“It has been more than two years since I did not see my father, and what I cannot forget most is his back.” This is the first sentence of modern writer Zhu Ziqing’s essay “The Shadow of the Back”. It is this essay, full of the deep love between father and son, that has influenced one Chinese after another and made people feel the simple, sincere love of their father. Another deep impression of Zhu Ziqing is that he died of starvation because he did not receive American relief food, but this is not the truth.
Mao misled the Chinese that Zhu Ziqing died of a perforated stomach
What led the Chinese to believe that Zhu died of starvation was the ulterior assertion by Mao, the top Communist Party leader, who wrote in his article “Farewell, Stanton” on August 18, 1948: “We Chinese have a backbone. Many people who were once liberals and democratic individual liberals stood up to the American imperialists and their lackeys, the Kuomintang reactionaries. Wen Yiduo shot up, cross-eyed and angry at the pistols of the Kuomintang, preferring to fall down rather than submit. Zhu Ziqing was seriously ill and would rather starve to death than receive ‘relief food’ from the U.S. …… We should write an ode to Wen Yiduo and an ode to Zhu Ziqing, who showed the heroism of our nation …… “
However, this is not the case. in 1948, although the currency reform implemented by the national government failed under the covert manipulation of the Chinese Communist Party underground, prices soared in the National Unification Area, resulting in the vast majority of Chinese people, including university professors, facing material hardship and deteriorating living conditions, but Zhu Ziqing’s status and income was not so bad as to starve to death, because the income of professors at that time was dozens of times better than the general public.
An article in the book “The Fate of Chinese History” published in mainland China in 2009 points out that in Zhu Ziqing’s diary in 1948, there is also no record of living in hardship due to food shortage, but rather the following: “I drank a little lotus root powder and immediately vomited”; “I drank cow’s milk, but it was very painful “; “eats too much at night”; “has a good appetite, but restrains it in the end because of illness”; “eats too much”… …Just 14 days before his death, on July 29, 1948, the 11th day after he signed the declaration of refusal to receive “relief food” from the United States, he reminded himself in his diary: “Still gluttonous, need to be careful!
On August 12, 1948, Zhu Ziqing died in Peking University Hospital of a perforated stomach caused by a severe stomach ulcer. But since Mao published that article, Zhu Ziqing has been “starved to death”.
Why did Mao think so highly of Zhu Ziqing?
He was made a “fighter for democracy” by the Chinese Communist Party.
According to the article “The Fate of Chinese History,” Zhu Ziqing was originally named Zihua, Qiushi, and Peiyin, and at the age of 20, he changed his name to Ziqing because he “felt that his family’s financial situation was not good, and he wanted to encourage himself not to follow the vulgarity.” After graduating from Peking University with a degree in philosophy, Zhu taught in several high schools and then studied in England for a year on a public assignment.
Zhu Ziqing is known on the mainland as “a famous modern prose writer, poet, scholar, and democracy fighter,” and his masterpieces include Moonlight in a Lotus Pond, The Shadow of the Back, Green, and The Qinhuai River in the Sound of Paddles and Lights. His prose is capable of storing a poetic meaning.” “His work establishes a fresh style of pure simplicity from the very beginning.”
However, some people, including his good friend Ye Shengtao, commented that the essays “Moonlight in the Lotus Pond” and “Hurry” were “a bit pretentious, too much focused on rhetoric and not very natural. These essays are “smooth and clear, and not a single mistake can be found, but there is always a feeling that a soul is missing, a kind of anger contained in the spoken word.
Some people commented that Zhu Ziqing’s high literary status in the mainland was not due to his academic attainments, but to Mao’s elevation of him, and that he was anointed a “fighter for democracy” by the Chinese Communist Party and portrayed as a fighter who accepted the call of the people and finally emerged from the ivory tower. In his later years, his “choice” and “transformation” were defined as the path that intellectuals should take, especially his death, which was hyped up by the CCP to attack the Kuomintang and “American imperialism.
The “uneasiness” of 1948
The year 1948 was indeed a difficult year for Zhu Ziqing. It is written in the book that no one could avoid the choice of facing such a great historical change and turn of events, no matter whether it was excitement, frustration or fear. Zhu Ziqing’s political inclination, in his own words, was that of an “individualist who loved peace and freedom.
Although in his later years he wore a red and green dress and a large red flower on his head to the stage to twist a rice-song at a gala with students, “although the revolutionary symbol of the rice-song was much sought after by students and the general public with left-wing tendencies, it was, after all, difficult for the higher intellectuals in the National Unification Area to accept it. So Zhu Ziqing’s rice rice-twirling song became particularly striking.”
But that day Zhu Ziqing wrote in his diary, “Twice the students came to invite us to a student rally in the large dining hall, and they also invited us to twirl rice rice-songs on a makeshift stage. The pressure of the masses was indeed extraordinary and made me feel uneasy all night.”
Which one is the real Zhu Ziqing? The author analyzes that Zhu Ziqing was a rounded person on the outside and a square person on the inside, who was easy-going and reluctant to disrespect people, but this did not represent his own true thoughts in many cases. For example, he agreed to lend money to a person he disliked, but then cursed the person in his diary.
Zhu Ziqing’s eldest son died unjustly
A year or so after Zhu Ziqing’s death, the Chinese Communist Party was established, and Zhu Ziqing’s eldest son, Zhu Maixian, died unjustly soon afterwards.
In his famous essay “To My Deceased Wife,” Zhu Ziqing said of him, “My son was so sturdy that he was a head taller than me.” Perhaps nurtured by his father, Zhu Maishin also had a deep literary background, but instead of following the path of literature, he was compelled by the false theories of the Chinese Communist Party and became a member of it early on.
During the war, Zhu was assigned by the Chinese Communist Party to join the Kuomintang army and participated in the Guinan Battle and other battles. During the Nationalist-Communist civil war, he instigated the successful betrayal of the Kuomintang military and political personnel in northern Gui and later taught in a high school.
However, such a loyal man was sentenced to death by a court in Xinning County, Hunan Province, for “banditry” during the “suppression of counter-revolution” campaign launched by the Communist Party in November 1951, and was executed immediately at the age of 33. He left behind three young children.
In 1984, Zhu Maixian’s wrongful death was found to be a wrongful conviction, and his “honor” was restored by the Chinese Communist government.
Conclusion
The suffering of Zhu Ziqing and his son, who were used by the Chinese Communist Party, is a message to the world: stay away from the Chinese Communist Party in order to stay away from disasters.
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