On this day 115 years ago, on November 21, 1910 (October 20, 1910 in the lunar calendar), Qian Zhongshu never celebrated his birthday. Qian Zhongshu On November 21, 1910, Qian Zhongshu was born. Qian Zhongshu, the character is silent, the name is Huaiju, born on November 21, 1910, in Wuxi, Jiangsu. Literary theorist and novelist. In 1929, he entered the Department of Foreign Languages of Tsinghua University. After graduating in 1933, he taught at Guanghua University and edited the English-language "China Review Weekly". In 1935, he went to England to study English literature at Oxford University. In 1937, he received an associate doctorate. He went to the University of Paris to study French literature for one year and returned to China in 1938. He has successively served as a professor at Southwest United University, Hunan Lantian Normal University, Aurora Women's College of Arts and Sciences, and Jinan University in Shanghai, lecturing on foreign literature, and also served as the general editor of English at the Central Library. In 1941, he published a collection of essays "Written on the Edge of Life". In 1946, he published a collection of short stories "Man, Beast and Ghost". In 1947, he published a novel "Siege". In 1948, he published "Talk about Art". After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he served as a professor of the Department of Foreign Languages of Tsinghua University. After 1953, he served as a researcher at the Institute of Literature. Since 1982, he has served as the vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. His books also include "Four Old Articles" and "Guan Cone". Qian Zhongshu and Yang Jiang's wife Qian Zhongshu's anthology "From the moon to the Mid-Autumn Festival" Extended reading: Qian Zhongshu never has a birthday Extended reading: Qian Zhongshu never has a birthday About Qian Zhongshu's "can't remember his birthday" Qian Zhongshu's "can't remember his birthday" This statement is first seen in the text of Zhu Yang Jiang's prose "Remember Qian Zhongshu and Siege" (1985): "He has some chaotic performance, which is still the same to this day. For example, he can't always remember the date of his birth. Later, Sun Xiongfei, the screenwriter of the TV series "Besieged City", also recorded in his essay "Mr. Qian Zhongshu I Revere" (1990): "When we visited them on May 10, 1990, Yang Jiang told us that he couldn't even remember his own birthday. This surprised us all. Mr. Qian said: 'The English translation of" Besieged City "was going to be published that year, and the translator had to write an introduction. He asked me if I had a passport. I said yes, and I didn't know the date of birth until I took it out and looked at it.'" Qian Zhongshu, who is famous for his knowledge and ambition, and has the reputation of Qiao Guanhua's so-called "photographicmemory" (which means camera-like memory, see Li Shenzhi's "Long Live the Lonely Afterlife of Qianqiu"), can't even remember his own birthday. At first glance, those who hear it are surprised and suspicious. It is inevitable that it is inevitable. So we see Fan Minghui's criticism of Yang's sentence in his article "Yang Jiang's" Qian Zhongshu and the Siege of the City ". So we also see Li Hongyan Fan Xulun's" According to this, it is quite shocking to people's eyes and ears... " (see Li Fan's co-authored" Defending Qian Zhongshu ", p. 219). However, it is not an exaggeration to think that Yang Jiang's claim is false. For example, those who are now in their seventies and eighties are a little old, and most of them are used to remembering the birthday of the lunar calendar, not the date of the current Gregorian calendar. In the second issue of "Reading" magazine, there is an article by He Ping, "Qian Zhongshu's Student Status Card", attached to the article is a copy of Qian Zhongshu's student status card when he studied at Oxford. It is a copy of Qian's student status card that the author found from the archives of Oxford University's Exeter College. The student status card was logged in by the Sub-rector, who was in charge of student work at the time. From that copy, we can clearly see that the registered birthday of Qian is "20. X.1910 ", that is, October 20, 1911. In fact, Qian Zhongshu's birthday should be November 21, 1911 according to the Gregorian calendar, and October 20, 1911 according to the lunar calendar. From the words" 20.X.1910 "registered on the student card, it can be seen that Qian Zhongshu remembered the birthday of the lunar calendar that year, and did not carefully check the corresponding Gregorian calendar day, but roughly came with a" lunar calendar yang use "when registering. In fact, this was also the method used by students studying abroad at the beginning. In 1979, when Qian Zhongshu visited the United States as a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences delegation, the Indiana University Press was about to publish the first English translation of "Besieged City". The president of the agency sent Li Oufan to Chicago to contact Qian Zhongshu about the matter, and showed Qian the "Introduction" of the translation. Qian Zhongshu only read the part about his background, and deleted or corrected some "myths that came from nowhere" (see Qian Zhongshu's "Brief Introduction of American Scholars' Research on Chinese Literature" [1979]). This is the reason why Sun Xiongfei reported that Qian said that "the English translation of" Besieged City "was going to be published that year...". Li Oufan must have asked about the date of the Gregorian calendar at that time, so he checked the passport. As for the fact that Qian Zhongshu's birthday was still mistaken for "November 10, 1911" in the later "Introduction", I can think of only three possibilities. First, the possible fallacy originated from the work mistakes of the writers in the "Introduction" written by Li Ofan. Second, the possible fallacy originated from Qian Zhongshu himself. He made an "error" when telling Li Ofan. Third, the possible fallacy originated from Qian's passport. That is, the birthday of that passport was not right in the first place. This seems unlikely, but I am most skeptical. If Qian's passport is still there, those who are concerned can check it later. Incidentally, after the death of Qian Zhongshu, the British "The Times" ("The Times") published a mourning article entitled "Professor Qian Zhongshu" ("ProfressorQianZhongshu") on January 21, 1999. Unfortunately, the article also mistook Qian's birthday for "November 10, 1911" ("HewasbornonNovember10, 1910"), which may be a kind of fallacy in the "Introduction". In short, among the above three "possibilities", the latter two "possibilities" can prove that Qian "can't remember his birthday", regardless of which one comes true. In the end, I think Yang Jiang's statement that "he can't even remember his own birthday" actually means that Qian Zhongshu can't remember his birthday in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. I have also met some elderly people who have registered their birthdays on their ID cards, just like Qian Zhongshu's student card in Oxford - they use a rough "lunar calendar and yang use" method, and they generally do not carefully check the corresponding Gregorian calendar dates. Therefore, in the sense of the Gregorian calendar, it can be regarded as not knowing their birthdays. This is not surprising to put it bluntly. If everyone now focuses on the lunar calendar, and most of the young people who only remember their Gregorian birthdays, how many people can tell whether they were born in the year of Jiazi, Bing Yin, or when they were born on the second day of the ugly day? Thinking about this section, Yang said it is naturally easy to understand. The so-called "appalling" and "shocking people's eyes and ears" seem to be a bit of a fuss. Zhong Qian Zhong Shu 20010220