Moderator’s words:
After "Fudan University's most hard-core final exam paper appeared yesterday", many netizens were very curious about this course. In fact, this is a full-course chat class based on "Dream of Red Mansions". Its biggest feature is that it focuses on students' extracurricular reading, thinking, and writing. The class is a free chat under the auspices of the teacher. In addition to the text reading test you have seen, most students also submitted a course summary in the final test, which is an additional question in the test questions.
On the occasion of New Year's Eve, when I see the students' course summaries, as a teacher, I feel like celebrating the New Year. I feel that this semester and this year have been really worthwhile. I am happier than getting a thick stack of year-end bonuses!
Why so happy?
Because in these summaries, there are students who dare to openly express their dissatisfaction with the course, put forward criticisms and corrections, or express their feelings of loss and disappointment in the spring and autumn style of writing without a single word. From a rational perspective, this is the biggest reason to be happy. The original meaning of a chat class is that there are lively moments and quiet moments, there are some that go along and some that are crooked, there are those who like it, those who hate it, and those who are wary of it. There must and must be different voices from beginning to end. This shows that at least the purpose of this aspect of the course has been achieved.
There are also many students who are satisfied or satisfied with the course, and even praise it in various ways in the course summary. Although the praise was for the course and his/her own achievements, and the course was jointly constructed by the students, I actually felt that I was being praised as well, which was really an honor. From an emotional perspective, this is the biggest reason to be happy.
It makes no sense not to post a few of these compliments and criticisms one after another for everyone to enjoy.
What was posted today was the last one who submitted it. I read it too quickly in my haste, and I didn’t even have time to see whether she was criticizing or praising her😊
The original article has no title, so I will excerpt one sentence from the text.
"Play" turns out to be such a great word
Before taking this course, my deepest understanding of Dream of Red Mansions only reached the tragic consciousness in it. I was attracted by the delicate aesthetics, pure soul, and extraordinary behavior of the woman in the Dream of Red Mansions, and I was deeply touched by the wisdom of life that it tells us: "There is a fly in the ointment, there are many good things, but in the end, everything is empty in a dream." But this semester's Dream of Red Mansions class gave me a new way of understanding. For the first time, I realized that Dream of Red Mansions is still a story that entrusts social ideals. It was also the first time that I thought so deeply about what the real soul is.
First of all, the first inspiration that this semester's discussion gave me was the "change of perspective": I didn't pay too much attention to the character Baoyu in the past, maybe because I am a girl, and the women in Dream of Red Mansions are really beautiful and charming, so I paid more attention to the women in them. However, our discussion this semester started with Baoyu’s words: “Daughters are flesh and blood made of water, men are flesh and blood made of mud. When I see daughters, I feel refreshed, and when I see men, I feel turbid and smelly.” We discussed why women are refreshing, why men are stinky, and what the author’s position is. All of this puts Baoyu at the center of understanding the story. Reading Dream of Red Mansions from the eyes of Baoyu has the function of giving a general overview, as if finding the thin line connecting the pearls and jade in series. Suddenly, both the narrative method and the theme of Dream of Red Mansions suddenly became clear.
It turns out that the widely praised saying "Knowledge in world affairs is knowledge, and understanding of human feelings is writing" was disgusted by Baoyu. It turned out that Baoyu was a person who didn't like reading. Reading sages' books, seeking fame, honoring the lintel, and being loyal and filial were all satirized by "Dream of Red Mansions". It turns out that the Grand View Garden is not just a place for girls to live and enjoy, it also embodies Baoyu's utopian dream. Baoyu longs to bear the injustice suffered by all girls by himself, and hopes that all girls with beautiful souls can be loved and cared for by him. Not only is he born with an infatuated love, but also because he was born in this world with a gene that can mend the sky, so he has a sense of mission to save the world. This feeling of saving the world really moved me deeply.
I never discovered that "play" turned out to be such a great verb. Re-reading "A Dream of Red Mansions", I found that "naughty", "playing" and "playing" are the most frequently occurring verbs. All the verbs "reading and writing, playing the piano and playing chess, painting and reciting poems, depicting luan and thorn phoenix, fighting with grass and hairpins, humming" Singing, guessing the numbers, can all be summed up by the word "play". Everyone in the Grand View Garden "plays" in their free time. Even Jia Mu and Sister Feng, who usually have many things to do, sometimes go to the Grand View Garden to play. If you think about it carefully, isn't "playing" the opposite word to "reading"? If you don't know how to "have fun together", how can you be considered a true deviant? Or in other words, if you can’t “have fun together”, how can you not be in the same league as fashion science? It turns out that all beautiful interpersonal relationships and beautiful lives are contained in these five simple words "Have fun together". This teacher's insight is really striking. Without this reading method in our classroom, could this great idea of "Dream of Red Mansions" really come to the surface?
I am really grateful that the teacher set up the topic "Why do daughters feel fresh and why do men feel stinky?" and took us to discuss what is the real soul. In the past, there has always been an essentialist thought, thinking that it is the West that emphasizes self and freedom, and China that emphasizes collectiveness and rituals. If we want to have a deeper understanding of human nature, the West may have richer spiritual resources. But after taking the teacher's class, I realized that this was not the case. There are many beautiful places in Chinese culture, which are unexpected. "A Dream of Red Mansions" is even a work in which you can pick up pearls and jade everywhere without any effort.
"A Dream of Red Mansions" is a book against authority and against autocratic monarchy. Without reading "A Dream of Red Mansions" and without comparing it with the progressive thoughts of the ancients, it would be difficult for me to discover that the shadow of autocratic monarchy still remains in the modern world, and that even today we are still far away from true self and freedom.
The refreshingness of daughters lies in their self. Even if someone asks them to do something, if they don't like it, they won't do it. This is their soul. If it were in the past, I could only admire Xiangyun, Qingwen, and Lingguan secretly, because they seemed not to be the protagonists in the novel. I don't know whether modern free thinking allowed us to discover them, or whether they were really praised by "Dream of Red Mansions". But now I can firmly like them and even learn from them. After all, as the teacher said, the Six Classics pay attention to me, and I pay attention to the Six Classics. What the Six Classics say has nothing to do with who I am. Perhaps what I should be grateful for is the teacher's firmness and upholding of freedom, as well as the recognition of this by all the students in the class. It is precisely because of this kind of thinking that Xiangyun and Lingguan can shine, and see some precious qualities that are not explicitly stated in the book, besides "heroes are magnanimous and magnanimous, and never care about the private affairs of their children." But to be able to do this, even for me now, I still need to work hard.
I began to realize that perhaps the reason "Dream of Red Mansions" became a classic is because it showed how beautiful humans can be, which we may not achieve for a long, long time. Every time we talk about the Red Mansion, I can see that everyone's eyes seem to be looking at the present and even the future, glowing very brightly. I really feel lucky that China has a book like "A Dream of Red Mansions" with so much clear and shining thought and wisdom that transcends its past, present and future. Even for us now, the social ideals and life wisdom put forward in "A Dream of Red Mansions" are futuristic. This is proved by the fact that we can still talk together in 2021 and draw wisdom from it together. I feel at ease, having a classic that talks about "love" and "play", "freedom" and "soul". I feel even more lucky to be able to take such a class with teachers and classmates at the university and gain so much inspiration from teachers and classmates.
May the world become a better place.
Appendix 1: Fudan University’s most hard-core final exam paper appears (click to read)
Appendix 2: If you are not a bad person, you will not love Cao Xueqin: Dream of Red Mansions and life lessons guide (click to read)
Machine-translated from the Chinese original 在跨年之际，忽然看到学生的痛批与猛夸（课程小结之一） (published 2022-01-03). WeChat original ↗