Gu Hongming: the Eastern male god in the eyes of Westerners

He has received 13 doctorates in his life

He is proficient in 9 languages ??in his life

His famous saying: My braid is on the back of my head, but your braid is on my heart

His mother is a Westerner, his father is an overseas Chinese, and he received Western cultural education since childhood. In Gu Hongming's own words, he was born in the South, studied in the West, married in the East, and served in the North. However, he has had long braids all his life and has an almost paranoid admiration and persistence of traditional Chinese culture. He even often competes with foreigners because of this, but he is able to gain recognition and respect from foreigners.

In modern Europe, there is a famous saying that is widely circulated: You can go to China without seeing the Forbidden City, but you must see Gu Hongming. It can be seen that Gu Hongming has become a male god in the minds of foreigners.

Once, on a tram in London, England, several young people saw Gu Hongming with long braids. Seeing that he looked ridiculous, they insulted him. At that time, Gu Hongming was holding a copy of "The Times" in his hand, so he turned around to read the newspaper. The British people laughed and said: "Look, that kid can't even recognize the words, what kind of newspaper is he reading?" ?

After hearing this, Gu recited the entire article in pure and proficient English, and then said: ?Your English only has 26 letters, which is too simple. If I didn’t read it backwards, it wouldn’t make sense at all. All gone! ?These British people looked at Gu Hongming in shock, and then left angrily.

In 1884, he followed his father’s mission to return to the East and become a Chinese, and returned to China. After being recommended by others, Gu Hongming served as the staff of Zhang Zhidong, a famous official in the late Qing Dynasty.

At that time, Zhang Zhidong was training the army in Wuhan using new Western methods and invited German officers to be military coaches. However, the German instructors refused to wear Chinese military uniforms and military caps, and refused to kneel down, leaving everyone at a loss. Gu Hongming relied on his excellent eloquence to persuade the Germans not only to wear Chinese military uniforms, but also to agree to perform the Chinese kneeling ceremony.

When the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded China, Gu Hongming once published a patriotic article in Latin in Europe, which made Europeans admire him.

Before and after the May Fourth Movement, when Gu Hongming was teaching at Peking University, many foreigners often came to visit his residence in Beijing.

Once the British writer Maugham came to visit and saw that there was only a dim small oil lamp in the house, he complained that it was too dark. Gu Hongming said: "We Chinese people have bright hearts and bright lights, unlike you Westerners who only pay attention to appearance."

Although the foreign professors were very respectful when they saw him, Gu Hongming was not polite either. When you see a British person, you should scold Britain in English. If you see a German, you should scold Germany in German. If you see a French person, you should scold France in French. I scolded these world-class foreign professors one by one until they were convinced.

Due to the urgent need to save the nation at that time, it became a trend in mainstream society to admire the West. Some people even put forward the extreme view that "Chinese characters do not need to be destroyed". As a result, many of China's excellent traditional cultural essences have been discarded in the process of overall westernization. Gu Hongming was deeply saddened by this. He clearly pointed out that we should not learn to walk in Handan and lose ourselves without learning advanced material civilization. Chinese civilization is the greatest and most dazzling in the world.