我家的四代人，和一部电视剧 Four Generations of My Family, and One Television Drama
《江海潮生》正在央视热播，我几乎每晚都守着。说实话我平时不怎么看电视剧，遥控器在我手里基本就是个摆设，但这部不一样——它讲张謇。 A drama about Zhang Jian is airing on CCTV, and I have been watching almost every night. Honestly, I rarely watch television — the remote is mostly an ornament in my hands. But this one is different.
I.张謇：南通人脚底下踩着的名字Zhang Jian: A Name Nantong People Walk On Every Day
张謇这个名字，对南通人来说不是历史书上的两个字，是脚底下踩着的马路、是小时候上学路过的门楼。清末的状元，放着京城的前程不要，回来办纱厂。大生纱厂、第一家民办博物馆、第一所师范学校、第一家公共福利院、第一家女子工坊……那会儿的中国什么都没有，他一样一样地"第一家"往外掏，硬生生把南通做成了"中国近代第一城"。
For people from Nantong, Zhang Jian is not two characters in a history book. He is the road under your feet, the gateway you walked past on the way to school. A top imperial scholar in the late Qing, he turned his back on a career in the capital and came home to build cotton mills. Dasheng Mill, China's first privately-run museum, its first teachers' college, its first public welfare home, its first women's workshop — at a time when the country had nothing, he pulled out one "first" after another, and turned Nantong into what became known as China's first modern city.
我年轻时不太懂这份苦心，只觉得这人真能折腾。四十多岁以后才慢慢明白，一个人愿意把自己的一生押在一个地方、一群人身上，那是一种什么样的沉重。
When I was young I did not understand what it cost him; I only thought he was a man who liked to stir things up. It was only after forty that I slowly grasped the weight of it — what it means for one person to stake an entire life on one place and one group of people.
看剧的时候我老是走神，想到我自己家。我们家不是什么英雄门第，就是千千万万普通人家里的一家。但奇怪的是，你把三代人的事往一起摆，居然能看出这个国家一路是怎么走过来的。
While watching, my mind kept drifting to my own family. We are no lineage of heroes — just one household among millions of ordinary ones. Yet strangely, when you lay three generations side by side, you can see how this country walked its road.
II.爷爷：新中国第一批植保学者Grandfather: Among China's First Plant-Protection Scientists
我爷爷是搞植物保护的，新中国第一批植保学者。南通农药厂——最早那批国营骨干农药厂之一——他是参与建厂的人。1962 年，国内第一条敌敌畏工业化合成生产线在那儿建成，他在里头。后来厂里的 80% 敌敌畏乳油还拿过化工部的优质产品奖。
My grandfather worked in plant protection, one of the first generation of such scientists in New China. He helped build the Nantong Pesticide Plant — among the earliest state-owned backbone plants in the field. In 1962, China's first industrial-scale dichlorvos synthesis line was completed there, and he was part of it. The plant's 80% dichlorvos emulsion later won a quality product award from the Ministry of Chemical Industry.
这些数字我小时候听得耳朵起茧，觉得枯燥得很。后来才知道那背后是什么：一穷二白，没图纸没设备没外援，就是要让粮食多打一点，让老百姓别饿肚子。
As a child I heard these numbers until my ears went numb; they seemed unbearably dry. Only later did I understand what stood behind them: a country with nothing — no blueprints, no equipment, no outside help — trying to grow a little more grain so that ordinary people would not go hungry.
我曾经问过爷爷，你当年为什么非要搞农药，多脏多毒啊。他说了一句我记到现在的话：
I once asked him why he had insisted on pesticides — such dirty, toxic work. He gave me an answer I still carry:
爷爷 / Grandfather我们那时候没有选择。
In our time, we had no choice.
III.父亲：老三届的长子Father: The Eldest Son of the "Lao San Jie"
我父亲是南通中学"老三届"的毕业生——对，就是张謇办的那所学校。他是长子，下面五个弟弟妹妹，一双双眼睛等着吃饭。高中一毕业就出去打零工，后来做成了最早一批给海南外贸做加工贸易的业务员，再后来当过乡镇企业的厂长。退休以后，就是一个普通的退休职工，每天上午买菜做饭，下午午休后和我妈妈一起遛弯，过着规律的退休生活。
My father graduated from Nantong High School in the "Lao San Jie" cohort — yes, the very school Zhang Jian founded. As the eldest son with five younger siblings, there were always pairs of eyes waiting to be fed. He took odd jobs straight out of high school, later became one of the earliest sales reps running processing trade for Hainan's foreign-trade sector, and later still served as director of a township enterprise. Since retiring he has been an ordinary retiree: groceries and cooking in the morning, a nap, then a walk with my mother in the afternoon — a steady, regular life.
我也问过他。他说的话跟爷爷几乎一个模子：
I asked him the same question. His answer came out of almost the same mould:
父亲 / Father我是老大，我没得选。
I was the eldest. There was nothing to choose.
顺带说一句，我家三代人都从南通中学毕业。这事说出来有点像炫耀，其实不是——在南通，这更像一种巧合式的宿命，你绕来绕去还是绕回那个校门口。
One aside: three generations of my family graduated from Nantong High School. It sounds like boasting; it is not. In Nantong it feels more like a coincidental fate — however far you wander, you circle back to that same school gate.
IV.我：二十岁开始做外贸，不是勤快，是怕Me: Foreign Trade at Twenty — Not Diligence, Fear
轮到我。二十岁开始做外贸。那几年家里正难：我妈国企下岗，我爸职业上遇到瓶颈期，弟弟还在念大学。我一毕业就扑进去干活，别人不愿意接的单子、要熬夜的活、要出差的地方，我抢着干。不是我勤快，是我怕。
Then it was my turn. I started in foreign trade at twenty. Those were hard years at home: my mother laid off from a state-owned enterprise, my father stuck at a career bottleneck, my younger brother still in university. I threw myself into work the moment I graduated — the orders nobody wanted, the jobs that ate the night, the trips no one volunteered for, I grabbed them all. It was not diligence. It was fear.
1999 年我去纽约参加展销会。忙完抽空上了帝国大厦顶楼，风大得站不稳，眼前全是密密麻麻的楼。我当时心里冒出来一个念头，说出来现在都觉得心酸：
In 1999 I went to New York for a trade fair. When work was done I took a moment to go up the Empire State Building. The wind was strong enough to unbalance me, and the city was a dense field of towers. A thought surfaced then that still aches to say aloud:
1999 · 帝国大厦顶楼 / Top of the Empire State Building这样的景象，恐怕我这辈子在自己国家是看不到了。
A sight like this — I will probably never see it in my own country, not in this lifetime.
2000 年我女儿出生。一年以后，中国加入 WTO。这两件事挨得这么近，我后来常觉得像某种安排。
In 2000 my daughter was born. A year later, China joined the WTO. The two events sat so close together that I have often felt there was some arrangement in it.
帝国大厦顶楼，26 岁。看着满眼的高楼，心里想的是"这辈子在自己国家看不到了"。
Top of the Empire State Building, age 26. Looking at a horizon full of towers and thinking: never in my own country, not in this life.
浦东一栋高楼，办完护照顺道上去。往下看的那一瞬间愣住了——这不就是十年前纽约那个画面吗？
A tower in Pudong, stopped by after collecting a passport. One glance down and I froze — was this not exactly the New York frame from ten years before?
那种感觉很难形容，不是骄傲那么简单，更像是一种"原来真的能等到"的震动。我在窗边站了很久，同行的人还以为我不舒服。
The feeling is hard to describe. Not simply pride — more the shock of realizing that you can actually live long enough to see it. I stood at that window for a long time; the colleagues with me thought I had fallen ill.
V.女儿：第四代人，可以自己选My Daughter: The Fourth Generation, Free to Choose
现在我女儿在一所很好的医学院读医学博士，明年毕业。学医这条路多苦不用我说，规培、值夜班、写论文、还要面对生死。她将来想去哪儿、做什么、要不要出国继续深造，我都尊重。我只有一个要求：你要开心。
My daughter is now finishing a medical doctorate at a fine medical school; she graduates next year. I need not explain how hard that road is — residency training, night shifts, dissertations, and standing face to face with life and death. Wherever she wants to go, whatever she wants to do, whether or not she studies abroad — I respect all of it. I have exactly one requirement: that she be happy.
说到这儿我想说一句可能有点煽情的话——中国这几代人，活得实在太沉重了。
Which brings me to something that may sound sentimental: these generations of Chinese have lived under an enormous weight.
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爷爷 · 植保学者Grandfather · plant protection
"我们那时候没有选择。""In our time, we had no choice."
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父亲 · 老三届长子Father · eldest son
"我是老大，我没得选。""I was the eldest. There was nothing to choose."
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我 · 外贸三十年Me · thirty years in trade
"我很辛苦。""It has been hard."
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女儿 · 医学博士Daughter · medical doctorate
"你要开心。""Just be happy."
爷爷说没有选择，父亲说没得选，我说我很辛苦。三代人，三句话，说的其实是同一件事：我们都是先把担子背起来，才想到自己。但我不想让这句话传到第四代人那里。
My grandfather said there was no choice. My father said there was nothing to choose. I said it was hard. Three generations, three sentences, all saying one thing: we each shouldered the load first and thought of ourselves afterwards. I do not want that sentence to reach the fourth generation.
我跟女儿说，你可以选你喜欢的。你想慢一点就慢一点。这世界跑得太快了，我们那代人是被推着跑的，你不必。有本书里说"我们可以不必追"，我以前不太懂，现在懂了——所谓不必追，不是放弃，是终于有了不追的底气。而这份底气，是爷爷在实验室里熬出来的，是父亲在乡镇企业里跑出来的，是我在展销会上一单一单谈出来的。
I tell my daughter: choose what you love. Go slower if you want to go slower. The world runs too fast; my generation was pushed along by it, and you do not have to be. A book once said that we need not chase. I did not really understand that before; I do now — not chasing is not giving up. It is finally having the ground beneath you that makes chasing unnecessary. And that ground was earned by my grandfather in a laboratory, by my father on the roads of a township enterprise, and by me at trade fairs, one order at a time.
张謇当年办那些"第一家"的时候，大概也不是为了自己看见结果。他是替后面的人先把路铺一段。我们家这三代人，不敢跟先生相比，但道理是一样的——每一代人都在替下一代人往前铺那么一小段。铺到我女儿这里，路终于宽到可以让她自己决定往哪儿走了。
When Zhang Jian built all those "firsts," he was probably not doing it to see the results himself. He was laying a stretch of road for the people coming after. The three generations of my family would not dare compare themselves to him, but the principle is the same: each generation lays a short stretch forward for the next. By the time it reaches my daughter, the road is finally wide enough for her to decide her own direction.
所以那部剧我看得眼睛发酸，不是因为张謇，是因为看着他，我看见了我爷爷，我爸，还有二十岁那年的我自己。
So the drama makes my eyes sting — not because of Zhang Jian, but because through him I see my grandfather, my father, and the twenty-year-old version of myself.
所谓家国，就是上一代人拼命想让下一代人过得轻松一点。
我爷爷是这么想的，我父亲是这么想的，我也是。
等到我女儿这一代终于可以慢下来的时候，这个国家终于走过来了。
Family and country, in the end, mean one thing: each generation straining so the next can live a little lighter.
My grandfather thought this way. My father thought this way. So do I.
And by the time my daughter's generation can finally slow down — this country has finally made it through.
家史随笔 · 记于 2026-08-05 · YingChao (YC) Family memoir · written on 2026-08-05 · YingChao (YC)