Chapter 39 6. About "My Country and My People"

Kang De sent a letter asking me to write an article "How Do I Write "My Country and My People"".But recently I am writing my second book, and I am due to finish it by the end of this month. I will write a paragraph of 3,000 words every day. I will sit in my study and work from 9:30 to 12:30. The secretary was busy copying and revising, so I had to steal a little time to write a little bit. I wanted to report some news about these two books. It was written in the three seasons of spring, summer and autumn in the 23rd year of the Republic of China, and part of it was written when I lived in Lushan Mountain for summer resort.A total of about ten months.At that time, it was the busiest period of "Human World", and it was also a part-time job, so it could be regarded as a sneak job.Since the slogan of "leisure class" came into being, the word "busy and leisure" has always been circling in my mind.What is busy and what is idle, the more I think about it, the more confused I become.Those who are busy may not be able to contribute to the world, and the cock crows to make a profit;Now that materialism has invaded China, probably if it is not for those who talk about export and import inflation, they are not among the busy people.I am different.Zhang Shan said it well: "Those who can be busy where others are idle can be busy where others are idle." Leather shoes are made by machines, and the output is large, so they are called busy and modern. They are handmade by cobblers, and three days or even Make a pair in six or seven days, the output will be small, it will be idle, and it will be feudal.Unfortunately, good leather shoes are handmade rather than machine-made.All art is produced slowly when the mind and hands are idle.Only by making a pair of leather shoes in six or seven days can we make good leather shoes, and leather shoes become art.What's more, the spirit of the old and new times is the opposite.In my opinion, a factory worker who enters the factory on time with a time card for entering the factory may not be so civilized, and a cobbler who slowly does it stitch by stitch at home may not be so barbaric—if in the art of life Measured against the standard.How the cobbler nails it stitch by stitch is not my business. What I mean is that my book is also written in the shadow of green mountains, white clouds, straw shoes, bamboo sticks, paragraphs, paragraphs, and chapters. written out.I only know that nailing it stitch by stitch like a cobbler does not matter whether it is a meritorious crime, a revolution or a counter-revolution.

This seems to be far away from the topic, but it is actually close.I can't continue to talk about it according to the plan, because I have to start a new draft and write a book in half an hour.I am a busy person, and busy people have no choice but to use leisurely pens to tune Youyouzi and use wild old chatting methods to make a fuss, otherwise they will be anxious to death.Anyway, there are still fifteen minutes, so why not talk nonsense.The eleventh edition is about to be published. This eleventh edition is revised and illustrated, and the size is slightly enlarged.All errors in the first edition have been corrected.Illustrations with photographs, sixteen pages.The German, French, and Norwegian translations have already been published, and several others have not yet been published.The Chinese translation has been translated by friends, and it will be published in our company soon.

Now I am writing about the art of living, called The Importance of Living.At first I had no intention of writing this book, but planned to translate five or six Chinese novella classics, such as "Lao Can's Travel Notes II", "Yingmei Temple Reminiscences", "Autumn Stirrup Reminiscences", which are enough to represent the art of life and cultural spirit of China Special book, adding Zhang Shanlai's "You Mengying" motto, Zeng Guofan and Zheng Banqiao's "family letter", Li Yi'an's "Jinshilu post-order", etc. (See Xinbao's claim that Wang Junqing was responsible for my translation of the "Complete Version", but in fact, I once published this complete version in "Human World" to discriminate the text.) However, the owner of the bookstore believes that the author should be the first, and the translation of the masterpiece should be the second.Because Chinese people's art of life has long been known by Westerners, but there is no special book, and they don't know the content. How do Chinese people art, how to drink tea, how to drink wine, how to view mountains, how to play with water, how to see clouds , How to appreciate stones, how to grow flowers, keep birds, appreciate snow, listen to rain, sing the wind, and enjoy the moon. ... The snow can be admired, the rain can be heard, the wind can sing, the moon can be played, the mountains can be seen, the water can be played, the clouds can be seen, and the stones can be learned. This is the most fascinating topic for Westerners.This is not what I said, but most people pay attention to the short last chapter of "The Art of Life", which talks about food and gardening, and many American women are said to have taken this book as the rule of life.In fact, apart from admiring the flowers and enjoying the moon, there is a Chinese poet's philosophy of life, which is open-minded, broad-minded, high-yielding, retreating, and pottery.This is exactly what the Americans are in a hurry to prescribe the right medicine.Because there are many readers who want to see the bottom line of this book and the general method of singing the wind, playing the moon and having fun with your husband and family, the bookstore persuaded me to write this book first.Don't talk about Lao Zhuang, but the spirit of Lao Zhuang is there, don't talk about Confucius and Mencius, but the face of Confucius and Mencius is still there.This is the origin of my writing this book.

I started at the beginning of March and wrote 260 pages. Suddenly, on the night of the first day of May, I started to write a preface in bed.Because I originally thought that the whole book should be crowned with a criticism of Western modern material culture, but the more I talked about it, the more I debated it, and the tone of the manuscript was totally different.It was recompiled from May 3rd to the end of July with a total of 700 pages, so during these three months, it was like King Wen was imprisoned in Yili, unable to get away even a step.However, I didn't complain about suffering. On the contrary, I received military training, and everything was disciplined, orderly, and serious.To go to bed early and get up early, you must have enough sleep at night, and if you have enough sleep, you should sit on the window in the next morning, smoke a cigarette and drink tea at the same time. It is also a kind of joy to read out sentence by sentence and paragraph by paragraph, and ask the secretary to type out the first draft.If you don't get enough sleep at night, you can't spit out the article.I typed it myself on a typewriter, but this book was dictated and taken with notes.Usually, I don’t have a lot of drafts, as long as I smoke, drink, tea, and feel good, I can write.

How to talk about drinking tea and offering flowers in New York?It turned out that I brought many such books.Chen Meigong's "Secrets of Baoyantang", Wang Junqing's "Shuoku", five volumes of enlightened Bible paper "Twenty-Five Histories" were all shipped in, and there were also "Wenzhi", "Su Changgong's Essays", "Su Changgong's Waiji", "He Tao I brought together the papers, Qunfang Qingwan, Youmengying and even the pictures of swallows, butterflies and Kuanger. I only forgot to bring "Appreciation", "Shuoyu", "Qiaoge" and "Hanshan Poetry Collection".The Columbia Chinese Library has a lot of books, but I'm too lazy to go out, so I haven't checked them yet.Tu Long's "Ming Liao Zi You" was translated for me and included in the book.My happiest thing is the collection of more than forty Chinese poems chanting fate and reminiscence. Don't refuse to get drunk, listen to the fourth sound of Yangguan."And the sentence "If you don't smile, you are an idiot", how is it different from Omar?Jueyin's poem "A line of green mountains and beautiful scenery, the predecessors harvested the land, the descendants reaped joy, and the harvest came later", so why not be alert?Why isn't Li Mian's "Half and Half Song" diluted?Isn't Dongpo's "Shu Huai Xing Xiangzi" lyrics not high and elegant? Is "Skull Praise" not tragic? ... In this way, poets such as Letian, Dongpo, Shitian, Ziwei, etc. are invited to gather together to sing and chant, but it can also be composed of a "life song" representing the philosophy of life of Chinese poets, called TheHu-manSymphoBny, and It's called A Chinese Fantasia.Not much to talk about, I have already written it, so it can be seen that the text of "Cosmic Wind" should not have been written, and there is no time to regret it.