Qian Zhixi, Master Qian, let me see

1. Bu Feiyan: Thanks to the teachers in my life

My tutor, Mr. Qian, is a southerner with a strong literary temperament.

At the age of forty, Teacher Qian had already become a doctoral supervisor and was the youngest and most promising scholar in the Chinese Department at that time. He seemed a bit shy and had a thick Southern accent when he lectured.

One of my senior sisters often secretly imitated his accent in reading the ancient Yuefu poem "Going up the mountain to pick weeds."

After getting to know Teacher Qian, he once told me, why are you laughing when I read poetry?

I kept talking about other things, but Teacher Qian said, don’t think I don’t know, you are laughing at me for not speaking standard Mandarin.

He looked very serious at that time, but did not mean to be angry. My first impression at the time was that this teacher was very amiable and I would be very happy to study under him.

I was familiar with Teacher Qian when I was an undergraduate, and there was a very elegant story about "giving gifts" in it.

Teacher Qian taught a class about Tang poetry, and as usual, he had to write a paper at the end of the semester. However, Teacher Qian said that those who were willing to write a paper should write a paper, and those who were not willing could just hand in two Qilu poems and pass the test.

In the Chinese Department, Teacher Qian was the first to use creative writing instead of papers to complete term papers.

I am a lazy student, thinking that the Qilu is only fifty-six words, which is much more cost-effective than writing a thesis. So my career as a poet began. I was involved in the online poetry world, learning from my teachers and practicing at the same time, and finally fell in love with metrical poetry.

When my work was recognized by poetry friends online, I plucked up the courage to hand in my homework and got the highest score of ninety-five in the class.

I was overjoyed. One time, Teacher Qian met me and specifically said to me, "Don't be proud of yourself." Later, your senior brother submitted another article, and I gave it ninety-eight, and gave it to The reason you got a score of 95 is not because you wrote well, it was because you just learned it and encouraged you.

I know who that senior brother is. He can be regarded as a well-known professional poet in my department. He is the president of our school’s poetry club. I feel a little aggrieved. How can such a professional talent compare to him?

Teacher Qian said, why can’t we compare? If you want to learn poetry in the future, you can come to me at any time.

So, when I was an undergraduate, I became a student of Teacher Qian. What I studied at first was not knowledge, but metrical poetry.

Because Teacher Qian has a gentle personality, his classmates often make fun of him and say that his clothes are too simple. There is a sister in my dormitory who is well-off and fashionably dressed. One time she came back from shopping at Guomao. She was shocked and told us that she saw the broken bag that Teacher Qian was carrying in a certain Guomao store. The small one cost more than 2,000, and the big one cost more than 2,000. It costs four thousand! Everyone was stunned for a moment.

I took the opportunity to ask Teacher Qian, I heard that your bag is very expensive. Teacher Qian looked blank and said it was impossible. It was given to him by someone else at a poetry conference last time. I insisted that it was true. He blushed a little and never carried the bag again.

After that, the fashionable girl often blamed me for talking too much. Teacher Qian only had such a good bag, and she even made me dare not carry it.

My initial major was classical literature, while Teacher Qian’s major was ancient literature. If I wanted to officially become his student at the master’s level, I had to give up the recommendation and take the fiercely competitive examination. It was that day that really made me decide.

In the morning ancient literature class, everyone was sitting neatly, waiting for Teacher Qian to start class. Teacher Qian, who was never late, not only came half an hour late, but his hair was messy and his face looked haggard, as if he had just been seriously ill.

Then he stepped onto the podium and told us that his mentor, Mr. Chen, passed away.

He said a lot of words at that time, which were too messy to be heard clearly. Then, he turned around and wrote a couplet of poems on the blackboard, the next sentence of which was: "From now on, the Cheng family will be forever."

Then he put away the chalk and turned around to tell us that his lifelong relationship as a teacher was over, and he was choked up and speechless.

It was a real, heart-wrenching sadness. It is the gratitude for the kindness of teaching, and it is another kind of bereavement.

At this moment, I admired this teacher from the bottom of my heart and secretly vowed to be his student.

I believe that this school is not a cold laboratory or a simple classroom, but a family, a family that can help me, tolerate me, and encourage me.

This is the emotion that a scholar of ancient literature should have. This emotion deeply moved me, a person studying in a foreign country.

In the exam that was chosen from thirty, I was lucky enough to succeed. I became one of his students.

From then on, I would visit my master’s grave every year with my brothers and sisters, and spend every Mid-Autumn Festival and New Year’s Day together.

We are not only classmates, we are brothers and sisters.

I have no brothers or sisters, and I live alone in a foreign land far away from my parents, but I see warm family affection from everyone.

Led by Teacher Qian, more than half of the students in the school are "poets", and everyone studied the literature of the Wei, Jin, Sui and Tang Dynasties. So when the masters gather together, they can't help but be arty and talk about Qingyuan's purpose, or couplets and rhymes. The senior brother I mentioned before helped me become the editor-in-chief of the poetry club in a timely manner, so the poets of the poetry club often participated in activities with the disciples. Everyone was chatting and laughing at the banquet, and made many witty remarks. The junior sister proposed to compile a book "Shishuo Xinyu" from the jokes and anecdotes during the gathering and give it to everyone as a souvenir. This task fell into place Unfortunately for me, I am a lazy person and have delayed the creation of New Words again and again.

One year during the Mid-Autumn Festival, the teachers gathered at Teacher Qian’s home. They first wrote poems in rhyme and then couplets. It was very late, and my boyfriend was waiting for me in the coffee shop downstairs until it was almost closing. Then I discovered that there was a boy in the coffee shop, also with nothing to do, and refused to leave. When I asked, it turned out to be my junior sister's boyfriend. So a few people decided to set up the Qianmen Support Association, using this coffee shop as their base.

In the year I graduated, Teacher Qian went to Japan for one or two years due to school arrangements. The dream of completing a Ph.D. under my disciple suddenly failed to come true.

The "Shishuoxinyu" has not been organized yet because of laziness, but the classmates are already scattered in all directions.

The poetry club failed to flourish in our hands. When we left, I couldn’t help but want to cry.

After all, this is such a free and carefree life, which can only happen a few times in life.

Thank God for allowing me to isolate myself from the dust of the world during my most prosperous years and briefly enjoy the life of ancient poetry and wine gatherings.

Someone asked me if I would like to be a professional writer in the future, and I said no.

Because I have only one dream.

In my forties,

I will also become a teacher, standing on the podium and telling my dream about poetry.

I will also do my best to leave my students with a dream of poetry, wine and romance that is free from the world.

I am forever grateful to the teachers in my life.

I love you.

Second, remember some gentlemen from the Chinese Department of Peking University

Text/Chen Hengshu

Qian Zhixi

Qian Zhixi, Peking University Professor of the Chinese Department and doctoral supervisor. Mainly engaged in the teaching and research of ancient Chinese literature, and is the host of the national-level quality course "Ancient Chinese Literature".

Compared with old money (Qian Liqun), the reputation of "little money" is probably not that great. The styles of the two Mr. Qian can be said to be in sharp contrast. Old money is bold and bold, while small money may be considered graceful. Old Qian is a knight on the podium, while Xiao Qian has the demeanor of a celebrity. It's no wonder: Lao Qian studies Lu Xun and modern literature, so he naturally has a bit of Lu Xun's chivalrous politeness; while Xiao Qian's main focus is on ancient times, pre-Qin and Han, Wei, Jin, and Tao Yuanming, so gentleness and elegance are naturally indispensable. The first time I listened to Mr. Xiao Qian's lecture was a lecture about Tao Yuanming. He called Tao Yuanming "the poet of life." This view greatly inspired the ideas of my two subsequent papers.

When I was a sophomore, Mr. Xiao Qian taught us the literary history of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Sui and Tang Dynasties. It was contrary to the teaching method of literary history that we had heard before. He did not try to establish a complete framework and clues, starting from "history" "To describe the development of literature from the perspective of ", it only roughly outlines the context of literary development in an era, and then picks up a selection of works and talks about them one by one. Like Lao Qian, he also likes to read his works aloud. His voice is not loud, and he has a strong Zhejiang accent, which is very flavorful - many ancient rhymes, especially the entering tone characters, can only be read in Jiangsu and Zhejiang dialects. After reading a poem, I will tell you how good this poem is, what is good about it, and so on. Reading works with my husband is indeed a wonderful feeling.

Mr. Xiao Qian attaches great importance to reading works. Not only reading, but also memorizing is emphasized, including relevant content for exams. I once looked through the original posts on BBS and found that many students criticized Mr. Xiaoqian after a final exam because the exam questions were too difficult. I took a look, and it didn't seem to be anything difficult. It was just a matter of filling in the blanks of some very common verses, and many people couldn't answer them. But Mr. Xiaoqian still did not change his teachings when he taught us. He also told us that good works should be read more and it is best to memorize them, and we should seize the time while our memory is still good. He also told us that when he was studying in Zhejiang, his teacher told him that anything a person can memorize before the age of 20 will basically never be forgotten in his life. It is basically difficult to have such a good memory later. I counted on my fingers and saw that there were only three months left. I was very sad. I really felt that I had met Teacher Yu Xiaoqian too late. Indeed, when it comes to learning ancient literature, there is always no harm in reading more, memorizing more, and memorizing more. Later, when Teacher Zhang Jian was talking about the history of Chinese literary criticism, he also insisted that we memorize more. He said that the current education requires everyone not to memorize by rote. There was a whole section of recitation questions in the exam, and I did horribly. This is basically consistent with Mr. Xiao Qian’s idea.

I remember that before the final exam of that semester, Mr. Xiao Qian arranged a question and answer session. At that time, there was a room full of people, and they probably all went there with the intention of asking some questions. When they arrived, they asked, "Teacher, what is the test this time?" What not to test? Mr. Xiaoqian answered a few words vaguely, and they couldn't ask any more questions, so they just sat there without saying a word. I was the only one talking to Mr. Xiao Qian about things that were not related to the exam. Mr. Xiao Qian suddenly asked, have you read a certain author's collection in its entirety? I said that I had read Tao Yuanming's collection. Mr. Xiaoqian asked again, have you read it completely? I said yes. Mr. Xiao Qian smiled, slapped the table and said, OK, this will definitely be helpful to you. Although I took the Du Fu test this time... I didn't feel relieved at the time. When I returned to the dormitory, someone was patting me. My shoulder said, OK, you came up with the test questions in a roundabout way. I think about it. Oh, that seems to be the case. As a result, I actually took a big question related to Du Fu at the end of the semester. But my answer was not good, and I wasted Mr. Xiao Qian’s praise that day, and I still feel a little ashamed.