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Eileen Chang at the University of Hong Kong:
An Online Presentation of Images and Documents from the Archives
百年愛玲，人文港大:
張愛玲百年誕辰紀念文獻展
Introduced by Nicole Huang
Curated by Prof Nicole Huang, Dr Florian Knothe and Kenneth Shing-Kwan Chan
策展人：黃心村教授、羅諾德博士、陳承焜
Introduction
This online exhibition pays tribute to Eileen Chang (1920-1995), a major twentieth-century writer and one of the most illustrious alumni in the history of the University of Hong Kong, on the occasion of the centennial celebration of her birth. With this collection of images and documents selected largely from the HKU Archives, we hope to identify new material and help generate fresh scholarship in the burgeoning global Eileen Chang studies. By piecing together a narrative that highlights the beginning of an extraordinary literary career, we celebrate Chang’s connection with HKU as an important chapter in the history of both the Faculty of Arts and the larger university community...
導言
今年是張愛玲誕辰百年，也是她逝世二十五週年。張愛玲戰爭年代在香港大學文學院度過兩年半的時光，她說過香港記憶與她有著「切身的、劇烈的影響」。我們此番發掘和梳理的資料大多是第一次面世，將這些零散的文字和影像融合在一起，我們可以看到， 港大的人文教育以及香港之戰帶給張愛玲的衝擊，直接影響到她日後的一舉成名。港戰前的張愛玲是個安靜的、不太引人注目的年輕學生。港戰的爆發是重要的契機，使她萌生要以最個人的方式書寫亂世眾生相的強烈願望，並在一夜之內脫穎而出：「時代的車轟轟地往前開。我們坐在車上，經過的也許不過是幾條熟悉的街衢，可是在漫天的火光中也自驚心動魄….」。(〈燼餘錄〉)
「百年愛玲，人文港大」以原始檔案中張愛玲及其師友的資料文獻來全面呈現她的港大生活與因緣。首次面世的文件與圖片包括有張愛玲、許地山等人在內的文學院師生的集體合影，列有張愛玲在大學二年級獲得的獎學金的原始檔案紀錄，張愛玲所住的港大女生宿舍的文字和影像記載，歷史講師諾曼∙佛朗士的照片和檔案資料，文學教授許地山的珍貴手稿，好友炎櫻及家人在港大就讀的相關文件等。這個線上展覽只是一個開始，我們的梳理和研究還將繼續，在外界條件允許的時候我們會在馮平山樓舉辦一個更全面的文獻展。將這次挖掘的文獻資料與張愛玲筆下的港大和戰時香港並置對照，我們希望能重構一個重要的歷史場景，還原作家早期生活的一些片段，並為下一階段的張愛玲研究提供新的材料和靈感。
Figures 1-3, Eileen Chang’s HKU student registration and transcripts (HKU Archives)
圖 1-3, 張愛玲香港大學學籍紀錄和成績單（香港大學檔案館藏）
Eileen Chang arrived at HKU in August 1939 and left without completing her degree in May 1942 during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, when classes had been interrupted by the war since December 1941. Her wartime experience had lasting impact on her, indeed as she wrote in “From the Ashes,” that it “cut too close to the bone, affecting me in an altogether drastic fashion” (Written on Water, p. 39). Although the Battle of Hong Kong badly damaged the HKU campus, it is not true that “the university documents and records were completely burned, leaving no trace at all” (“The Way I Look at Su Qing”). In fact, her student record has survived, well preserved in the HKU Archives, which contains her registration form as well as pages of her transcript that reflect her grades in the first two years (Figures 1-3). The courses she took included English, History, Chinese (Literature & Translation), Logic, and Psychology, and she scored better in English and History than in the others. Her class attendance was near perfect, in stark contrast to her meagre participation in extracurricular activities. In the photograph on her student registration, she wears a dark cheongsam and a dark cardigan, round glasses, and a hesitant smile, pretty much still a high school girl from St. Mary’s Hall in Shanghai (Figure 4).
張愛玲於1939年8月港大開學前夕到達香港，1942年5月離開香港回到上海。港戰爆發的1941年12月學校就停擺了，接下來五個月裡的親身經歷對她有著「切身的、劇烈的影響」(〈燼餘錄〉)。香港之戰對校園毀壞巨大，但並非如她所言的「學校的文件紀錄統統燒掉，一點痕跡都沒留下」(〈我看蘇青〉)。帶有她證件照的學籍紀錄以及兩個學年的成績單都保存完好(圖1、2、3)。兩年多裡她修的課程有英文、歷史、中國文學、翻譯、邏輯和心理學，其中英文和歷史的成績勝出其他科目。她是不缺課的學生，考勤幾乎完美。學籍紀錄上的證件照裡，她穿著深色旗袍和深色針織外衣，戴著圓圓的眼鏡片，含著微笑，是即將從上海聖瑪利亞女中畢業的高中生模樣(圖4)。
Figure 4, Eileen Chang ID photo, extracted from her student registration (HKU Archives)
圖 4, 張愛玲香港大學學籍紀錄上的證件照（香港大學檔案館藏）
The HKU Archives hold other important documents that bear an Eileen Chang connection. Files of her teachers, especially the two that influenced her the most—Norman H. France, Reader in History, and Hsu Ti-shan, Professor of Chinese—are yet to be fully studied. A highlight in our archival search is the discovery of group portraits of teachers and students of the Faculty of Arts, taken annually in front of the Main Building (Figures 5, 6). In each of these portraits, Chang can be seen in the third row, among other female students. The 1941 portrait was taken only a few months before the outbreak of war, when Eileen Chang was already a third-year student, and Prof. Hsu Ti-shan had just passed away in August. If juxtaposed with her own portrait from her college years, wearing the same pair of glasses, long hair, thin face, it is no surprise that she describes herself from those years as “an ugly duckling turning into an ugly little egret,” having not yet escaped “the awkward age” (Figure 7).
學籍紀錄和成績單之外，港大還保存了其他與張愛玲有關的檔案資料。文學院師生1940年和1941年秋季在本部大樓前留下的大合照裡均有張愛玲的身影（圖5，6）。1941年秋季的合照，時間恰是港戰爆發前的幾個月，此時的張愛玲已是三年級學生了，許地山教授於當年八月倏然離世，合影裡沒有了他的身影。細心的讀者應該可以在第三排的女學生中找到當年的張愛玲。仍然是那一副厚厚的圓圓的眼鏡，披著長髮，臉型瘦削，沒有一絲微笑。《對照記》裡有她一張戴著同一副眼鏡的單人照，邊上的文字說，大學時代的自己是「醜小鴨變成醜小鷺鷥」，總是脫不出「尷尬的年齡」（圖7）。
Figure 5, Faculty of Arts group portrait, Fall 1940 (HKU Archives)
圖 5, 香港大學文學院師生1940年秋季在本部大樓前的大合照（香港大學檔案館藏）
Figure 6, Faculty of Arts group portrait, Fall 1941 (HKU Archives)
圖 6, 香港大學文學院師生1941年秋季在本部大樓前的大合照（香港大學檔案館藏）
Figure 7, Portrait of Chang as a college student (© Roland Soong and Elaine Soong through Crown Culture Corporation)
圖 7, 大學時代的張愛玲 ©宋以朗、宋元琳 經皇冠文化集團授權
Figure 8, Minutes of the Arts Faculty Board meeting, report on Eileen Chang selected to win a Ho Fook scholarship, 22 May 1941 (HKU Archives)
圖 8, 1941年5月香港大學文學院議會獎勵張愛玲何福獎學金的紀錄（香港大學檔案館藏）
9, Minutes of the HKU Senate meeting, to approve Chang’s Ho Fook scholarship, 26 May 1941 (HKU Archives)
圖 9, 1941年5月香港大學校級參議會通過張愛玲所獲何福獎學金的紀錄（香港大學檔案館藏）
Eileen Chang received two scholarships toward the end of her second year of undergraduate studies at HKU. One was a Ho Fook Scholarship, in the amount of £25. Minutes of the Arts Faculty Board meeting on 22 May 1941 indicate that the decision was made by the Board “on the evidence of the examination results” (Figure 8). This was then approved on the University level, at the Senate meeting on 26 May 1941 (Figure 9).
This evidence from the archives corroborates Chang’s own account. She reminiscences in her essay “From the Mouths of Babes”: “After I went to Hong Kong for college, I was awarded two scholarships, and because I had saved my mother a substantial sum of money thereby, I decided that I could finally indulge myself by having a few outfits made precisely to my specifications. And ever since then, I’ve been immersed in clothes and fashion.” (Written on Water, p. 6)
張愛玲在散文〈童言無忌〉中回憶道：「我到香港去讀大學，後來得了兩個獎學金，為我母親省下了一點錢，覺得我可以放肆一下了，就隨心所欲做了些衣服，至今也還沉溺其中。」我們在檔案館裡找到了她在大學二年級得到兩項獎學金的準確的文字證明。1941年5月香港大學文學院議會中教員們集體做出了授予她何福獎學金的決定，並說明是獎給考核成績優異的學生（圖8）。幾天後的校級參議會通過了文學院的決定（圖9）。
For two and a half years, Eileen Chang resided in a women’s hostel called Our Lady’s Hall, run by the sisters of the French Convent School. Peter Cunich in A History of The University of Hong Kong describes in great detail how HKU had adopted the hall tradition since the founding of the University in 1911. While the three main halls on campus were all built for male students, the University did not establish any female dormitory until the 1930s when the number of female students had considerably grown. The administration decided to select an off-campus site for a female dormitory and eventually accepted a proposal made by Mother St. Xavier from the French Convent School, who acquired a large house on Po Shan Road in Mid-Levels behind the HKU campus (Figure 10). Mother St. Xavier not only secured the right to use the building, but also expanded it and bought additional land for students’ outdoor recreation (Figure 11). In March 1939, the French Convent School officially gifted the dormitory, named Our Lady’s Hall, to HKU. When Eileen Chang moved in with 12 other students that Fall, the once private residence had been converted into a women’s hostel, with a garden in the front and a larger fenced yard in the back.
Documentation of Our Lady’s Hall is scarce, but the Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres, which founded the French Convent School (now the St. Paul’s Convent School in Causeway Bay), have preserved a school magazine from 1940 that contains an old image of the building and a caption that states: “Ideal Situation: Approved place of residence for University Students. Under the management of the Sisters of St. Paul de Chartres” (Figure 12). An essay in the same magazine proudly describes the beautiful site:
…Our garden, though humble in size, is as good a piece of earth as any in this jewel of an island. The white splendour of arum lilies, the heavy fragrance of gardenias, the dainty frivolity of sweet-peas, and splashes of colour supplied by dahlias and petunias and golden cosmos… imagine all this gaiety strangely placed in a misty height, on the hilly slope, thrown against a background of blue tropical sky, solemn and boundless. There lay the fascination of our garden…
The war soon broke out. As the building’s position high up on the hill marked it as an easy target in air raids, the Sisters had no choice but to evacuate all residents. By 1945, Our Lady’s Hall had ceased to be a women’s hostel and was returned to private use.
港大1911年建校之後就採納了舍堂制度，學生以舍堂為群體居住在校園裡。建校初期的三大舍堂即盧吉堂、儀禮堂和梅堂都是男生宿舍，坊間所傳張愛玲住在梅堂是錯誤的。女生人數在30年代後半期的大幅度增長迫使學校不得不出台方案，但在校園裡興建新的女生宿舍的計畫很快被否決，最後決定在校外選址。法國修院學校參與到這個計畫中，哈維爾修女提出的方案最終勝出。哈維爾在校園後的半山坡上買到了一棟單獨的大宅，地址是寶珊道8號。她不僅爭取到了建築本身的使用權，還著手擴建，在宅邸周邊爭取到了更多的地皮，作為學生室外活動的空間。1939年3月法國修院學校正式把宿舍捐給港大。我們的檔案館裡有修院學校和港大之間就宿舍方案的頻繁來往通信聯繫。這裡展出兩封哈維爾修女寫給港大高層的信（圖10，11）。
1939年秋季張愛玲和其他十二位港大女生入住時，曾經的私人宅邸已改建成宿舍，取名聖母堂。圖12的影像來自修院學校1940年的校刊。校刊裡也有生動的文字介紹，創建聖母堂的修女們言辭裡滿是自豪：「我們的花園不大，卻是這寶島上一個絕好的所在，有百合花純淨的絢爛，梔子花濃重的芳香，豌豆苗輕盈的活潑，更有大麗花、牽牛花和波斯菊的繽紛色彩。想像這所有的美好都安放在這時常被海霧環繞的高高的山坡上，背景是熱帶碧藍的天空，莊重而浩瀚…」
聖母堂作為港大女生宿舍的歷史不長，戰爭一爆發，房舍位置太高，容易引起天上飛行物的注意，而修女們需要回到銅鑼灣禮頓道的本校參與戰爭救援工作，就讓住宿的學生都撤離了。聖母堂作為大學舍堂正式於1945年結束。
Figure 10, Letter from Mother St Xavier to Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong about purchasing a house on Po Shan Road to serve as a women’s hostel, 24 January 1939 (HKU Archives)
圖 10, 哈維爾修女關於設立聖母堂女生宿舍致香港大學校長的信，1939年1月（香港大學檔案館藏）
Figure 11, Letter from Mother St Xavier to Registrar of the University of Hong Kong about the impending opening of Our Lady’s Hall, 4 July 1939 (HKU Archives)
圖 11, 哈維爾修女關於聖母堂女生宿舍修繕完工致香港大學教務長的信，1939年7月（香港大學檔案館藏）
Figure 12, Our Lady’s Hall (HKU Archives)
圖 12, 聖母堂的影像，原載法國修院學校的校刊，1940年（香港大學檔案館藏）
Figure 13, Our Lady’s Hall (Courtesy of the Alec Cooper family)
圖 13, 私人收藏中的聖母堂影像，1930年代
Figure 14, Our Lady’s Hall, aerial and vicinity shot (Courtesy of Gwulo.com)
圖 14, 私人收藏中的西半山景象，最高一層寶珊道上的聖母堂清晰可見，1962年
Before Mother St. Xavier acquired the house and converted it into a hostel, the building on Po Shan Road was called Hopefield and there lived the family of a British doctor, whose descendants have provided us with the best image of what would become Our Lady’s Hall (Figure 13).
There are more photos like this in private hands, and another example is this aerial and vicinity shot of Mid-Levels West, taken in 1962, which clearly shows the scenery and footpaths uphill from campus to Our Lady’s Hall, not much different from the 1940s (Figure 14). The bottom left is a section of the HKU campus. The University Drive winds up, at the end of which is the HKU president’s residence, built in 1951. Many of the buildings above the University Drive used to be the university’s Senior Staff Quarters, including Professor Hsu Ti-shan’s apartment on Robinson Road. The uppermost row of houses in the photo is on Po Shan Road, where the second building on the right is what was once Our Lady’s Hall.
The former Our Lady’s Hall was not destroyed by war as some claimed. It resumed its private status and witnessed the life of several expatriate families, until it was demolished in 1970 when a 20-story apartment building, named Hamilton Court, was built on the same site, still bearing the same street address.
圖13是迄今為止能找到的聖母堂最清晰的建築圖像。這個私人宅邸被哈維爾修女收購前，曾經住過幾代住戶，並有一個美好的名字，叫霍普菲爾德。1930年代的住戶是一位英籍醫生的一家，這張絕無僅有的圖片就是他的後人提供的。
圖14也来自私人收藏，攝於1962年，是港島西半山的鳥瞰圖。圖片清晰地呈現了從山坡上的聖母堂到山下校園的行走路線和西半山整體的地貌和環境。拍摄者是誰不詳，但拍攝的位置當是校園背後龍虎山的山坡上。圖中左下方的部分是港大校園，向上伸展的山路是大學道，大學道的末端是建於1951年的校長官邸。官邸上方的建築都是校外的，不少當年是港大高級職員宿舍，比如許地山教授的家就在羅便臣道上。沿著山坡一層一層的道路分别是旭龢道、克頓道、干德道、羅便臣道。寶珊道是圖中可見的最高一層建築，右邊的第二棟即是聖母堂。拍攝這張照片的1962年距離寶珊道上的房子最終被拆除不遠了，但圖中西半山的景象與40年代的模樣相差不大。房屋最後拆除是1970年，在原址上新建了一棟二十層的高級公寓樓，叫愛敦大廈，街道和門牌號依然是寶珊道8號。
Figure 15, Koraishia Mohideen’s student registration with photo (HKU Archives)
圖15, 炎櫻的妹妹柯來夏．摩希甸的學籍紀錄（香港大學檔案館藏）
Figure 16, Professor Gordon King’s recommendation letter for Koraishia Mohideen (“HKU Archives)
圖16, 港大醫學院教授為柯來夏．摩希甸所寫的推薦信，其中提到她的姊姊法提瑪．摩希甸（即炎櫻）（香港大學檔案館藏）
Figure 17, Portrait of Yan Ying, 1940s Shanghai (© Roland Soong and Elaine Soong through Crown Culture Corporation)
圖17, 炎櫻肖像，上海，1940年代 ©宋以朗、宋元琳 經皇冠文化集團授權
When Eileen Chang studied at HKU, her classmates were mostly overseas Chinese, but there were also Indians and multiracials. In “From the Ashes,” she mentions students from Malaysia, Vietnam, and other Southeast Asian countries. There are frequent references to her best friend from that period, Fatima Mohideen (Yan Ying), a girl of Sri Lankan and Tianjin descent and enrolled in the medical school at HKU. Fatima had a younger sister, Koraishia, and a brother, Rafeek, both of whom attended HKU and graduated in 1952 and 1953 from the medical school and the engineering school, respectively.
Fatima’s student record is unfortunately missing, probably destroyed during the war. But among the documents in her sister Koraishia’s file, there is a letter in support of Koraishia’s enrollment, dated 14 May 1946, by Gordon King, a professor in the medical school, who recalls his former student Fatima as someone that he knows “quite well.” This is perhaps the only place in the survived documents at the HKU Archives that mentions Eileen Chang’s best friend of her college years in a personal way. Like Eileen Chang, Fatima’s college education was interrupted by the war. She later completed her degree at St John’s University in Shanghai, but her sister and brother carried on the Mohideen family’s HKU tradition, and Koraishia later specialized in obstetrics/gynecology and lived in Toronto, Canada until her death in 1993. Koraishia was five years younger than Fatima. The sisters had a great resemblance (Figures 15, 16, 17).
In April 1945, an advertisement placed in the Miscellany Monthly speaks of a fashion design shop run by the Mohideen Sisters and Eileen Chang. There was no sign that this business ever took off, but Chang did speak of Fatima’s young sister in a short essay: “In real life there really is a person called Yan Ying. Recently she and her younger sister wanted to start a fashion business. Well, it was not much a business, just a small shop to sell some design ideas for coats, cheongsams, jackets, and western suits. I also bought some shares. Hearing that her younger sister was also involved, I immediately said: what could your sister do?” Koraishia at the time was in her last year of high school, set to attend the HKU medical school a year later.
炎櫻，原名法提瑪∙摩希甸，是張愛玲大學時代最好的朋友。熟讀張愛玲的讀者必定對炎櫻印象深刻，她是經常在張愛玲早期散文中出現的人物。炎櫻的父親是錫蘭人，母親是天津人。她在上海長大，和張愛玲同年，兩人一同到達港大，一起入住聖母堂宿舍，並且結伴同一天回到了上海。炎櫻進的是醫學院，但她的學籍紀錄已經不存，想必是毀於戰火中。我們能找到的是她的弟弟和妹妹的學籍紀錄。妹妹柯來夏∙摩希甸比炎櫻小五歲，進的也是醫學院，成績優異，姊妹兩個長得十分相像。柯來夏的檔案裡有一封醫學院教授的推薦信，其中提到她的姊姊，並說對她印象深刻（圖15，17，17）。柯來夏後來成為婦產科專科醫生，長期居住在加拿大多倫多，於1993年過世。炎櫻則於1997年過世。
柯來夏和她姊姊的好朋友張愛玲是熟識的。1945年四月的《雜誌》月刊上登了一則廣告，說的是「炎櫻姊妹與張愛玲合辦炎櫻時裝設計」，張愛玲還專門在小報上撰文，為摩希甸姊妹站台：「我寫〈炎櫻語錄〉，現在又來寫〈炎櫻衣譜〉，炎櫻是真的有這樣的一個人的。最近她和她妹妹要開個時裝店，（其實也不是店—不過替人出主意，做大衣旗袍襖褲西式衣裙。）我也有股子在內。我一聽見她妹妹是同我們合作的，馬上就說：你妹妹能做甚麼呢？」當年的柯來夏畢竟高中還沒有畢業。
Figure 18, The Fung Ping Shan Library, exterior, upon completion in 1932 (HKU Archives)
圖18, 甫落成的香港大學馮平山圖書館，1932年。（香港大學檔案館藏）
Figure 19, The Fung Ping Shan Library, lower-level shelves, 1938 (HKU Archives)
圖19, 馮平山圖書館的底層書庫，1938年。（香港大學檔案館藏）
We feature the Fung Ping Shan Library in this exhibit as the time Eileen Chang spent in this historic building must have been a highlight of her college years. Now part of the University Museum and Art Gallery and a declared monument and iconic landmark on campus, the Fung Ping Shan Building was opened in 1932 as the Chinese library of HKU, holding many rare and precious books at the time (Figures 18, 19). During the Battle of Hong Kong in December 1941, when the University was constantly under danger of shelling and many buildings, such as Ricci Hall and the Main Building, were hit and badly damaged, the Fung Ping Shan Building was used as an air defense station and later a relief hospital. Many university students were involved in defense and relief work, and Eileen Chang was no exception, but she was lucky to be placed in the library, where she was free to browse and read books with a happiness like that of “a child in a cake shop” (The Book of Change, p. 183). She describes her renewed interest in Ming-Qing fiction in her 1944 essay “From the Ashes”::
I finished reading A Gallery of the Bureaucracy during an artillery barrage. I had read it once when I was little, before I was able to appreciate its virtues, and had always wanted to read it again. As I read, I worried whether I would be allowed to finish the book. The print was minuscule, and the light poor, but if a bomb were to fall, what would I need my eyes for, anyway? “When there’s no skin,” the saying goes, “where do you put the hair?” (Written on Water, pp. 44-45)
Later, in her 1968 essay “Remembering Hu Shih,” she once again recounts this unique experience, this time recounting a different title from the early Qing:
Being an air defence member in wartime Hong Kong, stationed at the Fung Ping Shan Library, I discovered a copy of Marriage as Retribution, Awakening the World and immediately came to be in my element, burying my head in the book for days on end. There were antiaircraft guns set up on the roof, so the library became a bombing target; but while the bombs kept falling and coming closer and closer in numbing explosions, my only thought was: at least let me read it through to the end.
建於1932年的馮平山樓，是法定古蹟，在張愛玲的求學時代為港大的中文圖書館，藏有多種善本和古籍，乃校園中極具標誌性的歷史建築之一。港戰爆發後，舊圖書館被徵用為戰時的防空站，當年張愛玲藉著上工的機會瀏覽過不少港大的藏書，那一份快樂，「像孩子進了糕餅店」 (《易經》)。〈燼餘錄〉中關於戰時閱讀的一段是文中的一個亮點：
在砲火下我看完了《官場現形記》。小時候看過而沒能領略它的好處，一直想再看一遍。一面看，一面擔心能夠不能夠容我看完。字印得極小，光線又不充足，但是，一個炸彈下來，還要眼睛做什麼呢？—「皮之不存，毛將焉附」？
同樣的場景在她寫於1968年的〈憶胡適之〉一文中重現，只是手中的書換了一本：
《醒世姻緣》是我破例要了四塊錢去買的。買回來看我弟弟拿著捨不得放手，我又忽然一慷慨，給他先看第一二本，自己從第三本看起，因為讀了考證，大致已經有點知道了。好幾年後，在港戰中當防空員，駐紮在馮平山圖書館，發現有一部《醒世姻緣》，馬上得其所哉，一連幾天看得擡不起頭來。房頂上裝著高射炮，成為轟炸目標，一顆顆炸彈轟然落下來，越落越近。我只想著：至少等我看完了吧。
《醒世姻緣》即《醒世姻緣傳》，是清初西周生的長篇小說。《官場現形記》是晚清四大譴責小說之一，作者是李寶嘉。將生死置之度外的戰時閱讀是我們重構張愛玲大學生活的一個重要場景。
Figure 20, Group portrait of the China Defense League, 1938 (HKU Archives)
圖20, 宋慶齡、佛朗士和其他保衛中國同盟成員的合影，1938（香港大學檔案館藏）
Figure 21, Department of Chinese group portrait, Fall 1941 (HKU School of Chinese collection)
圖21, 香港大學中文系師生1941年秋季合影，佛朗士在座（香港大學中文學院藏）
Figure 22, Norman France, extracted from the 1941 group portrait, seated between Professor Chen Yinke and Rev. Casey (HKU School of Chinese collection)
圖22, 坐在陳寅恪教授和祈祖堯神父中間的佛朗士老師（香港大學中文學院藏）
Figure 23, Registrar’s letter to the Dean of Arts, 30 January 1941 (HKU Archives)
圖23, 總教務長致文學院院長關於佛朗士被驢咬傷的信（香港大學檔案館藏）
Figure 24, Hilda Selwyn Clarke’s letter to the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong, 6 August 1941 (HKU Archives)
圖24, 希爾達∙塞爾溫∙克拉克（司徒永覺夫人）致香港大學校長的信，講述佛朗士正在內地運送戰爭救援物資（香港大學檔案館藏）
Norman H. France was Eileen Chang’s favorite teacher at HKU. Among the gallery of figures depicted in Chang’s essay “From the Ashes,” France stands out as striking and endearing. He returns in Chang’s later novels, as Mr. Andrews in Little Reunions and as Mr. Gerald H. Blaisdell in The Book of Change. France was the only full-time HKU staff member killed during the war, by friendly fire—whose “purposeless death” Chang calls a “waste of humanity.” He is depicted as sinicized, “open-minded and magnanimous,” with “a childishly ruddy face, porcelain blue eyes, and a prominent round chin,” whose “hair had already begun to thin.” (Figures 20, 21, 22). Disapproving of “material civilization” and “England’s colonial policies,” it was characteristic of him to have built himself an electricity-free house, “with three bungalows well off the beaten track,” one of which for “raising hogs,” and to have had “a beat-up old automobile” used only by a houseboy for grocery shopping (Written on Water, pp. 43-44). It is then not entirely surprising that we would encounter a document in his file that tells of an incident where he was bitten by his own donkey (Figure 23).
Born in Hong Kong, Norman France spent the early part of his childhood in the colony and studied and worked mostly at Cambridge University before he was appointed Reader in History at HKU in 1931. He introduced Asian history into the curriculum for the first time and he was well loved by his students like Eileen Chang, who “derived a sense of being close to history from him, as well as a cogent worldview” (“From the Ashes,” p. 43).
France’s activities also stretched far beyond the university. It is worth mentioning that he was Co-treasurer of the China Defense League (now China Welfare Institute) when Soong Ching-ling (aka Madame Sun Yat-sen) and others founded it in Hong Kong in 1938, to organize relief and aid for those fighting the Japanese. Figure 20 includes all key members of the Central Committee of the China Defense League, including, from left to right, Israel Epstein, Deng Wenzhao, Liao Mengxing, Soong Ching Ling, Hilda Selwyn Clarke, Norman France, and Liao Chengzhi. Later, when France served in the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps, he took time off in the summer of 1941 to accompany Red Cross supplies for the Chinese Industrial Co-operatives in the Paochi area (in Shannxi), via Guangxi, Guizhou, Chongqing, and Sichuan. Hilda Selwyn Clarke’s letter to the Vice-Chancellor of HKU on behalf of France explains the rather dangerous work he undertook as summer activities (Figure 24). France was killed near a military garrison at Stanley in Hong Kong on December 20, 1941 and was buried at Stanley Military Cemetery.
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歷史講師佛朗士是張愛玲散文〈燼餘錄〉中最耀眼的人物，在《小團圓》和《易經》中則分別以安竹斯先生和布雷斯代先生的面目出現。〈燼餘錄〉說他豁達、中國化，「有孩子似的肉紅臉，磁藍眼睛，伸出來的圓下巴，頭髮已經稀了」（圖21，22），還在自己造的房子裡養豬，「不贊成物質文明」，也就不奇怪港大的檔案裡有他被驢咬的紀錄了（圖23）。
佛朗士生於香港，在香港度過童年，赴劍橋大學求學並工作，於1931年回到港大任教。他將亞洲近代史融入他的歷史教程，深受學生愛戴，張愛玲說他的講課給了她一種「歷史的親切感和扼要的世界觀」。他還積極參與社會活動，其中值得一提的是他曾出任宋慶齡1938年在香港創建的「保衛中國同盟」的名譽司庫。圖20即為保盟中央委員會的成員合影（左起：愛潑斯坦、鄧文釗、廖夢醒、宋慶齡、希爾達∙塞爾溫∙克拉克、佛朗士、廖承志）。 1941年夏，他一路護送紅十字會的支援物資北上陝西寶雞。圖24是保盟名譽書記希爾達∙塞爾溫∙克拉克（即司徒永覺夫人）為此事致港大校長的信。佛朗士於1941年12月20日在香港保衛戰中死於赤柱軍營附近的友軍槍下，其「最無名目的死」被張愛玲哀嘆為「人類的浪費」。
Figure 25, Faculty of Arts group portrait, Fall 1938 (HKU Archives)
圖25, 香港大學文學院師生1938年秋季在本部大樓前的大合照，許地山教授在前排右一（香港大學檔案館藏）
Figure 26 Professor Hsu Ti-shan, extracted from the 1938 group portrait (HKU Archives)
圖26, 許地山教授， 1938年秋季合照局部（香港大學檔案館藏）
Hsu Ti-shan was a towering figure in Hong Kong higher education and cultural scene. Eileen Chang likely took two years of Chinese Literature and Translation courses with him. Many have speculated that Professor Yan Ziye in Chang’s short story “Jasmine Tea” is based on Hsu Ti-shan, fictionally depicted as a man “who’d gone through hardship, but still had known some small measure of happiness,” and whose long Chinese gown emits “debonair elegance.” Hsu in real life did have a distinctive style. In a group portrait taken in Fall 1938, he is seated to the far right on the first row, instantly recognizable with his long gown and bearded look (Figures 25, 26).
Hsu previously taught at Yenching University before accepting the offer as Professor of Chinese at HKU in 1935, upon the recommendation of Hu Shih (Figures 27, 28). During his tenure at HKU, Hsu undertook a restructuring of the Chinese department, designing a new curriculum to include a broader range of genres and subjects across the humanities. Hsu’s emphasis on later Chinese literature, that is, Ming-Qing vernacular narratives and literature of the twentieth century, helped shape the literary, cultural, and intellectual outlook of Eileen Chang. Chang’s insistence on reading A Gallery of the Bureaucracy and Marriage as Retribution, Awakening the World inside the Fung Ping Shan Library during an artillery barrage can be traced to this changed view of Chinese literary landscape. The most notable connection between the teacher and the student, however, is their shared interest in women’s clothing, accessories, and design. Eileen Chang’s essay “Chinese Life and Fashions” can be seen as a continuation of Hsu’s study on the history of Chinese women’s clothes (Figure 31-33). Their sketches of clothes are remarkably similar in style, which in Hsu Ti-shan’s case indicate the confluence of Western and Eastern traditions of illustrated manuscripts, seen also in the pages from his unfinished manuscript on Chinese ornaments and vessels (Figures 29, 30). This style of juxtaposed texts and drawings calls for further research.
許地山1935年從燕京大學離職，由時任北京大學校長的胡適推薦給港大校長，任中文系教授。1938年秋季文科師生在本部大樓前的合影中，許地山坐在第一排的最右邊，長衫和鬍鬚是他的標誌（圖25，26）。胡適當年所寫的推薦信也保存完善，一併展出（圖27，28）。
許地山甫到港大，便著手改革中文系，建系理念裡融合了他開放的文學史觀和文化史觀。在課程設置上，他堅持文學種類除了傳統的詩文之外必需囊括小說、詞曲、戲曲和文學批評，並且強調明清白話文學和現代漢語文學的重要。他通曉英語、德語、日語和梵文，研究文學、宗教、史學之外，還創作小說和散文，會譜詞曲，會彈琵琶，另外對插花、服飾和古代器皿都有研究。
1941年8月許地山在寓所突然去世，年僅48歲。港大檔案館裡存有一些他留下的未完成的手稿。比如他研究古代器皿的書稿，寫在長20公分寬12公分的小小的筆記本散頁上，裡面佈滿了各種器皿的示意圖（圖29，30），圖文並置的手稿風格十分鮮明。檔案裡也有他1935年在天津《大公報》上分八次連載的長文〈近三百年來底中國女裝〉的初稿，寫在燕京大學的信箋上，是來港大任職前的作品（圖31-33）。許地山關於女性服裝和妝容的研究很可能直接啟發了張愛玲的早期寫作。張愛玲經典散文〈更衣記〉的前身，是用英文寫就的〈中國人的生活和時裝〉，其中圖文並置的手稿風格發揮自如，渾然天成，有待更深入的研究。
Figure 27-28, Hu Shih’s letter to the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong, recommending Hsu Ti-shan for the position of Professor of Chinese (HKU Archives)
圖27-28, 胡適致香港大學校長的信，推薦許地山擔任中文系教授（香港大學檔案館藏）
Figure 29-30, Hsu Ti-Shan, notes on Chinese ornaments and vessels, pages from an unpublished manuscript (HKU Archives)
圖29-30, 許地山，古代中國器皿手稿（香港大學檔案館藏）
Figure 31-33, Hsu Ti-Shan, “Three Hundred Years of Women’s Clothes,” manuscript pages (HKU Archives)
圖31-33, 許地山，《近三百年來之中國女裝》手稿（香港大學檔案館藏）
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