Contemporary Essays - Selected Essays of Huang Chang

Author: Xu Baorong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-09-01
Features: Huang Tang's literary career began during his student days when he was studying at the Department of Electrical Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. As an engineering student, he developed an interest in literature and, in addition to his coursework, engaged in writing and submitting his works. According to the author's own recollection: "The target was the《》 of the on the 'Island,' and the submissions were short essays and 'palm-sized novels,' which are similar to the currently popular 'micro-fiction.' The motivation for writing was imitation—I think this is quite similar to how children enjoy imitating adults' speech and actions." It is evident that Huang Chang's literary awakening was closely tied to his lifelong love for literature and his familiarity with literary works from a young age. Huang Chang came from an intellectual family, with his father being an engineer in the field of mining. Huang Chang was taught by his older uncle, who was the last imperial scholar of the Qing Dynasty and used textbooks from Shanghai's Chengzhong School, such as 《》. After learning a few characters, he began reading the "Four Books," starting with Zhu Biao's edition of Confucian and Mencian teachings. However, Huang Chang preferred reading works like 《》, 《》, and 《》. Except for 《》, all of these were banned by his father. The book Huang Chang read "voluntarily" was 《》. 《》 was read later, but it provided him with the greatest benefit. The author recalls: "I feel this was the best textbook that helped me develop the ability to read classical Chinese—almost all the grammar and sentence structures of classical Chinese were deduced from 《》, and it didn't cause much difficulty when I later read even older texts." Additionally, Huang Chang was fond of poems by Du Fu, Li Shangyin, and others. It can be imagined that these readings during his childhood not only laid a foundation for his classical Chinese skills but also nurtured his artistic imagination and critical thinking. Huang Chang was particularly impressed by the "direct method" of English teaching implemented by his English teacher at Nankai Middle School. In this teaching approach, students did not need to rigidly memorize rules but could directly engage with the texts to "guess" the grammatical patterns. This training, from a negative perspective, may lack systematic and solid foundational training, but its advantage lies in its ability to absorb knowledge flexibly, allowing him to read anything he encountered and explore a wide range of subjects with ease. Especially in the turbulent later years of his life, this self-learning and self-cultivation ability brought him great benefits, unknowingly shaping his open-minded and erudite nature.