In memory of Mr. Ye Shengtao - Lu Shuxiang

It is really ridiculous for an ordinary person, a person who has nothing to do with eight poles, to write a title like "In memory of Mr. Ye Shengtao". It's just that I don't think Mr. Ye will be very anxious or angry in the spirit of heaven, because for many days, I always think of him.

I have not even read any books by Mr. Ye Shengtao, and I no longer have a complete impression of even a certain paragraph in "The Scarecrow" that I read when I was a child. I only remember the scarecrow with two pigtails on the cover. Maybe this is also wrong. There seems to be another cover in my memory that shows a boy scarecrow with a tall hat and another one standing far behind it. Of course, these are not important. I think of him from time to time because I read Mr. Zhang Zhongxing's "Two or Three Things about Mr. Ye Shengtao" a few years ago. I read it again recently when I was sorting out books, and the little things inspired me again. The ripples in my soul send out waves of reflection.

Mr. Ye Shengtao passed away on the eve of the Spring Festival in 1988. At that time, the reform and opening up had not yet been many years old, and it was already a far cry from what we have today. I wonder what Mr. Ye would think of the rapid changes we are experiencing today. I just think that if we could seriously understand Mr. Ye Shengtao's way of dealing with people today, how much dust would have settled on our day, and how beautiful our colorful world would be today.

Mr. Ye Shengtao lived for ninety-four years and experienced the vicissitudes of modern China's rise and fall over the past century. The ups and downs he experienced were as ups and downs as ours today. However, his "plain rules" in dealing with others strongly reflect the Confucian style of China's excellent cultural traditions. Throughout his life, he has been a "gentleman" who "never tires of learning and teaching." What I read was only two or three trivial things, but they made people sigh.

What impressed me most was a small thing. Mr. Ye Shengtao is from Suzhou. When he first arrived in Beijing, he was unfamiliar with Mandarin, but he insisted on using Mandarin when writing articles. I wrote an article and asked Mr. Zhang Zhongxing to help me revise it. At first, Mr. Zhang didn’t want to write directly out of respect, but just wanted to make some suggestions. Mr. Ye said, “You’re welcome, it will be more troublesome, so I’d better just revise it. It’s not limited to language.” , if there is anything wrong, change it. Don’t be cautious, because you are afraid of changing it if it is wrong. "This is all true. If it is just saying, "It will be troublesome", but he hopes that others will do it. Don't be polite to yourself but never give up being polite. Sometimes, if there are one or two areas that he thinks can be moved, he must go to Mr. Zhang in person to discuss whether they can be restored. Mr. Zhang definitely agreed with him and asked him not to discuss it again. He agreed, but he would still come to discuss it next time. Although it is your own article, if you think that the changes made by others are inappropriate, you must get the consent of others before you change it back. Mr. Ye Shengtao was a famous writer, linguist, educator and social activist in the 20th century. Not only was he "not ashamed to ask questions", but the friendship between his colleagues was so rigorous and generous, how could we not make people's hearts move! Nowadays, there are also people who are defending this and that, but they are unwilling to patiently say that sometimes you can see on the Internet that they get angry because of a critical word, either scolding or deleting it, and the word "discussion" cannot be tolerated. In fact, if you want to show off your personality or hype, that's fine. If you really think that what you write is unpublished, it will be of no benefit to others or yourself. Our literary criticism cannot be anything other than flattery or scolding.

Sometimes I also wonder, what if Mr. Ye was alive today, surfing the Internet and writing blogs? He was certainly meticulous about his writing and even his punctuation. Mr. Lu Shuxiang said that one day he saw Mr. Ye sitting at his desk and correcting something. When he got closer, he saw that he was tracing the punctuation points of the article sent by Mr. Lu himself. Mr. Lu said that from now on he would not be careless about punctuation. Mr. Ye will also write comments or messages to his friends. He will definitely think twice before typing the keyboard. Maybe he won't write a critical word, but he will honestly discuss with you whether this is better. In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the words "do" and "zuo" were not used interchangeably in Chinese. Mr. Ye specially convened everyone to discuss. In addition to the long-standing conventions such as "composition", "self-result" and other words, "action" means "do". ”, “ acting ” means “ doing ”. The "Chinese" textbook I learned when I was a child was organized and compiled by Mr. Ye. Thinking about it today, those catchy, simple and clear texts have really benefited me throughout my life. He will definitely respect the visits of his friends and return visits in a timely manner. No matter how he blocked the guests who came to visit his home, he always sent them outside the gate, bowed and thanked them. Even if you are seriously ill in your later years and cannot get out of bed, you still have to stand up, raise your hands, and say thank you in your mouth. However, I don’t think Mr. Ye has many friends. After all, his era was not as efficient as ours today, and he couldn’t do it even if he forgot about food and sleep. Similarly, Mr. Ye would express doubts about the style of many articles today. He advocates "writing words" and writing how to speak. He said more than once, "Write it into an article and read it in this room, so that the people in that room can listen. It is talking, not reading." But he will definitely respect the new genres and formats that are springing up. He himself has experienced nearly a hundred years of cultural innovation and development. It’s just that he would never put on a cultural shirt and go to the “busy city” or “sing naked”.

From this, I thought that "Confucian style" is not "Confucius style" and is not an inheritance of the ideology of a declining class.

Confucian style is the integration of the excellent culture of the Chinese nation for thousands of years and one of the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation for thousands of years. Mr. Ye Shengtao has passed away. Different eras, even heaven and earth are incomparable. But the culture he inherited and the spirit crystallized by his personal actions can certainly nurture our colorful world today. We cannot but miss Mr. Ye Shengtao.