Main content:

A collection of Fu Lei’s letters to his son, which excerpts 186 of Mr. Fu Lei’s letters from 1954 to May 1966. A letter was over 7,000 words long. The words between the lines are full of a father's love and expectations for his son, as well as his noble emotions for the country and the world. "Fu Lei's Family Letter" is a very special book.

It is a reflection of Fu Lei's thoughts, and can even be said to be the most important work of Fu Lei's life, because "Fu Lei's Family Letter" is a letter between him and his son, which reflects his painstaking efforts as a father towards his son.

The deep fatherly love is reflected everywhere in the book "Fu Lei's Family Letter". Perhaps every father loves his children very much, but while Fu Lei loves his children, he also does not love them. Forget to educate him in all aspects of music, art, philosophy, history, literature and even health.

Original introduction:

I remember that I studied French for three years from the age of 13 to 15. There were problems with the teacher’s teaching methods, and I didn’t study very well. The grades were terrible (nine times out of ten they were forgotten). From the age of 16 to 20, I changed to English in Datong. I didn't do well in it, but my grades were better than French. When you go abroad at the age of twenty, your knowledge of French will only be worse than your current level of Russian.

When I arrived in France, I hired a private teacher and a landlady to tutor me in French for half a year. The teacher took care of reading and grammar, and the landlady took care of conversation and pronunciation. Corrections were made all day long, not in class, but at any time. Correct in conversation. Six months later, I was living in a French intellectual family, and everything was fine.

After ten months, I will be able to listen to a few lessons that are not too difficult. It can be seen that the relationship between learning Chinese abroad and applying it anytime and anywhere is no less than one to five or six times that of domestic progress. You also heard Li Delun talk about this when you met him in Moscow. I mention it to you specifically to prevent you from turning your Russian learning into a "surprise style".

Reciting the grammar in one and a half months is a forced memorization and cannot be digested, and most of it will be forgotten after a while. I think the main thing now is to grasp the key points of Russian and learn slowly, but you must remember what you have learned so that you can have a solid foundation. It is useless to be greedy and multitasking. On the contrary, it will affect your piano business, and even make you feel sleepy and sleepy when you are free.

I hope you will think about this question carefully. Once you have figured it out, you must make up your mind to change the method and discuss it with your Russian teacher in detail. There is no quick way to learn anything, especially language. If you stop taking new classes now and review what you have already learned, I am sure you will find that you have completely forgotten many of them.

The biggest difficulty you encounter when going abroad is probably similar to the situation I faced twenty-six years ago, which is that your knowledge of the language of the host country is too low. In the past, I repeatedly emphasized that you should study theory in Beijing for this reason.

If you have a basic concept of theory, then when you study abroad in the future, the difficulty of language plus the difficulty of music theory will not make it particularly difficult for you to learn music theory. In other words: after gaining some theoretical knowledge, it will be easier to study abroad. But you never mentioned to me about studying theory in Beijing, not even whether you had started.

I only know that when you first arrived, you put it on hold because Luo Jun was ill. What happened next? Although I asked you many times in letters, you never replied a word. ——Now let me tell you again: What I mean is that it is best to allocate part of the time for studying Russian and move it to the study of music theory.

This article comes from the expanded information of Fu Lei’s Family Letters by Fu Lei, Zhu Meifu and Fu Cong in modern times

Writing background:

"Fu Lei’s Family Letters" was translated by Lin in 2018 The books republished by the publishing house are written by Fu Lei and Zhu Meifu and edited by Fu Min. "Fu Lei's Family Letter" was first published in 1981. The publication of "Fu Lei's Family Letter" was a sensational cultural event at that time and has been a best-seller for more than 30 years. It is a family letter written by Fu Lei and his wife to Fu Cong and his daughter-in-law Mila from 1954 to May 1966. It was edited by the second son Fu Min.

These family letters began in 1954, when Fu Cong left home to study in Poland, and ended in 1966, when Fu Lei and his wife could not bear the humiliation during the "Cultural Revolution" and both committed suicide. There are hundreds of letters written over the past twelve years, which run through Fu Cong's growth experience from studying abroad, becoming famous as a performer, to getting married and having children. They also reflect Fu Lei's translation work, friendships and the ups and downs of Fu Lei's family. Fu Lei and his wife were very attentive. They kept all their son's letters properly and copied the key contents into volumes.

About the author:

Fu Lei (April 7, 1908-September 3, 1966), courtesy name Nu'an and nickname Nu'an, was born in Xiasha, Nanhui County, Jiangsu Province Xiang (now Hangtou Town, Pudong New District, Shanghai), a famous Chinese translator, writer, educator, art critic, and one of the important founders of the China Association for the Promotion of Democracy (China Association for the Promotion of Democracy).

Fu Lei studied abroad at the University of Paris in France in his early years. He has translated a large number of French works, including works by Balzac, Romain Rolland, Voltaire and other famous writers.

In the early 1960s, Fu Lei was admitted as a member of the French Balzac Research Society for his outstanding contributions in translating Balzac's works. Fu Lei suffered great persecution at the beginning of the "Cultural Revolution". In the early morning of September 3, 1966, he passed away in anger, and his wife Zhu Meifu also hanged herself.