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Letter penned by legendary Sima
By Zhao Dan |
February 21, 2010, Sunday
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SIMA Guang, a historian, writer and politician in the Song Dynasty (960-1279), was a household name in China.
Though he was not famous for calligraphy, one of his writings is exhibited in the Shanghai Museum because of his special and significant status in Chinese history.
Sima was well known so young because of a popular legend about him when he was only seven. One day he and his friends were playing in the garden. A child suddenly fell into a huge pottery water container and was drowning. While all the other kids were either crying or running for help, Sima calmly smashed the vessel with stones. Water flowed from the container and the drowning kid was saved.
Sima later became a historian and over 19 years, with the help of his assistants, compiled the first annals of China from 403 BC to AD 959, making him one of the most accomplished historians in Chinese history.
As a subsequent prime minister of the Song Dynasty, though renowned for his integrity and loyalty to the country, Sima was conservative and stubbornly opposed to political reform.
The example of his writing kept in the Shanghai Museum was a letter he penned to his nephew.
In the letter, he criticized the nephew for wanting to accept a government appointment to high office which would result in him ignoring his family.
He wrote: "Your father is around 70 or 80 years old, and constantly suffers from diseases. How could you be so hard-hearted to abandon him in your hometown?"
He told his nephew to quit the job and care more for his father.
The characters Sima wrote were careful and neat, reflecting his disciplined, modest and restrained personality. The letter was written when Sima was 67 years old, a year before he died.
Though he was not famous for calligraphy, one of his writings is exhibited in the Shanghai Museum because of his special and significant status in Chinese history.
Sima was well known so young because of a popular legend about him when he was only seven. One day he and his friends were playing in the garden. A child suddenly fell into a huge pottery water container and was drowning. While all the other kids were either crying or running for help, Sima calmly smashed the vessel with stones. Water flowed from the container and the drowning kid was saved.
Sima later became a historian and over 19 years, with the help of his assistants, compiled the first annals of China from 403 BC to AD 959, making him one of the most accomplished historians in Chinese history.
As a subsequent prime minister of the Song Dynasty, though renowned for his integrity and loyalty to the country, Sima was conservative and stubbornly opposed to political reform.
The example of his writing kept in the Shanghai Museum was a letter he penned to his nephew.
In the letter, he criticized the nephew for wanting to accept a government appointment to high office which would result in him ignoring his family.
He wrote: "Your father is around 70 or 80 years old, and constantly suffers from diseases. How could you be so hard-hearted to abandon him in your hometown?"
He told his nephew to quit the job and care more for his father.
The characters Sima wrote were careful and neat, reflecting his disciplined, modest and restrained personality. The letter was written when Sima was 67 years old, a year before he died.
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