I have traveled a tortuous road to study. Now let me start from my childhood memories and finish my graduate studies, that is, from 1937 to 1962. This is the whole process of my student days, which can be roughly divided into three stages: 1937- 1946, rural life; 1946- 1955, wandering in the great changes; 1955 ——1962, Continuing Education in American Colleges and Universities.

I became a country boy.

I was born in Tianjin, 1930. From birth to the winter of 1937, I lived in Beiping, Nanjing, Kaifeng, Anqing and other cities, but the time was short and my memory was fragmentary. 1on July 7th, 937, my life suddenly changed a lot. In the early winter of this year, about 10, I returned to the hometown where my ancestors lived-Guanzhuang Township, Qianshan County, Anhui Province. This is the beginning of my childhood memory. Looking back today, it seems as if it was yesterday.

Let me introduce my hometown-Guanzhuang Township, Qianshan County. This is a village not far from Anqing. It takes only four hours to get there by bus today, but there was no road between Anqing and Guanzhuang at that time, and it took three days to walk. Guanzhuang is surrounded by mountains, poor and isolated, and completely isolated from the outside world. Guanzhuang has no modern equipment such as electric lights, running water and cars, and people still live a primitive rural life. For my childhood, this change is too big and too fast. In just three days, I suddenly changed from an urban child to a rural child. Since then, my memory has become complete and clear.

The memory of my hometown is pleasant from the first day. First of all, I returned to the embrace of nature. There is a Qingxi in front of my house, where villagers wash clothes, wash rice, wash vegetables and fetch water. There are hills behind and around the house, covered with pine trees and Chinese fir. In summer, the sun shines through the leaves and the heat disappears completely. From the age of seven or eight to thirteen or fourteen, I spent countless afternoons and evenings on rivers and mountains. Sometimes lying on the grass behind the thick green cover, listening to the chirping of birds, I forget myself and blend in with everything in the world. This is probably what the ancients called a realm of "harmony between man and nature"! This can be said to be the nature education I received in my childhood.

1989 Another kind of education in rural areas can be called social education. On the surface, city life is very lively and there are crowds everywhere, but everyone's feelings are actually very lonely. Family is the only safe haven, but every family is like an island, and even neighbors may not necessarily interact with each other. Modern sociologists describe urban life as a "lonely crowd". What about ancient cities? Su Dongpo's poem "A million people are like a sea hidden in one" means that everyone is lonely in the sea of cities. However, in rural areas, people and families are interrelated, and geography and consanguinity have woven people in a township into a big net. People who have lived in a village for hundreds or even thousands of years are all relatives, if not the same family. This relationship transcends the so-called class consciousness. My hometown Guanzhuang has more than two surnames, Liu, but there are no big landlords. Tenants are either family members or relatives, and sometimes they can't afford to pay the rent, so they have to forget it. I've never seen a landlord viciously ask for rent or bully a tenant. The order in our rural areas is basically autonomous and has little to do with the government. Every clan has a patriarch and elders, who are responsible for maintaining clan rules. Occasionally, children violate clan rules, such as gambling and stealing. Patriarchs and elders will meet in the ancestral hall to discuss punishment, and the most serious foul can be slapped. But this situation is rare. I only remember that we had a party at Yu's ancestral hall and punished a young child who repeatedly broke the rules. The traditional society in China is generally maintained by Confucian norms, and the power of morality is far above the law. Rationality (or justice) and human feelings are the two most important standards. Of course, I didn't understand all this at that time. However, due to the isolation of my hometown from the modern world, my hometown in 1989 allowed me to live in the traditional culture of China quite thoroughly, and the intuitive knowledge gained from my life experience was of great help to me in studying China's history and thoughts in the future. Modern anthropologists emphasize that researchers must be personally involved in the study of regional culture, and my hometown is a long-term participation process.

Now I want to talk about my book education in the countryside. When I left Anqing, I was already in primary school. But there is no modern school in Guanzhuang, my hometown, so my modern education is interrupted. In the first five or six years, I only went to private school intermittently for three or four years; This is pure traditional teaching, and a teacher leads more than a dozen students of different ages to learn. Because students have different levels, they read different books. Older people can read China's View on Ancient Literature, Four Books and Five Classics, while newly enlightened young people can read Sanzi Classics and Hundred Family Names. I started as an enlightenment group, and later I got permission from my teacher to listen in on some historical stories, including Zuo Zhuan and Warring States Policy. In a word, my early education was limited to China's ancient books, and all modern courses were untouched. But what really interests me to read is not ancient prose, but novels. About ten years ago, I came across a broken historical romance of Rotten sweeping across the north at home and read it with relish. Although I don't know much about the words in the novel, I slowly guessed the meaning of the words after reading it. Since then, I have read all the classical novels that can be found in the countryside, including The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin, The Tale of Dangkou (the novel against the Water Margin), The Journey to the West and The Romance of Gods. I believe that novels have helped me more than classics, history and ancient prose, so that I finally mastered the law of China's writing.

I also learned classical Chinese writing in my early years. Teachers in private schools can't write and don't like vernacular Chinese. Although Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu, who advocated the literary revolution in modern times, are both my hometown in Anhui, it seems that no one in our country attaches importance to them. When he was eleven or twelve years old, one day the teacher in a private school suddenly taught us to write classical poems. It turned out that he was in love with a young widow, and his romantic feelings made him very excited about poetry. I still remember two poems he wrote: "Spring flowers are like pity for talents, so they laugh at their desks." On the surface, this poem refers to the flowers in the garden, but what it really means is that the young woman occasionally comes to the door of the private school and smiles at him. That's how I learned to write classical poetry.

When I was thirteen or fourteen, the teachers in rural private schools stopped teaching. I had to follow my old classmates to the neighboring counties-Shucheng and Tongcheng to enter middle school. These middle schools were founded temporarily during the war, and their level was very low. I only learned 26 English letters and a little simple arithmetic. However, Tongcheng is the birthplace of the famous ancient prose of Tongcheng School, and classical poetry is still popular here. So my interest in China's classics has deepened in the past two years, but my modern knowledge is still blank.

Wandering in great changes

World War II ended1I was in Tongcheng in August, 945. Because I was waiting outside for my father to take me to study in a big city, I was idle at my relatives' house in Tongcheng and didn't go to school. The following summer (1946), I met my father who had been separated for nine years. Here is a supplement: My father was in Chongqing during the war, and I followed my uncle's family back to the countryside to escape the war. My father is a historian and studies western history. Before the war, he was a professor at many universities. 1945, he went to Shenyang and founded a new university-Northeast Zhongzheng University. 1June, 946, I went to Nanjing first, then to Beiping, and then to Shenyang.

At this time, I was sixteen years old, and my father was anxious for me to make up all kinds of modern courses in the shortest possible time and prepare to enter the university. 1946- 1947 this year, on the one hand, I studied in high school, on the other hand, I stepped up my tutoring with different teachers after class, mainly in modern subjects such as English, mathematics, physics and chemistry. I have been taking these classes day and night this year, hoping to take the college entrance examination one year later. I still remember the first time I read an English essay, and more than 80 words were unfamiliar. At this time, I have clearly realized that I can never specialize in natural science, and I can only develop in the humanities. Fortunately, my interest has been completely inclined to history and philosophy, so I don't feel any regret. In the summer of 1947, I was admitted to the history department of Northeast Chung Cheng University. My road to study has also been decided.

There was no peace in post-war China because civil war broke out later. 1947 When I finished my freshman year, Shenyang was surrounded by * * * troops, and our family flew back to Beiping. So my college life was interrupted again. We lived in Beiping for ten months, and then 1948+065438+ 10 went into exile from Beiping to Shanghai. After more than half a year, Shanghai was also occupied by the * * * army. During this year and a half in exile, I naturally didn't have a chance to go to school.

But during the ten months in Peiping from 65438 to 0948, I experienced great fluctuations in my thoughts. This is the most intense stage of the student movement in China, and Beiping is the center leading the national student movement. Under the careful planning of the underground party member in China, "Left-leaning" students from Peking University and Tsinghua launched large-scale demonstrations against civil war, hunger and persecution again and again. One of my cousins was the leader of the underground party of Peking University at that time. He kept persuading me to pull me into the "revolutionary camp". In this way, my political and social awareness has gradually improved, and I can't completely stay out of the way about the future of China and even the direction of the world. I am not a student at school, so I have never participated in left or right student activities, but my thoughts are very active and I am vacillating between the left and right poles. I came into contact with Marxism and thought deeply about democracy, freedom and individual independence. Although the student movement at that time was instigated by underground party member, the intellectuals outside did not know the inside story. They still inherited the May 4th trend of thought and yearned for "democracy" and "science". During my stay in Peiping, I often read such publications as Observation, New Road and On Independence. This is basically the liberal view of China. However, at that time, liberals had been rapidly divided politically, left-wing liberals moved closer to China, and right-wing liberals headed by Hu Shi firmly supported Western-style democracy and individual freedom.

Since I left the countryside on 1946, I have read many works by Liang Qichao and Hu Shi about the history of China's philosophy and academic history, and also read some works about "human literature" during the May 4th Movement. Therefore, I tend to be moderately westernized in my thoughts, but it is difficult to accept extremely radical thoughts. I can sympathize with the critical spirit of Marxism, but class struggle is incompatible with my early life experience in the countryside. I also admit that the socio-economic state and ideological tendency of each era are interactive, but historical materialism is too arbitrary for me. In a word, a period of ideological experience in Peiping from 65438 to 0948 had a decisive influence on my future academic development. I am very interested in western culture and history. I think I must have a deeper understanding of western culture and history in order to judge the right and wrong of Marxism.

1949 In the summer, my parents and my brother left Shanghai, sneaked into Zhoushan by fishing boat, and then transferred to Taiwan Province Province. I am the eldest son, and my father asked me to take care of my home in Shanghai, so I stayed. This autumn, I was admitted to the second grade of yenching university History Department in Beiping. From August to 65438+February, resume student life. In the first semester of Yanda University, I not only took courses such as western history, English and modern history of China, but also read many classic Marxist works systematically.

During this period, although the political atmosphere of university campus has changed, strict ideological control has not yet begun. We can also discuss Marxist theoretical issues more freely. However, the more we discuss it, the more questions we can't answer, and it is far beyond our academic and ideological level at that time.

I have no intention of leaving Chinese mainland. But at the end of 1949, I accidentally received a letter from my mother in Hong Kong. It turns out that they moved from Taipei to Hong Kong. 1 At the beginning of the month, 1950, I went to visit my parents in Hong Kong and finally stayed. From then on, I became an overseas exile. A month later, I entered Xinya College, which was the last part of my college life.

Xinya Academy is an exile school founded by the famous historian Mr. Qian Mu and his friends in the autumn of 1949. The number of students is small, all of them are exiled from the mainland to Hong Kong. From then on, I became a disciple of Mr. Qian and laid my academic foundation in the future.

Mr. Qian Mu, a defender of China culture, is generally called the traditional school, which is just the opposite of the Westernization School. He acknowledged that the May 4th New Culture Movement had made pioneering contributions in the academic field, but he could not accept the negative attitude of Hu Shi and Chen Duxiu towards China tradition. Frankly speaking, when I first listened to his lecture, I was ideologically estranged, because I was deeply influenced by the May 4th Movement after all. However, due to my nine years of traditional rural life, I have no strong antipathy to traditional culture and Confucianism. After I arrived in Hong Kong, I read some works on cultural anthropology and realized that the integrity and continuity of culture, I can't accept the concept of total westernization. But I continue to admit that it is necessary and possible for China to modernize and absorb some elements of modern western culture. Therefore, I have a distance and sympathy for Mr. Qian's cultural view. But most importantly, his profound attainments in the history of China inspired me greatly. I know that no matter what my point of view is, I must, like Mr. Qian, finally establish my point of view with real learning results. I must temporarily put aside my views and theories, read the classics of the ancients with an open mind and study them carefully one by one. I can't have an opinion first, and then take it out of context in ancient books to prove my opinion. Doing so becomes misinterpretation, not seeking truth from facts.

On the other hand, I have never given up my curiosity about western culture and history. I still hope to understand the characteristics of China's cultural traditions through comparison with the West. The similarities and differences between Chinese and Western cultures have been puzzling China's academic and ideological circles for a century, and I have inherited this confusion. This is not only an academic problem, but also a practical problem. Which way should China take? Which way is it possible to go? To find these answers, we should not only study the traditional culture of China, but also have a basic understanding of western culture.

Western humanities and social sciences have made great progress in the 20th century, but they have also paid a huge price. Its progress is becoming more and more specialized, but at the cost of too fine division, people can only see trees and not forests. How to maintain a holistic view in the analysis is a great challenge for people who study history today. With so many unanswered questions, I finally arrived in America.

Continuing education in the United States

In the New Asia era, under the guidance of Mr. Qian, I was actually studying the original classics of China's history and ideological history. At the same time, I borrowed new books on western history, philosophy and social sciences from the American Information Office in Hong Kong and the British Council. But when I was in Hong Kong, I was still groping for western knowledge in secret, and my understanding was superficial. After I arrived at Harvard University from 65438 to 0955, I had the opportunity to take courses systematically and read western books. My major is the history of China's thoughts, at least I have a certain foundation in this respect. In the first two or three years at Harvard University, I concentrated on reading western historiography and ideological history. So my formal courses include Roman history, the history of western ancient and medieval political thought, historical philosophy, Renaissance and Reformation. I don't want to have any profound attainments in western learning. My purpose is only to seek common sense as a reference for studying the history of China's thoughts.

As my childhood was spent in war and exile, I never received formal and step-by-step knowledge training, so I cherish the opportunity to study in American graduate schools. I spent six and a half years at Harvard University from the autumn of 1955 to the autumn of 1962. The first year is a visiting scholar, and the next five and a half years are graduate students in the doctoral program. This is the only stage in my life when I accept strict academic discipline. This training has corrected my rambling reading style for eighteen years (1937— 1955). According to my previous style of 18 years, even if I can read widely, I will eventually have a disaster, and I will never return, so I can't really gain knowledge. Although I still know very little today, at least I really realize what the standard of learning is. This is what the ancients in China said: "Although you can't come, your heart yearns for it." . I was lucky enough to meet Mr. Qian in Hong Kong and get the guidance of a professor from Harvard University. Mr. Yang is particularly picky and is famous for his rigorous textual research. He is different from Mr. Qian in spirit and good at making peace. His characteristics are keen vision, accurate analysis and profound comments. These are two typical scholars who are opposite and complementary. Mr. Yang has the deepest relationship with Japanese Sinology, and Ji Chuan and Miyazaki Miyako are his good friends. With the encouragement of Mr. Yang, I have been paying close attention to the development of Sinology in Japan. This is another lesson I learned at Harvard University, and I still dare not forget it.

Due to time constraints, I can only briefly describe the paragraph about studying in the United States. The above three stages are the three most important milestones in my early study. The development of the next 30 years will continue to come out on this road, so I won't go into details.