Indefatigable Explorer

Editor’s Note: Sun Xizhen (1906-1984) was a prominent man of letters in the history of modern Chinese literature. Born in a relatively rich family in a village in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, he was an influential poet and writer in the 1930s. Lu Xun, also from Shaoxing, had close ties with the young writer. The two authors have produced a critical biography of Sun Xizhen, who is also a prominent man in the history of Zhejiang’s literature and culture. From the issue of May 2010 on, Cultural Dialogue serializes excerpts from the critical biography. This is the third episode.

Edgar Snow

In 1936, Edgar Snow (1905-1972) compiled and edited a collection of Chinese short stories and George Harrap, a now defunct publisher of high quality specialty books, published it in London. “Living China: Modern Chinese Short Stories” anthologized works by established authors such as Lu Xun, Mao Dun, Ba Jin, Shen Chongwen, Xiao Qian, Yu Dafu, Zhang Tianyi, Lao She, Guo Moruo, Zhang Ziping, Wang Tongzhao, and Sha Ting. The collection also included stories by young writers such as Rou Shi and Sun Xizhen. Snow mentions Sun Xizhen’s story in his preface to the collection and speaks highly of the then 30-year-old Sun.

Sun Xizhen met Edgar Snow in 1934 at a café in Beiping (the present-day Beijing). Also present at the meeting was Sun Xizhen’s friend Yang Gang, the executive secretary of Northern China League of Left-Wing Writers. Yang Gang at that time was a student at Yenching University and attended lectures by Snow. Sun learned from Yang that Snow was putting together a collection of short stories and that Snow had consulted with Lu Xun about the authors and stories to be anthologized.

After learning that his “Ah E” was chosen, Sun Xizhen said that his two war stories that had been published in Short Stories Monthly were better and he would prefer one of them for Snow’s anthology. Snow insisted on his initial choice, thinking the story about a rural girl in China would appeal to foreign readers more than a war story.

In a letter dated on May 19, 1935, Snow requested that Sun provide a brief autobiography and a photo. Sun Xizhen obliged. In a letter dated July 20, 1935, Snow invited to Sun to his home for dinner.

July 22, 1935 Sun arrived at the Snows’ house. Snow and his wife and Sun had dinner and chatted for four hours. Their topics ranged from Lu Xun and promising young writers in Shanghai and in the north. Snow showed Sun Xizhen five illustrations by Wei Mengke for Lu Xun’s “The True Story of Ah Q” and asked for his comment.

Chiang Ching-Kuo as Neighbor

In March 1938, Sun Xizhen came to Nanchang at the invitation of Xu Deheng. Xiong Shihui, the governor of Jiangxi Province, had decided to found an academy of political studies and had invited some celebrated scholars to teach there. Xu Deheng was one of the lecturers invited and Xu in turn invited Sun Xizhen. Xiong Shihui also invited Chiang Ching-kuo to attend the launching ceremony of the academy.

During that time, the Chinese War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression had started on all fronts and Nanchang became a place where cultural celebrities gathered. They decided to form “Association of Nanchang Cultural Circles for Saving China”. Sun Xizhen was the executive chairman of the rally to inaugurate the association.

However, some special agents came to stop the rally under the pretext that the central government allowed no such associations to come into being.

Upon learning about the disruption, Chiang Ching-kuo immediately came to stop the disturbance. The rally was able to proceed smoothly.

It happened that Sun Xizhen was the youngest cultural celebrity in Nanchang and he and Chiang Ching-kuo were about the same age. And they came respectively from Ningbo and Shaoxing, two neighboring regions in eastern Zhejiang. It also happened that Sun Xizhen lived in a street across from the back door of the house of Chiang Ching-kuo. At that time, Chiang was a social celebrity in Nanchang. He often invited people to dinner at his house. He and his Russian wife frequently visited neighbors. Chiang’s house became a salon where Sun Xizhen was often a brilliant speaker.

At a banquet, Chiang Ching-kuo proposed to Sun Xizhen that the young people should be organized to form a force. Sun was immediately on the alert. He began to distance himself from Chiang. Before leaving the Academy of Political Studies, Chiang asked Sun again to be a founding member of the proposed youth organization. Sun Xizhen declined. In July 1938, the Youth League of Three People’s Principles came into being. It became a political organization of young people under the control of Chiang Kai-shek.

In his memoir about his stay in Nanchang written a few months before his demise, Sun Xizhen relates his activities in Nanchang. His cautious account does not even mention his social ties with Chiang. His account of some key events in Nanchang does not agree with the account of the same events by Xue Can.

Sun’s Ties with Mao Dun and Zhou Yang

After great vicissitudes for decades, Sun Xizhen came back to his home province and worked as a professor of literature in Hangzhou. After the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), he became a high-profile literary figure again. From the end of the ten-year tumult to his demise in 1984, he attended more than 20 national conferences of literary circles, penned nearly 100 papers, 20 some memoirs, completed six books and published two.

Some of the national conferences he attended were policy-making and landmark occasions. They laid solid foundation for literary trends and development in the new era. Sun Xizhen spoke and made proposals at these important conferences, playing an active role in making these conferences successful.

On October 1979, Sun Xizhen and his wife Lu Ping attended the 4th National Congress of China Literary and Art Workers in Beijing. The historical conference gave Sun an opportunity to meet his contemporary literary heavy weights such as Mao Dun, Guo Moruo and Zhou Yang, all leaders of national literary authorities.

By this time, Sun Xizhen’s health had rapidly deteriorated and was often hospitalized. Zhou Yang often came all the way from Beijing to visit Sun at hospital. Zhou Yang and Sun Xizhen, once the leaders of the league of left-wing writers in the north and the south, now engaged in discussions about the future. Sun did all he could about salvaging materials about the history of modern Chinese literature and he took an active part in studies of literary masters such as Lu Xun, Guo Moruo and Mao Dun.

Sun Xizhen admired the three masters. Yu Dafu, a native of Hangzhou, was another writer whose talent was admirable in the eyes of Sun. In his evening years, Sun penned reminiscences about these writers in a bid to bring their personality back in vivid details. These essays are more than documentation on historical figures and historical events. They are also good prose in their own right.