大一國文

國文課堂---臨時教室

The photos of our classmates & the campus of Taida remind me of our good old college days.  I wrote this down just in case I forget it later.  Our memory inevitably fades when time goes by.  We had to learn 國文 or 國語 since we were a kid in elementary school.  With so many years of learning, I wonder why we need to do it again in college.  As a matter of fact, 大一國文 was one of the worst I have ever experienced.  We had a famous professor 黃得時.  He was noted for his research in some area of Chinese literature.  But his accent was really out of place.  Fortunately we were not learning the pronunciation of Mandarin, otherwise it was going to be a disaster. The worst part was that we had to study 左傳 & 戰國策.  They are so ancient & the writing styles are so out of time.   It would be much better to study some modern Chinese literature.  But for some political reason, we just couldn’t do it.  Most famous literary figures were in mainland & couldn’t be mentioned.   Those who fled to Taiwan were second rate figures at best. Some good one like 胡適 or 林語堂 went to US & stayed there until late 1950’s. Who had heard of 鲁迅, 葉聖陶, 茅盾, 老舍, or 朱光潛 in Taiwan?  All in all, 大一國文 was totally a waste of time to me.

I have to say something about 黃得時.   His ancestry was from 福建泉州.  He made contribution in Taiwan literature, especially in the preservation of 臺灣鄉土戲曲 & 兒童文學之編譯.  His unfinished work is 臺灣文學史 .  He was a professor of 台大中文系.  I have a lot of respect for him though he had some interesting behavior.  Here is what I remember about him:

1. He had some problem in walking.  I don’t know whether it was due to polio or some accidents.  His head looked bigger than normal with his body size.
2. He called roll at the beginning of every class.  As far as I can remember: 每堂課點名,風雨無阻.  To make the whole thing worse, the class started promptly at 8:00 am.  To get up early in the cold winter & ride bicycle to 大一教室 before 8am definitely was a pain in the neck. My home was near 新生北路 & 南京東路, not really close to the campus.  Here I sort of envied my classmates from southern Taiwan.  They stayed at 台大宿舍 & could reach 大一教室 in no time. Anyway, worst thing did happen to me (Murphy’s Law), my name happened to be the first one in the roll call.   I still remember Professor 黃's voice (first thing in the class): 林幸峰, 黃肇崶, … If I was not in the classroom in time, I missed the class. I think 黃肇崶 must have shared the same misery.  So once in a while, I found that I was late about 5 minutes, I simply skipped the class & murmured “Go ahead, make my day”.  I still think it is a joke to do roll call in a university like Taida. It is an insult to freshmen.  I don’t know any professor did the same in our first year classes. Imagine if 徐照 or 葉炳雲 did the same thing, the class will be over before he finishes the roll call.
3. I met a lot of freshmen from 化工系 & 机械系 in the class.   I still remember two girls named 陳滿枝 & 陳星華 (化工系).  They were pretty nice looking. I forgot all the rest.
4. His Japanese or Taiwanese accent in reading Chinese text is not very polished. For a professor of 國文, it is definitely a minus. For 左傳 & 戰國策, it is ok.   But for "康橋的早晨”, it is going to sound like evening instead of the morning.
5. 黃得時 was noted for his research in Taiwan literature.  I wonder why shouldn’t he just teach Taiwan literature for the freshman class.   I think it was really a loss for us not taking advantage of his expertise.
6. Several years ago, while I performed my annual spring garage cleanup, I encountered something unexpected, three compositions of my freshman class.   Titles of the compositions are: 自敘, 我與國文, 台大一角.   I found the last one very refreshing & valuable.   It reminds me a lot of minor details about that little corner of Taida campus---Chemistry Lab & how we performed the experiments.  In the composition, I see all those hand-written comments in red by professor 黃得時. Ah…, that was almost 49 years ago. 往事如煙,字跡依舊.

PS: The early morning class forced me to get up early & reach the classroom before 8am.  Sometime I got there way early especially in the spring time.  Once I got into the classroom & found one girl was practicing violin.  She was probably from 女生宿舍 nearby.   In order not to disturb her, I sat way back in the corner & read a book.   I remember she played some scales & some work by Bach. A few minutes later, she started playing something slow & mellow.  I recognized it was Beethoven’s Romance #2(opus 50). Although her play was not that fluent, I could follow the main theme nicely.  After a few moments, I was sort of in a dream when the music kept flowing.  I didn’t know how long the time passed before she finished the playing & put the violin in the case.  She carried it in her hand & walked toward the door.   I kept watching her & finally decided to say hello to her.  But I was way back in the classroom & couldn’t catch her in time.  She simply disappeared from my eyes in no time. Since that morning, I had several occasions in that semester to be there early enough to catch her.  But she never showed up & I had never seen her again.