檳城鍾靈中學是馬來亞時代校譽鼎盛輝煌的華校,在二戰檳城淪陷期間,鍾中8名教員,46名學生殉難,這是檳城知識界的痛史,標記為知識人的創傷及華教危機。鍾中教師在戰後透過歷史見證和創傷表述,倖存者的回憶和控訴,呈現的華校歷史傷痕,有其重要的象徵意義。戰後鍾中復校,成立鍾中紀念師生殉難委員會,追悼、立碑、出版榮哀錄,同時華文教師管震民撰述的詩歌、祭文、碑序,在紀史與抒情之間,替鍾靈師生殉難事件,啟動了歷史與文學的敘事能量。本文借用法國史學家皮埃爾.諾拉(Pierre Nora)的理論,討論環繞鍾靈中學師生殉難而相繼形成的「記憶之場」(les lieux de mémoire),如何銘刻了斲傷斯文、斷絕文化的困境,進而負載華人精神的復興與賡續。在此意義上,鍾靈師生殉難作為「記憶之場」,已是民族記憶的一部分。當我們檢視戰爭記憶「文本」如何被建構,鍾靈師生的遭遇和災難,實際內嵌了華教與華人民族情感在新馬日侵歲月裡的連結。鍾靈受難校史的陳述與建構,恰恰是我們如何看待淪陷期間的華人集體記憶,尤其對華教構成的影響。而華文教師在戰爭前後的關鍵位置,投映了一代華文教師的文化本位和涵養。
During the fall of Penang in the Second World War, 8 teachers and 46 students of Chung Ling High School died, marking the painful history of Penang's intellectual community and the trauma and crisis of Chinese education. After the resumption of the school, a committee was set up to commemorate the martyrdom of the teachers and students of Chung Ling, and to memorialize, erect monuments and publish a book of grief. Applying the theories of the French historian Pierre Nora, this article discusses how the "field of memory" (les lieux de mémoire), which was formed around the martyrdom of the teachers and student of Chung Ling High School, has engraved the plight of the carving up of the culture and the severance of the culture, and in turn loaded the revival and continuation of the Chinese spirit. In this sense, the martyrdom of Chung Ling's teachers and students, as a "field of memory," is already part of the national memory. When we examine how the "text" of war memory was constructed, the encounters and disasters of Chung Ling's teachers and students are in fact embedded in the connection between Chinese education and Chinese national sentiment during the years of Japanese invasion in Malaya. The narrative and construction of the history of Chung Ling's school is precisely how we perceive the collective memory of the Chinese during the fall, and the impact on Chinese education in particular. The critical position of Chinese teachers before and after the war is a reflection of the cultural identity and cultivation of a generation of Chinese teachers.