The Hall of Three Pines: An Account of My Life

Notes

author’s preface 1. Tao Yuanming (372‒427), a poet of the Jin dynasty, served for a time as magistrate of Pengze. He refused official appointments, preferring to work on his own small landholding. His writing prefigured the contemplative nature poetry of the Tang. He wrote “Mr. Five Willows,” a sketch about a hermit whose hut was shaded by five willows. chapter 1: the late qing period 1.Shao Yong (1011‒1077) was a Northern Song philosopher whose theory of history gave highest place to the legendary sage emperors. He held that subsequent eras decline steadily from that stage. His poems and essays are collected in Tapping on the Earth (Yi chuan ji rang ji). 2. Written in the late Qing dynasty by Li Baojia, this novel was an exposé of corrupt practices among Qing dynastic officials. 3. Luo Zenan (1808‒1856) was a general in the Hunan Army under the mid-nineteenth-century statesman Zeng Guofan. Zeng and Luo taught “philosophy of principle” as a source of strength for the Hunan Army. The same philosophy of principle, deriving from Song dynasty sources, later became an important influence on FengYoulan’s thought. 375 n o t e s 4.“On Becoming and Appearance” is a chapter from the writings of the Confucian philosopher Xunzi (313‒238 b.c.e.), commonly referred to as Xunzi. His book is a collection of prose discourse, with the exception of this chapter set to verse. 5.The Sichuan-Hankou Railway was begun in 1903 by a Chineseowned company. In 1911 the Qing court attempted to “nationalize” it by selling rights to foreign investors, arousing popular indignation.This incident triggered the Revolution of 1911 (see note 6 to Chapter 3 below). The Xiangfan-Chongqing railway was finally completed in 1979. 6. See Liang Qichao’s “On the Evolution of Despotic Government in China,” in his Collected Essays of Liang Qichao (Taipei,Taiwan: Hsinhsing Publishing House, 1959), book I, pp. 73‒95. 7.The character chao, meaning “court,” can be broken down into the elements shi-ri-shi-yue. These in themselves are characters meaning “October 10.” 8.A qing is equal to a hectare, or one hundred mou, that is, about fifteen acres. 9. Huang Zongxi (1610‒1695) was a Ming-Qing thinker who opposed the doctrine that principle precedes substance. Instead, he held that principle was not an entity, but is the order found in things. His book Ming yi dai fang lu (Banished Wisdom Awaits a Hearing) argued that concentrating authority in the hands of an emperor was not necessarily a good thing.This book was prohibited in the late Qing but was influential in awakening democratic thought in the late years of that period. 10.The character ru, meaning “scholar” or “Confucian,” is comprised of the radical for “human being” and the phonetic xu. 11. In the aftermath of SunYatsen’s failed uprising in Canton (March 1911), Tan Renfeng and others founded the Tongmeng Hui (Revolutionary Alliance) in Shanghai on July 31, 1911. Provincial branches were set up soon afterward, forming a national revolutionary organization. 376 : notes to pages 11‒35 chapter 2: the period of the republic 1. Hui Daiying (1895‒1931), a native of Jiangsu, was an early leader of the CommunistYouth movement. During the May Fourth Movement (see note 6 below), Hui organized the students of Wuhan to boycott classes and hold demonstrations, and he set up the Liqun Publishing House to disseminate revolutionary thought. In 1926 he served as chief political instructor at theWhangpoa Military Academy, in 1927 he participated in the Nanchang and Guangzhou uprisings, and in 1931 he was killed in Nanjing Prison. 2. Hu Shi (1891‒1965) was a leading member of the May Fourth Movement; his efforts to promote the use of vernacular language sparked the literary and cultural movements of the 1920s. A disciple of John Dewey, he utilized Western philosophical terminology in reinterpreting classical Chinese thought. His historical studies of vernacular literature were important works. He lived in the United States, serving as China’s ambassador from 1938 to 1942,and became president of Academica Sinica in Taiwan in 1958. See Howard Boorman, ed., The Biographical Dictionary of Republican China (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1966). 3. The Wen xuan (Anthology of Belles Lettres) was compiled by Xiao Tong (501‒531), crown prince of the Liang dynasty. Containing 700 pieces by 129 authors from the Han...