Chapter 38 5. About "Human World"①

① The original title was "About this Journal". Every creative ideal must go through considerable trials, misunderstandings, persistence, and then succeed.Since the publication of this journal, thanks to the sponsorship of contributors from all walks of life, it has become what it is today. Recently, there are more and more external manuscripts, and the better they are, the closer they are to the original ideal.But I still think that the ideal magazine that I want to realize has not yet been realized, and whether it can be realized or not depends on the help of the writers, so I write down this meaning as left.

The purpose of this journal is to advocate the style of essays, that is, the style of eloquence, also known as personal style, leisurely style, that is, the Western Familiar Style, but the scope is not the so-called sketches as in the past.The main point is to expand the use of this eloquent style, so that it is enough to talk about love, reasoning, narrative and documentary.Its goal is still to make people "opening the book is beneficial, and covering the book is interesting". To achieve the goal of these eight characters, we must embark on the road of Western magazines.The good thing about western magazines is that it is beneficial for people to open the book, and it is interesting to cover the book.In Chinese magazine texts, the light ones are too light, and the heavy ones are too heavy. If the content is beneficial, it will be tasteless, and if it is interesting, it will be useless.For example, as soon as a certain magazine opens the catalog, there is a bird's-eye view of XX, the outlook of XX, the review of XX, and the trend of XX. To be honest, who will read these articles, so they are beneficial but boring.For example, the wind, the moon, the snow, and the goldfish in the essays are quite interesting, but not beneficial. Although they are readable, they must be read, and they get nothing from reading them, so they are interesting but useless.However, in Western magazines, there are often interesting and beneficial works, which increase our knowledge and inspire our ideas. They are not only readable, but also must-read.I tried to analyze it for him and got the following results:

(1) Opinions are freer than in China.Due to the use of personal style, each article has its own opinions, gained from experience, words from a broad mind, or the pastor’s account of why he did not ask his son to be a pastor, the editor of the textbook bookstore revealed the shady scenes of the textbook, someone is in favor of taking concubines, and someone is against it Honeymoon travel, everyone is free and bold, continue to develop, this is valuable literature, that is, honest literature.The reason why China is like this is that everyone follows the same example, because the Chinese are good at scolding, and if they are afraid of scolding, they can't speak out what is in their hearts, and the result is a world of white grass.He can tell his way before he speaks, and he can stop his speculation before he writes his pen.Therefore, there must be someone who dares to be scolded and play tricks, in order to break this situation of hypocrisy.There have been two bold articles, one is "Opening the Room" written by a foreigner, and the other is "January Punishment" written by a woman. These are bold words and honest words.

(2) The writing is more popular than in China.The writers of Western magazines do not regard words as treasures, but just speak with pens, and because Western magazines are intended for every household, women and children, they have evolved into a very popular magazine style, which everyone can read. (3) Authors are more common than in China.Chinese characters have become a monopoly of class, and the contributors to newspapers are all people who rely on pens for their living.Thirty percent of these people are nerds, and seventy percent have never studied hard.I myself have both, what is the value of our chattering?If you ask me to write an article on how to grow sweet potatoes, I can't write it.Because you are also a literati, and I am also a literati. After all, it is still our thing. Whoever loses his bookbags and sharpens his pen is a master, but what is the value of this kind of writing?Westerners do not respect literature as much, so there are all kinds of people who contribute to magazines.There is a car seller who teaches people the secrets of buying used cars, and a firefighting captain narrates the jargon of firefighting. I read it and it is interesting and beneficial.Is there a bookstore owner who dares to write about the shady scenes of Chinese textbooks?It would be an interesting and useful article to write about how China's banking sector relies on public debt to maintain itself, but would a bank manager be willing to write it?Does the exchange guy dare to write?The nightlife in Baochengli, Aiduoya Road, Shanghai. There are many people who can write about the little bums and opium ghosts. Will they write it?Chinese concubines, more or less divorced, are they willing to tell the truth about them?A little more shallow, male and female students are good or bad, there are many problems, why is no one willing to object or defend, or describe his or her experience?More shallowly, who is willing to write honestly about the experience of a married man and a woman in the first year?At a higher level, can anyone systematically record and explain what the Examination Institute has done since its establishment?These can represent the titles of articles in Western magazines.It can be seen that Chinese magazines are dead, while Western magazines are alive.Western magazines reflect society, criticize society, promote life, and improve life. Reading it will definitely increase your knowledge and interest in life.Chinese magazines are things made by literati in the pavilions, and they are just pastimes for scholars to comfort each other.

In order to open up this path, this publication intends to start with two ideas. (1) Advocate "close-up".The feature is the so-called Features of Western magazines.The feature of the feature is that the materials must be directly investigated and searched by the real society, and then organized into articles or criticized.Western journalists have all received this kind of training. They have to gather in the society to investigate materials. You are not allowed to pick up a pen and copy books and fart.In the past, American reporter Agnes Smedley lived in Shanghai, so this American girl is very powerful!She doesn't speak Chinese, but in less than a few months, she has written a great essay on Shanghai factory life, and there are many facts that we don't know yet.She just runs, and she doesn't take field work lightly.So her material is alive.A person with good writing skills and good insights will naturally write well, because he can grasp important issues without losing trivial details, and he can use a relaxed style of writing to make people like it.For example, Arthur Ransome and Walter Duran-ty are such learned and thoughtful high-quality reporters, and their articles are very popular.The "Wang Delin", "Ya Xing", "Malays" and "Dou Xing" published in this edition belong to the nature of close-up.Take one or two topics randomly, such as "The Battle of Gubeikou", "My Experience of Entering the Customs", "Qingdao Today", "The Whereabouts of Yi Peiji", "The Voice of Jiangmin in the Past Year", as long as everyone has good feet If you have legs, if you are willing to run, you will have something to do.

(2) Create a column of "Western Magazine Articles".From the next issue onwards, "Translation Series" will be cancelled, and this column will be added, with four to five thousand words per issue.Purpose: (A) to enable many people who do not understand foreign languages ​​to read Western magazine articles, (B) to let people see the style, style and materials of Western magazine articles.We don't care about literature or not. This column does not introduce Western literature, but to let people see how useful and interesting Western magazines are related to social life.Those who want to contribute can also come.

Having said that, unless the literati class is abolished, and when Chinese bank managers, firefighting captains, education administrators, bookstore owners, hooligans, prison guards and prisoners are all willing to write articles, my ideal will never be realized.One of the major problems with today's magazine articles is that the literati's writing skills are too good but their legs are too bad.