Family history Guo Moruo, originally named Guo Kaizhen, was born on November 10 or 16, in the small town of
Shawan, located on the
Dadu River some southwest from what was then called the city of
Jiading (Lu) (Chia-ting (Lu), ), and now is the central urban area of the prefecture level city of
Leshan in
Sichuan Province. At the time of Guo's birth, Shawan was a town of some 180 families. Guo's father's ancestors were
Hakkas from
Ninghua County in
Tingzhou Prefecture, near the western border of
Fujian. They moved to Sichuan in the second half of the 17th century, after Sichuan had lost much of its population to the rebels/bandits of
Zhang Xianzhong ( 1605–1647). According to family legend, the only possessions that Guo's ancestors brought to Sichuan were things they could carry on their backs. Guo's great-grandfather, Guo Xianlin, was the first in the family to achieve a degree of prosperity. Guo Xianlin's sons established the Guo clan as the leaders of the local river shipping business, and thus important people in that entire region of Sichuan. It was only then that the Guo clan members became able to send their children to school. After graduation from the Okayama school, Guo entered in 1918 the Medical School of
Kyushu Imperial University in
Fukuoka. During this period he published ten monographs on archeology of the
Shang and
Zhou periods and ancient Chinese script, thus establishing himself as a preeminent scholar in the field. In the summer of 1937, shortly after the
Marco Polo Bridge incident, Guo returned to China to join the anti-Japanese resistance. His attempt to arrange for Sato Tomiko and their children to join him in China were frustrated by the Japanese authorities, After the war, Sato went to reunite with him but was disappointed to know that he had already formed a new family. In early February 1942, Guo created a five-act historical drama 虎符,
Hǔfú ("Tiger Talisman") in a single nine-day period. In 1942, Guo's essay
The Answer to Nora was published in
New China Daily. Guo's essay responded to
Lu Xun's question "
what happens after Nora"—the principal character in
Henrik Ibsen's play ''
A Doll's House'' -- "leaves home". Beginning in the middle of 1958, the new folk song movement sought to
compile folk songs and poetry. Among the major compendiums of these folk works was
Red Flag Ballads, compiled by Guo and
Zhou Yang, which presented the works of amateur poets anonymously as part of an effort to develop the figure of the mass writer in communist art and literature. He copied one of their diaries by hand in a form of penance. , displayed at USTC History Museum. Because of his loyalty to Mao, he survived the Cultural Revolution and received commendation by the chairman at the
9th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in April 1969. By the early 1970s, he had regained most of his influence. He enjoyed all the privileges of the highest-ranking party elites, including residence in a manor house once owned by a Qing official, a staff of assigned servants, a state limousine, and other perks. Guo also maintained a large collection of antique furniture and curios in his home. In 1978, following
Mao's death and the fall of the
Gang of Four, the 85-year-old Guo, as he lay dying in a Beijing hospital, penned a poem denouncing the Gang. :: (What wonderful news!) :: (Rooting out the Gang of Four.) :: (The literary rogue.) :: (The political rogue.) :: (The sinister adviser.) :: (The White-Boned Demon.) :: (All swept away by the iron broom.) The White-Boned Demon was a character in the
Ming-era novel
Journey to the West, an evil shapeshifting being, and was a popular derogatory nickname for Jiang Qing. In March of the same year (1978), Guo defied illness to attend the First National Science Conference, the first of its kind to be held since the end of the Cultural Revolution. He was visibly frail and it would be the last time he was seen in public before his death three months later. Guo was awarded the
Stalin Peace Prize. ==Legacy==