9年400封信：“情书”奠基的金婚之爱 | 400 love letters in nine years

“申源姐，你好。初次给你写信，叫你姐，你同意吗？”

"Dear sister Shenyuan, this is the first time I write to you. Would you mind me calling you 'sister'?"

“文祥同志，你好。以后写信的称呼，不要叫我姐，就叫我同志吧。……”

"Dear comrade Wenxiang, please don't call me 'sister' when writing to me, but you can always call me 'comrade.'"

1963年，汤文祥回到老家长沙过春节。他的哥哥把黄申源这个放电影的姑娘介绍给了他。

In 1963, Tang Wenxiang went back to Changsha, the capital city of central China's Hunan Province for the Spring Festival. His brother introduced him to projectionist Huang Shenyuan. 

They agreed to meet each other for a blind date with the prospects of tying the knot if it went well.

年轻时候的汤文祥（左）和黄申源（右）

Young Tang (left) and Huang (right)

当时，汤文祥还是北京铁道学院（现北京交通大学）的学生。“她在外面工作，见的世面多，我一直在读书，比她害羞。”

At that time, Tang was a student at the Beijing Railway College (Now Beijing Jiaotong University). "She had worked for some years and seen the world. I was the shy one who stayed in the ivory tower," Tang said.

黄申源对他的第一印象则是“忠实”：“他要是太滑头，我驾驭不了。我们有白头到老的准备。”

Huang thought he made an honest impression when she first met him. "If he had been a cunning man, I would've refused him. After all, there was a potential that we could be stuck with each other for the rest of our lives," she said.

因为太害羞，见面时汤文祥没有和黄申源说上几句话，而是当面给她写了一封信。

Too shy to speak, Tang didn't talk much during their first date but wrote a letter in front of Huang.

从恋爱到婚后9年的400封信，就此成为了他们50多年爱情的基石。

In the following nine years, they wrote 400 letters to each other. It became the foundation of their love story of more than 50 years.

两人第二次见面，是在书信往来一年半的时候。汤文祥去贵州实习，火车途径长沙，是他给黄申源打了个电报，让她到车站等。

Their second date came after they had been sending each other letters for 18 months. Tang was going to southwest China's Guizhou Province for his internship. He asked Huang to meet him at the railway station.

“晚上，我在长沙站大概停几分钟。火车一开门，我一下车就看到她。”

"My train stopped at Changsha station for a couple of minutes that night. When the door opened, I jumped off and saw her right there."

“那时候见面就问了近况，给了他十块钱。现在感觉好笑哦。”黄申源说。

"We just exchanged greetings. I gave him ten yuan. It's kind of funny looking back," says Huang.

汤文祥家庭条件不好，又还是学生，黄申源每个月把自己三分之一的工资寄给他。“我在农村，吃饭只要一毛钱，花不了多少。”她说，“八分钱邮票，我买两张，放一张在寄给他的信里头，他给我回信，就不用再买邮票。”

Tang came from a low-income family. As he was still in college, Huang sent him a third of her monthly salary. "In the rural area, a meal cost ten cents. It was not too much for me," she recalls. "I usually bought an extra stamp for eight cents and put it in my letter, so that he wouldn't have to buy stamps."

汤文祥和黄申源的结婚照

Tang and Huang’s wedding photo

汤文祥毕业后到武汉工作。1966年5月1日，两人在长沙结了婚。当时，两人都已经算“大龄青年”了。“我们买了17块钱的糖炒栗子，晚上搞了个茶话会。”汤文祥说，“也没置办什么东西，就给她买了两双尼龙袜子，那个时候尼龙袜子长沙根本买不到。”

After graduation, Tang got a job in central China's Wuhan City. They got married in Changsha on May 1, 1966, when they were both considered "overage" for marriage. "We spent 17 yuan on roasted chestnuts, and threw a tea party in the evening," Tang said. "We hardly purchased anything, except for two pairs of nylon socks for her. It was out of stock in Changsha."

“怀孕的时候，吃了就呕，睡着也痛苦，他也不在身边，”黄申源说，“我受不了，就想把娃娃刮掉，不想要了，他就写信安慰我，说这是自然现象，让我认真克服。”

"When I was pregnant, I was constantly sick. I could hardly sleep, and he was not there with me," Huang says. "I could not stand it anymore and even considered giving up the baby. He wrote to comfort me, saying that it was how the human body works and that I should be capable of overcoming those difficulties."

1972年，汤文祥工作调动回到长沙，两人才结束长达9年的分离。“我们办酒席花了17块钱，他从武汉调回来是17号，我把这个幸运数字写到彩票上了，中了奖。”黄申源说，“中奖那天还是我的生日。”

Tang was transferred back to Changsha in 1972 when their long-distance relationship for nine years finally came to an end. "We spent 17 yuan for our wedding ceremony, and he came back to Changsha on the 17th," said Huang. "I once chose this lucky number for the lottery and won a prize on my birthday."

这9年间，两人写的400封信，被他们分别用盒子精心保存下来。现在，80岁的汤文祥和81岁的黄申源，依然时不时翻看着这些信件：“平平淡淡的，就算是苦日子，也很富裕了。”

The 400 letters are carefully preserved in two boxes separately. Eighty-year-old Tang and 81-year-old Huang still read them now and then: "We've had our hard times. But we've been fortunate to be blessed with a simple and peaceful life together."

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