Not many people know Mr. Liu Wendian nowadays, but in the Republic of China, he was a very famous person, as famous as Zhang Taiyan, Liu Shipei, Hu Shih, Chen Yinke, etc. He was considered a “national treasure” by the national government as a master of national studies. He is very knowledgeable, proficient in Laozi and Zhuangzi, and is proud of his talent. He not only despised Shen Congwen, Wen Yiduo and other professors who made their fortune by making literature, but also dared to insult Chiang Kai-shek to his face. More particularly, he was fond of smoking cigarettes and was eventually expelled from the Southwest Union University for this reason. Many small stories about him were spread in the Republic of China.
Bullying and arrogance
Born in Anhui, Liu Wendian attended Anhui Public School in Wuhu and studied in Japan, where he was said to be fluent in English, German, Japanese and Italian. in 1927, he became the dean of the law school and director of the preparatory department of Anhui University, but performed the duties of the president. Later, he was appointed as a professor at Peking University, and then taught at Tsinghua University for ten years, after which he taught at Southwest United University and Yunnan University for more than ten years.
When Liu Wendian taught, he could talk about anything from the north to the south, and he often did so unconventionally and casually. Once, after a half-hour lecture, he suddenly announced that the class would end early and continue at 7:30 p.m. on the following Wednesday. It turned out that it was the fifteenth day of the fifth month of the imperial calendar, and he was going to lecture on “Moon Fugue” under the moonlight. Imagine what the lecture was like!
In 1939, Liu Wendian published 10 volumes of “Zhuangzi’s Supplementary Correction”, for which Chen Yinke wrote the preface. He once said, “In China, there are two people who really know Chuang Tzu. One is Zhuang Zhou, and the other is Liu Wendian.”
Liu Wendian, who was proud of his talent, also looked down on Shen Congwen. He once said, “Shen Congwen is not a professor! He should get four hundred dollars, I should get forty dollars, and Shen Congwen should only get four dollars!” “Shen Congwen is my student. If he is to be a professor, won’t I be a professor of Tai Shang?”
Once Japanese planes bombed the Southwest Associated University and the siren sounded, Shen Congwen rubbed shoulders with Liu Wentian, who said to him, “I ran to preserve the national essence, and the students ran to preserve the hope of the next generation, but damn it, why are you running?”
Calling out Chiang Kai-shek to his face
After Chiang Kai-shek was elected president of the National Government in 1928, he came to Anhui University to inspect the university. Liu Wendian refused to gather students for Chiang Kai-shek’s lecture.
Later, when Liu Wendian met with Chiang Kai-shek, Liu called him “sir” instead of “chairman”, and Chiang was very upset. Liu Wendian pointed at Chiang and said, “You are the warlord!” Chiang Kai-shek was very angry and slapped him twice on the spot, and Liu Wendian, not to be outdone, flew up and kicked Chiang Kai-shek in the stomach. Chiang then put him in custody on the spot and said he would be shot. Later, thanks to the intercession of Cai Yuanpei and Chen Lifu, Liu Wendian was released after seven days of imprisonment. This story was widely circulated at that time.
Friendship with Chen Yinke
Liu Wendian came to Tsinghua University in 1929, when Chen was a professor of Chinese and History. In December of the same year, Chen Yin-kean and Liu Wendian met through a joint publication in the academic journal Tsinghua Chinese Literature Society Monthly. After that, they formed a friendship by participating in the “Drive Wu Movement” together at Tsinghua University, supervising a number of graduate students in the Chinese Literature Department of Tsinghua University, and serving on the editorial board of the Tsinghua Journal.
After the July 7 Incident in 1937, Liu Wendian and Chen Yinke were sent to Changsha, Mengzi and Kunming by Tsinghua University to teach together, and they supported each other and continued their friendship.
In 1941, The Japanese invasion of Hong Kong, Chen Yin-ke was stranded here, and his whereabouts were unknown for a while. In this regard, Liu Wendian was extremely concerned and interested. He once said in a lecture, “If Mr. Chen had met with misfortune, it would be impossible for China to have such a talent again in fifty years.”
In 1943, Liu Wendian was dismissed from the Southwest Union University due to slander, and when he heard about this, Chen Yinke in Guilin, Guangxi, was very worried. Chen Yinke wrote to Xiong Qinglai, the president of Yunnan University, and Jiang Liangfu, the head of the Department of Literature and History, recommending Liu Wenden to teach there, and six months later, Liu Wenden returned to Kunming. From 1944 onwards, Liu was appointed as a professor in the Department of Literature and History of Yunnan University. Thereafter, he taught there until his death in 1958.
Bowing his head and admitting his guilt
However, such a daring figure, who had the courage to confront Chiang Kai-shek, lowered his once proud head during the “anti-rightist” movement in the mid- to late-1950s after the Chinese Communist Party took power, discrediting himself and criticizing himself. Liu Wendian bowed his head not only to his former friends, students and colleagues, but also to society as a whole, and admitted to such trumped-up charges as “hobnobbing with female artists” and “having a belly full of yellow stuff”.
Even so, he was not treated with leniency by society and the “hot-blooded advanced youths”, but was still criticized as a group of stubborn academic authorities, and eventually died of lung cancer and a sudden cerebral hemorrhage.
This professor, who even dared to scold Chiang Kai-shek, did not survive the fire of the times ignited by the Chinese Communist Party after all. I wonder if he realized at his deathbed that it was because of Chiang Kai-shek’s tolerance that he was able to achieve his own bullying; and that the “new society” he chose was only cruel and destructive to him. Although the era afterwards once again bowed to the master, could he really be tolerated by the Chinese Communist regime given his temperament?
Recent Comments