For a long time, he has been labeled as the father of linguistics. He was the teacher of the linguistics master Wang Li and was a god-like existence in the field of linguistics.
But looking through his background information, I found that linguistics was just something he did for fun, and there were even more powerful ones.
Some people say that he is a musician who has created more than 100 music works that have gone down in history. Among them, "Teach Me How to Miss Her", co-composed with Liu Bannong, is still sung today.
Some people say he is a mathematician.
Some people say he is a physicist.
Some people say he is a psychologist.
Some people say he is a philosopher.
In fact, after sorting out the documents, I would like to say that he is a super player who enters the world with a playful mentality and plays extremely well.
He is Mr. Zhao Yuanren, who together with Liang Qichao, Wang Guowei, and Chen Yinke is known as the "Four Great Mentors" of Tsinghua University.
01
On November 3, 1892, Zhao Yuanren was born in a family of three generations in Tianjin. His hometown is Changzhou, Jiangsu.
This family is quite powerful. One of his ancestors is Zhao Yi, a Qing Dynasty historian who wrote, "There are talents from every generation, and each has led the way for hundreds of years." His grandfather and father were both imperial officials in the Qing Dynasty. .
Zhao Yuanren also claimed to be the 31st generation grandson of Zhao Kuangyin, the founding emperor of the Song Dynasty.
His mother is a talented woman who understands poetry, Kunqu opera and calligraphy.
Children from such families will have a good growth atmosphere from an early age.
The most important thing is that he is particularly curious about the world, especially in terms of language, and has shown an astonishing talent for language since he was a child.
In 1901, when Zhao Yuanren was 9 years old, his grandfather died of illness. He returned with his family to his hometown of Changzhou to live and study. He learned Changshu dialect and Fuzhou dialect from relatives.
By 1903, Zhao Yuanren had learned the dialects of Beijing, Baoding, Changshu, Suzhou, Changzhou and other places.
In 1907, when Zhao Yuanren was 15 years old, he was admitted to the preparatory class of Nanjing Jiangnan College and went to school in Nanjing. Once, I had dinner with eight classmates. It happened that these eight students came from eight different places and spoke different words. We all talked like ducks together. Only classmate Zhao Yuanren was not worried. He used eight dialects to talk to eight classmates. We had a lot of fun chatting. It's amazing.
Looking at the rest of his life, these are all superficial. In this life, he can speak 33 dialects and nearly 10 foreign languages, and kills too many people in one instant. Therefore, he is the only one who can succeed Russell. translate.
However, this language genius brother still has a problem.
02
His problem is to become a problem boy and a gangster.
For example, he has bad habits of smoking and drinking... All of these are caused by his too-smooth life.
However, within a short period of time, he was able to realize the problem. He couldn't continue to mess around like this. Thinking of his father's warning, Yuan Ren, Yuan Ren, has a long way to go.
He directly exercised self-discipline, got rid of his bad habits, and reformed the troubled boy.
Actually, this is what he said himself. I am a little skeptical, maybe he was stimulated by something. This is also our unfounded guess.
As a result, he became a normal teenager, and it was so extraordinary that before the three-year semester was over, in 1909 he was preparing to take the postgraduate entrance examination at Tsinghua University in the United States at public expense.
In 1909, 1910 and 1911, Beijing recruited foreign students with Geng Geng scholarships from all over the country three times. At that time, in addition to being proficient in Chinese and English, candidates were also required to be "strong in body, pure in temperament, and perfect in appearance. "In August 1909, the first recruitment examination was held. 630 people took the examination, and 47 people were finally admitted. In 1910, Zhao Yuanren took part in the second batch of examinations. This batch admitted 70 people. Zhao Yuanren ranked second and Hu Shi ranked 55th.
Among this group of people who took the exam, there was one named Yang Buwei who gave up the exam. Many years later, this classmate who gave up the exam met and fell in love with the second-ranked student and eventually got married. The world is really Big, too small.
From then on, he was ready to cheat, and many unexpected and great behaviors appeared.
03
In August 1910, Zhao Yuanren entered Cornell University in the United States. The school said that if you are so good at language, you should major in linguistics. Zhao Yuanren refused, and he chose In the Department of Mathematics, he studied mathematics and also took physics and music as electives. As a mathematics major, he was good at mathematics. During his time at school, he scored 100 points in three subjects and 99 points in one subject, setting the best score since the founding of Cornell University. Performance records are maintained for several years. Upon graduation, Zhao Yuanren received a postgraduate scholarship in mathematics.
Everyone thought he would directly apply for a graduate degree in mathematics, but everyone was wrong.
Zhao Yuanren thought that he was pretty good at mathematics and applied to be a graduate student in the philosophy department. He thought philosophy was quite interesting.
In 1915, he entered Harvard University to major in philosophy and continued to take music as an elective. In 1918, Zhao Yuanren received a doctorate in philosophy.
His good friend Hu Shi said with special admiration: Whenever I talk to people about people who have studied in the United States, they always put Changzhou Yuan Renjun first.
After Zhao Yuanren graduated, he stayed in the school as a "physics lecturer". He changed majors quickly because he was an advanced player and played well, so he naturally had nothing to fear.
04
In 1920, Zhao Yuanren returned to China.
Two things, one is to return to China to work, and the other is to resolve the marriage matter.
There are two aspects to the work of returning home.
First, I want to work at Tsinghua University. The school is very worried about what kind of job to arrange for Teacher Zhao. It is difficult to find a talent. It is too childish to only teach mathematics. Add philosophy to it. It was too much of a talent. After going back and forth, in the end, Zhao Yuanren taught several courses such as mathematics, physics, Chinese phonology, general linguistics, modern Chinese dialects, Chinese music scores and tunes, and Western music appreciation.
Second, Russell’s lectures involved advanced mathematics, logic, philosophy, etc., and they lacked a translator. Several translators were found but they were not satisfactory. Looking at China, the only people who are studying and familiar with this content at the same time are slash young people. Zhao Yuanren, he is qualified and definitely the best candidate, and Zhao Yuanren also feels that this is a good opportunity.
Soon after working at Tsinghua University, Jiang Baili of the "Lecture Club" negotiated with President Jin Bangzheng of Tsinghua University to loan Zhao Yuanren away.
This journey lasts for a year.
The content of Russell's speeches in China was quite extensive, involving philosophy, social reform, education and other aspects. The content was complicated. Moreover, Russell had a humorous temperament and was good at making witty puns. It was difficult to translate, but it was not difficult for Zhao Yuanren. In addition to translating in Mandarin, Zhao Yuanren couldn't help but translate in the local dialect.
This shocked and stunned the people who were listening to the speech. They had never heard of such a person in the local area.
After successfully completing the translation, he returned to Tsinghua University to continue serving as a course lecturer. At that time, there were three others, Liang Qichao, Wang Guowei, and Chen Yinke, who were known as the "Four Great Mentors."
05
Zhao Yuanren, who had never been in love, met his true love in September 1920.
He met Yang Buwei, a female doctor from Senren Obstetrics Hospital, at his cousin's house and fell in love at first sight.
Yang Buwei’s declaration is: I have a bad temper, I will rebel against others, and I will be tough with others. If you want to be arrogant with me, I will be more arrogant than you; if you are reasonable, I will be more reasonable than you.
This is obviously a female man, and Zhao Yuanren is three years old.
Zhao Yuanren, who fell in love with Yang Buwei, went back and broke off the engagement he had been engaged to when he was 14 years old. This was also an important consideration for him after returning to China. What he had planned to do before meeting Yang Buwei was just Yang Buwei. The emergence of is an accelerator.
The woman disagrees. This is what the matchmaker said. Besides, this son-in-law is quite good, so there is no way he can just quit.
1921 was a busy year for 29-year-old Zhao Yuanren, but also a year of suffering.
It has been an even more torturous year for the girl from the Chen family. After waiting for Zhao Yuanren for all these years, the girl is now 31 years old. Now that the engagement is broken off, can she still marry again in the future?
In late May 1921, after friendly and unfriendly negotiations between the two parties, the woman agreed to terminate the engagement, but she needed to pay 2,000 yuan in youth loss fees.
Zhao Yuanren’s affairs were settled, and Yang Buwei was also ready to break off the engagement. She backed out a little too quickly.
Things are settled for both parties.
On May 25, 1921, Zhao Yuanren and Yang Buwei prepared to get married:
- Printed 400 marriage notices, which read: Zhao Yuanren and Yang Buwei married at 3:00 pm on June 1, 1921 at East Longitude 100 Married at twenty degrees mean solar standard. With two exceptions, no gifts will be accepted. The first exception is letters, poems, or music scores, and the second exception is donations to the Chinese Science Society.
——Draft and hand-write the marriage certificate yourself.
——Go to Central Park to take multiple selfies and choose one as your wedding photo.
——Rented a house at No. 49 Xiaoyabao Hutong, Dongcheng, Beijing, as a wedding venue.
After preparations were made, on May 31, 1921, Zhao Yuanren and Yang Buwei invited Hu Shi and female doctor Zhu Zheng*** to dinner.
After dinner, they asked the two friends to sign as marriage witnesses.
The procedure is simple and in line with the two celebrities’ ideas of breaking through feudal marriage.
Hu Shi spread the news immediately, and the next day, Beijing's "Morning News" ran a special headline in large characters, "New Style Marriage for New Characters."
After getting married, the two set a schedule. Today they will speak Mandarin, tomorrow they will speak Hunanese, and the day after tomorrow they will speak Shanghainese.
Like-minded people, maybe that’s it.
06
Not only has he made achievements in many fields, such as translation and music, he is also an interesting person in life.
He is also very good at translating.
While Zhao Yuanren was translating for Russell, Russell became very tired and fell ill and needed to rest. Zhao Yuanren saw that there was nothing to do, so he got busy with translation work and translated the fairy tale "Alice in Wonderland", so this The fairy tale became a classic and had a profound impact at the time. Chinese girls at that time liked to use "Alice" as their English name.
This cross-border expert has been interested in music since he was a child, and studied music as an elective when he studied abroad. He also has a lot of fun playing music.
For example, Zhao Yuanren is proficient in various musical instruments and has been playing the piano his whole life. He started writing songs when he was a student and composed more than a hundred songs in his life.
For example, in 1936, Zhao Yuanren recorded a record of "Teach Me How to Miss Him" ??at EMI Company. The song has a long rhyme and is his most famous work.
Xiao Youmei, a great master of modern music, praised him highly: He has created a new era for our country’s music! The "Qingyun Song" composed by Xiao Youmei once became the national anthem set by the Beiyang government.
In terms of life, he and his wife Yang Buwei are also very interesting.
For example, after they got married, Chen Yinge often went to his house to have dinner without getting married. Chen Yinge's reason was very simple: he didn't know how to do it. They were all in the same circle, and the couple welcomed them, but they didn't expect that Chen Yinger was addicted to it and had been doing it for more than 2 months, and he had the idea of ????fighting a protracted war. Once the couple combined, they would continue like this. It was always not a problem, so he looked around for help. In desperation, he looked for girls everywhere to introduce to Chen Yinge. The hard work paid off, and finally Chen Yinge's life-long event was settled.
Later came Yijin Yuelin. Teacher Jin, who teaches in a primary school and really wants to teach logic at Tsinghua University, asked his good friend Zhao Yuanren to come up with some ideas. At this time, Zhao Yuanren happened to be teaching logic. When he heard the news, he tried to get Jin Yuelin, a great talent, to Tsinghua University. He concentrated on teaching phonology and also taught music appreciation classes. From then on, Lao Jin entered Tsinghua University.
07
After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Zhao Yuanren left Kunming to teach at the University of Hawaii for one year, taught at Yale University for two years, and was then invited to participate in the Chinese dictionary compilation project of the Harvard-Yenching Institute. , and finally compiled the "Guoyu Dictionary" in 1946, which is still the best Chinese spoken dictionary to date.
After the Pearl Harbor incident in 1941, Zhao Yuanren was hired as the director of the Army Chinese Training Class at Harvard University. He wrote a series of groundbreaking books that are still used today.
In 1946, Zhao Yuanren was invited to participate in a series of meetings of UNESCO.
In 1947, this fun professor originally wanted to return to China, but Zhu Jiahua in China wanted Zhao Yuanren to be the president of Central University. He was afraid that Zhao Yuanren, who was an official, would decide not to return to China, so he stayed at Berkeley. Staying means forever.
In 1960, Zhao Yuanren officially retired in Berkeley, and he and his family traveled around the country.
Compared with other talents in the Republic of China, Zhao Yuanren, known as the "ghost genius", had no scandals and a happy marriage. The couple was known as the "fairy couple".
Yang Buwei said, we have been bickering and arguing for more than 60 years, but we have also lived in harmony for more than half a century.
What they are most proud of is that all four of their children have become talents. Their eldest daughter, Zhao Rulan, is the first Chinese female professor at Harvard University; their eldest son-in-law, Bian Xuexuan, is a tenured professor at MIT, an academician of the American Academy of Engineering Sciences, and an academician of the American Academy of Sciences. ; The second daughter: Zhao Xina, a famous chemist; the second son-in-law: Huang Peiyun, the founder of China's powder metallurgy discipline, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and a professor at Central South University; the third daughter: Zhao Laisi, a professor at Cornell University; the third son-in-law, Weisaku Haoka , professor of mathematics at the University of Washington; fourth daughter: Zhao Xiaozhong, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The children of the Almighty God have a greater chance of becoming talented.
08
In March 1981, Yang Buwei died of illness at the age of 92.
One year later, on February 24, 1982 (someone said, February 25), Zhao Yuanren died in the United States. He died at the age of 90.
He can never return to China. According to his will, the ashes of Zhao Yuanren and Yang Buwei were scattered to the Pacific Ocean and flowed to their hometown with the Pacific Ocean.
Looking back on his life, it was a life of cheating, fun and curiosity.
If you really want to evaluate Zhao Yuanren’s life, it would be in three words:
Interesting: Use an interesting mentality to become a high-level player in the world. In the eyes of Zhao Yuanren and his wife Yang Buwei, They are a game in the eyes of the whole world because they are beyond ordinary people in terms of ability and knowledge. Only people with such ability and knowledge can be an interesting person. Ability makes him competent, and his knowledge makes his vision wider and higher, ensuring that he does not take the wrong path.
Dedicated love: For Yang Buwei, from falling in love at first sight to staying together for a lifetime, from staying together for a lifetime to returning to the Pacific Ocean together, this kind of life is beyond the reach of many people.
Ghost genius: Starting from his curiosity about languages ??as a boy, he has lived a wonderful life for several lifetimes. He is smart on the one hand, but also has a rigorous learning attitude, strict self-requirements, and seriousness. Diligent attitude. No success comes overnight.
This article commemorates Mr. Zhao Yuanren, the originator of crossover, all-rounder, and the number one genius in the Republic of China.
Text/Lan Pang 2018.02.25
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