It comes from Zhou Enlai’s modern poem "Song of the River, Turn East". "After the Great River Song, Turn Around" is a seven-character quatrain composed by the Chinese revolutionary and statesman Zhou Enlai in 1917. This poem fully expresses the author's ambition to "break through the wall and fly" in his youth and his revolutionary spirit of dedicating himself to the cause of national salvation. The whole poem is full of strong emotions and heroic momentum.
The original text is as follows:
After the song of the great river, it turns eastward, and the sophisticated science and technology help the poor in the world.
After facing the wall for ten years and trying to break through it, it is difficult to be rewarded as a hero even if he crosses the sea.
Translation:
After singing Su Shi's "Niannujiao·Chibi Nostalgia", I turned around and went to Japan to study. The profound and rigorous science can save the world's poverty.
After ten years of hard work, I will return to China to do something to save China. If this wish is difficult to achieve, even if Chen Tianhua throws himself into the sea to awaken the people, he can still be regarded as a hero.
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The opening line of this poem is majestic, expressing the determination of the young Zhou Enlai to travel eastward to seek the truth. Zhou Enlai regarded his study abroad as a purification and training for himself, so he quoted the classic "When the river goes eastward, the waves will pick up all the famous people of the ages" and gave it a positive meaning. The term "U-turn East" comes from Liang Qichao's poem.
When Liang Qichao was in exile in Japan after the failure of the Reform Movement of 1898, he wrote a long poem "Going to the Country". At the beginning of the poem, he said: "Wow! The relief is difficult and the power is poor. The Confucian crown and appearance are not enough. The knight's sword was in vain. He died at the hands of thieves without repaying his kindness. He went out of the country in tears and turned around. "The road ahead is full of mountains." Wan Zhong, turn around and ignore our east!"
Liang Qichao praised Japan's Meiji Restoration and expressed his desire to imitate the Meiji patriots. Zhou Enlai's ambition to save the country and his desire to seek truth from Japan when he traveled east were somewhat similar to Liang Qichao. In addition, he was familiar with Liang Qichao's works at the time, so he adapted Liang Qichao's poems.
The second sentence "Jieshipo" means "to help the poor in the world", which contains the meaning of helping and relieving the things that are lacking in the world. We can analyze what Zhou Enlai thought was lacking in the world (actually, Chinese society) at that time from the articles he wrote at that time.
In his article "The Crisis of China's Reality" written in November 1916, Zhou Enlai believed that China's spiritual crisis at that time was: "The morality of our people has reached the extreme level of decline. The river is declining, and there is no way to save it. "People are generally ignorant and ignorant, and do not know what the country is about." They lack "national character and national soul."
In his "View of New Drama in Our School", he believed: "What China is anxious about today is that the people are extremely poor and ignorant!... They are ignorant, stupid and stubborn, and the masses are in trouble." In "Experimentation" "Two Essays on Extravagance" believes that at that time, China's "culture was dark, life was humble, and the whole country was as stubborn as falling into a coma." It can be seen that Zhou Enlai believed that what China lacked at that time was the national soul and national character, that is, the consciousness of the masses.
Therefore, "profound science and technology can help the poor" means to learn knowledge from various subjects (including, of course, advanced Western ideas) and use it to transform the "nation-wide obsession" state of Chinese society, that is, to use scientific civilization to fight against poverty. The masses do the work of enlightenment.
The three sentences "Facing the wall for ten years and trying to break it" are the development of the sentence "Sophisticated group science helps the poor", which talks about the problems encountered when "helping the poor" (that is, doing enlightenment work for the masses) Difficulties and the perseverance shown by Zhou Enlai to not be afraid of difficulties. In his "Letter to the Students Studying in Japan and Nankai" in May 1919, Zhou Enlai affirmed the spirit of doing "things that open the way for society" even if he is "not tolerated by society".
Doing things that inspire the masses’ consciousness but being temporarily “not tolerated by society” is exactly what the poem calls “facing the wall”. The two characters "bi" in this poem represent one thing, which is a metaphor for the masses who have not yet awakened. Zhou Enlai traveled east to Japan at that time, preparing to study and help the world, and inspire the consciousness of the public. But at that time, the masses were not yet awakened and did not understand this, and even felt "tolerant" of it, like a stone wall.
Zhou Enlai made up his mind to persist in working with perseverance, and after a long period of education (i.e. the "ten years" in the poem), he would finally influence the masses and raise their consciousness. Once the masses were awakened, It is equivalent to the stone wall melting. This kind of thought that inspires people's awakening with great will and patience is written into poetry, which is "Facing the Wall for Ten Years and Trying to Break the Wall."
The last sentence "It is difficult to reward a hero even if he crosses the sea" shows his heroic spirit of giving up studying abroad for the needs of the revolution. "It's difficult to cross the sea for a reward" can be understood in two ways. The first understanding is that it is difficult to achieve the ambition of crossing the sea, that is to say, one cannot go abroad to seek the truth, but engaging in revolution can still be regarded as a hero. The second understanding is that even if you fail to realize your revolutionary ideals and jump into the sea to die, you can still be said to be a hero.
Chen Tianhua, a recent man, studied in Japan. In order to wake up the sleeping Chinese people, he resolutely committed suicide in 1905 as a warning. Zhou Enlai's use of the word "crossing the sea" at the end of the poem must be related to Chen Tianhua's deeds.
The whole poem expresses Zhou Enlai's ambition to "break through the wall and fly" in his youth and his revolutionary spirit of dedicating himself to the cause of national salvation.