Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
spirit and stamina of Yenching. At the same time, the academic efforts of mainly the
Alumni of Yenching University were bundled to re-edit and republish
Yanjing
Xuebao
, of which the fi rst “New Issue no. 1” was published in August 1995.
Moreover, there are plans in progress for continued compilation of the Yinde
collection.
It has to be added here that after Yenching University merged with Peking
University in 1952 the campus expanded greatly, but the original campus of
Yenching University has been fully preserved, the glimmering lake and pagoda
refl ected thereon are just like in the old days. In 1990, the Municipal Government of
Peking decided to have the area around the “Lake Without Name” of the original
Yenching campus site put on the municipal cultural heritage list, and had this
engraved on a stele to be remembered forever.
9.2
The Tradition of Patriotism and the Spirit of Devotion
The campus of Yenching University was as pretty as a Chinese landscape painting,
but this didn't mean it was a small paradise closed off from the outer world. It was
built on the ancient sites of gardens of former times, but the fate of the whole coun-
try was still in the midst of restless movement. The fi rst couple of years after the
school was set up, the Peking government was controlled continuously by warlords
who strived for power by selling out their country, and bureaucracy. The successive
national governments in Nanking were facing against Japanese and other foreign
aggressions.
It was at this time that the Japanese aggressors staged the “Mukden Incident” of
18 September 1931, to occupy the three provinces in China's Northeast, and the
resistance movement against Japan to save the country, initiated by the Chinese
people in all kinds of ways, started to develop from this point in time.
The situation as described above was the historical background for my enroll-
ment at Yenching University as a freshman in 1932. At that time, because the
Chinese government had moved south, Peking was renamed Beiping, “northern
peace”, and after Mukden Incident it came day by day closer to the nation's defence
front lines.
One day, not long after I became a student, I was strolling on the campus and
arrived at the area close to the library full of hills and streams, when suddenly a
stone stele, straight as a brush, appeared in front of me, upon which from the top
down in large characters one line was inscribed:
MEMORIAL STELE TO LADY WEI SHIYI
Followed by an inscription stating lady Wei Shiyi's life story and a short com-
memorative text. The last three lines, in small characters, stated the persons who
erected the stele and the date it had been put up:
Erected in honour by all members of the men's and women's student unions of Yenching
University, together with the student union of the Yenching high school for girls, in the 16th
Year of the Republic.
