The essays included in this book have all been published in Chinese academic journals at home and abroad. I thank the editors-in-chief of these journals for allowing me to include vignettes published in their magazines in this volume.Special thanks to Mr. Shen Changwen and Ms. Dong Xiuyu, the editors-in-chief of "Dhushu" monthly magazine, because most of the chapters in this book have been published in "Dhushu". These essays of different styles and themes are the initial results of my exploration of the academic style and the way of expression of ideas.Thought and scholarship are often fragmented, and the essay is perhaps the best style of writing to capture these fragments.I myself am very dissatisfied with the attempts hitherto, but they reflect the trail of fumbling.Therefore, in addition to supplementing the deleted text due to the limited number of words in the magazine, only a few words and sentences have been changed in the collected articles, and the basic argument has not been touched.

Liu Xiaofeng July 1996 in Xibahe, Beijing