Just a Scholar: the Memoirs of Zhou Yiliang (1913–2001) Zhou Yiliang in 2001

Just a Scholar: The Memoirs of Zhou Yiliang (1913–2001) Zhou Yiliang in 2001. Private collection. Just a Scholar: The Memoirs of Zhou Yiliang (1913–2001) Translated by Joshua A. Fogel LEIDEN • BOSTON 2014 Cover illustration: Zhou Yiliang, Beijing University. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zhou, Yiliang, 1913-2001. Just a scholar : the memoirs of Zhou Yiliang (1913-2001) / translated by Joshua A. Fogel. pages cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-90-04-25417-6 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-26041-2 (e-book) 1. Historians-- China--Biography. I. Fogel, Joshua A., 1950- translator. II. Title. DS734.9.Z468A3 2014 951.05092--dc23 [B] 2013029081 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.nl/brill-typeface. ISBN 978-90-04-25417-6 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-26041-2 (e-book) Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. contents v Contents Translator’s Note . vii Introduction . xi xii 1. Family Background . 1 2. Education in a Private Academy . 9 3. I Continue My Studies in Beiping. 17 4. One Year at the Institute of History and Philology. 33 5. Seven Years at Harvard. 41 6. Returning Home and Liberation. 57 7. Just a Scholar. 73 8. Looking Forward after Surviving the Disaster. .109 Appendix I. Four Weeks in Japan . 131 Appendix II. The First Half of My Life . 155 Appendix III. In Memoriam: Zhou Yiliang (By Song Bainian) . 163 Index . 175 184 vi contents Contents Contents v Translator’s Note vii Introduction xi Chapter One 1 Family Background 1 Chapter Two 9 Education in a Private Academy 9 Chapter Three 17 I Continue My Studies in Beiping 17 Chapter Four 33 One Year at the Institute of History and Philology. 33 Chapter Five 41 Seven Years at Harvard 41 Chapter Six 57 Returning Home and Liberation 57 Chapter Seven 73 Just a Scholar 73 Chapter Eight 109 Looking Forward after Surviving the Disaster . 109 Appendix I 131 Four Weeks in Japan 131 Appendix II 155 The First Half of My Life 155 Appendix III 163 In Memoriam: Zhou Yiliang 163 INDEX 175 translator’s note vii Translator’S Note Zhou Yiliang (1913–2001) was one of the great Chinese scholars of the twentieth century, and his life experiences were deeply affected by many of the major events of that terrible century, though he escaped the war with Japan that so sharply scarred the latter part of the first half of it. Born into a wealthy family, his father initially saw to his education with a range of tu- tors who, among other things, enabled Zhou to attain a capacity to speak English and Japanese with effectively native fluency, all the while master- ing a basically traditional curriculum well after the civil service examina- tions ceased to exist. He would later proceed to the capital, study Chinese history and literature (especially of the Six Dynasties era), and then proceed further to Harvard on a Harvard-Yenching Institute fellowship just as World War Two was beginning in earnest. There he studied Japanese literature, Sanskrit, and Buddhism, completing his dissertation on Tantric Buddhism in 1944 (a portion of it was published in the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies). During the war years, he was selected to help train young Americans in Japanese language as part of the Army Special Training Pro- gram—and before he had ever visited Japan. After returning to China in 1946, he took a post at Peking University and taught there until all education was derailed from the mid–1960s by the Cultural Revolution. At that point, his past (like so many others) came back to haunt him in twisted ways. He was hauled out, beaten, held incommu- nicado, tortured, and repeatedly humiliated in public. He would later be- come involved in the “Liangxiao” affair, and it would mark his career and reputation ever after especially among the victims of that nefarious outfit. Nonetheless, he returned to considerable stature from the mid–1970s, following the death of Mao Zedong and the collapse of the Gang of Four soon thereafter, continued research and publishing, and received highly presti- gious awards. He died in 2001 at the age of eighty-eight. The foregoing is an extremely brief summary based on his autobiography, Bijing shi shushing 毕竟是书生 (Just a scholar), which has been published in various editions (most completely: Beijing: Beijing shiyue wenyi chubanshe, 1998), translated in the pages that follow. A Japanese translation under the general guidance of Fujiie Reinosuke 藤家禮の助 (1928– 2010), based on an earlier edition, appeared in 1995: Tsumari wa shosei: Shū viii translator’s note Ichiryō jiden つまりは書生：周一良自伝 (Just a scholar, the autobiography of Zhou Yiliang) (Tokyo: Tōkai daigaku shuppankai).1 I met Professor Zhou on two occasions, though our paths crossed indi- rectly much earlier. He had written a paper as an undergraduate and published it in 1934 on Naitō Konan’s 内藤湖南 writings, an essay I used in writing my own dissertation.2 For many years I had wanted to meet this man. Then in the early 1990s, he and I by chance were giving talks at Har- vard University on the same day but at different times. I met him and was stunned to learn that he spoke English with the fluency and lack of accent of an Anglophone. We met again briefly in 1997 when he was awarded the Yamagata Bantō prize 山片蟠桃賞 by Osaka Prefecture; already eighty-five years of age at this point, he did not remember meeting me earlier, but he remained as lucid as before. I discovered the Japanese translation of his autobiography at a Japanese bookstore in the late 1990s and read it on the flight home. About a decade later I tracked down a copy of the revised Chinese version and decided to translate it into English. While Zhou Yiliang was, without a doubt, a scholar of exceptional talent and wide-ranging interests, his story bears many of the sharp ups and downs that mark twentieth-century China. In that way, this chronicle of his life has implications far beyond that of one man alone. I have translated the text as it appears in the 1998 edition mentioned above, and I have occasionally checked the Japanese translation where it overlaps with this edition. I have in addition added dates for all the persons for whom I could find them (Zhou includes them for only a few) and brief apposite phrases for occasional explanatory purposes. I have inserted these and characters for proper nouns at their first appearance in the text only. One final note. One of the most difficult issues to sort out in Zhou Yiliang’s life and work and in the complicated and painful relationship between Chinese intellectuals and the Chinese Communist Party (especially Chairman Mao) was the “Liangxiao” affair. This is a topic whose elu- cidation remains an important desideratum. I came upon a remembrance by Professor Song Bainian 宋柏年 which has yet to be published in China 1 The Japanese translation lists the following four scholars as taking part in the translation: Baba Takeshi, Iwami Kiyohiro, Matsukawa Ikuyo, and Shishido Kazuko. 2 Zhou Yiliang, “Riben Neiteng Hunan xiansheng zai Zhongguo shixueshang zhi gong- xian” (The contributions to Chinese historical studies of Professor Naitō Konan of Japan), Shixue nianbao 2.1 (September 1934), pp. 155-72. translator’s note ix which goes a long way toward explaining the inner working of “Liangxiao” and especially Zhou Yiliang’s place in it. I offer it here as an appendix. Thanks are due to his sons, Roland Chou and Zhou Qiqian 周啟乾, for permitting this translation to appear in English, and to Wu Yiching 吴一庆, Hu Ying 胡纓, and again Roland Chou for help with a few knotty Chi- nese-language issues. Joshua Fogel Toronto, June 2012 x translator’s note translator’s note xi Introduction An ancient learning scholar of the Tongcheng School 桐城派 during the Qing dynasty once said something to the following effect. Inasmuch as we are born as human beings, we must do some interesting things over the course of a lifetime and thus be fascinating to others. Otherwise, one’s tombstone after death will have nothing especially stunning to report. I am having this distinct feeling as I now pick up my pen to write this autobiography. My entire life has been all too ordinary, there being nothing noble in the way I lived that is particularly worthy of being recorded for posterity. Yet, I hope that I may be able to offer some small amount of material for those who will try to write the history of Chinese culture, schol- arship, and society in the middle years of the twentieth century. xii translator’s note family background 1 Chapter One Family Background I was born in Qingdao, Shandong Province on January 19, 1913.

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