Cao Xueqin, a novelist in the Qing Dynasty，is the cultural celebrity I worship most, hence，I have a great interest in all his traces in the capital city. The alley is the cause of my going there with my daughter in search of his traces, and is also the first picture in a series in the album. In September 1995, my daughter entered kindergarten in Big Stone Tiger Alley on the west side of Shichahai. It is an old messuage and my daughter's lodging is a row of old-fashioned houses. There is a moon gate and some relics of stone monuments in the courtyard. After consulting historical data, I found Cao Xueqin once lived in Stone Tiger Alley, so I felt very excited, sensed that the small courtyard has something to do with Cao Xueqin. However, my further investigation showed that the Stone Tiger Alley where Cao Xueqin lived was in Xidan, called Small Stone Tiger Alley. That's why I began to take my daughter to look for the series of former residences related to Cao Xueqin. My daughter's kindergarten is in Big Stone Tiger Alley though, the places nearby still have something to do with Cao Xueqin. Even up to this moment, I still cannot say who lived in this tiny courtyard, but who can rule out the possibility that Cao Xueqin ever dropped in here? No.33 Small Stone Tiger Alley in Xidan was the Right Wing Zongxuefu (school), where Cao Xueqin once worked before he went to the West Mountains to write his book. It is said that the small courtyard was one of the "Four Well-known Haunted Houses" of Beijing. Ji Xiaolan once described this house in the following words: 「Gong Wenda's mansion is in the Stone Tiger Alley inside the Xuanwu Gate. Before Wenda, it was the Right Wing Zongxue(School); before the Zongxue, it was the residence of Wu Efu(son of Wu Sangui), and before Wu Efu, it was the house of Zhou Yanru, a great scholar of the Ming Dynasty. With such a long history, unavoidably it has something unusual sometimes, but no harm has been done to people yet. There are two tiny rooms in the west, called 『Hao Chun Xuan(Good Spring Rooms)』, where Wenda entertained his guests; a door through the north wall leads to 2 even smaller rooms where the child servants slept at night. After they fell asleep, strange creatures often appeared, no one could tell whether they are ghosts or foxes, hence, no one dared to put up there.」 Cao Xueqin first worked as a private teacher at Ma Qi's home in the same alley, later went to Zongxuefu to be a "Neighbor", where he met with the two brothers, Guo Min and Guo Cheng, forming a poetry group with them, chanting poems and wielding the writing brush, defying the authority and arguing with eloquence, snuffing the candles and conversing freely...In his poem 「In Memory of Cao Xueqin」, Guo Cheng says, 「Together we dwelled at Tiger Gate for days，chatting late into night accompanied by wind and rain.」 It is just here that Cao Xueqin began to conceive his lifetime work, Dream of the Red Chamber. We can imagine, when the golden wind started, the summer heat had gradually died away, and the night gradually became longer and longer, the autumn light was full of taste, what a great enjoyment their night talks must have been! Unfortunately, we do not have the good luck to listen, and have let the golden words vanish in the air! According to Mr. Zhou Ruchang, 「The 300-years-old jujube tree in the yard should have 『seen' Cao Xueqin.」 Now my daughter just turns a blind eye to the 「King of Jujube Trees」 of Beijing，only climbing up and down the wall for playing. Outside is the 「Nation's Great World」 emporia，and the crowding people there give no notice to the ancient tree, either, seeming just to be looking ahead.作者: Adelyn 時間: 2006-1-13 12:19
利瑪竇與車公庄大街6號
Matteo Ricci, a missionary of the Italian Society of Jesus, came to China to evangelize during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty. He offered the icon of Christ, the icon of Madonna, a cross, a Bible, a chime clock and so on to Shenzong Emperor, and introduced Western astronomy, calendar system, geography and mathematics, etc. to China. He was once the leader of the China-based Society of Jesus, and passed away in Beijing in 1610.The imperial edict of Shenzong Emperor says："He should be interred in the status of a vassal, on the right of Jiaxing Temple, Erligou, outside Fucheng Gate." His translated works include Original Text of Geometry （a collaboration with Xu Guangqi）, True Meaning of Uranology, etc. There is a bamboo branch ci (a kind of Chinese poetry)about Matteo Ricci, saying：「Around the Catholic church are lingering all sounds of nature，with the chime and the qin ringing melodiously. Outside Fucheng Gate are in blossom the roses，with wine being splashed for Master Ricci.」 The stone carved epigraph before the grave says: 「The beautiful sun flies past with a square simulacrum, and this person's virtue is among the top ten in all things on earth.」 Interesting enough, the cemetery of Matteo Ricci and those of some other Western missionaries are kept together inside the Party School of Beijing Committee of the Communist Party, which has constituted a unique scene.
Gao Xing, born in January 1962, now I work with the periodical, China Insurance. In addition to painting, poetry and photography, my major activity is going around everywhere. Now I have got several personal anthologies and collections of prose works published. In art, I take a vanward attitude, but in culture, I prefer a conventional way, thus, I have begun to take a liking for collection in recent years. Since 1995, I have been taking my daughter to visit the former residences of the cultural celebrities scattered in the capital, accumulating a lot of pictures and verbal descriptions, which, as a pure personal behavior, is only for soothing my insatiable desire to collect. It seems that everything in the pictures can be loaded into my heart. The gate of the former residence of Cao Xueqin at No. 207 Guangqumen Avenue behind me has been pulled down.
Gaoshan Liushui, born in September 1992, now at Xiaoyueyuan Primary School attached to Beijing Normal University, with an innate lively character. Have the experience of being a dormitory head for several months, published my child poem in Journal of Poetry at the age of four, and performed a dance at Jingfeng Theatre at the age of eight. I like drawing pictures and making greeting cards using the computer, and enjoy drinking coca cola while playing the piano. For years, I have been following my dad through streets and alleys. Who knows how much traditional cultural flavor has gone deep into my marrow? Even to such an extent that I call all one-story houses 「old houses」, and call all cultural celebrities 「people from the old society」.作者: Adelyn 時間: 2006-1-13 12:19 在投向朝聖之路的目光
"A life without introspect is valueless."That is a motto often used by Zhou Guoping for self-analogy and self-encouragement. In his essays, philosophization has always been a predominant : he is trying to use a superorganic insight to reflect on many problems, so as to make thinking more powerful, make life more meaningful and make his essays more profound. It may be said to have reached its acme in Zhou Guoping's new collection of essays, Different Roads to Pilgrim.
Speaking from the angle of a scholar, Zhou Guoping is not a person facing only the ultimate concern, either, for he pays great attention to many problems in daily life, too, which has been clearly shown in his Different Roads to Pilgrim. At the same time, he has also kept such an attitude: subliming these problems to the level of philosophy of life and making affective communication with the reader while probing into such problems. In other words, he is talking about problems of life with a philosophic flavor.
It is said that Zhou Guoping's essays are very much favored by female readers, and I think, that has much to do with such a liking for making affective communication with the reader.Such an attitude has set him to an equal footing with his readers. For the modern people whose soul is becoming more and more closed to the world, emotional intercourse is no easy matter, almost becoming a luxury. Now we have a writer who can express freely and thoroughly what is in everyone's mind yet not in everyone's words, naturally, he will be identified emotionally with the readers, especially the female readers.
When writing Different Roads to Pilgrim, Zhou Guoping already passed fifty, but, strange to say, his writing is so easy and leasurely, showing a very young mentality. It may be attributed to his long years' indulgence in ancient Greek philosophy. That era was mankind's adolescence: healthy, forward looking and optimistic, not yet experienced war and other unexpected sufferings, and moreover, the curiosity to probe into the root of everything. With a young mentality, chatting about such pollution-free metaphysical concepts as philosophy, noumenon, eternity, belief, spirit, watching, solitude, soul and so on, has become a bygone myth hard to recover for most people now. Of course, in such a time, in such a society where commercialization dominates over everything, people like Zhou Guoping who have still kept the young heart and idealism are not few, either. They are all marching on their own roads to pilgrim.
* author of：Zai Yongming作者: cwjjzhou 時間: 2006-1-13 12:29
very good, thanks for letting us know so much information about the preaching of Jesus in China. I have kind of feeling, let's all live in a world of love, we love Jesus and we love to be loved by others, so first we have to love everybody first... what I mean is that we need to be true (honest), good, and loyal to who she or he loves.作者: Adelyn 時間: 2006-1-13 12:44
yes. i agree. the two pieces about Chao Xueqing are very interesting.