It is already remarkable that one of the three daughters in a family is outstanding, but in the Song family, all three sisters are so outstanding. There must be some reasons behind this that are worthy of further exploration. This article attempts to interpret the deep-seated reasons why the three Song sisters are so outstanding from three aspects, and also provide some useful reference and inspiration for parents around the world in raising children, especially daughters!
There is a Chinese proverb, "A dragon begets a dragon, a phoenix begets a phoenix, and a mouse's son can make holes." This vividly emphasizes the important role of genetic genes. This is not only true in the animal kingdom, but also in humans. A very important reason why the three Song sisters are so outstanding is that their genetics are very good.
Song Jiashu (Song Yaoru), the father of the three Song sisters, was actually named Han, and his original name was Han Jiaozhun. He was the 28th grandson of Han Qi, a politician in the Northern Song Dynasty. Han Jiaozhun's uncle married the Song family. Because his family was too poor, Han Jiaozhun adopted Mrs. Song's brother, his cousin, and changed his surname to Song and Jiashu.
In 1875, when Song Jiashu was 11 years old, he went to Cuba with his uncle and adoptive father. Three years later, he went to Boston, United States, and worked as an apprentice in a silk tea shop. Under the influence of some friends studying in the United States, Song Jiashu proposed to go to school, but was opposed by his cousin. He angrily fled to a government anti-smuggling ship anchored in Boston port.
Song Jiashu was lucky. The captain of the anti-smuggling ship extended a warm helping hand to him, kept him as a handyman on the ship, and took him to North Carolina in the south of the United States. This allowed him to meet the local church pastor and be trained as a missionary pastor.
Song Jiashu completed the course that other students took 10 years to complete in just a few months, and then concentrated on learning English and the Bible. In 1885, Song Jiashu came to Shanghai to teach in a missionary school after graduating from college with excellent results. Two years later, Song Jiashu was introduced by his classmates and married Ni Guizhen, who came from a distinguished family of Yuyao scholar-bureaucrats.
Ni Guizhen was born in 1869 in Yuyao, Zhejiang, into a distinguished family of scholar-bureaucrats. Her family was also a Christian family. Her mother was a descendant of Xu Guangqi, a famous scientist in the Ming Dynasty. Xu Guangqi was the first famous scientist in my country to convert to and spread Christianity.
Ni Guizhen’s father was a scholar with profound attainments in law. He was in the upper class and had extensive connections in the military, political, educational and cultural circles. When he was young, he settled in Shanghai due to work and started a family in Shanghai. Ni Guizhen's father was deeply influenced by Western culture and trained all three of his daughters with new education. It is said that foot binding caused Ni Guizhen to have a high fever when she was a child. Her parents felt sorry for her and simply refused to let her have her feet bound.
Ni Guizhen has loved reading since she was a child. She was taught calligraphy and classics by a tutor when she was 5 years old. She went to a girls' school at the age of 8. At the age of 14, she was recommended to Shanghai Peiwen Girls' Middle School for her academic excellence. She graduated from middle school at the age of 17. . She does very well in math and can read music and play the piano. Ni Guizhen married Song Jiashu when she was 19 years old.
When Ni Guizhen married Song Jiashu, in addition to bringing a generous dowry, she also brought her natal family’s prominent social status and valuable interpersonal relationships to Song Jiashu. These social relationships almost include the industrial and commercial circles, financial circles, military circles and political circles. These social status and interpersonal relationships laid a solid foundation for Song Jiashu and his children's subsequent take-off.
Song Jiashu has great ambitions and is extremely talented in business. He always does things vigorously and resolutely, never dragging his feet. It is said that Song Jiashu has the personality characteristics of "one urgent and four fast": quick temper, fast eating, fast walking, fast talking, and fast doing things. With a rich family background like his wife, Song Jiashu really took off very quickly.
After marriage, Song Jiashu secretly joined the Triads, an anti-Qing organization, and later joined Sun Yat-sen's Tongmenhui. He became a shareholder in the Meihua Library and renovated and upgraded the library. In addition to the Bible, the library also printed textbooks. etc. Various books and some newspapers and periodicals. At the same time, he was promoted to an official pastor by the church. In 1890, he became a missionary at the Shanghai Suburban Center.
The promotion and improvement of Song Jiashu's status in turn boosted the rapid development of his career.
He worked as an agent for the American Bible Society, selling Bibles and other religious books and periodicals. He received generous commissions from several missionary groups and the Gazette of Nations, and undertook the printing of various Western history and science and technology books from them.
At the same time, Song Jiashu was also the manager of a large flour mill in Shanghai, importing and installing machinery for them. He owned a lot of shares in this flour mill. He was one of the first Chinese to import heavy industrial machinery for Chinese factories.
Song Jiashu was quite talented in business and was successful in running enterprises. When Soong Chingling was 10 years old, he had become a well-known industrialist in Shanghai and accumulated at least 50,000 to 600,000 taels of silver. Therefore, Song Jiashu attracted the attention of the revolutionaries headed by Sun Yat-sen and became close friends with Sun Yat-sen.
After that, Song Jiashu’s printing house not only printed religious publications, but also began to print revolutionary propaganda materials. It used religion and industry as a cover to secretly engage in revolutionary activities, especially the bourgeoisie that heavily funded Sun Yat-sen. democratic revolution. It is said that Song Jiashu used most of his funds to support Sun Yat-sen's revolution and became an important financial pillar of Sun Yat-sen's national revolution.
The three Song sisters inherited their father Song Jiashu’s smart, brave and adventurous genes, and also inherited their mother Ni Guizhen’s kind, virtuous and noble temperament. When my mother was her father's wife, she also actively participated in social work, gave away many of her things to the poor, and did not allow anyone in the family to engage in alcoholism or gambling.
The parents of the three Song sisters not only believe in Christianity, but also advocate Laozi's "rule by inaction" and Western ideas of democracy and freedom. The combination of this concept is reflected in the education of children, especially daughters, which despises the prejudice that men are superior to women, provides the three daughters with the same learning conditions and opportunities as men, and deliberately cultivates their ability to be independent. and social responsibility.
Song Jiashu and Ni Guizhen were deeply influenced by Western education and adopted a new democratic and open education method for their three daughters. They believe that teachers are teachers and cannot replace parents’ support of children; parents are parents and cannot replace teachers’ education. Therefore, in their view, children are their friends first, and secondly, they are members of the family.
Under the guidance of this educational concept, this big family has always been filled with a harmonious and democratic atmosphere. In this family atmosphere that has both a strong religious color and a strong artistic flavor, the three daughters Growing up, Song Jiashu also believed in creating as many opportunities as possible for his daughters to get close to nature, so he provided his daughters with a beautiful pastoral-style environment.
When his daughter was very young, Song Jiashu bought her a lot of novel toys. He would let the novel toys attract her and make her crawl over. Only through hard work can you get the toys. My daughter sometimes cries or acts coquettishly, or falls and cannot get up. At this time, Song Jiashu usually claps his hands to encourage his daughter until her daughter gets the toy through her own efforts. Our three daughters all came here like this when they were young.
When their daughters are older, Song Jiashu and his wife will read hymns from the Bible to their daughters, explain the stories in them, and teach them to play the trumpet and piano. Soong Ching Ling's birthday gift one year was a floral school bag sewn by her mother. The school bag was also embroidered with the motivational saying "The sea is wide for fish to leap, and the sky is high for birds to fly." Soong Ching Ling was so happy that she read this sentence over and over again, and then fell into deep thought. .
Although there was a full-time chef at home, her mother Ni Guizhen often cooked by herself and taught her daughter the Western cooking methods she was good at. Decades later, Soong Ching Ling and Soong Meiling would cook whenever important guests came to their home. They will personally cook one or two exquisite dishes to entertain guests.
Song Ailing often took her two younger sisters to catch small fish and frogs in nearby farmland, trampling down large areas of crops; or climbing to nearby fruit trees to steal unripe fruits. Farmers because He often received help from Song Jiashu but kept silent about it. Once, the three sisters caused serious damage to the farmland, and several farmers went to Song Jiashu's home to complain.
Song Jiashu first compensated these farmers several times their losses, and then signed a gentleman's agreement with them: Let his children play freely in the fields, and do not scare the children. If he ruined anyone's property, he would pay double the damage. After the farmers left, Song Jiashu went to the backyard to find his three daughters and told them that the problem had been solved and that from now on they could just play with confidence and no one would threaten them again.
Why are the three Song sisters so outstanding? The most fundamental reasons why they later became influential figures influencing the course of modern Chinese history are: first, they have excellent genetic genes from their parents, second, they have an excellent family background created by their parents, and third, they received extremely rare and excellent education. Home education. These three factors are indispensable.
After reading this article, what do you think? If you also have a baby girl at home, you might as well follow Mr. Song Jiashu’s approach to raise your daughter. Even if you can’t be as perfect as him in these three aspects, you can at least learn and draw on some useful things from it!