A composition about Dong Tang

The Taste of Dong Tang

The surname is Lu, the given name is Danlin, and the study room is named Mangrove Room (literally). He was born in Sanshui, Guangdong in 1896. He is blind in his left eye and has a porcelain implant. At an early age, he was shot in the foot while resisting a burglar, and suffered a slight limp throughout his life. Several seniors I know were familiar with Lu Danlin in old Shanghai: Mr. Lu seems to have been in Shanghai for most of his life. Ye Gongchuo of Panyu trusted this fellow villager the most, and asked Lu Danlin to handle many things, even leaving his bank book to him for safekeeping. I have long admired the name of Lu Danlin, a literary scholar of the Republic of China. I am an old member of the Nanshe Society and a member of the Tongmenghui. Over the decades, I have known bits and pieces of his deeds. I occasionally bought a few old collections from the Mangrove Room. It is a pity that I wanted to write about Mr. Lu’s thoughts. It has taken several years and I have yet to write an article.

Lao Zhou, who took me to see Lu Xiaoman’s expert Sister Cui in 1967, took me to visit a very interesting old gentleman. He had a Chinese character face, a mustache, a rosy nose and a square chin. At first glance, he looked like A Maitreya Buddha who has lost weight. I read several letters written by Lu Danlin at his house, and also saw a small inkstone with a maple leaf and a seal from the Mangrove Room. It was said that Lu Danlin gave it to him as a souvenir: "Mr. Lu was the editor-in-chief of "The Wind" in Hong Kong. We see each other often," he said. "The mainland changed its flag and we lost contact with him. What a weirdo, what a good man!" I was young at that time and didn't pay much attention to the past events dictated by the older generation. I didn't write down the anecdotes the old man told about Lu Danlin. Decades passed. Hazy. The old gentleman said that he and Ye Gongchuo often talked about Lu Danlin's temper while drinking tea in Lu Yu. I also read some about it in books, newspapers and magazines.

Lao Zhou is a man of the old school, extremely enthusiastic. He is just over forty and looks like a careful old man. He not only remembers his friends’ hobbies but also fulfills them in every way. I said that I suddenly fell in love with reading Bao Tianxiao’s Articles, he remembered that the old gentleman had cut out a bunch of Bao Tianxiao's articles and said he might as well borrow them to read. The old gentleman lived in an old building in a small street near Sung Wong Terrace in Kowloon. He had a large collection of books, old newspapers and magazines. Packets of newspaper clippings were clearly classified with calligraphy. That afternoon, when the old gentleman heard that my surname was Dong, he was very happy. He turned around and took out the tin box of biscuits from the desk and treated us to Dong candy: "A friend from the New Territories just made some and sent them over. What a coincidence!"

< p>Dongtang is said to be a dessert invented by Dong Xiaowan. The old man said that Dong Xiaowan and Mao Bijiang retired to Yanyue Tower in Rugao Water Painting Garden. Scholars and poets often recited poems and painted in the garden. Xiaowan used frosting sugar, caramel sugar and sesame to develop this crispy candy to entertain guests. Everyone praised it and it became famous far and wide. , became a famous local product in Rugao decades later. I ate two pieces that were really fragrant, crispy and not greasy. The old man smiled so brightly that his whole face was as bright as a light: "You must have discovered the charm of your Dong family's sweet sister!" He said that in his early years he said I also ate Dongtang at the house of a friend from the calligraphy and painting industry in Shanghai. There were also several female painters from the Chinese Women's Calligraphy and Painting Association present. Xie Yuemei, Gu Qingyao, Song Ruoying were all there, and Feng Wenfeng came soon. The old man praised Feng Wenfeng, a native of Heshan, Guangdong, for his great official calligraphy, but his paintings were neat and without any creativity.

In the past forty years, I have met Feng Wenfeng and painted many words. I also bought a fan painted by her and wrote an article "Looking for Feng Wenfeng". However, I have not had the opportunity to encounter an outstanding painting by Feng Wenfeng for a long time. Official script. Recently, my friend Liang Jiyong from Guangzhou found for me in Shanghai a small couplet written by Feng Wenfeng to Lu Danlin. It is only 48 centimeters high, and the old mounting work is particularly exquisite. The handwriting is indeed exquisite: "Washing the pong trees and wiping the bamboos in Ni Yuan Town, "The rain is clear in Tang Zixi", the owner of the first mangrove, signed Feng Wenfeng, several seals are simply top quality, Lu Danlin's "Mangrove Chamber Collection" Zhu Wen square seal even the bright red color is as attractive as gelatin.

I heard that Lu Danlin had unique taste and never followed the vulgarity. He didn’t like Liu Shi’an, Deng Shi and Shaoji’s calligraphy, so he didn’t even want to give it to him. He knew Qi Baishi and never wanted Baishi’s paintings. I saw them on the wall at Feng Wenfeng’s house. There was a small painting screen by a famous painter, and he actually forced Feng Wenfeng to tear down the painting. Feng Wenfeng was hesitant, so he couldn't help but tear it off himself. I keep a landscape sketch that Pu Xinshe painted for Lu Danlin. The painting is really good. No wonder Mr. Lu wants it. Feng Wenfeng was a close friend of him, and it was obvious that he didn't dare to be careless when writing this couplet for him.

While we drank Longjing and ate Dongtang, we listened to the old man scolding Feng Wenfeng’s husband, Deng Zhonghe, saying that he was originally a servant of the Feng family and had a wife and children. Feng Wenfeng wanted him all the time. He got angry, engaged in whoring and gambling, and married three or four concubines. Feng Wenfeng said, "I was the one who was angry when he accepted the first favorite. Now he has the third and fourth concubines, and he is angry about the second and third concubines. What do I do!" From then on, she raised a police dog and a famous cat, and opened an art studio to express her love for calligraphy and painting. When she got tired of living in Shanghai, she moved to her family in Hong Kong. I heard that even Sun Yat-sen took pity on her and went to the pier to pick up her boat. The official script written by her father, Feng Shihan, is as famous as Deng Erya's seal script. Feng Wenfeng first took over the family learning, and the more she wrote, the more ups and downs she became. The old man lamented the hard life of her talented girl: "It's rare that her handwriting is as creative as Dong Tang's!" In a flash! A dream: Lu Danlin passed away in 1972, the old gentleman withered away the next year, Lao Zhou died of illness in North America, Dong Tang had not been seen for a long time, and Feng Wenfeng’s ink was suddenly leaked to me in Shanghai, and it was an official script written to the Mangrove Room, and it seemed like I was chasing after it late at night. Half of the rhymes in Mao Bijiang's "Reminiscences of Yingmei'an", even though there is no garden in the water painting, and no building in the bright moon, the deep feeling of passing away on the lonely mountain in Dong Xiaowan's works is vague and continuous.