Gu Hongming, the Grinch of the Late Qing Dynasty

1857, Gu Hongming was born in Penang, Nanyang, British Malaysia. His father is from China and his mother is from the West. Gu Hongming is a hybrid. His ancestors were from Tongan County, Fujian Province, and later moved to Nanyang, where he accumulated a lot of wealth and prestige.

Gu Hongming's father works in a rubber plantation of an Englishman named Brown. Because Mr. Brown has no children, he treats Gu Hongming like his own son. Because of this, he first came into contact with western culture. At the age of ten, he followed Mr. Brown to the British Empire. At the age of fourteen, he went to study advanced science and technology. He studied at Edinburgh University and Leipzig University successively, and obtained thirteen doctorates in literature, philosophy and theology.

Later, when Gu Hongming returned to his hometown, he was exposed to China culture from a friend in China. Since then, he has been deeply addicted to China culture. While studying China culture, he also devoted himself to spreading China culture to the western people. He translated three of China's four books, The Analects of Confucius, The Doctrine of the Mean and The University, and wrote books such as China Oxford Movement and China Spirit, which caused great sensation in western countries. Gu Hongming also left a great reputation in the West. Westerners once said: You can't go to China without seeing the Three Great Halls, which shows Gu Hongming's influence in the West.

Gu Hongming, who runs through China and the West, is known as a geek in the late Qing Dynasty. How to interpret the title of geek in late Qing Dynasty?

First of all, a strange word distinguishes Gu Hongming from other writers. What happened to Gu Hongming? Gu Hongming blames himself for not adapting to the environment! When he first entered China, he wore short western-style hair, an authentic three-piece suit and was meticulous. At that time, people wore long gowns and jackets with a long braid hanging down behind their heads. No wonder Gu Hongming is dressed like this. Forget it. After the Revolution of 1911, Gu Hongming was still a stranger.

After the Revolution of 1911, new ideas and new cultures appeared all over China, and a large number of people cut off their braids and changed their appearance. But what about Gu Hongming at this time? He has been wearing a mandarin jacket and long braids for many years, and in view of his fascination with China culture, he has no intention of changing at all. A pair of deep eyes, stiff nose, three-dimensional facial features and yellow hair. Long-distance running in mandarin jackets, melon seeds hats and pale yellow pigtails is really weird in China, where short hair is everywhere.

When Cai Yuanpei was president of Peking University, he invited Gu Hongming to give lectures. When Gu Hongming, dressed in ancient costume, entered the classroom, the students dressed in new fashion burst into laughter for the strange new teacher. In Old Records of Peking University, Zhou Zuoren described Gu Hongming's appearance as a foreigner with deep eyes and high nose, with a pinch of yellow hair on his head, but it was braided into a pigtail. In winter, he wears a long-sleeved coat with bordeaux satin and a small hat with melon skin. Don't say that Beijing around the decade of the Republic of China was the early Qing Dynasty. We met such a well-dressed and priest-like figure in a small town on the road, and everyone couldn't help staring. What is particularly wonderful is that the driver of the chartered car, I don't know where it came from in the countryside, or the rest of the Xuzhou braided soldiers, is also unknown. He is also a big braid-carrying person, who happens to be a pair of masters in the class. He is waiting in the car pocket outside the gate of the Red Mansion. He is a special person in the driver team.

Gu Hongming doesn't feel that he is wrong in the face of strange or mocking eyes around him. He said to his Peking University classmates who laughed at himself: You laughed at me only because of my braid. My braid is tangible and can be cut off. However, the braid on your classmate's head is not so easy to cut off. Such an answer is witty and difficult to refute. After the students of Peking University heard this answer, the whole class was silent and didn't know how to answer it.

Gu Hongming's solution is easy to understand. He is very talented. Proficient in English, French, German, Latin, Greek and Malaya, and obtained 13 doctoral degrees. He was the first person in China who was proficient in western science, language and oriental Chinese studies in Qing Dynasty.

For such a stranger, such a contradictory person, such a person who always seemed extremely special at that time, many people gave their own views. Lin Yutang said: English writing is superior, and no one can beat it for 200 years. Word-building and word-using are excellent. In a word, with Mr. Gu's transcendental thought, he has his unique literary talent. Hongming can also be described as outstanding, and he is a strange man among people. This is talking about Gu Hongming's solution. Wen Yuanning said: a rebel who advocates monarchism, a romantic who takes Confucianism as his philosophy of life, and a dictator who prides himself on his slave symbol (braid); It is this contradiction that makes Gu Hongming one of the most interesting figures in modern China. This is talking about his eccentricity.