原標題：
對話Benjamin Read
我和Benjamin Read就這部紀錄片為China Beat 網站進行了一次對話。
Benjamin Read現在美國加州大學Santa Cruz學院政治係任教，算來也是我十年前認識的老朋友了。當時他在哈佛大學政治係讀博士，我在尼曼做訪問學者。我們在費正清中心舉辦的活動上認識。看了梁林紀錄片，Ben知道了很多費正清夫婦年輕時的故事，他告訴我，九十年代末的時候，他在費正清中心圖書館經常看見費慰梅，當時她已經很老了，(費慰梅2002年去世。) Ben説他很後悔那時從未想過和費慰梅好好説一次話。
我發現我這些年因為做紀錄片開始迷戀一些老人，因為在他們風霜的面容後面，我能讀到他們精彩的人生故事……
“對話”通過email進行，英文問，中文答。我翻成中文，Ben翻成英文，供喜愛雙語的朋友笑閱。
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Hu Jingcao on Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin
In October, CCTV’s high-definition channel broadcast a new six-hour, eight-episode documentary on the famous husband-and-wife duo Liang Sicheng (梁思成, 1901-1972) and Lin Huiyin (林徽因, 1904-1955). Liang is renowned as a pioneering architectural historian, Lin as a writer, but their presence in China’s historical consciousness defies easy categorization. Both came from prominent families (Sicheng’s father was Liang Qichao, the scholar and reformer of the late Qing and early republican period) and they left multifaceted legacies (their son, the noted environmentalist Liang Congjie, died in Beijing on October 28 [could reference Yang Guobin post of December 1]; American artist Maya Lin is Huiyin’s niece.)
Titled “Liang Sicheng Lin Huiyin,” the documentary was directed by Hu Jingcao (胡勁草), a 42-year-old video journalist. Like her subjects, Hu (who spent the 2000-01 academic year as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University) seems compelled to cross cultural and national boundaries. She previously made “You Tong” (幼童), an account of the 120 boys sent by Qing officials to study in the United States in the 1870s. Like that documentary, this new work draws extensively on previously unexploited materials from both the United States (where Liang and Lin studied for several years) and China, as well as Japan. It tells much of their story through the lens of their long and close friendship with John King Fairbank and Wilma Fairbank. Their photographs and their voluminous correspondence are drawn on extensively, along with interviews of their children (Holly Fairbank and Liang Zaibing as well as Liang Congjie) and many other people who knew them. Links to the documentary can be found below.
Benjamin L. Read, assistant professor of politics at UC Santa Cruz, interviewed Hu via email, and also condensed and translated the exchange.
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BLR: Perhaps you could start by telling China Beat readers about the cultural background surrounding Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin. People are obviously fascinated by them, perhaps especially Lin, her life and her poetry. What is the general impression of these figures that viewers in China will have before they watch your documentary?
HJC: The subjects of the documentary are very well known to the Chinese public, especially Lin Huiyin. She is seen as personifying the woman with both beauty and talent. Of course, there are other reasons for her fame as well. Last year, the influential Southern People Weekly selected the twelve most beautiful women in the history of the PRC, and Lin was number one. They wrote, in part:
It is often only through the light given off by a man that we see the woman behind him, particularly so for young women in the arts who emerged from the republican era. But Lin Huiyin is an exception. In her, we see the reflection of many outstanding men of the time, but in fact it is she who adds extra color and shine to their images.
Lin Huiyin is renowned for the group of outstanding men that swirled around her, and particularly the love stories that people never tire of relating. The most famous of these concern the poet Xu Zhimo and the philosopher Jin Yuelin, who remained unmarried his whole life due to his feelings for Lin.
It is always television shows that give the public most of its information about things. Ten years ago, a TV show called “The Days of April” brought Lin Huiyin to the attention of many Chinese viewers. But Liang Zaibing and Liang Congjie, Liang and Lin’s daughter and son, penned angry protests after seeing it. They wrote:
“The ‘Lin Huiyin’ in this show is just a spoiled little girl who only knows how to strike affected poses, make flirty gestures, sniffle and sob ...”
“This show portrayed my mother merely as a pathetic figure hounded to the point of desperation by Xu Zhimo’s pressure, then grasping at the straw of Liang Sicheng to save herself, never escaping Xu’s clutches. This flies in the face of the historical facts.”
“Lin Huiyin was not like what you pictured!!!”
So what was she then?
In comparison, Lin’s husband Liang Sicheng has considerably less of this kind of “fame.” His name has been mentioned more and more often in recent years, though. The reason is that people have become increasingly unhappy with the living environment around them. As cities expand boundlessly, traffic becomes more and more clogged, and people become surrounded by tall, identical buildings, they feel that they no longer know where they are living. This brings the name Liang Sicheng to people’s minds. It has become a kind of spiritual talisman for people dissatisfied with the environment they live in. But then the question becomes: What exactly did Liang do?
Ben：首先，想請你給我們的讀者介紹一下你片中主人公梁思成和林徽因的一些“背景”。比如，在過去許多年裏，我在中國遇到過不少迷戀林徽因的人，她的詩情畫意的人生……你覺得在觀看你的紀錄片之前，中國觀眾對這兩位人物的大致認識如何？
胡：這部紀錄片的主人公梁思成、林徽因在中國公眾間享有很高的知名度，當然更有名氣的是妻子林徽因。“林徽因”幾乎就是傳説中的“美女+才女”的化身。當然這兩點還不足以讓她如此“出名”。去年，中華人民共和國建國60年，一本在中國頗有影響力的雜誌《南方人物週刊》評選了共和國歷史上最美麗的12位女性，列首位的就是林徽因。她的當選“事跡”頭一段是這樣寫的：
我們常常要借助一個男人的光線，才看到他背後的女人——對於那些從民國時代走來的文藝女青年們——但林徽因是個例外。在她身上，折射著許多優秀男人的光芒，而她反過來又為這些男人增添了光彩，我們舉著她這支蠟燭，把那些有著別樣才情與身世的男人照看得更加清楚：梁啟超、胡適、梁思成、徐志摩、金岳霖、費正清、沈從文、張奚若……這串散發著光芒的名單裏，間或瞥見林徽因的衣袂飄動，她與他們終生保持著或父或兄、或親或友的深厚情感。
林徽因還因他身邊圍繞的這群傑出的男士而“出名”，尤其是流傳著的被後人津津樂道的愛情故事，最著名的屬詩人徐志摩和為林徽因終身未娶的大哲學家金岳霖。前者曾求學于美國哥倫比亞大學和英國劍橋大學，學習經濟學、哲學。後者畢業于美國賓夕法尼亞大學沃頓商學院，以及哥倫比亞大學、倫敦大學政治係、哲學系。對公眾普遍認識事物最有貢獻的從來都是電視劇。十年前，一部電視劇讓最廣大的中國觀眾知道了林徽因。
“該劇中的‘林徽因’是一個只會扭捏作態、眉目傳情、哭哭啼啼的小家女子……”
“該劇簡直把我母親寫成一個在徐（志摩）的威脅下被愛情追逐得無處躲無處藏的可憐女子，最後又拿梁思成當成救命的稻草，從未擺脫徐的糾纏，這完全違背了歷史的真實。”
梁林的女兒梁再冰、兒子梁從誡奮然提筆抗議電視劇——
“林徽因不是你們拍得那樣！！！”聲嘶力竭……
那，是哪樣？
相比起來，林徽因的丈夫——梁思成的“名氣”恐怕要小許多。梁思成的名字在近些年開始越來越多地被公眾提起，原因是他們開始日益對自己身邊生存環境不滿：城市無限制地擴大，交通愈來愈擁堵，城市被相同的高樓包圍的時候，人們開始越來越不知故鄉是何鄉……此時，有一個人的名字開始忽然被人們想起：梁思成。人們開始傳説半個世紀前他和一座古城的故事……他的名字成了今天人們對生存環境不滿的一種精神寄託。但是，他到底做了什麼？
BLR: With this as the backdrop, it’s clear that you aimed to paint a respectful and high-minded portrait of this couple. Indeed, you seem to have given figures like Xu and Jin only the minimum necessary treatment here — you don't want them, and their relationships with Lin, to take the spotlight. What aspects of Liang and Lin’s lives, as shown in your work, will be most surprising or least known to your audience?
HJC: Most of the audience thinks only of “love stories” when they hear the name Lin Huiyin. My goal in making this documentary was to provide as complete a portrait of Liang and Lin as possible. So naturally the love stories will seem like they’ve been given short shrift. That’s not because I’ve tried to “downplay” them, it’s just the way I’ve treated the vast amount of material I’ve gathered about the two figures after considering it in its entirety. It isn’t at all that I’ve been concerned that dwelling on Lin’s amours would “hurt” her “shining” image, because everyone knows that love only makes a woman more beautiful. As far as the Lin-Xu story is concerned, I’ve tried to take this information, which the public is already aware of, and convey it in the most concise and poetic form possible. In contrast, with Jin Yuelin, he is someone the public knows little about, but who in fact was a warm, ever-present friend of the Liangs, as I see it. Accordingly, I have sprinkled bits of first-hand information about him and the Liang family throughout.
This documentary is about the lives of Liang and Lin in their entirety. I don’t feel that, after watching it, the audience (which has only a hazy sense of them) will have been surprised by any particular story or detail. Rather, I hope that they will see, looking in full at the lives of these two intellectuals, the steep price that husband and wife both paid for the art to which they were so devoted.
We could take this back to the premise of the question. If the public knows about all the love that Lin inspired, surely they also would want to know: why?
Ben：這麼看來，很明顯你的意圖是要在片中去塑造品格高尚的梁林形象。實際上，你似乎給了像徐志摩還有金岳霖很少的篇幅——是不是你不希望他們和林徽因之間的關係，過多地暴露在聚光燈下。那麼你覺得，在你的片中所講述的梁林人生故事中，哪些會是公眾最不了解的，或者會讓他們看後大吃一驚的？
胡：在相當一部分公眾心目中，和林徽因的名字密切聯絡的只有“愛情故事”傳説。而對於我要做這部紀錄片的目的，恰恰是希望能夠提供儘量完整的梁林形象。所以，僅從篇幅來説，“愛情故事”自然會顯得較短，但這不是刻意“淡化”，而是我對所掌握的這兩位主人公浩瀚資訊經過整體判斷後的處理。因為對我來説，絲毫不存在“講述林的愛情故事”可能會“損害”她的“光輝”形象的擔心，誰都知道，女人因為愛情而更加美麗。對於林徐故事來説，我希望將這一段公眾“已知的”信息，用最凝練、詩意的方式錶述出來。而另一個人物“金岳霖”，公眾已知的信息非常有限，片中散點式地在多處提供了老金和梁家之間的第一手資訊，這是我對“老金”的導讀——老金就是梁家一位無時無處不在的溫暖朋友。
對於這部講述梁林一生命運的紀錄片，我不覺得觀眾會在看過之後，會對某個特別的情節，特別的故事表示吃驚，相反，我相信，對於大部分觀眾，他們知道的梁林，除了“愛情故事”，之外幾乎所有訊息公眾都是模糊的。紀錄片希望在將這一對知識分子夫婦的生命歷程娓娓道來的過程中，去向觀眾展示，懷揣著建築師和藝術家的夢想，他們付出了何其昂貴的代價！
如果要回到問題中的設問？那就是，公眾已知她的愛情故事，難道不想進一步知道，why??
BLR: Your documentary pays special attention to Liang and Lin’s long friendship with John King Fairbank, who became one of the most influential American scholars of China in the post-war era, and his wife Wilma Fairbank. We see pictures of the four spending the summer of 1934 together in Fenyang, Shanxi. We read excerpts from their voluminous correspondence. We taste the sadness of the communication cut-off in 1949, which lasted through Lin’s death in 1955 and Liang’s in 1972. Wilma published a book on Liang and Lin and edited a posthumous collection of Liang’s work.
What created this extraordinary bond? How many pages of their letters did you read, and what did you learn from them? What is the significance of this friendship for our understanding of Liang and Lin?
Ben：你在紀錄片中花了大量篇幅講述梁林夫婦和費正清夫婦的長久友誼，費正清在戰後成為美國最具影響力的中國問題專家。在紀錄片中，我們讀到了他們1934年在山西汾陽的夏日旅行，讀到了他們經年累月的持久通信，讀到了在1949年後他們的通訊中斷後的傷感，日後兩對親密的朋友再也無緣相見，甚至通信。直至1955年林的逝去和1972年梁的逝去。你引用了費正清在“對華回憶錄”中的一句話，評價他們這對中國朋友“我們在中國（或者在世界任何地方）最親密的朋友”。 費慰梅在晚年為梁林出版了傳記，併為梁思成的英文版中國建築史做編輯。
你覺得是什麼在他們之間産生了這種特別的紐帶？你讀了多少他們之間的通信，從中獲得了什麼？ 這種特殊的友誼對我們了解梁林起到什麼樣的作用
HJC: This private correspondence, the great majority of which has never previously been made public, was a precious asset for us in making the documentary. It comes to about 700 pages in total, 90 percent of which is letters sent by Liang and Lin to the Fairbanks between 1935 and 1948. The other half of the correspondence, the part that had been sent to China during this period, was destroyed in the Cultural Revolution. (According to the recollections of Liang Sicheng’s second wife Lin Zhu, Liang kept these letters for a long time, but after repeated raids on his home in the Cultural Revolution, he finally decided to destroy what could have been lethally disastrous evidence of intimate dealings with American imperialists.)
The great majority of the letters were written by hand, and we spent tremendous effort converting them into typewritten form. I read all of them. It makes you grateful for the era of written correspondence — facing such wide separation, the two couples cherished each chance they had to communicate by letter, and they poured out everything they wanted to express in written words. Due to the long duration of this correspondence, it gives you, up until 1949, a very complete sketch of what’s going on in their lives and their thoughts. You read in it the incredible, life-long friendship between them.
What was it that created this kind of emotional bond?
Some two months after our wedding we met Liang Sicheng and his wife Lin Hui-yin. Neither they nor we were aware that years of close friendship lay ahead, but we were captivated from the first. (Wilma Fairbank, Liang and Lin: Partners in Exploring China’s Architectural Past, 1994, p. xii)
If it was common interests and sensibilities that brought these two young couples together with such immediacy, then later it was an acknowledgment of mutual admiration for one another’s talents that made them so close. This friendship underwent a baptism by fire in the war years, becoming indestructible.
Lin Huiyin was a woman who had been deeply influenced by Western culture throughout her upbringing, then studied in the United States. Her craving for spiritual connection ensured that the circle of intellectuals swirling around her would be composed of others who also had been schooled in Britain or America. But the appearance of the Fairbanks brought extra color to her life. Lin wrote this letter in 1935, after John and Wilma had finished their stay in China:
You see, I was biculturally brought up, and there is no denying that bicultural contact and activity is essential to me. Before you two really came into our lives here at No. 3 [Liang and Lin’s home in Beiping, No. 3 Beizongbu Hutong], I was always somewhat lost and had a sense of lack somewhere, a certain spiritual poverty that needed nourishing ... (quoted in Wilma Fairbank, Liang and Lin, p. 91)
As everyone knows, Lin was surrounded by infatuated men, and few of her friends were women. The stories of her and women like Bing Xin or Lin Shuhua are all about suspicion and rivalry. But in this letter to Wilma Fairbank, you can see a different Lin Huiyin:
I did not think once that I could have a friend in a woman. It is my luck to have met you because otherwise I may never know and enjoy this certain warm flow of feelings between two women. (Sent from Beiping, May 1937)
After their 1935 separation, they missed one another; being apart only strengthened the feelings between them. Later, the war brought profound changes to the life of the Liang family. For a period of time, the Fairbanks provided a source of important material support. From one of Liang Sicheng’s letters:
We are so short of reading matters and reference books here. We – Lao Chin, Tuan-sheng, Phyllis [Huiyin] and I and friends – shall appreciate it so much if every now and then you send us some out of date best sellers that you pick up from some second hand book shop. We are thirsty to read things from left to right instead of from top to bottom. ... While I am typing this, begging for books, I discovered Phyllis is writing Wilma for old cloths. It seems we actually turn beggers! (Sent from Kunming, April 1939; rendered verbatim)
Due to the cruelty of politics, not only were these two couples, who shared such close friendship, unable to see each other again after 1949, they could not even exchange letters or send word to one other for the rest of their lives. Even so, Wilma Fairbank seems to have dedicated the final stage of her life to her dear friends. As her husband wrote:
Our closest friends in China (or elsewhere, for that matter) were Liang Ssu-ch’eng and his wife Lin Whei-yin, two people who combined the Chinese and the Anglo-Saxon cultural traditions. (John King Fairbank, China Bound: A Fifty-Year Memoir, 1982, p. 104)
These letters are of such great importance to the documentary not merely because they had previously lain untapped, or because they show us the sincerity of the friendship between the two couples. Even more than that, their continuity makes it possible to convey a first-person narrative over time. Could there be any more truthful or believable way to convey the story of people of such stature other than to hear them tell it themselves?
胡：這批絕大部分內容從未於世公佈的私人通信是我們製作這部紀錄片的一批珍貴財富。全部信件有700頁左右，90%是梁林在1935年至1948年之間給費正清夫婦的信。在這期間，對方寄到中國的信已經在文革期間被銷毀。（據梁思成遺孀林洙回憶，這批信在梁家保留了很久，文革開始後，梁家有了一次次的查抄……終於，有一天梁思成決定銷毀這批在當時會惹來殺身之禍的和美帝國主義密切交往的證據……）
絕大部分的信件是手寫體，我們花費了巨大的人力將它們全部改造成“打印體”。我閱讀了所有的內容。由於通信的持續性，感謝那個用書信交流的年代，特別是天各一方的人們更是珍惜每一次通信的機會，用文字記錄下他們想傾述的一切。1949年之前，你幾乎可以通過這些信件完整勾勒出他們的生活、思想變化。 從中讀到這兩對年輕朋友之間非同尋常的畢生友誼。
是什麼讓他們之間産生的如此情誼——
Some two months after our wedding we met Liang Sicheng and his wife Lin Huiyin. Neither they nor we were aware that years of close friendship lay ahead，but we were captivated from the first. ——Wilma ）
如果説，兩對年輕人由於情投意合，一見鍾情的話，那麼日後的持續交往中，他們對彼此才華的欽慕性格的認同讓他們終成密友，而這種友誼經過戰爭歲月的洗禮便終於牢不可破了。
林徽因是一位從少女時代接受西方文化熏陶長大的女子，後留學美國。精神交流的渴望，使得她的周圍聚集著的一批知識分子都是那個時代留學英美的學者。而費正清夫婦的出現，給她的生活增添了新的色彩。林徽因的這封信寫于1935年，在費正清夫婦結束中國之行準備回國的時候——
（You see, I was bi-culturally brought up, and there is no denying that bicultural contact and activity is essential to me. Before you two really came into our lives here at No.3, I was always somewhat lost and had a sense of lack somewhere, a certain spiritual poverty that needed nourishing. The picnics and riding this autumn or rather early winter made a whole world of difference to me.）
眾所週知，林徽因的身邊聚集著一批迷戀她的男子，鮮有女性朋友，而傳説中她和冰心、林淑樺之間故事都是女性之間的猜忌嫌隙……在這封給費慰梅的信中，你看到的是另一個林徽因——
I did not think once that I could have a friend in a woman. It is my luck to have met you. Because otherwise I may never know and enjoy this certain warm flow of feelings between two women.
1935年的分別，只會讓思念更加強烈。尤其是之後戰爭使得梁家的生活狀況徹底改變。一段時期內，費正清夫婦成為梁家物質上的重要支撐。
梁思成的信——
We are so short of reading matters and reference books here. We – Lao Chin, Tuan- sheng, Phyllis and I and friends – shall appreciate it so much if every now and then you send us some out of date best sellers that you pick up from some second hand book shop. We are thirsty to read things from left to right instead of from top to bottom. While I am typing this, begging for books, I discovered Phyllis writing Wilma for old cloths. It seems we actually turn beggars!
殘酷的政治原因，終讓這兩對親密朋友在49年之後不僅失去見面的機會，甚至無法聽到彼此的音訊，直到生命的終結。而費慰梅幾乎將她生命的最後階段全部獻給了她和正清畢生親密的朋友：梁思成 林徽因。
Our closest friends in China ( or elsewhere, for that matter ) were Liang Ssu-ch’eng and his wife Lin Whei-yin .two people who combined the Chinese and the Anglo-Saxon cultural traditions.
—— China Bound :a fifty year memoir
這批信對於這部紀錄片至關重要，不僅僅在於它的獨家，也不僅僅為我們提供了兩對親密朋友間至誠的人生友誼，更重要的是這批連續不斷的書信為全片基本的“第一人稱的”的敘事提供了一種可能。對於這樣的“名人”，講述他們的人生故事，還有什麼比聽他們自己講自己的故事更為真實可信呢？
BLR: The Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and their effects on Liang Sicheng, are dealt with in a highly abbreviated way. I assume that you have taken it to what you see as the limits on these topics. You do show quite a bit about Liang Sicheng in the 1950s: His ill-fated plans for preserving the old city and its walls, the political debates over his architectural ideas, his own conflicted allegiances and his application to join the Communist Party. How sensitive are these topics today?
HJC: The last of the eight episodes deals with the twenty years from 1950 to the end of the subjects’ lives. Seeing the way these two decades were boiled down to 45 minutes, anyone’s natural reaction would be to say that numerous sensitive topics in this period have been deliberately abbreviated. In China the many different media outlets vary widely in terms of the breadth of discourse space they are allowed, and because of its wide impact, television is always given relatively less space. You could call those the political considerations behind the “selective narrative” in the last episode.
Apart from that, I’d like to say something about professional expression in the field of television, which is a very special medium. Its fusion of sound and visual images gives it extraordinary power. It has a penetrating force that goes beyond that of written words. In fact, every medium has its own limits, things it’s not capable of doing. Within the limits of this particular time and place, I’ve always stayed focused on the mission I wanted to accomplish, and tried to make the documentary as meaningful and influential as possible.
I hope that through my telling of the story of Liang and Lin, you see two beautiful lives, you see poetry and art, you see perseverance and sincerity. In the end, you will feel sadness and anguish. This pain comes from a place outside the limits of this time and place — it comes from inside your heart.
"大躍進”和文革，以及他們對梁思成産生的影響在片中用高度簡約的方式敘述，我臆斷你是根據這些話題在能夠被允許講述的“限度”內展開的。
片中關於50年代的梁思成有不少篇幅，比如他關於保護古城和城墻的徒勞，關於他的建築思潮的批判，他的充滿困惑的忠心，和他申請加入共産黨。
這些話題在今天到底有多敏感（1949-1957）？ 你是否可以談談今日中國保護的話題……
這部講述梁林一生的八集紀錄片，在最後一集講述的時間段從1950年到梁林的生命終結，時間跨度二十年。二十年時間的故事被濃縮在45分鐘講完，是個人第一反應都會認為這一階段敏感話題連篇，節目刻意簡略。其實，對於在中國做電視的人來説面對一件十分尷尬的事情，因為當下林林總總的媒體，各自有的話語空間相差非常大，而電視媒體因其相對更廣泛的傳播影響力所以空間總是相對更小……這些，就算是最後一集“簡略敘述”的政治考慮吧。
此外，我也想想説説電視的專業表達。電視是一個很特殊的媒體，它的聲、畫結合的特點讓它有奇特的傳播效果，它有超越文字之外的更具穿透力的力量。其實每一種媒體都會有它的“有限”和“不能”，對我來説，就是在這有限的時空中，時刻牢記你要完成的任務，將影像的負載力最大化。
對於我要講述的梁林故事，我希望——
緩緩地……你看到美麗的人生……看到詩情畫意……看到執著堅忍……看到赤誠之心……最後，你痛徹心扉！那些“痛”來自這有限的時空之外，來自你的心中……
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