Scholar as Matchmaker

Hu Shi is widely known an accomplished scholar who played pioneering role in the New Culture Movement in the late 1910s which radically changed the landscape of Chinese culture. However, his matchmaking is little known. In fact, Hu Shi had a notebook which records dozens of marriages he helped put together or weddings he presided over. Though his own marriage with Jiang Dongxiu, a village girl, was arranged by his mother, he championed freedom to choose one’s own spouse. The following are stories of three marriages Hu Shi helped put together.

Zhao Yuanren and Yang Buwei

Zhao Yuanren and Yang Buwei got married with the help of Hu Shi. Dr. Zhao Yuanren came back from USA to teach at Qinghua University in 1920. He went to hospital one day after finding himself cough blood. Zhao feared that something might have been wrong with his lungs. After initial examination and tests, a young male doctor was not sure and asked the chief over to make a diagnosis. The chief doctor turned out to be a young and very good-looking woman. The woman doctor examined the professor carefully and thoroughly and confirmed that it was bronchitis and that the blood came from too much force used to cough. Zhao felt uncomfortable with the diagnosis, saying that he could be in trouble if something was wrong with the lungs. The chief asked him not to worry and she would be totally responsible if it was lungs. The male doctor offered a reassuring remark: she was China’s first medical doctor who had studied in Japan.

Zhao was deeply impressed. He came back to the hospital several times to see the young woman doctor on the pretext of follow-up examinations. Zhao learned that the doctor was Yang Buwei, a rare name for a woman. Yang explained that she adopted the new name while studying in Japan because she believed a woman should have ambition just as a man. Learning that Yang was still single, Zhao became serious in his pursuit. However, Yang was very cautious about the relationship because she didn’t know very much about Zhao’s personality, though she knew a lot about the professor’s academic merits. Frustrated, Zhao one day talked with Hu Shi about the little progress he was making. Hu Shi promised to make the breakthrough for Zhao. The next day Hu went to see Yang Buwei. He told Yang everything he knew about Zhao and related Zhao’s admiration for Yang. Yang agreed to take a step further with Zhao, on the strength that Hu Shi, a scholar of national renown, came to act as a match broker.

In August, 1921 Zhao Yuanren and Yang Buwei got married after a simple ceremony and a simple one-table banquet. Hu Shi acted as a chief witness at the wedding ceremony. Hu got out a notebook and asked the newly weds to autograph, saying that the signatures were the first in the book and that he was ready to broker more marriages in the future.

Shen Congwen and Zhang Zhaohe

In the early 1930s Hu Shi was president of Chinese Public School in Shanghai and Shen Congwen, a young writer of national reputation for his novels on the western Hunan Province, was engaged in teaching Chinese at the school. He fell in love with a female student at the first sight on the first day he stepped into a classroom. She was Zhang Zhaohe. Shen asked her to answer a question, but the girl was so nervous that she failed to come up with an answer. Shen joked about the awkward situation and the class laughed. The class found their new teacher talented and Zhang admired him, but she didn’t know that the young teacher was in love with her at the first sight.

But Shen fidgeted with his burning passion. He was unable to teach peacefully. His eyes were drawn to the heartthrob student and his heart pounded every time he stepped into the classroom. After a few sleepless nights, he decided to write love letters.

Zhang was shocked to receive these letters. She was utterly at loss. She dared not write back and dared not say anything to her teacher while letters kept coming. She knew she as a student should keep a proper distance from her teacher. She also feared that her classmates might get the wind of the letters and report to the school administration. So she summoned up her courage one day and went to Hu Shi. Hu Shi saw the letters and smiled, saying that these letters read like beautiful essays. Zhang had thought Hu might stop Shen from writing letters. She explained she was still a student.

Hu Shi replied that though she was still a student, she was 18 and she was in the right age. Though Hu did not encourage student romances, Shen should be an exception. Mr. Shen was a teacher that Hu Shi had invited to teach at the school and he was a talented writer. Hu Shi went on to say that he and other friends of Shen were concerned about his marriage, too. Hu Shi asked Zhang how she thought of Shen as a man. Zhang admitted she admired the man and his talent and then she stressed that she was still a student.

Hu Shi had an idea: “Since you don’t object Mr. Shen’s love for you, I can be a messenger for both of you. Yet marriage has to wait until you graduate.”

Zhang went steady with Shen and they got married in 1933 upon her graduation.

Xu Zhimo and Lu Xiaoman

Their affairs were sensational in the 1930s. They fell in love at first sight. At that time they were married but not to each other. Xu Zhimo escaped to Japan and fell sick there. While in hospital, he realized that he had nowhere to escape. So as soon as he could manage, he came back home and got divorced despite fierce objection from his family. Encouraged by Xu Zhimo, Lu got divorced too. However, they ran into difficulty trying to get married. Xu Zhimo’s father objected and announced that he would cut Xu Zhimo out as a son if he married Lu Xiaoman.

Xu Zhimo turned to Hu Shi for help. After learning Xu and Lu’s love for each other and their status as divorcees, Hu Shi agreed to help them fulfill their wishes. Hu spoke favorably of the two on various public occasions. Hu also visited Xu Zhimo’s father and pleaded for Xu Zhimo. Xu Zhimo’s father changed his mind and agreed when seeing Hu Shi come to appeal.

Xu Zhimo wanted to have Liang Qichao as a witness to his wedding, but he knew Liang was averse to the untraditional romance when he was still married to his wife and Lu to her husband. So Xu Zhimo asked Hu Shi to help again, believing Hu Shi was the only one who could persuade Liang Qichao to attend the wedding. Liang served as the witness to the wedding, but he did not forget to give the couple a piece of his mind before he blessed the marriage.