Hanying 翰英 by Zhang Juyan (张巨岩)
O
n september 28, 2006, the local news website Baiyin Daily in Gansu Province carried a story on its homepage, saying that the city’s library
had found a very precious historical photo. The photo has been kept by a rural schoolteacher. The photo boosted the vanity of both the keeper and finders. The keeper said that one of the people in the photo was his grandfather and that was why he had the photo. Some said it was not his grandfather. The finders from the city library said that the photo “filled the void in the historical record on Baiyin students’ participation in the great May Fourth Movement.” The photo has faded into a yellow-brown color. There are twelve young men in it, dressed in all kinds of weird clothes. Some are in traditional long scholar robes, some in Japanese cadet uniforms, and some in shorts and socks. Two wear peaked caps. Five of them bear a slip on their chest that seems to be their names. Two crossed flag shapes are imposed on the background in the photo, likely added by the photo studio. On the flags is some inverted text, stating that “The photo was taken on June 3rd of the 8th year of the Republic after the Gansu students were jailed in the Department of Law of Peking University.” That was the year of 1919. The May Fourth Movement was regarded as the birth event for the Chinese Communist Party. Gansu has long been an impoverished frontier province in northwest China. Big events in China’s modern history were seldom related to it. That is why the story said the photo “filled a void” in history. Among the twelve people in the photo, one is identified as Feng Hanying from Xingrenbao of Haiyuan County, Ningxia Province. Ningxia was once part of Gansu. Later it became a province in its own right, and Xinrenbao became part of Ningxia Province. Hence the story claimed that Hanying was the pride of Gansu Province. Xingrenbao is a very small town sitting on a strip of dry plain dotted with small villages. It is about ten miles from the village where I was born and grew up. When we were kids, we believed that it was the most important place.
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