Louis Cha's Middle School Years in Quzhou

By Wu Shaofei

Louis Cha's Middle School Years in Quzhou

By Wu Shaofei

衢州市檔案館存有金庸學籍表。Louis Cha's student registration form is kept in Quzhou Archives.

I have visited the villages which housed Quzhou Middle School in the years of World War Two in a bid to trace the footprints of Louis Cha， who has authored many epic Kungfu novels. The youngster studied at the middle school from 1940 to 1942.

Louis Cha Leung-yung （Zha Liangyong），best known by his pen name Jin Yong， is a Chinese novelist and essayist based in Hong Kong. He is a native of Haining in northern Zhejiang. In 1938， Cha enrolled in the United Middle School in Lishui in southwestern Zhejiang.

In the frst half of 1940， he was dispelled from the middle school because he lampooned the school authorities in an article published on a blackboard. Years later， he recalled of the time: “I not only lost an opportunity to continue my middle school education but also had diffculty in getting food and shelter. It was a matter of life and death. Fortunately， Quzhou Middle School took me in. Publishing what I want to say boldly under duress became a key to my success years later. ”

Pretty soon， the young Louis Cha distinguished himself in the new school. Wang Haoran， a classmate of Louis Cha at the school， recalls in his memoir decades later:“A new student came to our class shortly after the second semester had started in the autumn. During the wartime， we were in the remote rural area and we were not in a mood for light hobbies such as calligraphy，painting， chess or music. This youngster was different. He had two boxes of Weiqi stones in black and white.”

Wang Haoran recalls that Cha was modest and friendly: he smiled and introduced himself to classmates and teachers and other school employees.

Wu Zhongkang， now 82， says he has never heard of Jin Yong. His ignorance of Jin Yong is largely because he was much younger than the novel writer， and he has never read Kungfu novels and he did not go to middle school anyway. But he remembers the senior high department of Quzhou Middle School in Xiajingyan Village. The Buddhist temple in the village served as a dorm. The clan temple also housed some students and teachers. Rows of adobe houses served as classrooms. Wu Wenqing， a villager at Xiajingyan， took me to the deserted house where his family used to live. He explained:“The rooms on the ground were for teachers. Students usually lived upstairs. The second foor of my house was for girl students. Look， these words on the wall were written by the students.”

While in Xiajingyan， Cha made friends with Wang Haoran and Jiang Wenhuan. They went everywhere together. Jiang was one of the six revolutionary martyrs of

Quzhou. Wang Haoran recalls that Cha was obsessed with Weiqi in his school years. He wrote letters to Wang Zhenxiong，who chaired a Weiqi society in Guilin. Wang wrote back. Wang encouraged Cha to focus on academic studies and rarely offered tips on the game.

Villagers pointed historical houses out to me: this house was used as a library of the middle school and these houses were bookstores that followed the middle school from Quzhou City.

The archives show that Louis Cha was a top student. He read a lot and was active in school events.

On May 24， 1942， Jinhua City fell to Japanese aggressors. Quzhou was about to fall. Quzhou Middle School decided to shut down the school and evacuate students. Louis Cha ended his two years at the school and received a certifcate that identifed him as a student. In the summer of 1942， Cha and some other students teamed up and moved westward to Jiangxi Province， determined not to live in occupied areas.

Louis Cha comments that the two years in Quzhou were significant in his life and his novelist career. Many of his inspirations came from his experiences in Quzhou.

In October 2004， he visited Quzhou No.1 Middle School for the frst time after a long hiatus of decades. He took a long look at the statue of Jiang Wenhuan. He also signed his name on a poster which featured film star Zhou Xun， an alumna of the school.