Photo of brothers and sisters sitting on the ground playing with building blocks indoors. Although the pictures are clear, the style of doors and windows facing south is still clearly visible
Family photo at the back door of the main room
Family photo at the front front room
Reading books with mother indoors, it can be seen that the large bookcase behind
is hanging in The whole family photo in front of Huamen
Brother and sister wearing big straw hats standing on the small bridge, behind it is the back door of the main room
The front of the main room is dilapidated
and my father grow vegetables in the backyard and water
Lin Ming
Weixiuyuan is the place where I grew up in my childhood, and it has left me with an unforgettable vague memory for life.
My father Lin Tao and mother Du Rong are both professors at Peking University and they all love Peking Opera Kunqu Opera. From the autumn of 1946 to the autumn of 1952, that is, from the six years since I was one to seven years old, our family lived in Weixiuyuan. Many child psychologists believe that most children can only form permanent memories of certain specific characters or events after they are four or five years old, and this is the case for my memory of Wei Xiuyuan.
In recent years, articles about Wei Xiuyuan have appeared on some books and magazines and the Internet. These articles may explore the historical origin of Wei Xiuyuan, describe the beautiful scenery of Wei Xiuyuan, or recall the living life of Wei Xiuyuan. Although the perspectives are different, they all inspire my childhood deep in my brain. But I do not intend to repeatedly quote the words and sentences of those articles, but try to use some fragmented memories in my mind and support them with a few family photos taken at Weixiuyuan back then. Even if these memories may be blurred, distorted or distorted, try to record them as "real".
The northern section of Weixiuyuan’s small lake around the island
as narrow as a small river
My memories of life in Weixiuyuan are fragmented, and the time sequence is already vague. What I can remember is what happened before the age of four or five to seven.
When I lived in Weixiuyuan, I was still young and had limited scope of independent activities. I was usually led out of the front yard by my parents. There is a small lake in front of the front yard, which is full of lotus in summer, and the huge leaves of the lotus cover the pond.
Once my father led me along the ridge of the Lotus Lake, then walked out from the small southwest gate of Weixiu Garden, and saw a clear river (when I grew up, I knew it was Wanquan River), crossed a bluestone bridge, walked through one gate to another garden, and there were a smaller stream in the garden, and there were a few white ducks swimming comfortably.
There is a two-story building with a corridor in the yard at the end of Chengze Garden. Dad and some adults sing operas in the building (later I learned that it was a party of voters at Zhang Boju ). At that time, Uncle Wu ( Wu Xiaoru ) lived in Chengze Garden and often attended music meetings, but I was not interested in listening to operas. I only focused on playing with the little pug in the yard. I also saw a very old man sitting in the yard basking in the sun (now guess it might be the son of Yuan Shikai and Zhang Boju’s friend Yuan Keding ).
Another time, our family went out from the small southwest gate of Weixiuyuan to watch the parachute performance. Outside the tiger-skinned south wall of Weixiu Garden is an empty field, and you can vaguely see the houses in Haidian Town in the distance. Standing outside the south wall of Weixiu Garden, looking into the sky, I saw many red and white parachutes falling from the sky and slowly falling on the ground, but I still can't figure out why this parachute performance was performed.
When I lived in Weixiuyuan, my father relapsed due to tuberculosis and , and his condition was quite serious. He lived in the city hospital for a while, and then returned to the Yan University Medical Office for hospitalization. The Yan University Medical Officer is in a two-story building on the southwest side of Boya Tower, very quiet. My mother once led my sister and I to the school doctor to visit my father, who lived in the ward on the second floor.
Later, my father went home to recuperate, and people often talked to him and sang opera. When my father was recuperating at home, he bought an fishing rod and once took me to the small river behind my house to fish. The river is covered with reeds and water plants. The river water is very clear. Sometimes I catch a few small fish and take them home to feed the cat. Older children can catch tadpoles in the river, catch frogs, and even catch loaches.I once saw water snake swim around among the reeds, and several older children came over to try to catch it.
The small river is actually not a river, but the northern section of the small lake around the island of Weixiuyuan, as narrow as a small river, and the front yard of Weixiuyuan is located on this small island. There is a small earth hill covered with cypress trees in the southeast corner of the island. Bypassing the small earth hill and turning right, there is a stone bridge leading to the east gate of Weixiuyuan. There is a north-south road outside the east gate. Opposite the road is the palace-style school gate of Yanda (i.e. the West School Gate). On the north of the small island of Weixiuyuan, there is a small stone bridge leading to the backyard of Weixiuyuan. There is a row of bungalows in the backyard and a square pavilion-like house. Because of the obstruction of a small dirt mountain, you can’t see the backyard when standing on the small stone bridge. Only by walking to the gap in the small dirt mountain can you see the bungalow in the backyard of Weixiuyuan. My father once led me to look over at the Xiaotushan Gate. I was only five or six years old at that time.
The
that live in the front yard are all employees and young teachers of Yan University
In my memory, the front yard of Weixiuyuan is very large and is divided into three small courtyards: the middle courtyard, the east courtyard and the west courtyard.
Intermediate Courtyard is the largest, Sanhe Courtyard layout, consisting of the main room, the east wing and the west wing. My family lives in the main room on the north side of the intermediate courtyard. There are ear rooms on both sides of the main room that connect to the north room of the east courtyard and the north room of the west courtyard. There is a tall ancient locust tree in front of the west wing of the middle courtyard. In summer, the dense leaves almost block the sunshine of half of the yard. On the south side, there is a pavilion-style hanging flower gate. The base of the gate is above the ground. You have to step through two steps inside and outside the door when entering and exiting the door. There is also a wooden threshold under the hanging flower gate. People living in the front yard must enter and exit through this hanging flower gate.
The east and west courtyards seem to have only the north houses, which seem empty. There is also a tall house on the south side of the west courtyard, close to the small lake outside the front courtyard. It has a separate courtyard with some bamboo planted in the courtyard, and a small vase-shaped door leading out of the courtyard. People living in this house do not have to pass through the hanging flower door of the front yard.
Residents in the front yard of Weixiuyuan are all staff and young teachers of Yan University. Uncle Li Ou, Uncle Wang Ping and his wife, and their daughter Li Zongyi, all lived here. Later, they moved to Langrunyuan .
Our neighbor in the East Court is Mr. Zhang Youyu from the General Affairs Department of Yan University. He has five children, the youngest of whom are Zhang Baoyun and Zhang Baoqun, who often play with us brothers and sisters. Zhang Baoqun and I are classmates in the class of Peking University Affiliated Primary School. Zhang Baoqun's mother was very nice to me. I remember that once she made something delicious and asked me to eat, but by lunch I refused to go home.
I once lived in a family of a member of Liu in the west wing. Liu seemed to work in Yanda University in finance. His daughter Liu Xin (sound) and Lin were the same age. They went to Yanda kindergarten together and often played together. During the "Three Antis and Five Antis" movement, the whole family of the employee surnamed Liu left Wei Xiuyuan.
The south house of the west courtyard is Yan University physical education teacher Yan Huatang's family lives. They have three children, the youngest of which is Yan Lixuan. Later, the Yan family moved to , . In 1952, our family, Li family and Yan family moved to Zhongguanyuan. After more than ten years in Zhongguanyuan, I still often play with Li Zongyi and Yan Lixuan. The three children are still in their 70s and live in three different cities, and are still in contact. They are a childhood friend that has lasted for more than 70 years.
When living in Weixiuyuan, children of similar age often played in the middle courtyard, while the east courtyard and the west courtyard were relatively deserted. Perhaps because there were fewer residents or the children were older, they disdained to play with the children. At that time, I was young and could not go to the east and west yards alone to play. Sometimes I would stand in the middle of the house and look into the yards on both sides.
Four banners and screens
Full with vigorous and upright large brushes
My family lives in the main house in the front yard of Weixiuyuan. The house is very tall, facing north and south. The foundation of the house is very high, and the steps lead to the yard with square brick floor. There is a narrow and long porch in front of the main room. When it rains heavily, I stood under the porch and watched the countless water splashes splashing from the eaves on the ground. I found it very fun.
In my memory, my house has three rooms, from west to east, the bedroom, living room, and "sub-bedroom" room (I don't know its function, so I'll use it in quotes). The three rooms are connected by two doors, both of which are close to the north wall, and the doors face each other, so you can walk straight through. Outside the wall on the east side of the main house, there was an original independent East-Ear Room, which opened a small door between the east side of the main house and the East-Ear Room, making the East-Ear Room connected to the main room. This East-Ear Room is separated by a wooden wall into a toilet, a small compartment (or storage room) and a kitchen. Outside the west wall of the main house, there is an independent Xier room, which seems to be used by the neighbors. The windows of the three large rooms in the main room are transparent from north to south, with good light and cool in summer. However, because the Donger room is partitioned, the north to south windows are not transparent, and the small compartment in the middle is relatively dark. There are three doors leading to the main compartment, the kitchen and the toilet respectively.
In my memory, there are two wooden columns supporting the roof in the living room, and the living room has two doors in front and back. The front door is composed of two doors, leading to the front yard, and the back door is a door that leads to the back yard.
The living room does not seem to have much furniture, there is an old large sofa and two small sofas, and a large square table with a small drawer on each side of the square table. Sometimes we read or eat on this square table, and the west wall of the living room is against a large antique, hardwood bookcase with glass doors.
As for what furniture there is in the living room, I don’t remember it. The living room gave me a very empty feeling and I could run around and play. The furniture in the living room was all handed over to my parents after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, after my parents returned from Chengdu to the Peking Yanjing University , and after they settled down in Weixiuyuan, Yan University dormitory, my grandfather gave it to their parents for use. In the bedroom of
, against the west wall is a Western double bed, with a smooth curved headboard, and on the south side of the big bed is a Chinese-style southern-style maroon carved bed. There are brackets for hanging mosquito nets at the four corners of the bed, and there are detachable guardrails on both sides of the bed. I slept on this bed when I was a child. Next to the north of the big bed is a wooden children's bed , and my sister Lin is still sleeping on this children's bed. There is also a maroon dressing table in the bedroom of
, which is also in the southern style and exquisitely crafted. There is a large oval mirror on it. The surroundings of the mirror are carved and carved, and there are several small drawers on both sides of the mirror. In addition, there is also a maroon desk that is also in southern style but contains some Western elements. These southern style furniture should be used in conjunction with each other. They were temporarily stored in my home by the Thirteenth Gu Lin Wan when she was studying at Yanjing University. Many years later, I saw these old-fashioned furniture at the Thirteenth Aunt's house, and I felt a sense of intimacy like a different world.
In the "substitute bedroom", there is a single bed next to the window to the south. What impressed me the most was the four screens of calligraphy hanging on the west wall, full of vigorous and upright large brush words. My father told me that it was a banner written by Grandfather (my grandfather’s grandfather) for the emperor. Grandfather was once the teacher of Emperor Tongzhi. Although I don’t know what is written on the banner at all, I remember the title “Emperor’s Teacher”.
The east-ear room connected to the "sub-bedroom" is divided into three parts by wooden walls. The compartment to the south is the kitchen, with a coal pellet stove and an cupboard with small sliding doors. The middle compartment is wider than the length of a bed. There is a wooden board placed horizontally, which is usually used to pile up debris and can also sleep. There were guests here temporarily. The compartment to the north is a toilet, with a washbasin and a toilet. There is a north-facing window in the toilet. The setting sun shines in summer. Through the window, the small toilet is filled with golden sunlight.
The Peking Opera Gala at Beigong Building is Is the last Peking Opera performance of Yan University?
In addition to the front door facing the courtyard, my house also has a back door that leads to the small stone slab bridge to the north. There is a small open space in front of the back door of
, surrounded by a fence to form a small vegetable garden. When my father was recuperating, hedge planted cabbage, , tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. in the vegetable garden. A small ditch was also opened in the vegetable field to direct tap water to the vegetable field. I once placed a small paper-stacked boat in the small ditch to watch it drift with the water.
Under the north window of the "sub-bedroom" there is also a brick chicken coop. There is a small elm tree next to the chicken coop. There are several hens laying eggs. Unexpectedly, one night I heard the chickens screaming in fear. When my father got up, he saw that a few chickens were all bitten to death by weasel .
My house looks tall and elegant, but the interior doors and windows are decorated very old. The floor is covered with square blue bricks, and mice make holes in the corners of the walls and often appear in the house. One day, my mother brought back a newly weaned kitten from her colleague in Yannanyuan. The kitten was very cute, with short orange fluff. I handed it a small ball of yarn and it chased and bite. This is the first time I touched a small animal and I was deeply impressed.
The kitten grew up quickly and the mouse disappeared. It often grinds its claws on the door posts of the hanging flower doors and wanders around the yard. Our family had just moved to Zhongguanyuan, and the kitten suddenly disappeared. My father found it when he returned to Weixiuyuan and brought it back. It seemed that it also had the Weixiuyuan complex!
Weixiuyuan is only one way away from Yanda campus. My parents often take our brother and sister to take a walk on campus, such as Beigong Building, Linhuxuan, and Weiming Lakeside. Once, the Beigong Building held a Peking Opera party. My parents placed us on a small staircase on the side of the stage and watched my mother perform the Peking Opera " Chunxiang Nou Xue " from behind the side curtain. This may be the last Peking Opera performance of Yan University.
Sometimes after watching the show in Beigong Building at night, the Weixiu Garden is already very dark and the street lights are dim. You can see the dots of fireflies in the grass on the roadside. fluorescent appearing and disappearing.
950, my mother began to teach Chinese to students from Eastern European countries at Tsinghua University . She rode her bike along Yuanmingyuan Road to Tsinghua to work every day. On one off day, our family went from Weixiuyuan to Tsinghua University campus to play. A silver-gray plane was parked in a small square in the north of the campus. The nose was high and the tail was low, and there was a row of small square windows on the fuselage. My father raised me high and asked me to look in from the window near the tail of the plane. There were rows of seats inside (later I learned that this was an American C46 transport aircraft . After World War II , it was converted into a passenger plane. Tsinghua University had an aviation department at that time, and this plane should be for teaching). This is the earliest close contact with a plane in my memory, and I was deeply impressed. Yan University is located in Haidian, western suburbs of Beijing. At that time, there were no buses and transportation was inconvenient. When I entered the city, I mainly took Yan University's school bus, departed at the west school gate, and parked at the east gate of Weixiuyuan to wait for the bus. The school bus is very worn, with a wooden box body, the engine is in front of the driver's seat, and a small boiler of burning coal (or firewood?) is carried on the back of the car. There is a long wooden chair against the window inside the car. There is an arrow-shaped direction light on the front window of the driver's seat, red at the top and green at the bottom. Usually the arrow is facing up. When you want to turn, the driver will extend his hand to turn the arrow-shaped direction light in the direction of the turn, and then straighten it after turning.
The school bus has to pass through the West and South Streets of Haidian Town. I saw that the streets of the town are full of low shops. Pass through Haidian Town and drive onto the road leading to the city. The narrow road is covered with stones on both sides, and there are open and desolate fields in the distance. Apart from the lonely farmhouses, decent modern buildings are rarely seen. Passing the Xizhimen Tower, you can enter Beijing City . The school bus terminal is at Donghuamen (I don’t remember if there is a passerby station). I return to school at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.
When my family first moved to Zhongguanyuan in September 11952, a prominent problem was that the transportation was inconvenient. To enter the city, you still had to cross the Peking University campus to take the school bus to the west gate. By 1953 and 1954, roads were built on the south and east sides of the Peking University campus, and two bus routes, No. 31 and No. 32, were opened, and the traffic conditions were greatly improved.
Two revisits were different
In September 11952, my family moved from Weixiuyuan to Zhongguanyuan. One of the reasons for moving is that the relevant departments of the school believe that my family has a small population and the housing area is too large; the second is that the island around the lake is relatively humid, and there are too many mosquitoes in summer, which is not good for the health of children.
Although the 75-square-meter housing in Zhongguanyuan is much smaller than that in Weixiuyuan, its design is reasonable, the space utilization rate is high, and it does not appear crowded ( Lin Huiyin once praised the house in Zhongguanyuan as "small sparrows are small, and all the internal organs are complete"). After moving to Zhongguanyuan, I went to school at Peking University Affiliated Primary School (now the location of Peking University Library).In the first and second grades, the children went to and from school between elementary school and Zhongguanyuan home, and were escorted by teachers or parents, and they would not run around. By the third to sixth grades, the children's independent ability is getting stronger, and boys often play and run around the Peking University campus after school in the afternoon. At that time, we children could also go in and take a walk in the courtyard of Linhuxuan and the foyer of Beigong Building. We even went to Weixiu Garden outside the West School to pick mulberry leaves and mulberry , and also went to the homes of classmates Zhang Baoqun and Yang Gu (Yang Gu's father Yang Ruji was once the secretary of Stu Leiden). Our boys also visited the rice fields and biological test sites in the west of Weixiu Garden, and those places I had never been to in my childhood. Throughout the 1950s, the housing and landscape of Weixiuyuan did not change much.
visited Weixiuyuan again. It was twenty or thirty years later, and I was already middle-aged. The front yard of Weixiu Garden is still there, but it is dilapidated. The pavilion-style hanging flower door has been demolished without any trace. Instead, it is a yard-style gate. The wall next to the door is painted with eye-catching words "No. 106 Weixiu Garden" and the yard is covered with small sheds built privately.
I walked into the yard and looked at the main house I lived in in my childhood. It was blocked by the small shed, and I couldn't see the whole picture of the house at first glance. More than a dozen faculty and staff dormitories have been built in the north and west of Weixiu Garden, and the scenery like pastoral poetry in previous years has disappeared. What is even more desolate is that the small lake in Weixiuyuan has dried up and has no water, is covered with weeds, and there is a lot of garbage thrown at the bottom of the lake. To facilitate car access, the hard-grain road leading to the front and back yard of Weixiuyuan has been widened into asphalt roads, and the two stone bridges have also been transformed into reinforced concrete bridges that can pass through cars.
A full 70 years after leaving Weixiuyuan
After more than ten years, I accompanied Xiao Yan Lixuan and Li Zongyi to visit Weixiuyuan's former residence. The layout of the yard has not changed, the ancient locust tree is still there, but the ugly small shed is still entrenched in the yard. What is a little gratifying is that the lake water reappears in the small lake around the island, but the water surface scenery is monotonous and tasteless like a broken mirror, lacking the vivid sense of life that year.
The front porch of the main house where I lived in the past has been transformed into an enclosed balcony or room. I found that there was a door open to the south of the room, which was just a false impression. I pushed the door open and the room was empty, and the doors leading to the living room and the Donger room were blocked, making it an independent room. In fact, this "sub-bedroom" room is not big, only about ten square meters. This is very different from the empty impression of my childhood memory.
The north house of the East Courtyard was originally Zhang Baoqun's home. I saw that the clamp between the East Courtyard and the front yard was blocked by a wall, and another courtyard gate was opened on the south wall of the East Courtyard. We asked the current residents, but we didn't know where the Zhang family moved. In summary, the Zhang family should be a "old-level" resident in the front yard of Weixiuyuan.
We walked around the back of the front yard and saw a high wall built in my back yard, like a farmer's house. We could no longer see the small vegetable garden of that year, but we could still see the canopy of the elm tree. The tall roof is still the same, it’s really a vicissitudes of time!
The front yard of Weixiu Garden is the only existing building complex in the former Qing Dynasty in Weixiu Garden. It is relatively complete in preservation. It is the central part of the father of the last emperor, Puyi and the Regent Zaifeng Garden. It is said that the relevant departments of Peking University intend to restore its original appearance, but many years have passed and there has been no movement.
Until this year, I have been away from Weixiuyuan for a full 70 years. For some reason, sometimes I still vaguely dream about Weixiuyuan’s former residence. Once I dreamed that I passed through the West School of Peking University, passed through Weixiu Garden under a tall tiger-skin wall, and couldn't find my home around the front yard houses. Finally, I had to go through a room from someone else's house before I found my home. It turned out that my home was hidden deep behind someone else's house! Although dreams are absurd, they are also an activation of long-lasting memories by brain cells!
September 18, 2022 The 70th anniversary of leaving Weixiuyuan Photo provided by/Lin Ming
