To Taipei, there is one place you must go, and that is the former residence of Lin Yutang in Yangmingshan.
From 65438 to 0966, Lin Yutang, who had lived in the United States for 30 years, was going to live in Taiwan Province Province. Chiang Kai-shek arranged a piece of land for him, and then he built it completely according to his own ideas. This is the first time he has received a gift from Chiang Kai-shek from the US government. The whole land is 660 square meters, and the indoor area is about 290 square meters. The concrete construction was completed by Wang Dasong, the designer and famous architect of Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei. Only the scenery here is very similar to Lin Yutang's. You can hear the kind Minnan dialect, which permeates Lin Yutang's aesthetic taste and attitude towards life as a living family in all aspects. Although the teacher has passed away for more than 30 years, standing in this building, I can really feel a special taste, a taste that belongs only to Lin Yutang.
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Chinese and western courtyards
We arrived at Lin Yutang at ten o'clock in the morning. It is located on the mountainside of Yangming Mountain. The entrance to the former residence is the second section of Yang De Avenue. There is a special bus stop next to it: Yongfu.
The iron railing next to the platform is covered with green plants with small white flowers. Looking in from the fence, you can only see the towering trees and the faint white fence in the yard. However, if you stand at the gate and look in, you can see several old trees and white powder walls in the yard, embedded with deep purple window lattice, and the upper two window angles are round. Especially the blue glazed tiles, which are very eye-catching and rarely seen in other places, show the unique aesthetic taste of the owner of the house.
For this design, Lin Yutang actually described it in his book My Country and My People written by 1933: China has no architectural style of big houses, and outsiders can see the long driveway in front of the house through the gate, because this will violate the principle of concealment. In front of the gate, we may see a small courtyard, perhaps a rockery, which reminds people of its great position in it, and gradually leads a person to a more novel and magnificent landscape, constantly showing the innovation and ingenuity of designers. If you have a panoramic view, there is nothing to imagine.
It is not difficult to see that this long driveway in front of the door must have been built later, because it does not meet the teacher's aesthetic taste, but from the outside to the inside, everything is deliberately done by the teacher. Even the choice of dark blue window lattice and purple roof was explained in an article decades ago:
In his view, the best building should be like this: let us live in it and we will win. I can't feel that the natural landscape of this place has disappeared, and artificial skills have begun. Because of this, the application of color is very important. The red walls of China Temple blend harmoniously with the purple of green hills, and the roof is painted with green glaze, or dark blue, purple or gold. It wants to blend in with the red leaves in late autumn and the clear sky, giving us a harmonious overall scene. We stood at a distance and looked at it. We can't. We can't help clapping our hands and sighing: how beautiful!
The whole white building is based on China quadrangle, but it also incorporates Spanish design orientation. Walking through the Western-style arch and through the short cloister, you can see the transparent atrium. The column is white and the upper part is designed as a spiral. The most distinctive feature is that there is a small pool in the corner of the atrium. There are plants such as Dendrocalamus latiflorus, Liquidambar formosana, anchovies and vines on the small rockery, among which several carp of various colors swim. It is said that when teachers are in the swimming pool, they often like to sit on the marble chairs by the pool, look up at the clouds in the air and look down at the fish playing in the pool, and enjoy watching the fish with sticks!
Study and bedroom
Next to the pool is the teacher's research. For a scholar, the significance of research is naturally significant. Regarding the ideal study, Lin Yutang always has an elegant small courtyard in front of the study of our country and our people: there are many scholars, full of quiet atmosphere. In the middle of this small yard, there are one or two rugged rockeries, full of wavy textures; Or a few grotesque wooden roots, shaped like rocks, called wooden rockeries, with a bunch of thin bamboo on them.
Everything is expected. Teacher, his desk is not big. Through the two windows in front of the desk, you can see not only jagged stones, but also a tall gardenia tree. Its roots are intertwined and exposed on the ground, like a giant octopus, tightly sticking to the ground. This rare plant is inferior to the stingy bonsai in a small place. It is conceivable that the teacher must have reluctantly given up the window overlooking the distant mountain in order to bring this gardenia tree into your eyes!
The study is small, with black sofa, yellow and black wooden floor and warm desk lamp. The tour guide said that the originals are all in it, so you can take pictures, but you don't need to turn on the flash, because the flash will damage the cultural relics. There is a bright typewriter on the desk. 1947, Lin Yutang designed the keyboard coding with the upper and lower word checking method he invented. An engineer spent $654.38+$200,000 to make it. Unfortunately, at that time, because of domestic civil strife, manufacturers were unwilling to produce, and Lin Yutang was on the verge of bankruptcy. Later, the keyboard of Guangming typewriter was authorized in IBM Chinese-English translator. After Lin Yutang's death, Taiwan Province Shentong Chinese Computer invented a simple input method of checking the upper and lower characters, which became a common computer Chinese input method for modern people.
It is this kind of learning that makes Lin Yutang active and comfortable in the world of words. In addition to checking the upper and lower characters, he also improved the romanization of Mandarin, which lasted for five years. From 65438 to 0972, The Chinese University of Hong Kong published Lin Yutang's Contemporary Chinese-English Dictionary, which Lin Yutang regarded as the pinnacle of his writing career. Now, the manuscript of Lin Yutang's Contemporary Chinese-English Dictionary can be seen in the exhibition room of his former residence.
He said that there are two purposes of reading, one is to be cute, and the other is to have a good language. People who have no reading habits are just confined to the surroundings in time and space. His life is completely formulaic. Only by seeing what happened in his living environment can he escape from this prison. But when he picked up a book, he immediately entered another world.
Of course, he is not only studying at his desk, but the bedroom next door is also his other study. Strangely, there is a single bed in the bedroom. The tour guide explained that because the teacher was afraid of affecting his wife Liao Cuifeng, most of them slept in separate rooms. But Lin Yutang loves his wife very much, so there is a picture of her on the desk.
In the small bedroom, the most conspicuous thing is a gray gown worn by the model. Light and shadow flow through a mirror on the wall, as if the owner had recently rolled up his legs, lying on the bed, reading a book, resting a big soft pillow, making his body at a 30-degree angle with the bed, and putting one or two hands behind his head. This is the reading method that Lin Yutang thinks is the greatest pleasure in life, and it is also the couch art that he advocates.
There is no room for fasting in the living room.
Across the bedroom is the living room and dining room. The teacher gave it a name, what to do or not to do, fast, get what you need, what to do and nothing to do. There are old coffee tables, sofas, dining tables and dining chairs. Among them, an oval dining table invented by himself can be unfolded, and a small seal Feng is engraved on the back of each dining chair, symbolizing the deep love between master and apprentice. There are many calligraphy and paintings hanging on the wall, besides those written by the teacher himself, there are also birthday letters written by Chiang Kai-shek when he was eighty years old, and orchids painted by Song Meiling. In addition, a picture of the teacher's own horse is listed. It can be seen that teachers seldom draw pictures. This famous horse map is an imitation of Xu Beihong, but it is still a little naive. He also specifically mentioned that you should try your pen when signing. This must have been an accident.
There are many pipes smoked by teachers in the showcase. He once said: All my articles are made of nicotine, and I know which page of the book has the strongest nicotine.
There is a balcony outside, where Lin Yutang rests in a daze. At dusk, after work, after dinner, he ate watermelon and sat alone on the balcony to enjoy the cool, with a pipe in his mouth. If he smokes, if he doesn't. Do not smoke. Look at the mountain ahead slowly sinking into the hazy night. The sky lights flashing below, the breeze Xu Lai, thoug.
However, life does not need to be the same as the scenery forever. One day in Lin Yutang's sixth year, there was a sudden news that Lin Rusi, the eldest daughter who worked in the Palace Museum and was the director of the Palace Museum, hanged herself as a British secretary. Hearing the news, the old couple wept for their other two daughters.
Maybe it's because he likes the scenery here so much. /kloc-0 died on March 26th, 976, and was buried under Youwei Zhai in the back garden. The tombstone was inscribed by Qian Mu, a master of Chinese studies. This garden used to be the place where he planted vegetables, flowers and chickens. Now there are all kinds of plants, one of which is the tall Korean fir, which is very eye-catching. Its trunk is straight, and its needles are scattered and straight like a human beard.
In recent years, the development of celebrities' former residences is in the ascendant. But most of the former residences are just hype, suggesting that there were celebrities here. What's more, simply rebuild a so-called celebrity former residence to attract tourists' attention.
But Lin Yutang's former residence in Taipei is not. It is not only the place where Lin Yutang lived in the last ten years of his life, but also the building of this former residence fully embodies his own aesthetic taste and pursuit. Lin Yutang wrote many articles about the art of life and advocated a leisurely and practical life, but few people can witness the real life process of this teacher. Now with this building, a real study, a gardenia tree, a fir tree and his tombstone, we seem to see Lin Yutang. He regards life as a farce, and sometimes acts as a bystander, waiting, smiling and surpassing one of his participants. He lived a very leisurely life, with doors and windows open, listening to the sound of golden cicadas, leaves falling in the breeze, loving the beauty of hedges and chrysanthemums, and enjoying the high autumn moon.