This strange girl is the fourth young lady of the Guo family in Shanghai, the heroine in Chen's Shanghai Golden Branch and Jade Leaf.
Wanying Guo was born in Sydney, Australia. She grew up in the warm and beautiful gardens and sunshine in the southern hemisphere. She was a proud and beautiful princess since she was a child.
At the age of six, my father Guo Biao returned to China at the invitation of Sun Yat-sen to establish Shanghai Yong 'an Department Store, which was one of the four Chinese-funded department stores on Nanjing Road in Shanghai during the Republic of China. They all sell high-end imported goods, and the salesgirl can speak fluent English.
Young Wanying Guo has amazing beauty. /kloc-The photos taken at the age of 0/8 were even secretly enlarged by the photo studio and hung in the window to attract customers.
In middle school, Wanying Guo studied in Shanghai Chinese and Western Girls' School, which is an aristocratic school, featuring the cultivation of confident and independent western ladies. Sister Song, Zhang Ailing and Tang Ying all graduated from this school.
Born rich, well-educated and enviable in beauty, God concentrated almost all his love on this woman. However, who would have thought that she would spend the rest of her life carrying cement buckets and cleaning toilets at the construction site.
For a rich girl, such a huge change is tantamount to falling from heaven to hell.
However, instead of feeling sorry for himself, Wanying Guo became depressed and degraded. But a stronger, independent, elegant and calm lady, a woman of a new era.
0 1 In the face of marriage twists and turns, rich girls live as they please.
After graduating from a girls' school that combines Chinese and western culture, Wanying Guo faced two choices: first, find a suitable person to marry. Second, study in the United States.
Wanying Guo's father, Guo Biao, thought that sending his daughter to school was to find a good family after all, and he didn't approve of studying abroad, so Wanying Guo's college dream was dashed. Under the arrangement of his family, Wanying Guo soon met a rich boy named Elbert and got engaged to him. As the two families are close friends, the two children are also well matched in talent, appearance and knowledge. This marriage was supposed to be a good match.
However, an incident of "seeing glass silk stockings off" brought this marriage to an abrupt end.
It is said that once Elbert returned from studying in the United States, he gave Wanying Guo a pair of glass silk stockings. Elbert said happily, "This American glass silk stockings is really strong and can last for a year."
Who knows, it is this sentence that has stimulated Wanying Guo, who can't marry a man who cares whether the stockings are strong or not and can last for a year! "Not funny". She insisted on a divorce.
Elbert refused and even raised his gun to kill Wanying Guo, but Wanying Guo told him calmly:
"If you don't kill me, I don't want to marry you. If you kill me, I won't marry you, because I can't marry you anymore. "
Elbert tried to kill himself again, and Wanying Guo advised him,
Go home now, but don't marry someone like me. If you commit suicide, you will never get married and even lose your life.
The fiance just told the truth, but Wanying Guo wanted to break off her marriage. Ordinary people may not understand this, but for Wanying Guo, a precious daughter who grew up with a golden spoon, she doesn't care whether her marriage partner is rich or knowledgeable. After all, the young people who pursued her in those days all had good families and prospects. What she is most concerned about is whether they have a common topic and whether they are interesting.
In other words, she pursues an ideal, romantic and interesting life. The glass silk stockings incident exposed the attitudes and values of two people. Even if we don't part ways, we are doomed to be unhappy after marriage.
However, in this divorce, Wanying Guo, who was in her early twenties, showed great composure in the face of her fiance's anger and her pursuit of true love, but it was really admirable. Beneath Wanying Guo's gentle and romantic appearance, the rationality and tenacity in her bones are probably beyond people's imagination of this rich girl.
After breaking off the engagement, Wanying Guo went to yenching university to study, specializing in child psychology. While studying, she met Wu Yuxiang, an international student, who is also a famous family. Her mother's grandmother is the daughter of Lin Zexu, a famous minister in Qing Dynasty. One is a rich girl, and the other is a noble son. They are also very suitable for each other.
Wu Yuxiang is handsome, humorous, clever and playful. They have a lot of topics together, in Wanying Guo's words, "very interesting". They fell in love at first sight and got married soon.
After marriage, the good girl Wanying Guo tried to be a qualified housewife. Considering that her husband likes Chinese breakfast and she is used to western coffee and bread, she gets up early every day to prepare breakfast for her husband. However, Wu Yuxiang is ideal as a lover, but not qualified as a husband.
Not long after the marriage, Wu Yuxiang cheated on a young widow. It is common for an ordinary woman to cry twice, make trouble twice and hang herself three times, but Wanying Guo just dressed up, knocked on the widow's door accompanied by a friend and calmly told her, "I've come to take my husband home".
With such a simple and seemingly fateful sentence, Wanying Guo successfully saved her husband and completed what is called "the most elegant courtship in history".
Since then, she still gets up early every day to make breakfast for her husband, and she never talks about the past. Wanying Guo's tolerance also made her husband change his mind quickly, and they had a good emotional foundation. Soon, the couple recovered their feelings and the family of four lived a happy life again.
However, it was later discovered that Miss Guo Jiasi, who was originally a husband and wife, began to go out to work. She and her best friend Zhang Hailun co-founded the most fashionable fashion company in Shanghai, which is also the beginning of a rich girl's independence.
Wanying Guo has a good family background, outstanding appearance and good upbringing, and is not luckier than ordinary women in marriage. But the difference is that she never escapes from the reality, but always follows her heart, which makes her more courageous than ordinary women.
Even at the risk of being shot, she will resolutely reject aristocratic men and pursue freedom again; The new husband cheated his old friend. It's not that she has no choice, but she will swallow the pain and continue to live in the present.
Wanying Guo is not a rich girl who is arrogant in life and blindly pursues romance, but a person who knows what she wants and is always brave and persistent in her pursuit. Such a Wanying Guo is undoubtedly powerful.
When she fell from heaven to hell, she chose to be strong.
For Wanying Guo, the ups and downs of marriage are only an episode in his life, and the suffering he suffered in the Four Cleanses, the Anti-Rightists and the Cultural Revolution is the really unbearable weight in Wanying Guo's life. However, this lovely girl, with her tenacious will and amazing spirit, has lived out the true demeanor of a good family.
On 1958, the day after her husband was arrested, the police came to her house and confiscated all the property, including Wanying Guo's jewelry and clothes. In addition, she must repay her husband's $64,000 and130,000 RMB.
Wanying Guo has lived in the most beautiful garden house since she was born, but since then, she and her son have been forced to live in a gazebo facing north with only 7 square meters. The pavilion was very small, and the son who studied architecture later built a small attic, so that Wanying Guo and his adult son had their own place.
In summer, it is sweltering in the pavilion, and Wanying Guo often sits at the door, hoping that the south wind in the front room can bring cool air to the pavilion. There is some air leakage on the roof in winter, and the pavilion is extremely wet and cold. When I wake up in the morning, my face is often covered with frost.
In the past, Miss Guo Jiasi used to tip her servants five yuan, but in order to pay off her debts and raise her son and daughter, she can only afford a bowl of Yangchun noodles at 80 cents now. Others treated her as a joke, but she enjoyed the ordinary spring noodles that night. Even many years later, she used "delicious" to describe the taste of Yangchun noodles.
Poverty and hardship in life is not the most terrible, but the most unbearable, which is the malicious attack of others and all kinds of rain.
As the daughter of a capitalist, Wanying Guo was assigned to do the dirtiest and most tiring work, such as carrying cement buckets on the construction site, digging river mud and cleaning the smelly toilets. At that time, cleaning toilets was regarded as the lowest and most unwilling job, and people who did this job would be labeled as "dirty and smelly".
Wanying Guo knew that he had no choice, and resistance would only bring more malice and violence.
She often struggles to carry those dirty, smelly and huge dung buckets to clean them alone, and often climbs high and rickety scaffolding to hold cement buckets on the construction site, doing things unimaginable in her previous life.
She works silently and bears hardships, but never complains. Wanying Guo never tells others about her suffering outside, and even her own son only knows what her mother has suffered and what unfair treatment she has received through her humorous jokes.
Because of his good performance in his work and his ability to speak English, Wanying Guo was invited to give lectures in an amateur university. However, even though he changed his working environment, Wanying Guo was once again targeted by his colleagues because of his capitalist status.
At the critical meeting, Wanying Guo once again became the object of solidarity. Everyone raised their hands and shot at her with swords from different directions. Even teachers who have never known her have to criticize Wanying Guo's crimes, otherwise they will be considered as her partners.
In such a dark, ignorant and crazy era and environment, many middle class and capitalists were humiliated and chose to commit suicide. There is even a building called "Suicide Building" in Shanghai.
However, when asked if he had ever thought about suicide, Wanying Guo shook his head unexpectedly.
"No, I feel terrible when I have not experienced it, but I am not afraid of anything after I have experienced it. Really not afraid, and then you will know that a person can be very strong. Much stronger than you think. "
Fate is always so unpredictable, ups and downs can never be predicted. Some people sink in suffering, while others are born again in suffering.
In the first half of her life, Wanying Guo was a rich and luxurious woman, but in the second half, she fell from heaven to hell. But she has never been knocked down, nor has she faced it negatively. Instead, I have been living with a tenacious attitude and self-esteem and self-improvement. Since then, she has become a more powerful Wanying Guo, and has also shown the world what a real lady is and become a benchmark for countless women.
In the face of outside snooping, she refused to tell her story.
After 1980s, Wanying Guo attracted the attention of many foreign media because of her once prominent family background and status and tragic experience in a special period, and people who wanted to interview her were everywhere.
But surprisingly, in the face of foreign media probing, Wanying Guo always refused to talk about his sufferings and refused to show his sufferings in a special era.
In the United States, Wanying Guo met with Jacqueline, the widow of President Kennedy, and was asked about the reform through labor. Wanying Guo just said indifferently, "Labor is good for me to keep fit, so I won't get fat sharply at that time."
BBC reporter interviewed Wanying Guo and was asked how much pension he could get every month and how much he could convert into pounds. Wanying Guo asked them if they knew the daily consumption index of China people, but the reporter couldn't say clearly, so Wanying Guo refused to answer.
Wanying Guo later explained, "If you lie, you insult your virtue. If you get the numbers right, foreigners will be surprised and feel that they can't live. But they don't understand that the rent and cost of living in China are different from those in Britain.
In order to avoid being exaggerated and misunderstood, she chose to keep silent about her miserable life, which she could not have done if she had not been extremely demanding of herself.
"I don't like to show foreigners what I have suffered. They don't really understand. They want to show me as pitifully as possible and make them feel that their lives are perfect. "
If Wanying Guo, who can survive in a special period full of hardships, is strong, then Wanying Guo in his later years is even more admired by the world.
Chen Zeng, the author, asked, Do you really have no resentment against all the sufferings and losses you suffered in the past?
The 90-year-old woman thought for a moment, and then said calmly, "If life really wants to give me something, I will accept it." .
Some people say that a rich life is fertile ground for love and goodwill, while poverty and hardship make people ugly, resentful and malicious.
However, from Wanying Guo, the world seems to see no resentment. On the contrary, she is always so quiet, calm, peaceful and full of wisdom, and always treats life with indifference.
"I have learned a lot in my life. If life is always like when I was a child, I will never know how big my heart is and how many things I can handle. Now I live a very rich life, which most people don't have. "
Perhaps, this is due to her upbringing, perhaps, this is due to her personality, but in any case, this kind of suffering, but not telling suffering, has made Wanying Guo a great rich woman! Reached a spiritual height that ordinary people can't reach.
04. Flowers bloom and fall, and the golden branches and jade leaves are unbeaten.
Wanying Guo leads a strong and independent life.
In her later years, Wanying Guo lived alone, and both her son and daughter went to the United States. But apart from visiting relatives occasionally, she didn't live with her children like the old people of that era, and she never thought that giving birth to children was to support the elderly.
"Between me and my children, nothing is needed. They shouldn't take care of me. I never thought so. If they want to take care of me, it's because of their love, not their responsibility. I never want children's money. "
She doesn't like others to take care of herself. What she is most satisfied with is independence. Even when walking, the old lady refused to help.
Gentle in appearance, independent and strong in heart, relying on oneself in everything, this is Wanying Guo. This kind of personality makes her live an optimistic and calm life without too many gains and losses.
Perhaps, this is also the reason why this rich woman can treat the hardships in this life so indifferently and always live in the present and be content with the status quo.
Wanying Guo, 62, retired from Chongming Farm and got a retirement certificate from Zhang Guangrong. She was very happy and hung this certificate on the wall. But after retirement, Wanying Guo never really rested, but worked until the last day of his death.
After the reform and opening up, overseas trade resumed and English was re-valued. Because English is very good, Wanying Guo wants to be invited by many units to be an English teacher and consultant.
At the age of 68, Wanying Guo was invited to Shanghai Silicate Research Institute to give an English class to the professionals of the Institute. This is the first time that she has been respectfully invited to be a teacher by a state unit, and it is also the first time that she has been respected for her knowledge.
At the age of 73, Wanying Guo was hired as an English consultant by Shanghai Industrial Consulting Company for ten years until he was 84.
Wanying Guo died at the age of 89. This photo was taken when she was working in an amateur university. She likes this photo very much because it shows that she is working.
Although she was born and raised in a wealthy family, Wanying Guo worked hard for the rest of her life. Fortunately, she also enjoyed the fullness and satisfaction brought by this job. In this poor and even slightly bleak life, she seems to be more beautiful and elegant than before.
Wanying Guo died, the world's evaluation of her is:
Be patient and kind. Everyone's home is still here.
Flowers bloom and fall, and the golden branches and jade leaves are unbeaten.
Wanying Guo is called "the last aristocrat in Shanghai".
What is a nobleman?
A true aristocrat has never been born into a rich family or a noble family, but has lived with tenacity, strength, style and character. No matter what happens, you can deal with it with perseverance. Mount Tai collapsed in front of it, but its face didn't change color!
Now, it has been more than 20 years since yeyu's death in Shanghai, but Wanying Guo will live in people's hearts forever, and the strength, elegance, self-reliance and self-improvement of women are vividly interpreted by her.
Wanying Guo, a great rich girl!
I am Xiao Wei, a southern girl married to the northwest, living freely by reading and writing. I have worked in an enterprise, tried to swim in the system, worked as a young drifter in the north, and now I live in a small town and pursue my dreams persistently.
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Author | Xiao Wei
Edit | Beibei