Author: Peter Wang

Translated by: Yingxian Wang

My publisher forwarded an email, it wrote:

Respectful Mr. Peter Wang,

How do you do?!

Please excuse us for writing to you. We recently read your new book “A Rascal through 10 years of turmoil”. We were surprised to find that your father Mr Shoukang Wang (also Foqing Wang) and our grandfather were acquaintances. We found a photo showing the graduation class of 1947 Beijing Normal University “Standard Chinese Teacher Training” Department. In the photo, on Professor Jinxi Li’s right hand sits your father; on his left, sits our grandfather Mr. Shuda Wang (also Shankai Wang). Our grandfather, Mr. Shuda Wang, was a Linguist, and dictionary compiler. Before 1947, he taught at the High school affiliated with Beijing Normal University, Beijing Normal University, and worked at Chinese Dictionary Compilation Bureau. He was one of Professor Li’s favorite students, and worked on many dictionaries, including “Official Chinese Dictionary”. From your book and what’s left of our grandfathers documents, we deduced that Mr. Shoukang Wang and Mr. Shuda Wang not only worked together, but they were also close acquaintances. We share the same sentiment as you when you wrote “A Rascal through 10 years of turmoil”. We are collecting and organizing our grandfather’s stuff. We wish to commemorate his life through writings about his achievement and thought journey.

The two undersigned writers are the descendants of Mr. Shankai Wang, father’s old classmate and colleague. Opening the old black and white photo, the first thing jumped out to me is father, half bald, wearing glasses, in light colored suites, and looking serious. Sitting next to him is Mr. Jinxi Li, a gaunt, cultured gentleman. My brother and I met Master Li several times back in Peking. According to the order, we should call him great great master.

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Father graduated from the Chinese Department, Beijing Normal University in 1925. He was a disciple of the great Chinese linguist Jinxi Li. Professor Li arranged for him to work at a high school in Peking, teaching Chinese. The first time facing a roomful of student, he was very nervous. He tried to keep calm by roll call the students. He read out the first line from the students registration loudly: “Xi Ci BIao!” (Sitting Order Table, Xi can be a legitimate Chinese last name). He called out three times, but no one answered. Has the student with the last name Xi, and first name Ci Biao come to class? The whole class bent over with laughter.

My old Man was idealistic and hot tempered as a young teacher. He was ready to sound out any unjust. When he saw school administrations were doing shady business, for example, collecting money from students in certain names with nothing to follow through, Teacher Wang would organize the students to protest. The school was embarrassed. As a result, his tenure at a school averaged two semesters. The schools didn’t extend his employment. Father has to go somewhere else. The schools didn’t want to deal with troublemakers.

Right or wrong is like black and white to him. However, he was not always on the students’ side. Sometimes, people from outside of school came to incite the kids to participate in political movement. Father would reason with his students, persuading them not to blindly follow others. His students listened. Some political organizations regarded him as a thorn in their side. One early morning, they gathered in front of his dorm, shouting “down with Wang Shoukang”. Father woke up, in his deep tenor, shouted back “Don’t bother, I am still in bed!”.

Every time he was fired by a school, he would go to Professor Li for help. Professor Li had many connections in the educational circle. He could always find another teaching position for his student. Over several years, father taught in many secondary schools around Peking. Later, father was an editor in the “Chinese Dictionary Compilation Bureau”. Professor Li was the director there.

After China was invaded by Japan, father joined the army and went to the south. Coming back to Peking after 8 years, he immediately went to report to Professor Li. Professor Li’s lifetime motto: “wipe out illiteracy, unify the country’s pronunciation”. He believed if the people of a country cannot communicate in a common language, the country could not be modernized. “Language with the same pronunciation”, promoting standard Mandarin became the number one priority in rebuilding China after the war. Professor Li established “Standard Chinese Teacher Training” program at Beijing Normal University, in order to train Chinese teachers in the shortest time. He hired his favorite former students, Mr. Shoukang Wang and Mr. Shankai Wang as teachers.

Professor Li also helped to set up the Peking “Little Chinese Daily”. Every Chinese character in this paper was annotated with ZhuYin. If you know ZhuYin alphabet, you can correctly sound out the character. The paper became an effective tool in stemming out illiteracy. The president was Jialin Xiao, vice president was Shoukang Wang. Contributing editors included Shirong Xuu, Chongyi Sun, Jichang Niu, and Shankai Wang. All of them were Professor Li’s students.

When I was a child, my family lived in the backyard of “Little Chinese Daily”’s office. There was a huge mulberry tree in the middle of the court yard. Coming back from school, I would read through chapter books at the small library in the daily’s office. We would act out the different characters from Chinese classics. There were countless interesting stories from that time.

Professor Li thought: “Taiwan urgently needs promotion of Chinese”. In early 1948, father finished up the work at “Little Chinese Daily”, and moved the copper mold of ZhuYin alphabets and printing equipment to the harbor of Jilong, Taiwan. He was the first vice president of “Chinese Daily”. From a blank slate, they planned and organized. The first edition of “Chinese Daily” was published on October 25th, 1948. “Chinese Daily” has been in circulation for over 70 years. There are more years to come.

The old photo was dated the fall of 1947. It shows the first graduating class of ““Standard Chinese Teacher Training” program. Six teachers sit in the front row. Behind them stands several rows of the graduating students, 23 in total. The four girls wore traditional cheongsam; the boys wore varies styled clothes, Chinese tunic suit, Hong Kong shirt, shirt, western suites. I felt quite accomplished for recognizing seven of them: Big Song, Boyu Zhang, Wenzeng Zhao, Jianbang Di, Qingxiang Gong, Zengyu Huang, and Changqing Feng.

That year, the Education Department of Taiwan province wrote to Beijing Normal University, asking the university to help selecting Chinese teachers from the first graduating class of the “Standard Chinese Teacher Training” program. Father carefully went through the graduates one by one. In the end, ten or so met the qualifications. They came to Taiwan. They are all students that father taught personally, making them the second generation students of Professor Li.

In addition to arranging for their employments, Teacher Wang also cared about these young people’s lives in Taiwan. Every Lunar New Year’s Eve, his students from central and southern parts of the island would gather at our house for dinner. Those were big occasions. Father was responsible for mixing the fillings. These young lads, from northern China, were proficient in preparing this traditional dish, rolling the dough, making dumplings, peeling garlic, and boiling dumplings. After dinner, they were split up into several groups, playing bridge, drinking tea, and chatting into the wee hours of the night.

They regarded Teacher Wang like a parent. They told him many things, complains, upsets and joys in teaching, but they could not say that they would not continue teaching Chinese. One time Boyu Zhang joked, “Teacher Wang, we are so capable, How about setting up a company, with you as the leader. Let’s make money! Let’s quit teaching Chinese.” Father gave him an earful. He concluded “No matter how hard, we need to stick to teaching Chinese, because we believe in the Chinese teaching religion.”

Zengyu Huang taught me at Taipei Chinese Experimental Elementary School. I should call him Teacher Huang. Father was the director of the Chinese Department of Taiwan Province Normal University. Mr Huang was his assistant. He often came to our house to chat. Sometimes he told my mother his distress in love; other times, he tested me hard Chinese characters, with me making mostly pronunciation mistakes, or don’t know the usage. One day, Zengyu came pushing a brand new Phillips bicycle, looking radiant. He recently made some extra income. But it was not enough to buy a new bike, he sent the old bike to a pawn shop for 100 yuan. With that money, he bought the new bike. With the new handsome bicycle, Teacher Huang finally found a girlfriend.

Another young man seek out Teacher Wang at midnight to borrow money. Father worried what had happened. I could not make out what was said through the paper door. Father suddenly raised his voice “You did mischief, and it leads to this?” The young man hastily denied, in even lower voice. However frustrated, father solved his problem.

During a period, father was “invited” many times to talk with the intelligence agencies. When he came back, he would spend time whispering with mother with a knotted brow. Big Song was involved in a “spy” case. The graduates from “Standard Chinese Teacher Training” program were all detained. The shorter terms are two to three months. Some stayed at detention centers for half a year to ten months, completely shut off from the outside. They were ready to be released only after trial and deemed innocent. But they need to find people to guarantee that they would obey the law afterwards. Father is the guarantor for all the graduates. He went in and out of the political prisoner’s detention center at Patriots East Rd inTaipei many times.

One student, joined the Nationalist Party’s intelligence agency while still in the mainland, his classmates called him “Nationalist Spy”, was also detained because of Big Song’s case. He told father the back and forth of his story. Teacher Wang made up a tongue twister “This is called spy turn against spy — they laugh seeing each other!” But who can laugh when you were locked behind bars?

The shortest student was in the detention center waiting for father to provide guarantee. However, the official document was delayed for a few days. He was very anxious when finally seeing father “Teacher Wang, if you are not coming, I would be Elder Brother Wu becoming an emperor, with no protector!”[1] Even in great distress, he hadn’t lost his sense of humor.

I heard that Big Song received a seven year sentence. He never showed up at our house for dumpling parties afterwards. The graduates from “Standard Chinese Teacher Training” program never mentioned this incident. I am never able to figure out the details of it.

Father is one of the founders of “Chinese Daily”. He organized and taught two graduating classes of “Chinese Teacher Training” program, to continue to cultivate Chinese teaching talents. Among the graduates from those two classes are: children’s literature master Liang Li, Professor Zuyi Fang, Profesor Xiaoyu Zhang, Professor Tianchang Wang etc, They made major contributions to Taiwan’s Chinese education.

In 1956, “Chinese Education Center” was established in Taiwan Normal University. Father was the first director of the center. The first graduating class from “Chinese Center” include five U.S. students. Perhaps influenced by father, Qingzhao Shi (Kate Stevens) had a lifelong love for “Jingyun (Sound of Peking) Drum”. Father invited the famous teacher in Taiwan, Cuifeng Zhang. Qingzhao went through the ceremony and became her official student. Many years later, Professor Stevens became a well-known sinologist in the U.S. For more than 60 years, “Normal University Chinese Center” has countless foreign students learning Chinese. It has earned a great reputation.

In 1925, father promised Professor Jinxi Li to dedicate his whole life to Chinese education. From the mainland to Taiwan, he never took a break. During a speaking tour to central and southern part of Taiwan, he suffered a stroke from exhaustion. He lost the ability to speak. His work at Chinese education was forced to stop.

Professor Li’s students, the graduates from “Standard Chinese Teacher Training” program at Beijing Normal University, Taiwan Normal University, the tens and thousands of Chinese teachers that followed, take over the baton, quietly pushing forward the great cause of “Common Pronunciation”. The promise made a hundred years ago continues to live on.

Footnotes:

[1] Big brother Wu is a sad character from the famous traditional Chinese novel "On the Water Margin"(水滸傳) He was a short and under-achieved commoner who married a beautiful sexy woman.This improper match brought nothing but tragic ending.The unfaithful wife had an affair with a rich person.Together they poisoned her husband to death.Through centuries Big brother Wu has been the synonyms of a miserable loser In northern Chinese dialect.There are numerous derogatory sayings about this poor guy.