隴山隴西郡
寧靜純我心 感得事物人 寫樸實清新. 閑書閑話養閑心,閑筆閑寫記閑人;人生無虞懂珍惜，以沫相濡字字真。
美國女作家和民國才子的傳奇戀情
(2016-03-01 08:48:30)
邵洵美是中國新月派詩人，著名的翻譯家，出版家，他出身官宦世家，祖父邵友濂是清朝政治家，外交家，外祖父盛宣懷是著名的政治家、企業家，被譽為"中國實業之父"和"中國商父"。青年時期的邵洵美遊學歐美，詩酒朋儕，與徐誌摩、鬱達夫、沈從文等文人是密友。坊間傳言，邵洵美就是《圍城》中趙辛楣的原型，因為錢鍾書跟邵洵美亦是好友，將朋友的影子寫入小說是錢鍾書常用的慣伎。
1935年，項美麗作為美國著名雜誌《紐約客》的撰稿人來到上海。在一次聚會上，風情萬種的異國女郎和溫文爾雅的民國才子一見鍾情，墜入愛海，兩人公然同居。邵洵美根據音譯，給項美麗起了這個中國名字。當時的邵洵美已經結婚，妻子是他青梅竹馬的表姐盛佩玉，表姐弟的愛情也曾經是民國風花雪月中的經典橋段。項美麗的加入，傳奇了三個人的故事，“她是中國男人的妾！”據說，美國報紙曾以此作為頭條，而在當時中國人的眼裏，項美麗是邵洵美的外國情婦。
邵洵美給與項美麗愛情的同時，也教會了她吸食毒品。毒品改變了她的容顏，幹擾了她的生活。以後的日子，她曾付出過很多的艱辛才得以戒掉毒品。
當時，邵洵美經常帶著項美麗參加各種集會，結識很多文壇精英，人中翹楚，她由此獲得了豐富的寫作素材，文源汩汩不竭，同時，她對中國的認知和觀察也在日益加深。在這期間，她認識了影響中國現代史的宋家三姐妹，邵洵美多次陪著她近距離的采訪她們，一些資料都是邵洵美幫助她翻譯成英文的。1941年，《宋氏三姐妹》在紐約出版，項美麗聲名大噪。為此，她還和宋氏姐妹成為了異國閨蜜。
《宋氏三姐妹》完成之後，項美麗和邵洵美的感情也走到了終點。分手後的項美麗移居香港，不久，項美麗愛上了一名優秀的英國少校。1944年，項美麗發表了自傳體著作《我的中國丈夫》，書中詳細記錄了她的中國軼事，中國情緣，包括她和中國情人發妻相處的故事。直到1997年去世，長達70年的寫作生涯中，她創作了80多部書，中國一直是她關注的重點對象。中國，深刻的影響著她，因為，在這裏，有她曾經愛過的一個人。
時間煮雨，歲月無痕。愛情，就如美麗的煙花，無痕爛過後終歸於塵埃的靜寂。隻要深深的愛過，就能輕輕的放下。
With a love for reading and writing, she initially enrolled in a general arts program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, but decided to change her course of study to mining engineering after being prevented from enrolling in a chemistry class predominately taken by engineering students. In her memoir, No Hurry to Get Home, she describes how the mining engineering program had never had a female enroll. After being told by a Professor in her mining engineering program that "The female mind is incapable of grasping mechanics or higher mathematics or any of the fundamentals of mining taught" in engineering, she was determined to become a mining engineer.[2] Despite the coolness of the administration and her male classmates, in 1926 she was the first woman to receive a degree in Mining Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her academic accomplishments was a testament to her intelligence and persistence that her lab partner grudgingly admitted, "you ain't so dumb!"[2]
In 1924, prior to graduating from mining engineering school, she traveled 2,400 miles (3,900 km) across the United States in a Model T-Ford dressed as a man with her friend, Dorothy Raper. During her drive across New Mexico, she wrote about her travel experiences to her brother-in-law, who, unbeknownst to her, forwarded the letters she wrote to The New Yorker.[1] This jump-started her early career as a writer. Hahn wrote for The New Yorker from 1929 to 1996[2].
China and Hong Kong[edit]
Her years in Shanghai, China (from 1935 to the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in 1941) were the most tumultuous of her life. There she became involved with prominent Shanghai figures, such as the wealthy Sir Victor Sassoon, and was in the habit of taking her pet gibbon, Mr. Mills, with her to dinner parties, dressed in a diaper and a small dinner jacket.
Supporting herself as a writer for The New Yorker, she lived in an apartment in Shanghai's red light district, and became romantically involved with the Chinese poet and publisher Sinmay Zau (Chinese: 邵洵美; pinyin: Shao Xunmei).[4][5] He gave her the entrée that enabled her to write a biography of the famous Soong sisters, one of whom was married to Sun Yat-sen and another to Chiang Kai-shek.[1]
Hahn frequently visited Sinmay's house, which was highly unconventional for a Western woman in the 1930s. The Treaty of the Bogue was in full effect, and Shanghai was a city divided by Chinese and Westerners at the time. Sinmay introduced her to the practice of smoking opium, to which she became addicted. She later wrote, "Though I had always wanted to be an opium addict, I can't claim that as the reason I went to China."
After moving to Hong Kong, she began an affair with Charles Boxer, the local head of British army intelligence.[1] According to a December 1944 Time article, Hahn "decided that she needed the steadying influence of a baby, but doubted if she could have one. 'Nonsense!' said the unhappily-married Major Charles Boxer, 'I'll let you have one!' Carola Militia Boxer was born in Hong Kong on October 17, 1941".
When the Japanese marched into Hong Kong a few weeks later Boxer was imprisoned in a POW camp, and Hahn was brought in for questioning. "Why?" screamed the Japanese Chief of Gendarmes, "why ... you have baby with Major Boxer?" "Because I'm a bad girl," she quipped. Fortunately for her, the Japanese respected Boxer's record of wily diplomacy.
As Hahn recounted in her book China to Me (1944), she was forced to give Japanese officials English lessons in return for food, and once slapped the Japanese Chief of Intelligence in the face. He came back to see her the day before she was repatriated in 1943 and slapped her back.
China to Me was an instant hit with the public. According to Roger Angell of The New Yorker, Hahn "was, in truth, something rare: a woman deeply, almost domestically, at home in the world. Driven by curiosity and energy, she went there and did that, and then wrote about it without fuss."[6]
Wikipedia
