in the period before us. She has been appraised somewhat too high by her well-wishers and somewhat too low by those who do not know her. In either case the interest is there and the fact remains that she has fought almost singlehanded, for eight long, suffering years, a strong enemy sustained by religious-patriotic fanaticism, superior weapons, and efficient organization.
Neither by her friends nor by her own efforts could China be lifted overnight to the level of modern industrialized democracies; nor could she be exterminated by her enemies in a few years or even a few centuries. In the time ahead of us she will become a focus of attention for the world, since future peace—at least one of the major factors of peace—will depend much on a prosperous and strong China.
How is this great country to be made prosperous and strong? The problem must be solved by herself alone. Effective co-operation of friendly Powers will accelerate her success, but she alone must bear the responsibility of making herself worthy to be a leading partner of peace in the world.
China is a nation neither of angels nor of incompetents; she is a nation of common mortals with feelings, ideas, love and hate, hopes and despair, beauty and ugliness, accomplishments and failings, virtues and vices. It is hoped that the world will not expect from her people more than it does from other ordinary human beings. She has no panacea for all her troubles, nor any magic box by aid of which she can transform herself at will into what she desires to be. Whatever success she has achieved has been paid for with sweat in time of peace and with blood in time of war.
To the question "What is the trouble with China?" the author can only answer that there are a number of troubles waiting for solution in that vast country of teeming millions, more than she will be able to solve in any limited span of time. Some were created by enemies who tried to conquer her, others by herself during the time of metamorphosis; still others have been imposed on her by force of circumstance or as legacies of the past. Some of the more difficult problems have been solved or partially solved during recent years before the war; many others remain to be dealt with in due course of time.
Looking back over the last fifty years which he has personally experienced—over the past hundred years with which he is familiar, and even farther, down the long reaches of China's history which he has been taught—the author has traced to the best of his knowledge the threads of a number of problems, some lying deep in her past, others arising from the rapid changes which caught her unprepared. He has tried to tell, within the limits of discretion, what has happened in China, especially during the last fifty years. For those friends who desire to co-operate with her, with a view to solving some of the difficult problems of a more enduring peace, this moderate volume may be helpful in giving an insight into the life and problems of the Chinese people. For co-operation cannot possibly proceed without mutual understanding. To understand what is actually the background—the mental, emotional, and moral constitution—of the country, is essential for a lasting co-operation.
With the above ideas in mind the author has described ordinary happenings in some detail so as to acquaint the reader in some measure of intimacy with the mental, emotional, and moral make-up of the Chinese people as revealed through their life in peace and war. As small things often reflect major developments in a country, it is hoped that some sense of the meaning of greater events may be gathered from these apparent trifles of daily life.CHIANG MONLIN序《西潮》里所谈的是中国过去一百年间所发生的故事，从一八四二年香港割让起到一九四一年珍珠港事变止，尤其着重后五十年间的事。一个世纪是相当长的一段时间，但是在四千多年的中国历史里，却只是短暂的一个片段，几乎不到四十分之一。不过中国在这段短短的时间内所经历的变迁，在她悠久的生命史上却是空前的，而且更大规模的变化还正在酝酿中。
自从芦沟桥的枪声划破长空，中国的局势已经引起全世界人士的注意。国军在淞沪、台儿庄以及长沙的英勇战绩，已经赢得全球中国友人的同情与钦敬。在未来的岁月中，中国势将在国际舞台上担任众所瞩目的角色。这些年来，爱护中国的人士未免把她估计得太高，不了解中国的人士则又把她估计得太低。无论估计过高或过低，对中国的关切是一致的；而她几乎孤立无援地苦战八年之久，也是无可否认的事实。在这漫长痛苦的八年中，她与具有优越的武器、严密的组织以及宗教的爱国狂热的强敌相周旋，愈战愈奋，始终不屈。
不论是本身的努力，或者友邦的援助，都不能使中国在旦夕之间达到现代工业化民主国家的水准；但是她的敌人也不可能在几年之内，甚至几百年之内，灭亡她。在未来的岁月中，中国将是举世人士注意力的焦点，因为未来的和平与中国之能否臻于富强是息息相关的。
中国怎样才能臻于富强呢？这个问题必须由她自己单独来解决。友邦的密切合作固然可以加速她的成功，但是她必须独立担负起使自己成为世界和平支柱的责任。
中国既不是一个天神般万能的国家，也不是一个低能的毫无作为的国家。她是一群有感情、有思想的凡人结合而成的国家。他们有爱、有恨；有美、有丑；有善、有恶；有成就、有失败；有时充满希望，有时陷于绝望。他们只是一群平平常常的人，世界人士不能对他们有分外的要求和期望。中国没有解决一切困难的万应灵丹，也没有随心所欲脱胎换骨的魔术。如果她已经有所成就的话，那也是平时以汗，战时以血换来的。
如果有人问：“中国的问题究竟在哪里？”作者只能答复：中国正有无数的问题等待四亿五千万人民去解决，而且不是任何短时间内所能解决。有些问题是企图征服她的敌人造成的，有些则是蜕变过程中她本身所制造的；另有一些问题是客观环境引起的，也有一些问题则是历史的包袱，有一些比较困难的问题已经在战前几年内解决，或者局部解决，更有许多问题则尚待分别缓急，逐一解决。
回顾作者身经目睹的过去五十年，以及作者所熟悉的过去一百年，甚至追溯到作者所研习过的中国的悠久历史，作者已经就其所知探求出若干问题的线索，有些问题深深植根于过去，有些则由急剧的变化所引起。作者已经力求平直客观地陈述中国过去所发生的变迁，尤其是过去五十年内所发生的事情。对于愿意与中国合作，共同解决妨碍持久和平的若干问题的国际友人，本书或可提供一点资料，帮助他们了解中国人民的生活与问题。合作是勉强不来的，必须彼此相互了解，然后才能合作。欲谋持久的合作，必须先对一国的真实背景有所了解，包括心理、情感，以及道德等各方面。
因此，作者对于日常琐事也往往不厌其详地加以描写，希望藉此使读者对中国人民在战时与平时所反映的心理、情感和道德等，能有比较亲切的认识，日常琐事往往可以反映一个国家的重大变 迁，希望读者多少能从作者所记述的身边琐事中，发现重大史实的意义。蒋梦麟1943年于重庆
PROLOGUE: FRONTIER CITY
During a world upheaval with bombs dropping from the sky and bursting all around, one is apt to wonder what caused these terrible things to happen.
What has happened in the world in the last decade is not something that merely dropped from the sky. Events have their causes. In the last years of the war, as I cast my mental view beyond the horizons of Kunming, where most of this volume was written, I saw how one event had led to another, with consequent social and political changes. Musing over the past in that scenic city on the BurmaRoad overlooking tranquil, historic Kunming Lake, with bomb-shattered houses standing around me like the remnants of Pompeii, the scenes of what had happened during my lifetime unfolded themselves like a dream clearly and vividly before me; and I set pen to paper to put down what I had seen with my own eyes during the last half century of rapid change in the life of my country.
As I began to write we were in the midst of heavy munitions traffic coming in by truck from Burma. The fighting planes of the American Volunteer Group known as the "Flying Tigers" droned over our heads. War profiteers and truck drivers roamed the streets by hundreds and thousands with their pockets full of bank notes, while the price of commodities soared sky-high.
A British friend remarked to a professor of our university that we ought to have controlled prices at the beginning of the war. "Well," said the professor with a tinge of humor, "we will know better in the next war." He went on to remark that if he had had the capital he might have followed the example of the Greek philosopher who cornered olives in ancient Greece in anticipation of a poor olive crop. When the crop failed, he was rich. But the professor had no capital and too little of that sort of foresight, and in addition, too much of patriotism in his way.
After Pearl Harbor came waves of bad news of the Allies. Hongkong, the Malay States, and Singapore fell one after the other. The enemy headed for Burma. China rushed troops there; they retreated, after a stubborn resistance, through the mountains and swamps of Upper Burma, living on banana roots. They were greatly annoyed by the leeches that dropped on their heads from trees, suckers that hooked onto you and drank your blood. If you tried to tear one off, it carried away in its mouth a piece of your flesh. The best way of getting rid of these nasty parasites was to rub salt on them, but salt there was none. The next best way, in the circumstances, was to slap at them until they gave you up.
Chinese nationals in Burma left by tens of thousands, and made their way back to China by the Burma Road. Enemy planes bombed and machine-gunned them. Three thousand people, men and women, young and old, died on the way. A torrent of refugees flowed along the road into Kunming. Streets were crowded with thousands of distressed people and public buildings were set aside for their temporary lodging. After two or three months they gradually melted into the neighboring provinces; many went back to their native provinces of Fukien and Kwangtung.
The Burma Road, built in eight months by the hands of some eighty thousand farmers, men, women, and children, was now cut at the other end and rendered useless. Kunming, once on the high-way of international traffic, was now an isolated city, and only by air could one travel to India. The Yunnan-Burma Railway, under construction by 250,000 men, was to be finished within twelve months; it was partially built, then suspended. China was cut off from the world, with the enemy on three sides and only the faintest trickle of supplies remaining. In this isolation she held out, fighting for her national existence every inch of the way, until the end of the war.
Let us forget recent history for the moment and look back to the past to see what we can learn from it.
前言：边城昆明
炸弹像冰雹一样从天空掉下，在我们周围爆炸，处身在这样的一次世界大动乱中，我们不禁要问：这些可怕的事情究竟为什么会发生呢？
过去几十年内世界上所发生的事情自然不是从天上掉下来的。任何事情有它的起因。本书的大部分是二次大战将结束时在昆明写的，当我们暂时忘掉现实环境而陷入沉思时，我常常发现一件事情如何导致另一件事情，以及相伴而生的政治、社会变化。昆明是滇缅公路的终点，俯瞰着平静的昆明湖，城中到处是敌机轰炸后的断垣残壁，很像庞贝古城的遗迹。我在这边城里冥想过去的一切，生平所经历的事情像梦境一样一幕一幕地展现在眼前；于是我捡出纸笔，记下了过去半世纪中我亲眼目睹的祖国生活中的急剧变化。
当我开始写《西潮》的故事时，载运军火的卡车正从缅甸源源驶抵昆明，以“飞虎队”闻名于世的美国志愿航空队战斗机在我们头上轧轧掠过。发国难财的商人和以“带黄鱼”起家的卡车司机徜徉街头，口袋里装满了钞票。物价则一日三跳，有如脱缰的野马。
一位英国朋友对西南联大的一位教授说，我们应该在战事初起就好好控制物价。这位教授带点幽默地回答说：“是呀！等下一次战争时，我们大概就不会这样笨了。”这位教授说：如果他有资本，他或许早已学一位古希腊哲学家的榜样了。据说那位希腊哲学家预料橄榄将欠收而囤积了一大批橄榄。后来橄榄果然收成不好，这位哲学家也就发了大财。可惜我们的教授没有资本，也没有那种未卜先知的本领，而且他的爱国心也不容许他干损人利己的勾当。
珍珠港事变以后，同盟国家节节失利。香港、马来联邦和新加坡相继陷落，敌军继续向缅甸推进。中国赶派军队驰援印缅战区，经激战后撤至缅北的丛林泽地，有时还不得不靠香蕉树根充饥。尤其使他们寝食难安的是从树上落到他们身上的水蛭，这些吸血鬼钻到你的皮下，不动声色地吸走了你的血液。你如果想用力把它拉出来，它就老实不客气连肉带血衔走一口。对付这些吸血鬼最好的办法是在它们身上擦盐，但是在丛林里却又找不到盐。在这种环境下，唯一的办法是用手死劲去拍，拍得它们放口为止。
成千成万的缅甸华侨沿着滇缅公路撤退回中国。敌机沿途轰炸他们，用机枪扫射他们，三千妇孺老幼就这样惨死在途中。难民像潮水一样沿滇缅公路涌入昆明。街头拥满了家破人亡的苦难人民，许多公共建筑被指定为临时收容所。经过两三个月以后，他们才逐渐疏散到邻近省份；许多人则直接回到福建和广东老家。
八万左右农民以及男女老幼胼手胝足建筑成功的滇缅公路现在已经因另一端被切断而告瘫痪。一度曾为国际交通孔道的昆明现在也成为孤城，旅客只有坐飞机才能去印度。二十五万人加工赶筑的滇缅铁路，原来预定十二个月内完成，但是部分筑成以后也因战局逆转而中止了。中国已与世界各地隔绝，敌人从三方包围着她，只有涓涓滴滴的外来补给靠越过世界驼峰的空运在维持。中国就在这种孤立无援的窘境中坚持到底，寸土必争，直到战事结束为止。
我们且把近代历史暂时搁在一边，让我们回顾一下过去，看看能否从历史中找出一点教训。（原载《传记文学》第十七卷第六期）
PART ONE IN AN OLD EMPIRE 第一部 满清末年
CHAPTER 1 HOW EAST AND WEST MET
Centuries ago certain wise men from the East, following a star, traveled to the land where a religion was born destined in centuries to come to play a great part in the life of Western nations. A religion based upon meekness was adopted in the course of time by these peoples of extreme vigor. This religion of meekness, which teaches "whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also," won its way through the West slowly but persistently by braving Roman lions and enduring hardships, suffering, and persecution. A few centuries later it began to trickle into China with the same meekness.
The Nestorians came to China during the Tang Dynasty (618-905 A.D.), and the Tang emperors built churches for them. But they did not find China a fertile soil for their religion. Another few centuries passed; the Jesuits found their way into the court of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1643 A.D.). They brought with them Western astronomy, which caught the fancy of the Ming emperors.
The Western peoples, meanwhile, with vigorous blood in their veins, not only absorbed the new religion but also created science and made inventions which led to an industrial revolution in recent centuries. As a result they amassed an immense amount of capital, which had to find an outlet in other countries not as yet industrialized. It flowed to the East, first in a trickle, then in torrents, and finally in tides which flooded the Orient and almost swept China off her feet.
China had no trouble with Christianity, nor with any other religion. Only when it was coupled with commercialism supported by gunboats in the middle of the nineteenth century was the religion of meekness seen through Chinese eyes as that of an aggressor. For a religion seen arm in arm with force changes its color, and the Chinese were unable to dissociate the two. This naturally gave rise to the impression that while Buddha came to China on white elephants, Christ was borne on cannon balls.
Since we were knocked out by cannon balls, naturally we became interested in them, thinking that by learning to make them we could strike back. We could forget for the time being in whose name they had come, since for us common mortals to save our lives was more important than to save our souls.
But history seems to move through very curious ways. From studying cannon balls we came to mechanical inventions, which in turn led us to political reforms; from political reforms we began to see political theories, which led us again to the philosophies of the West. On the other hand, through mechanical inventions we saw science, from which we came to understand scientific method and the scientific mind. Step by step we were led farther and farther away from the cannon ball—yet we came nearer and nearer to it.
The story is a long one, but it all happened in the short span of a hundred years, the dramatic part of it in not more than half a century. I say a hundred years because in 1942 Hongkong was to celebrate its centenary as a British possession,and it was a coincidence that Japan, Britain's former ally, had snatched it from British hands in the previous year by lightning attack. I mention Hongkong without the least intention of rubbing an old sore, only because it will serve as a convenient landmark for the earlier part of China's westernization. As everyone will remember, this group of hilly islands—situated in the south sea not far from Canton, and nests for pirates a century ago—was ceded to Britain in 1842 at China's defeat in the so-called "Opium War." What actually happened was that China, having forbidden the importation of opium, Britain's principal export from India to that country, burned British opium at Canton. Britain retaliated with cannon balls and China lost the war.
Torrents of Western manufactures began to pour in through the subsequent opening, also stipulated under the treaty, of five coastal cities as commercial ports. These cities lay scattered at fairly regular intervals along the coast of the prosperous southern half of the country. Thus new frontiers were formed; China's frontiers had lain hitherto solely inland, to the north and northwest. This change in China's map was the turning point in her history.
These five seaports—Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo, and Shanghai—running from south to north in a chain, served as depots for Western manufactured goods which flowed thence into the richest and most populous parts of the country, the Pearl and Yangtze Valleys. Supported by gunboats the Western merchants squatted like octopuses in the ports, sending their tentacles into the interior of the rich provinces. China, an enormous country larger than the United States, was herself unaware of the penetration and blind to what was bound to happen later on. The life of her millions went its leisurely and contented way from the cradle to the grave without making the least effort toward modernization, while a section of the people began casually to pick up foreign manufactures, whether for use, for pleasure, or out of curiosity.
The gunboat policy of the Western Powers, however, carried with it not only manufactured goods and opium but also the healthy seeds of Western science and culture, which we did not see at the time but which were to germinate years later to the benefit of China—one of the ironies of history.
Meanwhile the westernization of Japan went on by leaps and bounds. Again, China was unaware of it. Half a century later, by 1894, the little Island Empire suddenly loomed large over the horizon of the China Sea, sprang a surprise attack upon the sleeping giant, and bit off a mouthful. The next to go after Hongkong was Formosa, an island province near the east coast hundreds of times larger than Hongkong. China now began to feel the pinch and rub her eyes in wonder. What was it that was disturbing her sweet dreams?
My original plan was just to write out what I know and feel about my own country. As I have let these mental pictures run their course, one after another, they have developed into a volume something like autobiography, something like reminiscences or contemporary history. Whatever it may be, it is all from the indelible images that unrolled in my mind as clearly and vividly as if they had been printed there only yesterday. In the rapid march of events I felt myself a tiny cog on the vast whirling wheel.
壹 西风东渐
差不多两千年以前，几位东方的智者，循着天空一颗巨星的指示，追寻到一个新宗教的诞生地。这个宗教便是基督教。基督教后来在西方国家的生活中占着极其重要的地位。基督教以和平仁爱为宗旨，要求教徒们遇到“有人掌掴你的右颊时，你就把左颊也凑过去”。基督教的教徒经过不断的磨难和挫折，不顾罗马猛狮的威胁和异教徒的摧残迫害，逆来顺受，终于在罗马帝国各民族之间传播开来了。几百年之后，它以同样坚忍的精神慢慢地流传到中国。
景教徒在唐朝（公元六一八——九○五）时来到中国，唐室君主曾为他们建造了景教寺，但是景教徒的传教成绩却很有限，再过了几百年，在十七世纪中叶，耶稣会教士带着西方的天文学来到中国，终于得到明朝（公元一三六八——一六四三）皇帝的垂青。
在这同时，活力旺盛的西方民族，不但接受了新兴的基督教，而且发展了科学，完成了许许多多的发明，为近代的工业革命奠立了基础。科学和发明渐渐流传到东方，先是涓涓滴滴地流注，接着汇为川流江涛，最后成为排山倒海的狂潮巨浪，泛滥整个东方，而且几乎把中国冲塌了。
中国人与基督教或任何其他宗教一向没有什么纠纷，不过到了十九世纪中叶，基督教与以兵舰做靠山的商业行为结了伙，因而在中国人的心目中，这个宣扬爱人如己的宗教也就成为侵略者的工具了。人们发现一种宗教与武力形影不离时，对这种宗教的印象自然就不同了。而且中国人也实在无法不把基督教和武力胁迫相提并论。慢慢地人们产生了一种印象，认为如来佛是骑着白象到中国的，耶稣基督却是骑在炮弹上飞过来的。
我们吃过炮弹的苦头，因而也就对炮弹发生兴趣。一旦我们学会制造炮弹，报仇雪耻的机会就来了。我们可以暂时不管这些炮弹是怎么来，因为对我们这些凡夫俗子而言，保全性命究竟比拯救灵魂来得重要。
历史的发展真是离奇莫测。我们从研究炮弹而研究到机械发明；机械发明而导致政治改革；由于政治改革的需要，我们开始研究政治理论；政治理论又使我们再度接触西方的哲学。在另一方面，我们从机械发明而发现科学，由科学进而了解科学方法和科学思想。一步一步地我们离炮弹越来越远了，但是从另一角度来看，也可以说离炮弹越来越近了。
故事说来很长，但是都是在短短一百年之内发生的，而且紧张热烈的部分还不过五十年的样子。我说一百年，因为香港本来可以在一九四二年“庆祝”香港成为“英国领土”的一百周年纪念，但是这也是历史上偶然的一件事，英国的旧盟邦日本却在前一年以闪击方式把香港抢走了。我提到香港，决不是有意挖旧疮疤，而是因为香港在中国欧化的早期历史上，恰恰是现成的纪念碑。大家都知道，香港这群小岛是中国在所谓“鸦片战争”中失败以后在一八四二年割让给英国的。这次战争的起因是中国继禁止鸦片进口之后，又在广州焚毁大批鸦片。鸦片是英国由印度输出的主要货物，于是英国就以炮弹回敬中国，中国被击败了。
一八四二年的中英条约同时规定中国的五个沿海城市开放为商埠。这就是所谓“五口通商”。大批西方商品随着潮涌而至。这五个商埠以差不多相似的距离散布在比较繁盛的中国南半部，为中国造成了与外来势力接触的新边疆。过去中国只有北方和西北那样的内陆边疆，现在中国的地图起了变化，这转变正是中国历史的转折点。
这五个商埠——广州、厦门、福州、宁波和上海——由南向北互相衔接，成为西方货品的集散地，舶来品由这五个口岸转销中国最富的珠江流域和长江流域各地。
西方商人在兵舰支持之下像章鱼一样盘踞着这些口岸，同时把触须伸展到内地的富庶省份。中国本身对于这些渗透并不自觉，对于必然产生的后果更茫无所知。亿万人民依旧悠然自得地过着日子，像过去一样过他们从摇篮到坟墓的生活，从没有想到在现代化的工作上下工夫。一部分人则毫不经心地开始采用外国货，有的是为了实用，有的为了享受，另一些人则纯然为了好奇。
但是，西方列强的兵舰政策不但带来了货品和鸦片，同时也带来了西方科学文化的种子。这在当时是看不出来的，但是后来这些种子终于发芽滋长，使中国厚蒙其利——这也是历史上的一大讽刺。
这时候，日本也正以一日千里之势向欧化的途程迈进，中国对此却毫无所觉。半世纪以后，这个蕞尔岛国突然在东海里摇身一变，形成了一个硕大的怪物，并且在一八九四年出其不意地咬了东亚睡狮一大口。中国继香港之后又丢了台湾。这只东亚睡狮这时可真有点感到疼痛了，茫茫然揉着惺忪的睡眼，不知道究竟是什么扰了它的清梦？
我原先的计划只是想写下我对祖国的所见所感，但是当我让这些心目中的景象一一展布在纸上时，我所写下的可就有点像自传，有点像回忆录，也有点像近代史。不管它像什么，它记录了我心目中不可磨灭的景象，这些景象历历如绘地浮现在我的脑际，一如隔昨才发生的经历。在急遽递嬗的历史中，我自觉只是时代巨轮上一颗小轮齿而已。
CHAPTER 2 VILLAGE LIFE
I came into the world as the youngest of five children, four boys and a girl, in a well-to-do family in a small village. The night before I was born my father dreamed of a bear coming to our house, the sign of a male baby. The next day the good omen came true: the spirits of our forefathers in heaven presented another son to the family.
Before my eldest brother was born, Father had dreamed of receiving a bouquet of orchids. So the child was named Orchid. My second brother was named Peach for the same reason. Naturally I was called Bear. As for my sister and third brother, Father had no dreams. My name was afterward changed from Bear to Unicorn when I registered at Chekiang College, because of events in the schools.
I was born a war baby, for the year in which I came into the world saw Britain cut off Burma from Chinese control; and the Sino-French War had just ended the previous year, by which China lost her suzerainty over Indo-Chinato France. The peeling of dependencies off China was a prelude to further invasion by foreign Powers. For China kept dependencies to serve as buffer states, not for exploitation. She never interfered with their internal administration.
When the peel was gone, germs began to make inroads into the orange. However, people in China were not aware of it. These wars on the southwest frontiers were far away and mere ripples on her vast ocean. The villagers were the least concerned—in their profound isolation they gave less attention to such news than they would to ghost stories. Yet China drew a part of her defense forces from among just such villages, not interested in war.
When I came to know the little world around me I noticed that people spoke more realistically of the Taiping Rebellion, which had destroyed a part of the village some thirty years before. The chief of the elders of the Chiang clan, a carpenter by trade, had once joined the rebels. He told us many stories of pillage and atrocities committed by the Taipings,of which he himself had been guilty. To listen to these horrors often made a chill run all over my body. Yet of the international wars of recent years people talked only casually, utterly unconcerned. There were fabulous stories of victory—simply amusing, in a sense tragic, as one thinks of them in after years. For the fact was that while Chinese troops made a good showing in some engagements, the conclusion was complete defeat.
The spearhead of modern invention had not yet penetrated to the villages and they lay there, secret, primitive, and calm, as our ancestors had founded them some five hundred years before. Yet the people were not idle. The farmers had to plow, sow, and reap; the fishermen to cast their nets in the canals; the women to spin, weave, sew; the traders to buy and sell; the craftsmen to make their beautiful articles; the scholars to read aloud, memorize the Confucian classics, and take civil examinations.
There were hundreds of thousands of such villages in China, varying only in size and mode of life according to topographical and climatic differences. The traditions, family ties, and trades which held them together were more or less the same. A common written language, common ideals of life, a common culture and system of civil examinations bound the whole country into a single nation known as the Chinese Empire.
Together with the large cities and centers of trade, these hundreds of thousands of villages in China kept the country supplied with food, goods, scholars, soldiers, and the rank and file of officials of the government. So long as they remained untouched by modernization, China would remain the same; if she could have built fences round the treaty ports they might have remained the same for centuries to come. But the tide of westernization refused to be contained within the treaty ports. It made itself felt in the immediate surroundings, extending gradually along waterways and highways. Villages and towns near the five invaded cities or along communication lines were the first to succumb. Like transplanted trees feeding on China's rich soil, branching off and multiplying fast, the modern influence extended in the course of some fifty years far into the interior.
The village of the Chiangs was one among many spread—with intervening spaces of one or two miles of luxuriant rice fields—over the alluvial plain formed by the Chien-tang River. This is well known for its scenery, both in the upper part and in the lower section near the mouth where the famous bores of Chien-tang make their impressive seasonal sweep in from the sea. The high, abrupt front of the tidal bore is of a grandeur to over-shadow Niagara Falls. Down the valley, through the centuries, the river slowly laid its rich earth, building its shores farther and farther into Hangchow Bay. On the newly formed shores people erected temporary enclosures to hold the brine from which common salt is made. A large quantity of salt was produced every year, supplying the needs of many millions.
After a number of years, as the shores were further extended, the salt would begin to exhaust itself and dikes would be built along the drying land at some distance from the water. The embanked land was now ready for pasturing. After a long period it was capable of growing cotton to feed the domestic looms, or mulberry trees to nourish silkworms. It was probably still another half century before it could be turned into rice fields. For plenty of water is needed for growing rice, and it takes time to build reservoirs and a network of canals for irrigation. And the land takes time to mature.
The village of the Chiangs, by the time I came to it, was situated about twenty miles from Hangchow Bay. Around it were endless chains of villages, large and small, running in all directions—southward to the mountains, northward to the sea, and east and west to towns and cities all connected by miles of footways or canals. The genealogy of the Chiangs tells us that our first ancestors immigrated to the Yuyao district from Hueichow, a mountainous region where the famous river finds its source. They came presumably to reclaim the then newly formed land. In my own time an ancient embankment was still visible in front of our clan temple, the Temple of the Four No's, popularly known as the "Temple Facing the Embankment."
Perhaps the reader would like to know what is meant by the "Four No's." They mean to see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, do no evil. The sets of three monkeys with hands covering their eyes, ears, and mouth, respectively, that one finds in Oriental bazaars exemplify them—the fourth being left out for obvious reasons. These moral precepts came from the Confucian classics. Moral ideas were driven into the people by every possible means—temples, theatres, homes, toys, proverbs, schools, history, and stories—until they became habits in daily life. This was one of the ways by which China attained social stability: governing the life of the people by moral bonds.
During the long centuries of history the population of China had expanded from its northern beginnings to the south, first to the Yangtze Valley, then to the Pearl River Valley, and finally to the mountainous regions of the southwest. The fertile soil of the south and the devastation caused by flood from the incorrigible Yellow River, as well as by invasions of warlike tribes from outside the Great Wall, together with the natural expansion of the race, all contributed to cause repeated southward movements of the Chinese people. It was following in the wake of such a movement that my ancestors came to stay here on the shores of Hang-chow Bay.
Our family tree owes its existence to a sprout of a royal family planted in consequence of a feud somewhere in the lower Yellow River Valley some three thousand years ago. That tract of land was called "Chiang," the ancient name for a species of aquatic grass (Hydropyrum Latifolium). The modern name of this plant is Chiao-pei; used as a vegetable it tastes somewhat like bamboo shoots. The country was probably so called because of the luxuriant growth of the plant in those regions. My first ancestor in the Chiang line was made the first feudal lord to rule over that land toward the end of the twelfth century B.C. He was Pei-ling, third son of Prince Regent Chow-kung of the Chow Dynasty, and his descendants took Chiang as their family name.
In the third century A.D., during the period of the Three Kingdoms, one of our ancestors appears in history. His name was Chiang Wen and he lived in the Yangtze Valley. This shows that the Chiangs living south of the Yangtze had already migrated from the Yellow River region by the third century. From our first ancestor down to the present day all the names in the direct line have been recorded in our genealogy. How authentic they are I cannot tell, for their lives were so obscure that verification is not easy, but this much we can say: all the Chiangs settled in the areas south of the Yangtze are of the same origin. How far we can trace back accurately to this origin we don't know, but it is certain that all the Chiangs living in the province of Chekiang find their common ancestral tree in Hueichow.
I am of the seventeenth generation in the ancestral line. The first settlement of our village by the Chiangs, more than five hundred years ago, came toward the end of the Yuan or Mongol Dynasty. During these five centuries, under two foreign dynastiesand one Chinese, the Chiangs saw the fall of the Mongols, the rise and fall of the Mings and the Manchus, and the Taiping Rebellion which almost overthrew the latter. During these changes they lived, worked, and retired to their graves in the same manner and in the same village. Dynasties came and went, but the village of the Chiangs remained the same.
During the Taiping Rebellion a few houses were burned by the rebels. The people ran into the mountains, but as soon as peace was restored they all came home like bees to the hive. In my childhood some of the ruins still stood to tell the story of the war.
When the Ming Dynasty fell at the hands of the Manchus, I was told by the villagers, people were not aware of it until the edicts of the new regime reached the villages. There was a play going on in one of the near-by village theatres when they were informed that they lived under a new dynasty. Perhaps the only forcible change in the life of my clansmen was the edict ordering the people to wear a queue and forbidding the male population to dress in the Ming style. Resentment was so great that men wore the Ming costume, to their graves; it was a common saying of our clan that "men surrendered but women did not; the living did, but the dead did not." The practice persisted in some cases until the downfall of the Manchu Dynastyin 1911, when the Republic was established—a period of two centuries and a half.
Our village consisted of only some sixty households, with a population of about three hundred. It was one of the smallest among many villages, surrounded by a canal on three sides. On the south side a footway paved with granite slabs ran along it, leading across bridges to neighboring villages and towns. The canal was but part of a network connecting with large rivers which in turn led to such far-flung cities as Hangchow, Soochow, and Shanghai.
Although the village was small, it commanded easy communication by both land and water. Bridges spanned the canals and weeping willows grew luxuriantly on the banks. Fish, shrimps, eels, and turtles were abundant. Here and there one would find anglers taking their ease in the shade of the willows. Oxen could be seen walking in leisurely fashion round the water wheels to propel the chain of paddles which brought fresh water through a long trough to the fields. Miles of wheat fields in the spring and rice fields in summer gave one the feeling of living in a land of perpetual verdure. Swallows shuttled back and forth in the blue sky above a sea of rippling green, while eagles floated high above, circling around the village in search of little chicks.
Such was the background of my childhood and the environment of my clansmen. They lived there for more than five centuries with little change in life. Nature was kind to them. The land was fertile. Floods and droughts were not frequent. Rebellions or wars in the country at large did not disturb them more than once or twice during those long centuries; they lived in peace and contentment in a world by themselves, with little distinction between the very rich and the very poor. Sufficient rice, cotton, silk, fish, meat, bamboo shoots, and vegetables kept the people warm and well fed.
Morals, beliefs, and customs remained unchanged in Chinese villages through centuries of dynastic changes, in peace or war. For the villagers the world was good enough and no improvement was needed. Life alone was unstable, but consolation could be found in the transmigration of the soul. At death the soul was said to leave the body and enter that of a baby then being born. Indeed, in my own time I have seen convicts on the way to execution who shouted to the spectators that after eighteen years they would be young men again. What a consolation!
Our villagers said that a bad or sinful man's soul would be degraded to become a poor man, a horse, or a pig, or even split into minute parts to be insects or worms, according to the degrees of sins he had committed. The soul of a good or virtuous man would be promoted to a higher station in the next life.
What was sinful or virtuous had of course its accepted standards. The highest of all virtues was filial piety; the greatest of all sins was adultery. Filial piety kept the Chinese family intact and chastity kept the Chinese race pure. Respect for the elders, faithfulness to friends, loyalty to the sovereign, honesty in word and deed; kindliness and sympathy to the poor, the infirm or sick, all were regarded as virtuous behavior. Usury, treachery, lying, cheating, and the like were among sinful acts. Denunciation of a person whose conduct one disapproved often took the form of telling him that he would become a dog or a pig in his next life.
In business dealings verbal promises were as good as gold. On the whole, people were honest and trustworthy. Any person found to cheat would be surely tabooed by the whole community.
Marriages were not the business of the parties concerned; the parents of both parties made the match. As a rule, men married at twenty and women at eighteen. The men usually remarried if their wives died, while women of well-to-do families generally remained widows if they survived their husbands. These unfortunates were regarded as most virtuous—Imperial posthumous honors were conferred upon them.
The local government of the village was a fully self-governing body without outside interference. It was a government by elders of the clan with the Ancestral Hall as its seat. "Elders" does not mean elderly men. They might be young but represented the oldest living generations in the ancestral line. They were obligated to see that the ceremonies of ancestral worship were properly performed and were entrusted with the duties of arbitration in case of dispute among the clansmen. No one was allowed to go to law without first going through arbitration. To "open the gate of the Ancestral Hall" meant to summon an arbitration court of the elders. Anyone in the village could go there to observe the proceedings. Candles and incense burned before the tablets of the ancestors and everyone felt that their spirits watched invisibly from the ethereal realm. Before these ancestral spirits the parties concerned must speak the truth, nothing but the truth. Generally they did.
For the arbitrators, fairness was the motto. Public opinion in the village was also a very important factor, of which all parties concerned were conscious, and there was also the public opinion of neighboring villages. No elders would dare to defame the Ancestral Hall with unfair judgments. Thus disputes were usually fairly settled in this way. No lawsuit was necessary.
There were, in fact, few cases of dispute which needed arbitration by "opening the gate of the Ancestral Hall," for people regarded this as a matter of weight, to be resorted to only in a case of grave importance. Disputes were usually settled by informal arbitration before the gate of the hall.
Scholars and the gentry had a strong voice in the local government. They also participated in cases of arbitration and the making of rules and regulations for the village. They formed inter-village committees to settle disputes and look after the common welfare of neighboring villages.
Land taxes were brought by owners of land to the district or hsien treasury, about twenty miles from the village. No tax collectors ever visited us. People never felt the influence of the state—it was a common saying that "Heaven is high above and the Emperor is far away."
Public worship other than ancestral, such as worship in Buddhist temples or temples of deified persons, national heroes, or local gods that had grown out of legends, was a matter of individual concern. Anyone might worship in any or all of these places; there was no religious restriction or persecution. Your gods are as good as mine. If the Christians had allowed their Christ to sit beside Chinese gods in Chinese temples, I am sure that the villagers would have worshiped Him just as reverently as they did other gods.
Superstition grows out of the credulity of simple folk—it rolls like a snowball growing as it rolls along. Thus it is that superstitions gather through centuries of accumulation.
As I have said, the villagers believed in the transmigration of the soul. This does not seem to reconcile with the idea that there are spirits traveling about with lightning speed in the ethereal realm. Soul and spirit, however, were two different things: the soul transmigrated, but the spirit remained in space. The spirit of a great man lives eternally in the invisible realm, while that of a common man evaporates and dwindles, disappearing entirely with the course of time, or rather when it is entirely forgotten. The spirit moves with instant speed anywhere it wills. It may live in the Ancestral Hall or in its grave as it chooses. This is perhaps one reason why the Chinese are always willing to spend large sums on elaborate tombs and palatial ancestral halls.
My people always see things in relation to man. If spirits and gods wandered about in an unseen world without relation to, or contact with, living man, people would not see any use for them and would hardly believe they existed. Yes, they have images and tablets sitting in the shrines. But these sacred things, however awe-inspiring, do not step down and talk to them except in dreams. There must be something more active or lively. This was found in mediums, in automatic writing, or in the interpreting of dreams.
If someone was thinking of a departed friend or a dead relative, he could invoke the spirit to come to him through a medium, who was always a woman from some far-distant place. When the spirit called for approached, she would contract her ears three times as the signal of arrival of the invisible guest. This contraction of the involuntary muscles of the ear was something ordinary people could not do and this made them believe in the medium much more. She usually spoke through her throat like a cat's purr, so that the words uttered could be interpreted to suit the wishes of the listeners. When she had traced out something more definite in the course of conversation, she would purr more distinctly, to the amazement of the audience.
False or true, it served as a comfort to the hearts of living relatives. I still remember how thrilling it was when my dead mother conversed with me through a medium half a century ago.
Automatic writing is of a higher order. It was generally practiced by the educated class. Two persons were needed to hold the ends of a horizontal bar with a long wooden pin attached at the middle, which wrote on a tray of sand. A god or the spirit of some famous personage, it was believed, could be invoked to write. The device—not unlike a Ouija board—could be asked to predict future events. It might foretell a bumper crop in the coming year, or an impending famine, or peace, or war. One could ask almost any question. Poems were written by operators who did not know how to compose a poem; names of persons present unknown to the writers might be written out on the sand. It was all done through the subconscious as any person who knows about psychology can explain.
Mediums invoked only spirits of departed relatives or friends; automatic writing might invoke the gods as well. In dreams both might come voluntarily, uninvited. I heard numerous interpretations of dreams which I do not remember now, except for one instance. One of my great-granduncles went to Hangchow to take the civil examinations for the second degree. In his examination cell (where candidates remained for many hours) he saw in a dream a hand of enormous size stretch into the room through the window. This was interpreted to mean that, since it was the greatest hand he had ever seen, he was to head the list of successful candidates. And the good omen came true when the results of the examination were made known.
Gods, dead friends, relatives, or spirits might enter one's dreams to convey their wishes, requests, or warnings. A dead mother might request her son to repair her tomb. A dead father might demand paper money from his son. A good imitation of paper money was always burned at funerals; it was supposed to accompany the dead for use in the world to which they go.
A tragic coincidence happened in our village about which people talked for years after. Ah Yi, a young farmer, was to take his rice by boat to a neighboring town. Early in the morning he was found sitting on a bench in a somber mood, very rare for a farmer. To inquiry he replied that in his dreams the previous night his dead mother had warned him not to go near water. What could it mean? He was a good swimmer.
At dusk he brought his junk home and shoved the boat toward the landing with his bamboo pole. He joked with his friends on the bank that his danger was over, and laughed heartily. Suddenly his feet slipped and he plunged into the canal, where he struggled for a moment but went under. Friends dived for him but could not find him. After half an hour he was pulled out, cold and stiff, from the entangling roots of an aged willow tree that grew by the water.
People said it was the water ghost that hid him there. Perhaps it was a water monkey that nested in the roots. Several good swimmers drowned near that spot. Often the villagers saw the "water ghost" sitting on the bridge near by in the moonlight, staring at the moon. It plunged into the water as soon as it saw people approaching.
Illusions, hallucinations, dreams, nightmares, imaginings, wishful thinking, coincidence, rumors—every kind of inexplicable phenomenon of mind or nature, all contributed to swell the snowball. And time kept it rolling.
Medicine in the village was, of course, primitive. We had to go miles to see herb doctors in the bigger towns. For ordinary illness or certain more serious cases Chinese medicine is very effective. But in many serious ailments the old medicine is useless or even dangerous.
I myself have been twice at the point of death and was in each case saved by herb medicine, without which I would not be here writing these chapters. On one occasion I had been ill for many months and was reduced to emaciation. A famous herb doctor specializing in children's diseases saved me. On another occasion I contracted diphtheria and was treated by a Chinese throat specialist. He pricked my throat with a needle all over the affected part and then sprayed it with some kind of white powder. I do not know what it was, but my throat felt cool and soothed as after smoking a mentholated cigarette.
That part of my throat was relieved, but the case developed other complications. My tonsils swelled to the size of goose eggs, my cheeks puffed up like a balloon, and I could hardly swallow even liquid food. My nose kept bleeding as if I should bleed to death. Finally I could barely breathe and only a faint hope was left. While my life hung by a thread my father said that he would try to "treat a dead horse like a live one." This was a Chinese proverb meaning that if the horse is ready to die anyway, it is worth trying the most extreme methods to save it. He dug into old medicine books, in which he found a prescription for a case showing similar symptoms. Several heavy doses were taken. The first brought immediate relief; in an hour or two I felt much better. By the next morning my tonsils had dwindled, and after a week or so I could take regular meals.
I have seen with my own eyes broken legs healed by ancient methods, while colds, sore eyes, coughs, and rheumatism were effectively cured by herbs.
Chinese doctors discovered long ago an antismallpox "vaccine" taken from the human body. They used a kind of herb that had once been inserted into the nostrils of an affected child. Putting it into the nose of a normal child gave the latter what was usually a very much milder form of the disease. There were some cases of mortality among the hundreds thus "vaccinated," for I often heard of a death here and there. My father preferred modern vaccination to the old Chinese method. All the children in our family and many of our relatives were vaccinated by the modern method without a mishap.
We did not know how to cure malaria in our village. We let it run for some weeks or even months until it stopped of itself. There were no malignant cases in our locality and while it might sap the energy of the affected person it was not fatal. When quinine powder was brought in by missionaries or merchants from Shanghai, people found great relief in Western medicine.
Some of our clansmen believed in the healing power of the supernatural. They prayed in a temple and took a pinch of ashes from the incense burner as a panacea for all diseases. It was a sort of psychological treatment and did cure in some cases where psychology could play its part.
In the gardens of our house each month of the year was presided over by the chief flower of that month. Camellias were for the First Moon—first month of the year in the lunar calendar, corresponding approximately to the Western late January and early February. In the Second Moon almond blossoms took over the reins of government in the flowery kingdom. Peach blossoms were for the Third Moon, roses for the Fourth, pomegranates for the Fifth, lotus for the Sixth, Feng-hsian (Impatiens balsamina) for the Seventh, Kwei-hua (Osmanthus fragrans) for the Eighth, chrysanthemums for the Ninth, Fu-yung (Hibiscus mutabilis) for the Tenth, Shuei-hsian (Narcissus tazetta) for the Eleventh, and La-mei (Chimonanthus fragrans) for the Twelfth, the last month of the year. Each plant was represented by a particular goddess whom we all loved dearly.
The most popular seasonal flowers were the peach blossoms of spring, lotus in the summer, and osmanthus and chrysanthemums in autumn. In season, the villagers all joined in admiring these beauties of nature.
Festivals brought much enjoyment to both children and grownups alike. The most important was the New Year Festival which began near the end of the old year—on the twenty-third of the Twelfth Moon—when the Kitchen God took leave and went to heaven to report to the Supreme God the year's happenings in the household.
The Chinese believed in polytheism. But above all deities was the Supreme God who controlled them all. It was an anthropomorphic idea that He reigned over the ethereal realm like the Emperor of China. Other gods were his ministers, governors, and magistrates.
The Kitchen God was entrusted by the Supreme God with charge of the household. Naturally he had to report to Him at the end of the year. The Kitchen God was a vegetarian and was therefore treated with a vegetarian dinner before leaving for heaven. Everybody had to be very careful during the year in word and deed, since bad as well as good things were reported. Both the sending-off and the welcome-home ceremonies consisted of dinners for the family, burning of paper money, and firecrackers.
New Year's Eve was celebrated by a family banquet in which every member must participate. If some member was absent, he or she would be assigned a seat in absentia. Candles burned all night until the next morning and most of the grownups sat up through the night to watch the coming of the New Year. Next morning, on the first day of the year, the family worshiped Heaven and Earth. Candles, incense, paper money, and firecrackers were necessary parts of the ceremony.
The Lantern Festival, part of the New Year celebration, began on the thirteenth and ended on the eighteenth of the First Moon, which was also the end of the New Year Festival. Artistic lanterns—horses, rabbits, butterflies, dragonflies, mantis, cicada, lotus, anything one could think of—adorned the houses and the streets of the towns. We used to go to large towns to see the lantern parade; their streets were thronged with merrymakers.
There were other important festivals, such as the Dragon Festival in the Fifth Moon, the Moon Festival in the Eighth Moon, and the like. The Dragon Festival was celebrated by a boat race with all the boats decorated to look like dragons. The Moon Festival was enjoyed quietly and poetically—after a banquet we took a walk in the bright night and looked at the rabbit on the full, silvery autumn moon in a starless, moonlit sky.
Parades were popular, with hundreds of people participating and thousands watching. They were always religious in character: some god was to make an inspection trip around the villages. An image of the deity was carried in a carved, artistically decorated sedan chain, preceded by pennants, flags, floats, bands of music, monster dragons, men on stilts, and so forth.
Dragon dances were performed in the public squares of every village as the parade passed by. The men on stilts danced in theatrical roles in the crowded streets. Monstrous flags with fantastic designs of the dragon, tiger, or lion, each carried by dozens of people and supported by lines of rope in front and rear, were indeed a great sight. They moved up the highway among the fields like the sails of the Spanish Armada on a sea of rippling green. It was said that the idea originated during the old days when pirates from the Japan Sea wrought havoc among the people.
Traveling theatres made visits to the villages during festivals or birthday celebrations of deities, or on other important occasions. Each performance started about three o'clock in the afternoon and continued until the next morning with an intermission for supper. A frantic sounding of the gong served as a prelude to let country folk know that the play was starting. Plays were mostly based on historical episodes; the people learned history from the theatre. At the end of each play the moral lesson was invariably brought out. So it served a triple purpose: to teach history and morals as well as to entertain.
The roles of women were played by men, as in Shakespearean times in England. The actors painted their faces in fantastic designs of various colors to differentiate symbolically among virtuous and vile, honest and sneaky, the great and the mean, the stern and the kind. Thus one whose nose was painted white was either treacherous, cunning, mean, or clownish. In daily life we referred to such a person as "white-nosed." A red face suggested a character which was candid or virtuous in some way, but always kind. The "black face" was generally severe and stern. We often called a man who behaved sternly "black-faced," while "red-faced" meant a man who acted kindly or generously. The tradition of symbolic face painting still persists to the present day in Chinese classical dramas.
Such was the world of my childhood. It has been passing rapidly into history. The intrusion of foreign manufactures began the process; invasion from the West, whether by ideas or gunboats, hastened it; modern science, invention, and industry are to give the finishing touch.
贰 乡村生活
我出生在一个小村庄里的小康之家。兄弟姊妹五人，我是最小的一个，三位哥哥，一位姊姊。我出生的前夕，我父亲梦到一只熊到家里来，据说那是生男孩的征兆。第二天，这个吉兆应验了，托庇祖先在天之灵，我们家又添了一个儿子。
我大哥出生时，父亲曾经梦到收到一束兰花，因此我大哥就取名梦兰。我二哥也以同样的原因取名为梦桃。不用说，我自然取名为梦熊了。姊姊和三哥诞生时，父亲却没有梦到什么。后来在我进浙江高等学堂时，为了先前的学校里闹了事，梦熊这个名字入了黑名单，于是就改为梦麟了。
我出生在战乱频仍的时代里。我出生的那一年，英国从中国拿走了对缅甸的宗主权；出生的前一年恰恰是中法战争结束的一年，中国对越南的宗主权就在那一年让渡给法国。中国把宗主权一再割让，正是外国列强进一步侵略中国本土的序幕，因为中国之保有属国，完全是拿它们当缓冲地带，而不是为了剥削他们。中国从来不干涉这些边缘国家的内政。
这情形很像一只桔子，桔皮被剥去以后，微生物就开始往桔子内部侵蚀了。但是中国百姓却懵然不觉，西南边疆的战争隔得太远了，它们不过是浩瀚的海洋上的一阵泡沫。乡村里的人更毫不关心，他们一向与外界隔绝，谈狐说鬼的故事比这些军国大事更能引起他们的兴趣。但是中国的国防军力的一部分却就是从这些对战争不感兴趣的乡村征募而来的。
我慢慢懂得一些人情世故之后，我注意到村里的人讲起太平天国革命的故事时，却比谈当前国家大事起劲多了。我们乡间呼太平军为长毛，因为他们蓄发不剃头。凡听到有变乱的事，一概称之为长毛造反。大约在我出生的三十年前，我们村庄的一角曾经被太平军破坏。一位木匠出身的蒋氏族长就参加过太平军。人们说他当过长毛的，他自己也直认不讳。他告诉我们许多太平军掳掠杀戮煮吃人肉的故事，许多还是他自己亲身参加的。我看他的双目发出一种怪光，我父亲说，这是因为吃了人肉的缘故。我听了这些恐怖的故事，常常为之毛骨悚然。这位族长说，太平军里每天要做祷告感谢天父天兄（上帝和耶稣）。有一天做祷告以后，想要讨好一位老长毛，就说了几句“天父夹天兄，长毛夺咸丰”一套吉利话。老长毛点头称许他。他抖了，就继续念道：“天下打不通，仍旧还咸丰。”“妈”的一声，刀光一闪，从他头上掠过。从此以后，他不敢再和老长毛开玩笑了。
这样关于长毛的故事，大家都欢喜讲，欢喜听。但是村里的人只有偶然才提到近年来的国际战争，而且漠不关心。其间还有些怪诞不经的胜利，后来想起来可怜亦复可笑。事实上，中国军队固然在某些战役上有过良好的表现，结果却总是一败涂地的。
现代发明的锋芒还没有到达乡村，因而这些乡村也就像五百年前一样地保守、原始、宁静。但是乡下人却并不闲，农人忙着耕耘、播种、收获；渔人得在运河里撒网捕鱼；女人得纺织缝补；商人忙着买卖；工匠忙着制作精巧的成品；读书人则高声朗诵，默记四书五经，然后参加科举。
中国有成千上万这样的村落，因为地形或气候的关系，村庄大小和生活习惯可能稍有不同，但是使他们聚居一起的传统、家族关系和行业却大致相同。共同的文字、共同的生活理想、共同的文化和共同的科举制度则使整个国家结为一体而成为大家所知道的中华帝国。（我们现在称中华民国，在辛亥革命以前，欧美人称我们为中华帝国。）
以上所说的那些成千成万的村庄，加上大城市和商业中心，使全国所需要的粮食、货品、学人、士兵，以及政府的大小官吏供应无缺。只要这些村镇城市不接触现代文明，中国就可以一直原封不动，如果中国能在通商口岸四周筑起高墙，中国也可能再经几百年而一成不变。但是西洋潮流却不肯限于几个通商口岸里。这潮流先冲激着附近的地区，然后循着河道和公路向外伸展。五个商埠附近的，以及交通线附近的村镇首先被冲倒。现代文明像是移植过来的树木，很快地就在肥沃的中国土壤上发芽滋长，在短短五十年之内就深入中国内地了。
蒋村是散布在钱塘江沿岸冲积平原上的许多村庄之一，村与村之间常是绵延一两里的繁茂的稻田，钱塘江以风景优美闻名于世，上游有富春江的景色，江口有著名的钱塘江大潮。几百年来，江水沿岸积留下肥沃的泥土，使两岸逐步向杭州湾扩伸。居民就在江边新生地上筑起临时的围堤截留海水晒盐。每年的盐产量相当可观，足以供应几百万人的需要。
经过若干年代以后，江岸再度向前伸展，原来晒盐的地方盐分渐渐消失净尽，于是居民就在离江相当远的地方筑起堤防，保护渐趋干燥的土地，准备在上面蓄草放牧。再过一段长时期以后，这块土地上面就可以植棉或种桑了。要把这种土地改为稻田，也许要再过五十年。因为种稻需要大量的水，而挖池塘筑圳渠来灌溉稻田是需要相当时间的，同时土地本身也需要相当时间才能慢慢变为沃土。
我童年时代的蒋村，离杭州湾约有二十里之遥。围绕着它的还有无数的村庄。大大小小，四面八方都有，往南一直到山麓，往北到海边，往东往西则有较大的城镇和都市，中间有旱道或河汊相通。蒋氏族谱告诉我们，我们的祖先是从徽州迁到奉化暂驻，又从奉化迁到余姚。徽州是钱塘江的发源地，我们的祖先到余姚来，可能就是为了开垦江边新生地。在我幼年时，我们蒋氏家庙的前面还有古堤岸的遗迹，那家庙叫做“四勿祠”，奉祠宋朝当过御史的一位祖先，他是奉化人，名叫蒋岘。然而一般人却惯叫“陟塘庙”，因为几百年前，庙前横着一条堤塘。
读者或许要问：什么叫“四勿”呢？那就是《论语》里的非礼勿视、非礼勿听、非礼勿言、非礼勿动四句话。我们玩具店里所看到的三只猴子分别蒙起眼睛、耳朵、嘴巴，就是指这回事。至于为什么没有第四只猴子，因为那三只猴子坐着不动，就可以代表了。但是我们那位御史公却把这四勿改为勿欺心、勿负主、勿求田、勿问舍，人称之为四勿先生。这些自古流传下来的处世格言是很多的。我们利用一切可能的方法，诸如寺庙、戏院、家庭、玩具、格言、学校、历史、故事等等，来灌输道德观念，使这些观念成为日常生活中的习惯。以道德规范约束人民生活是中国社会得以稳定的理由之一。
几千年以来，中国的人口从北方渐渐扩展到南方，先到长江流域，继至珠江流域，最后到了西南山区。中华民族一再南迁的理由很多，南方土地肥沃、塞外好战部落入侵，以及人口的自然繁殖都有关系，且从宋朝以后，黄河一再泛滥，更使人们想念江南乐土。我的祖先在早期就由北而南，由南而东，最后终于在杭州湾沿岸定居下来。
蒋姓的始祖是三千多年前受封的一位公子王孙。他的名字叫做百龄，是代周成王摄政的周公的第三个儿子。他在纪元前十二世纪末期被封在黄河流域下游的一块小地方，他的封地叫做“蒋”，他的子孙也就以蒋为氏了。蒋是茭白古名。那块封地之所以定名为蒋，可能是那一带地方茭白生长得特别繁茂的缘故。
在三国时代，也就是公元第三世纪，我们的一位祖先曾在历史上露了脸。他的名字叫蒋琬，住在长江流域南部的湘乡，从蜀先主入蜀。诸葛亮称他是社稷之才。这证明住在长江以南的蒋姓子孙，在第三世纪以前就从黄河流域南迁了。从我们的始祖起到现在，所有嫡系子孙的名字，在我们的族谱上都有纪录可考。至于确实到什么程度，我却不敢说，因为他们的生平事迹很少有人知道，考证起来是很困难的。但相传江南无二蒋，所以我们至少可以说一句：住在长江以南所有姓蒋的都是同宗同支的。究竟可以正确地追溯到多远，我们可不知道了。不过我们确切知道：住在浙江省境的蒋姓子弟，都在徽州找到了共同的宗脉。
我在宗谱中从迁余姚的始祖传到我为第十七世。蒋姓首先定居在我们村里的是五百多年前来的，那是元朝末年的事。这五百多年之中，两个朝代是外来民族建立的，一个是汉族自己的王朝，蒋姓一族曾经看到元朝的没落、明朝和满清的兴衰，以及几乎推翻满清的太平天国。朝代更换了，蒋村却依然故我，人们还是照常地过活、做工，最后入土长眠。
太平军到了村子里，村中曾经有几所房子焚毁，留在村子里的老弱有被活活烧死的，有一处大门口残存的石阶上留有红斑，据传说是某位老太婆在此烧死时所流的血。大多数的老百姓都逃到山里躲起来，但是战事一平定，大家又像蜜蜂回巢一样回到村里。在我童年时代，村里还可以看到兵燹以后留下来的残垣断瓦。
村里的人告诉我，满洲人推翻明朝的消息，一直到新朝廷的圣旨到了村里时，大家才知道。清帝圣旨到达村里时，邻村还正在演社戏呢！改朝换代以后，族人生活上的唯一改变是强迫留辫子，同时圣旨严禁男人再穿明朝式样的衣服。大家敢怒不敢言，但是死后入殓时，男人还是穿明朝衣冠。因此我们族中流行着一句话：“男投（降）女不投，活投死不投。”就是说男人投降，女人却不投降，活人投降，死人却不投降。一些人一直维持这个办法到一九一一年清室覆亡、民国建立为止，中间经过两百五十年之久。
我们村上只有六十来户人家，人口约三百人，是个很小的村庄。它的三面环绕着河汊，南面是一条石板路，通往邻近的村庄和城镇。小河汊可以通到大河，再由大河可以到达杭州、苏州和上海等大城市。
蒋村虽然小，水陆交通却很便利。河汊上随处是石桥，河的两岸则满是绿柳垂杨。河中盛产鱼、虾、鳝、鳗、龟、鳖。柳荫之下，常有人悠闲地在垂钓。耕牛慢慢地踱着方步，绕着转动牛车，把河水汲到水槽再送到田里。冬天是连阡穿陌的麦穗，夏天是一片稻海，使人生四季长青之感，麦穗和稻穗随着微风的吹拂，漾起一片涟漪，燕子就在绿波之上的蓝空中穿梭翱翔。老鹰忽高忽低地绕村回旋着，乘老母鸡不备的时候就俯冲而下，攫走小鸡。
这就是我童年时代的背景，也是我家族的环境。他们安定地在那里生活了五百多年，他们很少碰到水灾或旱灾，在这漫长的几百年中也不过遇上一两次的变乱和战争。他们和平而满足地生活在他们自己的世界里，贫富之间也没有太大的差别。富饶的稻谷、棉花、蚕丝、鱼虾、鸡鸭、蔬菜使人民丰衣足食。
几百年来，不论朝代如何更换，不论是太平盛世或战祸频仍，中国乡村里的道德、信仰和风俗习惯却始终不变。乡下人觉得这个世界已经很不错，不必再求进步。生命本身也许很短暂，但是投胎转世时可能有更大的幸福。人死以后，据说灵魂就离开肉体，转投到初生的婴儿身上。我自己就亲眼看到过绑赴刑场处决的罪犯，对围观的群众高喊：“十八年之后又是一条好汉！”这是何等的达观！
我们村子里的人说：一个坏人或作孽多端的人，死后要转世为穷人，或者变马变猪，甚至灵魂支离割裂，变为蚊蝇小虫。好人善士的灵魂转世时则可以享更高的福禄。这些都是随佛教而来的印度传说而被中国道教所采用的。佛教本身，倒不大理会这些事。
善恶当然有公认的标准。“万恶淫为首，百善孝为先。”孝道使中国家庭制度维系不堕；贞操则使中国种族保持纯净。敬老怜贫、忠信笃敬也被认为善行。重利盘剥、奸诈谎骗则列为罪行。斥责恶行时常骂人来生变猪变犬。
商业往来讲究一诺千金。一般而论，大家都忠实可靠。欺诈的人必然受亲朋戚友一致的唾弃。
婚姻是由媒妁之言、父母之命决定的。通例是男子二十而娶，女子十八而嫁。妻子死了，丈夫大概都要续弦，中上之家的女人如果死了丈夫，却照例要守寡。守寡的可怜人算是最贞节的，死后皇帝还要给她们建贞节牌坊。这种牌坊在乡间到处可以看见的。
村里的事全由族长来处理，不待外界的干涉。祠堂就是衙门。“族长”不一定是老头子，也可能是代表族中辈份最高一代的年轻人。族长们有责任监督敬先祭祖的礼仪遵奉不渝，族人中起了争执时，他们还须负责加以评断。没有经过族长评理以前，任何人不许打官司。族长升堂审判叫做“开祠堂门”，全村的人都可以来参观。祖宗牌位前面点起香烛，使得每个人都觉得祖先在天之灵就在冥冥之中监视似的，在祖先的面前，当事的两边不能有半句谎话。一般而论，说老实话的居多。
仲裁者力求做得公平。自然，村中的舆论也是重要的因素，还有，邻村的舆论也得考虑。族长们如果评断不公，就会玷污了祠堂的名誉。因此，争执多半在祠堂里得到公平的解决，大家用不到上衙门打官司。
实际上真需要“开祠堂门”来解决的事情并不多，因为大家认为“开祠堂门”是件大事，只有特别严重的案子才需要这样做。一般的纠纷只是在祠堂前评个理就解决了。
读书人和绅士在地方上的权威很大。他们参加排难解纷，也参加制定村里的规矩，他们还与邻村的士绅成立组织，共同解决纠纷，照顾邻近村庄的共同福利。
田赋由地主送到离村约二十里的县库去，粮吏从来不必到村里来。老百姓根本不理会官府的存在，这就是所谓“天高皇帝远”。
除了崇拜祖先之外，大家要信什么就信什么。上佛寺、拜神仙、供关公、祭土地，悉听尊便。没有宗教限制，也没有宗教迫害。你信你的神，我拜我的佛，各不相涉，并且还有把各式各样的神拼在一起大家来拜。这就是通常所称的“道教”。如果基督徒肯让基督与中国神并供在中国庙宇里，我相信村里人一定会像崇拜其他神佛一样虔敬崇拜基督。
一般老百姓都是很老实的，人家说什么，他们就相信。迷信就是在这种背景下产生的，而且像滚雪球一样越滚越大，几百年积聚下来的迷信，当然是非常可观了。
我提到过村里的人相信灵魂轮回之说。这似乎与散鬼游魂之说互相矛盾的。不过，凡关于鬼神的事，我们本来是不甚深究的，几种矛盾的说法，可以同时平行。据说灵魂与鬼是两回事。灵魂转入轮回，鬼则飘游宇宙之间。伟人圣哲的鬼就成了神，永远存在于冥冥之中，凡夫俗子的鬼则逐渐飘散消逝，最后化为乌有。鬼能够随心所欲，随时随地出现。它可以住在祠堂里，也可以住在坟墓里，高兴怎么样就怎么样。我国不惜巨资建造富丽堂皇的坟墓和宫殿式的祠堂，大概和这些信仰不是没有关系的。这种鬼话各地皆有，虽各有不同，但大体是一致的。
中国人对一切事物的看法都不脱人本位的色彩。如果鬼神与活人之间毫无关系或毫无接触，那末大家就不会觉得鬼神有什么用处，或许根本就不会相信它们真的存在。寺庙祠堂里固然有神佛的塑像，也有祖宗的灵牌，但是这些偶像或木主虽然令人望之生畏，却不能走出神龛直接与生人交谈，除非在梦中出现。人们需要更具体、更实际的表现，因此就有了巫婆、扶乩和解梦。
如果一个人怀念作古了的朋友或去世的亲戚，他可以请一位巫婆把鬼魂召了来。当巫婆的多半是远地来的女人。被召的鬼魂来时，巫婆的耳朵就会连续抽搐三次。普通人是不能控制耳朵的肌肉的，巫婆的耳朵能够自己动，使得大家相信它的确有鬼神附体。她说话时，压着喉咙像猫叫，因此她讲的话可以由听的人随意附会。如果巫婆在谈话中摸清了对方的心思，她的话也就说得更清楚点，往往使听的人心悦诚服。
真也好，假也好，这办法至少使活着的亲戚朋友心里得点安慰。五十年前，我自己就曾经透过巫婆与我故世的母亲谈过话，那种惊心动魄的经验至今还不能忘记。
扶乩可比较高级了，扶乩的人多半是有知识的。两个人分执一根横木条的两端，木条的中央接着一根木棒，木棒就在沙盘里写字。神佛或者名人的鬼魂可以被请降坛，写字赐教。扶乩可以预言未来，可以预言来年的收成，也可以预告饥荒，甚至和平或战乱，几乎什么问题都可以问。完全不会作诗的也能写出诗来。写的人也能写出素昧平生的人的名字。懂一点心理学的人大概都能解释，这是一种潜意识的作用。但是有好几位外国留学的博士学士，到如今还是相信扶乩。有一位哈佛大学毕业生，于抗战期间任盐务某要职，扶乩报告预言，推测战局，终被政府革职。
巫婆只能召至去世的亲戚朋友的鬼魂，扶乩却能召唤神佛。在做梦时，鬼魂和神佛都能自动地来托梦。我听过许多关于做梦应验的事，但是多半不记得了。我记得一个圆梦的例子是这样的：我的一位曾叔祖到杭州去应乡试，俗称考举人，他在考棚里梦到一只硕大无比的手伸进窗子。因为他从来没有见过这样大的手，这个梦就被解释为他将独占鳌头的征兆。放榜时我的曾叔祖居然中试第一名，俗称解元。
神佛、死去的亲戚朋友或者精灵鬼怪可能由托梦提出希望、请求或者警告。一位死了的母亲可能要求她儿子给她修葺坟墓。死了的父亲可能向儿子讨纸钱。死人下葬时总要烧点纸钱，以备阴间使用。
我们村里发生过一件事，好几年以后，大家谈起来还是娓娓不倦。一位叫阿义的青年农夫预备用船载谷子进城市。那天早上，他坐在家里发呆，人家问他为什么，他说前一晚他死去的母亲来托梦，警告他不要走近水边。他的游泳技术很高明，他猜不透这个梦究竟是什么意思。
黄昏时，他安然划着船回到家，用竹篙把船拢了岸。他对站在岸上的朋友开玩笑，说他自己的危险总算过去了，说罢还哈哈大笑。突然间他足下一滑就跌进河里去了。挣扎了一阵子，他就沉入水底。朋友们赶紧潜水去救，但是到处找不到。半小时后他被拖上来了，但是已经手足冰冷，一命呜呼。原来他跌入河中以后，手足就被水边的一棵陈年老柳的盘根缠住了。
大家说他是被水鬼抓下去的，或许那是一只以柳树根作窝的水猴子。好几个游泳技术很好的人都在那个地方淹死。村里的人常常看到那个“水鬼”在月光下坐在附近的桥上赏月。它一看到有人走近就扑通一声钻到水里去。
各式各样无法解释的现象都使迷信的雪球越滚越大，错觉、幻象、梦魇、想像、巧合、谣言都是因素。时间更使迷信愈积愈多。
村中的医药当然也很原始。我们得走好几里路才能在大镇里找到草药医生，俗称“草头郎中”。对于通常的病痛或者某些特殊的病症，中国药是很有效的。但是对于许多严重的病症，草药不但无效而且危险。
我自己曾经两次病得奄奄一息，结果却都给草药救起了。有一次病了好几个月，瘦得只剩皮包骨，结果是一位专精儿科的草药医生救了我的命。另一次我染了白喉，请了一位中国的喉科专家来医治。他用一根细针在我喉头附近刺了一遍，然后敷上一些白粉。我不知道那是什么东西，只觉得喉头凉爽舒服，很像抽过一支薄荷烟的感觉。
喉头是舒服一点了，病状却起了变化。我的扁桃腺肿得像鹅蛋那末大，两颊鼓起像气球，我甚至连流质的食物都无法下咽。鼻子一直出血不止，最后连呼吸也感到困难了。正在奄奄一息的时候，我父亲认为只有“死马当作活马医”了。于是他就在古老的医书里翻寻秘方，结果真地找到一剂主治类似症候的方子。我吃了好几服重药。头一剂药就发生验效，一两个小时之后，病势居然大有起色。第二天早晨我的扁桃腺肿消了许多，个把星期以后饮食也恢复正常。
我曾经亲眼目睹跌断的腿用老法子治好，伤风咳嗽、风湿和眼睛红肿被草药治好的例子更是多不胜举。
中医很早以前就发现可以从人体采取一种预防天花的“瘴苗”，他们用一种草药塞到病婴的鼻孔里，再把这种草药塞到正常儿童的鼻孔里时，就可以引起一种比较温和的病症。这样“种了痘”的孩子自然不免有死亡，因此我父亲宁愿让孩子按现代方法种牛痘。我们兄弟姊妹以及许多亲戚的子弟都用现代方法种痘，而且从来没有出过毛病。
我们村子里的人不知道怎样治疗疟疾。我们只好听它自生自灭地流行几个礼拜，甚至好几个月。我们村子附近总算没有发现恶性疟疾，患了病的人虽然伤了元气，倒还没有人因此致命。后来传教士和商人从上海带来奎宁粉，叫做金鸡纳霜，吃了很有效，于是大家才发现了西药的妙用。
村里有些人相信神力可以治病。他们到寺庙里焚香祝祷，然后在香炉里取了一撮香灰作为治疗百病的万应灵丹。这是一种心理治疗，在心理学应用得上的时候，也的确能医好一些病。
我家的花园里，每月有每月当令的花，阴历正月是茶花，二月是杏花，三月桃花，四月蔷薇，五月石榴，六月荷花，七月凤仙，八月桂花，九月菊花，十月芙蓉，十一月水仙，十二月腊梅。每种花都有特别的花仙做代表。
最受欢迎的季节花是春天的桃花、夏天的荷花，秋天的桂花和菊花。季节到来时，村里的人就成群结队出来赏花。
过年过节时，无论男女老幼都可以高兴一阵子。最重要的年节，通常从十二月二十三日开始。灶神就在这一天上天报告这一家一年来的家庭琐事。
中国人都相信多神主义的，在道教里，众神之主是玉皇大帝。据说玉皇大帝也有公卿大臣和州官吏卒，和中国的皇帝完全一样。玉皇大帝派灶神监视家庭事务，因此灶神必须在年终岁尾提出报告。灶神是吃素的，因此在它启程上天时，大家就预备素斋来祭送。灶神对好事坏事都要报告，因此大家一年到头都谨言慎行。送灶神和迎灶神时都要设家宴、烧纸钱、放鞭炮。
除夕时，家家都大鸡大肉地庆祝，叫做吃年夜饭。吃年夜饭时，家庭的每一个分子都得参加。如果有人远行未归，也得留个空座位给他。红烛高烧到天明，多数的大人还得“守岁”，要坐到子夜以后才睡。第二天早晨，也就是正月初一早晨，一家人都参加拜天地。祭拜时自然又免不了点香烛、焚纸钱和放鞭炮。
新年的庆祝节目之一是灯节，从正月十三开始，一直到正月十八，十八以后年节也就算结束了。灯节时家家户户和大街小巷到处张灯结彩。花灯的式样很多，马、兔、蝴蝶、蜻蜓、螳螂、蝉、莲花，应有尽有。我们常常到大城市去看迎灯赛会，街上总是人山人海。
五月里的端午节和八月里的中秋节也是重要的节日。端午节有龙舟比赛。庆祝中秋节却比较安静，也比较富于诗意——吃过晚饭后我们就在月色下散步，欣赏团圆满月中的玉兔在月桂下捣药。
迎神赛会很普遍，普通有好几百人参加，沿途围观的则有几千人。这些场合通常总带点宗教色彩，有时是一位神佛出巡各村庄。神像坐在一乘木雕的装饰华丽的轿子里，前面由旌旗华盖、猛龙怪兽、吹鼓手、踩高跷的人等等开道前导。
迎神行列经过时，掉狮舞龙就在各村的广场上举行。踩高跷的人，在街头扮演戏剧中的各种脚色。一面一面绣着龙虎狮子的巨幅旗帜，由十来个人扛着游行，前前后后则由绳索围起来。这样的行列在旷野的大路上移动时，看来真好威风呀！这种举大旗游行的起源，据说是明代倭寇入侵时老百姓以此向他们示威的。
碰到过年过节，或者庆祝神佛生日，或者其他重要时节，活动的戏班子就到村庄上来表演。戏通常在下午三点钟左右开始，一直演到第二天早晨，中间有一段休息的时间，以便大家吃晚饭。开演时总是锣鼓喧天，告诉大家戏正在开始。演的戏多半是根据历史故事编的，人民也就从戏里学习历史。每一出戏都包括一点道德上的教训，因此演戏可以同时达到三重目的：教授历史、灌输道德、供给娱乐。
女角是由男人扮演的，这是和莎士比亚时代的英国一样。演员涂抹形形色色的脸谱象征忠奸善恶。白鼻子代表奸诈、狡猾、卑鄙或小丑。在日常生活中我们也常常指这一类人为白鼻子。红脸代表正直、忠耿等等，但是红脸的人心地总是很厚道的。黑脸象征铁面无私。这种象征性的脸谱一直到现在还被各地国剧所采用。
这就是我的童年的环境。这种环境已经很快地成为历史陈迹。这个转变首由外国品的输入启其端，继由西方思想和兵舰的入侵加速其进程；终将由现代的科学、发明和工业化，完毕其全程。
CHAPTER 3 EARLY SCHOOLING
Education was a family affair. Boys were prepared for the Imperial civil examinations, or for business, in the family school. Girls were tutored separately. Children of poorer families which could not support a teacher were destined to be illiterate.
There was generally one teacher to a dozen pupils, taught individually. There were no blackboards or classes in the school. The teacher was usually serene, sitting the whole day at his desk from early in the morning to sunset. The pupils did likewise. As clocks were very rare then, there was none in the school. In winter, when the day was short, lessons after dark were given by the dim light of a vegetable-oil lamp. Time was measured by a sun dial. On a cloudy or rainy day you had to guess your time. Often you missed the mark by an hour or two, but it did not matter much, for the lessons were given individually.
I was sent to school at the age of six, the traditional school age. But my actual years were only five and a month or so, since with us your age is called "one"—that is, you are in your first year—when you are born. The ordinary desk was a bit too high for me, so that my chair had to be raised by a wooden stand to bring me level with the desk. My tiny feet were thus left dangling from the seat.
I was given a textbook: San-tze-ching, or the "Classics of Three Characters." It is so named because each sentence contains three words, and it was rhymed so as to be easier for children to remember. After fifty-odd years I am still able to recite a great part of it. It starts with the following passage—I give a literal translation:
Man is originally
Endowed with a nature which is all-good.
And therefore by nature people are all alike.
It is practice that makes the divergence.
If they are not properly taught,
Their nature will be thwarted.
The all-good in human nature is the starting point of the Confucian philosophy of life and education, which exercised a strong influence upon the French Encyclopedists of the eighteenth century.
I understand what it means now, but of course I didn't then.
I must tell how I hated the school! After a short time, noticing that the attention of the teacher was not on me, I climbed down quickly from the chair and ran like a dog that has broken from its chain back home to my mother's lap.
"Why do you come home, my child?" asked my mother in surprise.
"The school is no good, the teacher is no good, and the book is no good," I replied.
"Aren't you afraid of your teacher? He may come and get you," said my mother kindly.
"I'll kill the teacher! I'll burn the school!"
My mother didn't send me back to school that day, nor did the teacher come.
Early the next morning my nurse woke me, spoke many kind words to me, and persuaded me to go to school again. From childhood I responded to kind words only; no coercion ever did any good. It was the gentle reasonableness of my nurse that made me go back voluntarily.
I took to school my own rattan chair, which was very light. A servant followed me and put it on the stand to match the height of the desk. The teacher made no remark and acted as if nothing had happened, but I noticed several schoolmates making faces at me. I hated them but pretended not to see them. I climbed up on the chair and sat there without resting place for my poor feet. More lessons were given, in the same book. I read very loud, as was required in the old type of school, repeating the meaningless text again and again till every word was learned by heart. When the sun shone directly above our heads it was midday. The teacher ordered me to go home for lunch. Immediately after lunch I went back to school and kept on learning the same thing till sunset.
Day in and day out, there was no change in the curriculum. When I finished one textbook another meaningless one came in turn. It was memory and patience that we were training.
We were taught the "three P's" in reading: presence of mind, presence of eye, and the presence of lips. The first means concentration, a requisite for doing any work well. The second is important because by it one gets a clear impression of the ideographic letters, with the various arrangements of fine and intricate strokes in each letter. The third is attained by reading a passage aloud several hundred times; the words then fall from the lips fluently, thus relieving the burden of the memory. We were warned not to commit words to memory by artificial means, because then we would not retain them. If we stumbled in reciting a passage we were ordered to read it over again one or two hundred times more—if the teacher was not in a good humor you would probably receive in addition, without warning, a crack on the skull. Often when the day was over some boys left school with lumps on their scalps.
Discipline and obedience were aimed at without regard for the interest of the pupil. Sundays were unknown. We had half holidays in the afternoon on the first and fifteenth day of each lunar month. In addition, we had during the year several full holidays on festival days, such as the Dragon Festival and the Moon Festival. A comparatively long vacation came about New Year's time. It started on the twentiethday of the Twelfth Moon and lasted till the same day of the First Moon of the new year, and was called the New Year vacation.
As several years went by, I grew older and learned by heart quite a number of characters. My teacher then began to explain the meaning of the text and studying grew to be less drudgery. From the Confucian classics I began to understand a little of the way to be a righteous man. It began with the culture of the person, then went on to the fulfillment of duties to the family, to the state, and finally the world. I did not appreciate its full significance until much later.
In the earliest years school was indeed a prison to me. The difference was that in a real prison the inmates have little hope, while in school the pupils had hopes for a bright future. Had not all the famous scholars and statesmen gone through years of suffering in schools? It was through suffering that men became great, we were told to believe. The path was difficult but it was the only road to success.
"If you have tasted the bitterest of the bitter you will become the greatest of the great."
"The Son of Heavenhonors the scholar. While everything else is of a lower order, learning is the highest of all."
"Do not envy others who possess the sword; you have a pen that is mightier."
These common sayings spurred me on the road of learning as the odors of an early spring in the air spur a sluggish horse to green pastures. Otherwise I should have dropped my schooling and taken to business in Shanghai. Ideals, hopes, and will power are the most important factors in shaping one's life. If education fails in these, the emphasis in modern methods upon the interest of the pupil is but a trifling thing. Interest is an important factor in education only when it is subordinated to inculcation of ideals.
It seemed tedious and foolish in the old Chinese schools to commit the classics to memory. But there was the advantage that in later years one could go to memory to find ready references for the conduct of life. In a static society where the world moved very slowly and the rules of conduct would need little modification, it seems to me that the old Chinese method of teaching and learning was quite adequate for the needs it filled. Only, in a country school like mine it ran to the extreme, giving unnecessary hardship to the pupils. I wonder how many promising boys were scared away before they began to realize the importance of learning.
There were no sports or physical exercises in any form in my school. The boys were forbidden to run fast; they must walk slowly and be dignified. Right after lunch we were required to practise calligraphy. Young life seemed to be practically squeezed out of us.
Nevertheless, the boys found their own way to satisfy their play instincts. When the teacher was absent we would take over control of the school. Sometimes desks were taken to form a platform on which a play could be staged. Chairs and stools would be used as stage properties. Sometimes we played blindman's buff. On one occasion, while I was serving as the "blind," the teacher returned and all the others slipped away. As I caught an easy prey I felt something strange—it was the teacher. The shock was so terrifying that as I write it reels in my senses as vividly as if it had happened yesterday.
In the spring, when school was over in the afternoon, we flew kites. We made our own. Some took the form of a monster centipede, others a gigantic butterfly. At night we would send into the sky along the kite string a chain of lanterns, numbering usually five, seven, or nine. The smaller boys played with smaller kites, generally in the shape of a dragonfly, a swallow, or an eagle. The "swallows" were the most ingenious; they usually went by pairs, tied to the two ends of a slip of bamboo balanced on the kite string, and danced up and down in the currents of air like a pair of feathered playmates. Once I saw several swallows darting around such a pair, seeking their company.
In summer we played with other boys in the village during the starry evenings. The fireflies in the air looked like moving stars. Some of us preferred to listen to the stories told by some elder of the village. With a big palm-leaf fan in his hands to chase away annoying mosquitoes, and a teapot by his side, the elder would give his account of historical personages, dynastic changes, and past happenings in the village.
About two hundred and fifty years ago [he would begin], when the Ming Dynasty was overthrown by the Manchus, the whole country was in turmoil, but our forefathers living in this village still enjoyed peace. Later on, the Imperial Edict reached our village ordering all male persons to cut their hair according to the Tartar fashion and to wear a queue.Men were terrified and women wept. Barbers came to the village to enforce the order. They had Imperial sanction, if anyone should disobey, to punish the culprit by cutting off his head instead of his hair. No one preferred his hair to his head. Since a man could not retain both his head and his hair, he would stretch his head and let the barber do his job of haircutting and queue braiding. We have got used to it now, but my! it must have looked funny then...
This was a bit of history we learned outside of school.
Again, a bit of local anthropology:
Tens of thousands of years ago our far-distant ancestors had tails like the monkey. The man-monkey's tail gradually turned yellow as he grew older. When nine out of the ten segments of his tail had turned yellow, he knew he was about to die. Then he would crawl into his cave and die there. As years went by, his tail dropped. This is why we have no tails now. But you can find at the end of your backbone where it was broken off.
Here is a story about pugilism:
In front of a rice shop a small boy was stationed to sell rice. He amused himself by picking up pinches of it and throwing them swiftly back into the basket. On one occasion a monk came to beg for rice. Instead of giving him some, the boy threw a few grains of it right in his face. To his surprise he saw that the grains had pierced the man's skin. The monk made a polite bow with his hands pressed together palm to palm, saying "Namo Amita Buddha" [Hail, Great Buddha!], and went his way.
Seven days later a pugilist came to the town. By now the boy was looking rather pale. "What's the matter with you, my boy?" asked the pugilist. When he was told the story of the monk he said, "Ah, that monk is the most famous pugilist of our time. You have insulted him. You have received from his bow the terrible internal wounds which will bring you to death in forty-nine days. I have medicine for your cure, but you must run away and not meet him again. He will come again after forty-nine days. Get a coffin, put some bricks in it, and pretend that you have died."
The monk did come, and asked for the boy. When he was told of his death, he sighed and said, "What a pity!" At his request he was led to see the coffin. Running his fingers over the top of it, he muttered, "Namo Amita Buddha." After he had gone the coffin was opened and it was found that all the bricks in it were cracked.
We boys pricked up our ears and listened attentively to these stories; they were one of the sources of my extracurricular education. I could retell many like them if space would allow.
I had several teachers, one after another, in my school. One of them was a kindly rustic scholar who had failed to pass the Imperial civil examinations for the First Degree, despite many attempts, and had to content himself with teaching in a family school. He had a round, moonlike face, was short and stout, and his bespectacled eyes looked habitually over the heavy brass rims of his glasses. His grey mustache hung bristling from his upper lip and he wore no beard. After he had taken egg soup at dinner, yellow particles would be seen adhering to the tips of his unclipped mustache. He was an encyclopedia of endless stories. But his literary style was rather poor; this is why, I presume, he failed repeatedly in the examinations; though he was an endless fountain of witticism. I think his memory in certain respects must have been bad, for he always forgot to carry with him either his umbrella or towel or fan when going back to the school after paying a visit to his friends. Necessity taught him finally to make an inventory of the articles he brought with him: pipe, umbrella, towel, and fan. When about to leave he would repeat, "Pipe, umbrella, towel, and fan." Even in winter, when no fan was needed, he would continue to mention it in his list, sometimes realizing that he had brought no fan with him, but at other times trying to find it, to the great amusement of both friends and pupils.
My mental scope was thus limited to what I learned from the Confucian classics and what the teachers and elders told me. I memorized quite a few of the classics and also had a rich store of stories. My early education, therefore, consisted chiefly of memory work. Yet I was fortunate to have been born and to live in the country, where nature offered plenty of instruction. Once I noticed that some
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