我们选读课程来学习，来增进我们对一些学科的理解。我们常把课程和学习作为通向一个结果的工具。“红楼梦研讨”课让我明白，最有效、最有力的课堂学习，是伴随着你性格发展的。李教授具体展现了对这种旅程和时光的完美引导。我想起来时，有着难以置信的喜欢和感激——她不矫揉造作、温和的风度，以及她在这段非常学术和令人生畏的探索中所给予的个人接触。是她这样的教授和“红楼梦”这样的课程，给了我绝妙的博雅教育（Liberal Arts Education）。这原本是那些我想学而别人会认为没有用处的课程之一。没有人比你更清楚，什么样的课程会吸引你，会驱动你的天性；如果任何课程表现出符合这些标准，并且有利于你个人和认识的成长，那它决不是无用的。学习一些机械技术是容易的，但对我们的生活和世界产生丰富多样的看法却是不容易的。这就是为什么现在我还记得并感受到“无用”的博雅教育和文科教授对我产生的冲击，并且在5年、10年、20年后还会继续记得并感受到这种影响的原因。
Hongloumeng at Harvard
In the course of my life, there has always been a constant battle between what I should do and what I want to do. In college, this tension played out in the form of courses I should take and courses I wanted to take, and by extension, the major I should study and the major I wanted to study. Should, meaning what was impressed upon me by people, social and environmental influences and pressures. Want, meaning what I desired to do based on an instinctive and organic inclination.
During my freshman year of college, I compiled an exhaustive list of classes I should take, including economics, political science and other practical social sciences. However, every time I flipped through the course catalogue, I was drawn to literature, history, foreign language and all sorts of humanities courses. Being uncertain of my own convictions and inclined to listen to superior authorities, I allowed the voices of other people to tell me that these courses were “useless” and “extravagant”. What could I do with a course in 19th century British literature, really?
Between exhausting sessions of selecting my practical courses, I visited the East Asian Studies section. I wanted to take nearly every course in the department. “Society and Culture of Late Imperial China”? Yes. “East Asian Cinema”? Yes. “Hongloumeng Seminar”? As soon as I saw this seminar for freshmen, I knew I needed take it, even if I had to add it as a fifth class. I had grown up with the English version of this classic novel in such a way that this book was the single strongest literary influence on my emotional life. I could repeat verbatim the exact dishes served at Jia family meals. I could tell you the convoluted family relationships, describe each and every maid’s personality. It was nearly obsessive. I knew the novel from front to end in terms of plot and story but had never had the opportunity to study it from an academic perspective.
I assumed that everyone would want to take the course and so I paid a visit to the professor in order to secure my place. This professor was Wai-yee Li, a youthfully middle-aged Chinese professor from Hong Kong specializing in classical Chinese literature. I remember the apprehension with which I knocked on the worn wooden door to her office. It was the first time that I had ever approached a Harvard professor on my own. I had all sorts of wild thoughts and stereotypes about The Harvard Professor, mostly related to being academically and personally intimidating. Professor Li was everything but intimidating. Her casually long hair, rounded metal-framed glasses, gentle eyes and quiet demeanor quickly relaxed my tense presence. Perhaps too much. Within minutes, I confessed rapidly that I had re-read the novel many times since the age of 11, that I grew up identifying intensely with Lin Dai-yu and that I had memorized Dai-yu’s flower-burial poem. During the next twenty minutes, Professor Li became my Hongloumeng psychologist, nodding and asking questions in her soft voice, probing my passion and obsession with the novel. She assured me that as long as I wished, I would have a place in the Hongloumeng seminar in the spring. Her presence made me feel warm, accepted and special on a campus where I felt distinctly un-special among 6,000+ very special undergraduates.
In retrospect, I cringe at the naïve things I said to her, and at the personal nature of my confession, but Professor Li gave absolutely no indication that she thought I was wasting her time or that I was a silly freshman. She gave me the impression that everything I had to say was worth listening to. I left her office light and happy at having had a real conversation with a Harvard professor and excited at the prospect of taking the seminar. During the difficult first semester at Harvard, I looked forward to this Hongloumeng course as that saving grace in the spring. Everything would be better, all of my decisions would be made easier, once I had taken the course.
Unfortunately, I never had the chance to take the course in college. That spring, Professor Li regretfully informed me that there were not enough students interested to justify holding the course (how silly I was to have thought that everyone would jump at the chance to study the greatest piece of literature in Chinese history). That course had been the highlight of my second semester at Harvard, and without it, everything else seemed uninteresting. I took another Chinese literature class with a professor whose spoken Chinese was as atrocious as his written Chinese was incredible. But I couldn’t help but wonder how much more wonderful the Hongloumeng course would have been. Later, during my sophomore year, I transferred out of East Asian Studies to Psychology for my major. I briefly wondered if things would have been different had I taken Hongloumeng. I didn’t speak to Professor Li again, as I tried to involve myself in my new department.
I never did take the course as an undergraduate. When it was finally offered during the spring of my junior year, I was unable to take it because I was studying abroad in Paris. It faded from my memory and my ever-growing list of classes I regretted not taking even though I wanted to take them, because I thought that I somehow shouldn’t take them. Fast-forwarda few years later to graduate school. Dissatisfied with the lack of China-specific courses in the Graduate School of Education, I registered to take classes at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Scanning the course catalogue online, I saw the course that I had by then long forgotten. “Honglou meng and its contexts: seminar”. Although it was listed as a graduate seminar, I wasted no time in knocking on Professor Li’s door.
“I remember you” were the first words she spoke after I introduced myself. “You came here when you were a freshman and you read Hongloumeng when you were 10 or so. Yes, I remember our conversation.” More than six years later, Professor Li had hardly changed. The same hair, a little grayer perhaps, the same glasses, the same gentle face and quiet voice. When I expressed my concern that I had no academic training in classic Chinese literature, she calmly reassured me that the class was really open to anyone who was interested, regardless of experience and that each person could bring his or her fresh perspective to the literature. Some people taking the course, she said, were graduate scholars in Chinese literature. One visiting Chinese scholar taught Honglou meng in her university. Her reassurance gave me the confidence to approach the course without fear or expectations of failure.
Professor Li’s open, unpretentious and inclusive attitude continued for the duration of the course. Every Thursday once a week, our small class gathered for three hours to read and discuss Honglou meng, discussing everything from the literary tradition of the Qing, DynastyCao Xueqin’s tragic personal and family histories, the Buddhist and Taoist implications of the novel, and of course, the personal and familial relations amongst the denizens of the Jia family. At first, I felt too shy to express my thoughts on the novel, as the only non East Asian Studies graduate student in the room. However, Professor Li made a point to call on me for my opinions, casually announcing that I had a unique perspective as a virtually life-long reader of Honglou meng.
When I think back to the class, I remember with gratefulness and warmth Professor Li’s humble and intellectually inclusive approach to seeking out the thoughts of all of her students. She never made me feel that she was above us as a world-class expert on Honglou meng and imperial Chinese literature. The vastness of her knowledge was imparted to us in how she framed our conversations, in the gently challenging questions she asked us. When I wrote the term paper for the course, she talked me through my insecurities about writing a paper for which I felt under-qualified, listened with patience through the riot of topics floating in my head, without dismissing my concerns or displaying impatience.
Professor Li’s guidance also changed how I viewed the personalities of the two female protagonists, Lin Dai-yu and Xue Bao-chai, in a way that reflected the maturation of my emotional life. In my discussions with Professor Li, we repeatedly circled back to the monolithic symbolism assigned by readers to both characters: each one represents what the other does not have, and each character inspires legions of loyal fans that tend to hate the other character. Upon Professor’s Li’s suggestion, I closely analyzed the book and literary criticisms to write about the evolution of both Lin Dai-yu and Xue Bao-chaias dynamic, complex personalities defying any stereotypical categorization. Perhaps it was not her intention, or perhaps it was, but I realized through our discussions and my writing that an understanding of these characters’ complexity and in turn, our own human complexities, reflected my personal growth, and the growth of my understanding of the novel.
We take classes to learn, to advance our understanding of subjects. We often see classes and learning as a means to an end. The Hongloumeng seminar taught me that the most effective, powerful classroom learning is that which takes place alongside the evolution of your character. Professor Li embodied the perfect guide for this journey and to this day, I recall with astounded fondness and appreciation her unaffected, gentle presence and the immensely personal touch she gave to the exploration of an intensely scholarly and intimidating subject. It is professors like her, and classes like Honglou meng that define the experience of an incredible liberal arts education for me. And this was a class that among many others, I wanted to take, and that some people would have said was useless. No one knows better than yourself what classes draw you, drive your instinct, and if any class embodies these organic criteria and encourages your personal and intellectual growth, it is never useless. It is easy to learn a mechanical skill, but it is not easy to develop and grow a rich and complex perspective of our lives and our world. That is why I remember and feel the impact of my “useless” liberal arts courses and professors now, and will continue to remember and feel five, ten, twenty years from now.