Where Guo Moruo led, literature followed

The poet, dramatist, historian, paleographer and social activist's former home in Beijing is now a museum celebrating his life and achievements. Yang Guang reports.

Two rows of pedicabs queue up on both sides of Qianhai Xijie, where Beijing's hutong tour starts. The drivers, dressed in uniform khaki vests, either solicit business, gossip or just sit around and leaf through newspapers while waiting for business. On one side of the street stands Shichahai Sports School, where kungfu star Jet Li was trained before shooting to stardom. On the other side is a traditional quadrangle compound, easily missed if not for the gilded characters on the door lintel ?"Former Residence of Guo Moruo?

The courtyard is where the poet, dramatist, historian, paleographer and social activist lived for his last 15 years.

Late premier Zhou Enlai once compared Guo (1892-1978) with Lu Xun: "If Lu Xun was a pioneer who blazed a trail where none had been before, then Guo Moruo was the guide who led the people down that trail."

Literary theorist Zhou Yang (1908-89) says Guo's encyclopedic knowledge, artistic talent and passion for natural sciences compares with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

The versatile cultural giant's love of nature is evident in his collection of fancy stones in the sitting room and in the vegetation he planted with his family in the courtyard - gingko trees, winter sweets, crabapples, wisterias, snake beans and gourds.

The gingko tree in the front yard, under the gaze of Guo's bronze statue, has an interesting backstory. In 1954, his third wife, actress and calligrapher Yu Liqun, was seriously ill and left Beijing for medical treatment. Guo and his children planted the tree and named it "Mama's Tree", to express their wishes for her speedy recovery. Guo's second daughter, Pingying, says the tree has since become one of their family members.

There are three exhibition halls in the backyard, featuring Guo's literary creations, intertwined with his life and modern Chinese history.

Born into a landlord's family in Leshan, Sichuan province, Guo was originally named Kaizhen. As a boy, he had access to plenteous literary works. He married his first wife, arranged by his family in 1912, but left home five days after the marriage.

In 1914, Guo followed his older brothers to study medicine in Japan. Two years later, he fell in love with Sato Tomiko (Guo Anna), a Japanese nurse. They lived together for 20 years, until he left for China after the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-45).

After 1918, he became more interested in literature than medicine and began to write under the pen name Moruo, taken from the Mo and Ruo rivers of his hometown.

Guo recalls the start of his literary and artistic career thus: "The awakening of our times prodded me to waken as well. At the same time it released me from my depression. Before, I was disdainful of literature and art, but now that I've wakened, I look on them as a powerful weapon to smash feudal thinking and resist imperialism."

He published his first poetry anthology, The Goddesses, in 1921, which laid the foundation for new-style poetry and gained immediate success. He co-founded the Creation Society in Shanghai, a literary association imbued with a romantic spirit that promoted modern vernacular literature.

Fluent in Japanese, German and English, Guo was also a prolific translator. His translations include the works of German thinkers Friedrich Schiller and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Leo Tolstoy and Ivan Turgenev of Russia, Percy Shelley and H. G. Wells of Britain, and Upton Sinclair of the United States.

After the founding of New China in 1949, Guo held a number of high-level government posts. Among other positions, he was vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Besides his official works, he continued to pen poems, historical dramas and academic works.

Guo was attacked during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76). Two of his sons with Yu Liqun, Minying and Shiying, committed suicide in 1967 and 1968. Guo's copies of his sons' diaries, in small regular script, are neatly stacked on the desk in his study, as a remembrance.

Novelist and dramatist Lao She (1899-1966) once described him as a "foolish intelligence" - he realized his talent and position, but never used them to obtain personal benefits or special treatment. Arguably, he hit the mark.

(China Daily 03/10/2011 page19)