How did the "foreign lantern", "foreign fire" and "foreign pen" in memory disappear in society?

The Westernization Movement in the 1960s (65438+2009) adopted the strategy of "Chinese style and western use", which not only placed "foreign guns and guns" at the cultural commanding heights, but also broke the concept of "respecting China and belittling foreign countries". In the late Qing Dynasty, literati, intellectuals and ordinary people gradually got rid of the arrogance of "the distinction between Chinese and foreigners", and the title of "foreigner" was gradually replaced by "foreigner". Perhaps the initial word "foreign" was contemptuous and disdainful, but the first and second Opium Wars gradually raised the status of the word "foreign" and even surpassed "China". "foreign" represents more and more advanced, more and more civilized and more fashionable. To some extent, "foreign" has achieved cultural conquest.

While "foreign guns and guns" were highly praised by the late Qing government, a large number of things labeled "foreign" flooded into China, replacing "local" things in various fields. China people began to accept some western lifestyles and entered the daily life of literati. The original so-called "strange trick" was resisted and criticized by literati. In Ge's Miscellaneous Notes on a Trip to Shanghai, a large number of "foreign goods" in Shanghai are listed: Japanese cars, foreign hoses, foreign clothes, foreign soaps, foreign umbrellas and foreign pens have become the daily necessities of Shanghai citizens. China's earliest and largest newspaper, Shenbao, is full of advertisements for foreign cloth and foreign medicine. It is said that in the same light-year period, "almost no family in China does not need some imported foreign goods".

Then, how did the word "foreign" spread all over the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China and gradually disappeared from the concept of Chinese people?

On the eve of the founding of New China, Xinmin Evening News in Shanghai devoted itself to finding the mentality of "worshipping foreign things and obsessing foreign things" in the details of Shanghai people's lives, and attacked it: "In the market with the strongest colonial atmosphere, many cunning businessmen often use English as a label to confuse people. ..... Among all kinds of cram schools in Shanghai, English cram schools are the most ","The greatest sorrow of colonial peoples is the loss of their own language and culture ". The concept of "foreign" has permeated every field since the founding of the People's Republic of China, satisfying the needs of people's lives, but suffocating the country's production and development. Therefore, if you want to develop your own economic system, you must get rid of the concept of "foreign" in your thoughts and life.

For example, Xinmin Evening News has two cigarette advertisements, "Pegasus" and "Double Axe" cigarettes. The biggest similarity between the two advertisements is that there is not an English word on the box, while the domestic cigarettes of other brands are all written in foreign languages. In addition, in terms of policy, the government is willing to exclude "foreign" from the daily life of China people: "In order to celebrate the victory of the people of China in their struggle against the feudal blockade, we will carry out in-depth patriotic propaganda", and the industrial and commercial circles have decided to change the past "foreign candle" into "mine candle". Xinmin Evening News optimistically announced that this practice showed that China had got rid of the semi-colonial fate and marked the demise of imperialist forces in China. Of course, in the period when material resources are extremely scarce, unilateral announcement may be too optimistic. It wasn't until 1964 that the newspaper was basically self-sufficient in relying on imported oil products that it was delighted to say that the surname "oil" was about to change forever.

The early vigorous movement to "foreign countries" and "colonies" seems to have impacted all foreign terms, but it also brought a problem: we can replace "matches" with "kerosene" and "nails" with "nails". The names of these commodities are colonies and semi-colonies. Or what transliteration words such as "coffee", "sofa" and "tank" can be used instead? Xinmin Evening News believes that foreign oil and foreign cloth are industrial products. The appearance of this term not only marks the economic aggression of imperialism, but also marks the backwardness of China's industrial system. Now that we have a brand-new industrial system, foreign oil and foreign cloth will naturally be replaced. "Onion" and "Robinia pseudoacacia" only indicate the place of origin, which reflects the achievements of the working people in China in introducing foreign varieties. They can't be regarded as "worshipping foreign things and admiring foreign countries", nor can they be said to be a disgraceful thing.

Of course, the word "foreign flavor" has disappeared from people's minds in China, and it cannot be changed by advocacy and publicity alone. This is gradually replaced on the basis of learning and saving. After the founding of New China, the atmosphere of "hard work and plain living" gradually formed in Shanghai, and the windows of big shops became inconspicuous. Fewer and fewer people wear suits, and more and more people wear Chinese tunic suits. The most ambitious Shanghainese began to learn to use new terms, and also grasped the meaning of people and cadres. "Social concepts generally believe that if a person can't popularize his interest in life, it is like a tail that can't be cut off. Popular cultural interests need to be cultivated through group life.

How urban people participate in group life is through learning. After the founding of New China, "learning" has become a new social fashion, and various newspapers have set up learning columns. Some words have gradually entered people's minds, even in the streets, criticism, self-criticism, review and other words have become common words in daily communication. Everyone is keen on learning, busy with learning, and get change and comfort in learning. Learning has become as important as work. Through various studies, new concepts such as "match", "iron" and "kerosene" are imported into the common people's ideas and accepted and used.

On the other hand, the concept of economy also contributes to the formation of a new atmosphere. Before liberation, due to the turbulent situation and the shortage of materials, the Kuomintang also put forward the concept of economy many times. Some newspapers compared the "saving" before and after the founding of the People's Republic of China: telling the poor to tighten their belts and telling the rich to waste as much as they want; Tell the people to drink porridge soup and eat delicacies; On the surface, it is frugal, but in fact it spends money like water. Saving after the founding of the People's Republic of China is the real saving: bosses and ordinary people are free to listen to their lives and not interfere. They repeatedly use their own paper, and an envelope is turned over and over. This "altruism" thought has greatly changed the extravagant social atmosphere, and many "foreign flavor" products themselves are the representatives of bourgeois hedonic culture. Therefore, when the economic atmosphere prevails, the representative of this hedonic culture is naturally rejected by the public.

Terms such as "foreign oil", "foreign fire", "foreign pen" and "foreign paper" are far from the concept of China people. This is not an overnight process. They have been used for decades, until1990s, and they still exist and are used in the concepts of rural areas and some elderly people in China. For the new generation after 00 and 10, these terms may have become history. However, in the eyes of the generation after 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90, these nouns may be the past that cannot be returned, and they are memories of childhood.