If you traveled to ancient times, who would you most want to make friends with? Someone asked Ye Jiaying.
Maybe you would say Du Fu. "The sun sets over the isolated city of Kui Mansion, and every time I look up at the Big Dipper, I look at Beijing." Half of my life has been wandering, but my heart is focused on China.
In June 1924, Ye Jiaying was born in an old courtyard house in Beijing.
At this time, China was in a precarious situation.
Soon after Ye Jiaying got married, she moved to Taiwan with her husband and began her life of wandering. It was not until 1974 that she was able to return to China to visit relatives.
She wrote, "I have been away from home tens of thousands of miles for thirty years, and I feel homesick all the time. When Tianwaifu comes back, my eyes will shed tears and my heart will be ecstatic." Her mood at that time, in Lao Du's words, was "Singing in the daytime means drinking too much, and youth is the companion to return home."
The same tragic fate, the same feelings of family and country.
Later, accompanied by her student Xi Murong, she finally visited Ye Heshui, which disappeared among the large corn fields. It was the most beautiful hometown in her dream: Bimi Lili, Bijizhi Miao, moving forward and backward, shaking in the center...
Perhaps you will say it is Tao Yuanming. Indifferent to fame and fortune, extraordinary and refined. After returning to China, Ye Jiaying taught free of charge at Nankai University and donated her life savings of 35.68 million yuan to Nankai University to establish the Jialing Fund to carry out poetry research. He lived a simple life with one basket of food and one cup of drink. But she never paid attention and focused on teaching. When someone asked about the donation, she said that she didn’t like others to talk about it, because whoever said it would bring their own opinions, and then she wouldn’t be her.
After many years, Mr. Ye, who is well-known at home and abroad, is still as holy as a lotus, with a faint fragrance and a graceful appearance.
Maybe you would say Qu Yuan. Mr. Ye's surname is Yehenala, and he is a descendant of Nalan Xingde. Noble and beautiful, persevering and unyielding. Holding the moon in the water, wearing fragrant flowers, and fluttering clothes. Regarding poetry and life, I also have a good heart, but I will never regret it even if I die nine times. They must have similar souls.
Ye Jiaying said that the person who had the deepest influence on her was Li Shangyin.
When Ye Jiaying was twelve or thirteen years old, China was experiencing internal and external troubles and the people were displaced. On her way to school, she often saw corpses that had died of cold and starvation. At this time, she read Li Shangyin's poem: "There is no reason why I have lost my way in the sea of ??suffering. A few dust particles have passed by in the east. How can I see the Buddha's body on the tens of billions of lotus flowers?" Ye Jiaying was deeply touched. In Li Shangyin's poems, she saw the suffering motherland and the people all over the world in the sea of ??suffering. So much so that he later wrote "What is the plan of a scholar to serve his country? His unforgettable poems show off the soul of Li Du".
Life is full of hardships, but every inch of your heart is like water. Mr. Ye lost his mother at the age of seventeen, and his 52-year-old daughter and son-in-law were killed in a car accident. My younger daughter has breast cancer. The husband has a violent temper. She carries her family's livelihood on her thin shoulders.
Li Shangyin also had a bad fate. He lost his father when he was young and relied on copying books for others to earn money to support his family. She said, "I encountered many setbacks and misfortunes in life, and I solved them one by one with Li Shangyin's poems."
Ye Jiaying has loved Li Shangyin's poems since she was a child. She said that Li Shangyin is the poet most similar to Du Fu, and they both have the same patriotic passion in their hearts. Whenever Mr. Ye encountered misfortune, he dreamed of poems in his sleep. When he woke up and could not continue, he would continue the poem with Li Shangyin's poems.
In the intersection of time and space, they must have gone through hardships hand in hand at some point.
"A spring dream of rain often makes the tiles float, and the eternal soul leans on the dusk clouds." She is Li Shangyin's confidant, but she transcends the sadness and melancholy of Li Shangyin's poems. She understands and practices the beauty of "weak virtue" through poetry and life.
"Chang'e should regret stealing the elixir, and the blue sea and blue sky will keep her heart in mind every night." Ye Jiaying had an unfortunate marriage and had never met love in her life, but she experienced the most beautiful love in Li Shangyin's poems.
Ye Jiaying herself said that she most hoped to make friends with Xin Qiji. She said that although Xin Qiji was unhappy, he was very capable. He could entertain himself, buy a piece of land, build a house, and plant plum blossoms. He dug a pond and called Yue'er to come. He was a very interesting person in life.
It turns out that Xin Qiji, who "drunk while burning a lamp to read swords, and dreamed of blowing the trumpet company camp", was such an interesting person. When Ye Jiaying, who is in her nineties, said this, her eyes were full of youthfulness.
When they meet, there must be a surprise like "people have been searching for him for thousands of times, but suddenly looking back, he is there in the dim light".
She said that she most wanted to talk to Confucius. Although Confucius' words were short, they were full of wisdom.
I think Mr. Ye Jiaying is the contemporary Confucius. She only came here for one thing in her life, which was to tell everyone the beauty of poetry, to open a door for people who don’t understand poetry, to bring them in, and to be associated with poetry throughout her life.
Mr. Ye Jiaying began to lecture on poetry at National Taiwan University in the autumn of 1954. This lecture lasted more than 70 years. Later, she was employed to teach at Harvard University, Michigan State University, and Columbia University in the United States. In 1978, he began to use his summer vacation time to teach poetry in major schools in China at his own expense.
Ye Jiaying is well versed in Chinese and Western studies, and her poetry research integrates Chinese and foreign theories. However, her lectures are profound and simple, and she is deeply loved by students. Xi Murong once enthusiastically praised Ye Jiaying’s poetry lectures as “a feast for the soul after another.”
I talk about poetry during the day and lecture about lyrics at night, and all sentient beings become crazy with me. Ye Jiaying said that when you enter the world of poetry, great poets have become your friends, such as Su Dongpo, Tao Yuanming, and Du Fu. "If misfortune occurs in life, when you express it in poetry, your sorrow becomes an object of beauty, which can be resolved through poetry..." Ye Jiaying said.
Whether it is Du Fu, Qu Yuan, Tao Yuanming, Li Shangyin, Confucius, and many great poets in ancient times, their poems have already been integrated into Ye Jiaying's blood. She is the embodiment of poetry. She comes to this world to interpret the truth, goodness and beauty in poetry with herself and her life, to lead and awaken the sleeping hearts.
Poetry makes people’s soul immortal.
She is a taxi in a skirt, and she is the most beautiful lady in contemporary times.