生活的艺术(2)

Moment in Peking, published in 1940, was a novel of broad
canvas which began with the Boxer Rebellion in 1901 and ended
with the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War. Like The
Importance of Living, it became a selection of the
Book-of-the-Month Club. It "may well become the classic
background novel of modern China",said Time magazine.
    Father's books were translated into Chinese and
well-received, although he was not always pleased with the
translations. "My regret is that I did not , through most of
my works, meet my readers face to face," he said toward the
end of his life, referring to the fact that most of his works'
Chinese translations were done by others.
    But he was too busy creatively to translate. After the war
ended, Father embarked upon an adventure that was to wip out
all his assets and get him deeply in debt.He decided to build
a Chinese typewriter that anyone could use without previous
training. Because he had written and deited a string of
well-received books, including The Wisdom of China and India
in 1942, he felt he could afforcd this project. In fact, he
had been trying to invent a typewriter ever since he went to
Peking in the 1920s. Never mind that Chinese consisted of
tens of thousands of ideographs while English had only 26
letters of the alphabet he thought it could be done.
    His solution lay in finding a better way to classify
Chinese characters than the Kangxi system. He thought he had
the problem solved back in 1931, when he tried to have a
model of his invention made in London. But he had run out of
funds and returned home with only 30 cents in his pocket.
    Now, working like a man possessed, Father was up at dawn
and did not go to bed until after midnight. He drew sketches,
rearranged characters and redesigned his keyboard. In New
York's Chinatown, he found a printer who could mold the
characters.Then , he located a small engineering firm to help
him with the mechanics and a workshop to produce the parts.
Problem after problem had to beovercome, and the bills
mounted. Each of the thousand parts was made by hand . But he
had sunk so much money into the machine that he could no give
up . As their savings vanished, Mother was horrified. But she
knew her husband well . He was easygoing about many things,
but obstinated about some things ,and inventing a typewriter
was one of them.
    Fortunately, Father had a friend in antique dealer Loo
Chin-tsai, who loaned him tens of thousands of dollars to
finish the model. Finally, in May 1947 , we brought his
invention home. It was called the Mingkwai("clear and quick")
Typewriter. The machine had 72 keys . To type a character,
one pressed the keys corresponding to the top and bottom
parts of a character, and those with similar tops and bottoms
appeared on a screen in the center of the machine . The
typist then pressed one of eight printing keys according to
the position of the correct character on the screen. At a
time when computers had not yet become popular, his invention
of a scanning screen was remarkable . The typefaces were
molded around six hexagonal rollers.No larger than a standard
typewriter, the Ming kwai typed 7000 whole characters and by
combinations a theoretical total of 90,000.
   The typewriter was presented at a press conference held at
home , and received great write-ups in the press. Dr. George
A.Kennedy, director , Institue of Far East Languages, Yale
University, said that "the finding system is the most
efficient yet devised , and it may well be extended to
dictionaries and other reference works."
    Lee Tuh-Yueh, manager of the Bank of China in New York,
said, "I was not prepared for anything so compact and at the
same time comprehensive, so easy to operater and yet so
adequate." And Father's good friend , the philologist Yuen R.
Chao, simply said, "Y.T., I think this is it !"
    But Father was deeply in debt. One day I came home from
Columbia University where I was attending lasses, and found
Mother in tears.Although we were in touch with many typewriter
companies, we could not hope for quick results. China was in
the midst of civil war, and the largest potential market was
uncertain.
    Sometime later, when we were riding in a taxi and Father
was playing with a cardboard mockup of the keyboard, he said,
"The crux of the invention is here . The mechanical problems
were not hard."
    "Then , could you have just used this mockup to sell your
invention? Was ther any need to build the model?" I asked.
    he looked at me for a few seconds . " I suppose I could
have," he whispered, "but I couldn't help myself. I had to
make a real typewriter.I never dreamed it would cost so much."
    The Mingkwai is never manufactured, because it was too
costly to produce , and China was in turmoil. But with the
coming of the computer age, the mechanical problesm of a
Chinese typewriter were eliminated. In 1985, the Mitac
Automation Company of Taiwan bought Father's "Instant Index
System," as his character classification is called, and made
it the input system for its computers."It is my legacy to the
Chinese people," Father said.
    Father was invited in 1948 to be the head of the Arts and
Letters Division of the United Nations Educational,Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris. My parents sold
their apartment in New York to pay some of their debts, and
sailed for France.
    At UNESCO , Father wrote memos , prepared reports and
attended meetings. He found it frustrating and exhausting.
" There are two kinds of animals on earth," he once wrote.
" One kind minds his own business , the other minds other
people's business. The former are vegetarians, like cows,
sheep and thinking men.The latter are carnivorous,like hawks,
tigers and men of action. I have often admired my colleagues
for their adminsitrative ability I have never been interested
in that."
    He quit his job and moved to the south of France.He loved
the simple life—sitting at a cafe and watching the
fishermen's boats return with their catch,and going to market
to shop for food. Life was more reasonable here than in New
York. he grabbed mother's hand and said, "Never mind, we'll
start all over again. This pen of mine is still capable of
earning a couple of dollars."　
    In 1954, Father became the first chancellor of the newly
founded Nanyang University in Singapore. But , politics
forced him to resign in a few months , and he and Mother
returned to France . he was 60, but not feeling his age a bit.
"I do not long for spring nor am i sad in the autumn," he
said , "because my wife doesn't find me old."
    They lived so simply that they were like children. He was
writing again, and she was growing potatoes on the balcony.
They took delight in the simple joys of fresh food and long
walks. Later, they returned to New York to be near my sisters.
In 1965, Father turned 70, and decided it was time to trturn
to the East. A house was built for him on Yangminshan in the
outskirts of Taipei, which he designed himself. He wrote a
syndicated column in Chinese called "Whatever's in My Mind"
(Wu Suo Bu Tan) which was read by five million readers around
the world. In 1969, Father was made president of the Taipei
Chinese CEnter, International P.E.N..He was nominated for the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972 and 1973. At the time ,he
was working on the Lin Yutang Chinese-English Dictionary of
Modern Usage with a small deitorial staff in Taipei. The
project was sponsored by the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
A new chinese-English dictionary was rugently needed to meet
the demands of social and technological change.
  The Dictionary,which Father called the crowning achievement
of his career ,was published in October 1972 with great
fanfare. it was the first Chinese-English dictionary ever
compiled by a Chinese shcolar. The new Yourk Times hailed it
as " a milestone in communication between the world's largest
lingusitic groups."
    On his 80th birthday, October 10, 1975, friends in Hong
Kong organized a big celebration. An even bigger celebration
was organized in Taipei. When I met my parents at the Hong
Kong airport upon their return, Father's eyes shone with
gladness. His cup was full . The only honor that he wanted
and had not received was the Nobel Prize.But he was his
philosophical self about it . "Let us be reasonable," he once
said. "We must have an attitude of expecting neither too much
nor too little from life."
    Father passed away in Hong Kong on March 26 the following
year. Among the many tributes he received was one by the
Reader's Digest's founder,DeWitt Wallace. Wallace published
a memorial booklet of Father's writing that had appeard over
the years in the magazine. It was dedicate to the memory of
"an evocative spirit of riche out lives. he considered his
dictionary to be th 'crown' of his career.To anyone who reads
his works, it will be apparent that Lin Yutang's crown had
many jewels in it ."
    The United Daily News of Taiwan compared Father's
achievements in introducing Chinese culture to the West with
that of jesuilt missinnary Matteo Ricci. In an editorial, the
China Times of Taiwan said, "Dr.Lin is the scholar and writer
who possibly made the greatest contribution in promoting
Chinese culture internationally in the recent 100 years. For
some in the West who were not weel-informed, they heard about
 Lin Yutang before they heard about China, and herad about
china before they heard about the glory of Chinese
civiliazation."
    We took his body to Taipei to be buried in the garden of
his home. It has now been turned into the Lin Yutang Memorial
Library, and is open to visitors. Mother passd away in 1987
at the age of 90.
    I am very pleased that the Foreign Language Teaching and
Research press is now publishing four of his most
distinguished works, My Country and My People, The Importance
of Living, Moment in Peking and Six Chapters of a Floating
Life in English.
 
Lin Taiyi 　　　　　
August,1998
Arlingto, virginia
USA
 

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