At the beginning of the Year of the Tiger, the book list has made a little change, we will continue to Chinese original new social science books, continue to issue once a month, to make recommendations for everyone, hoping to provide some guides for your reading.
"Construction Site Society: Revolution, Collectivism and Modernization in the Shangshan Water Conservancy Project"
Liu Yanwen/Author, Social Sciences Academic Press, November 2018 edition
Recommended by: Yu Shujuan
Testimonials:
From the "model water conservancy project" at the beginning of construction to the "no benefit" when it was completely dismantled, how could the Gansu diversion project from 1958 to 1962 be launched in the context of a very limited level of science and technology, modern equipment and economic conditions, how to deal with various difficulties, and how did it finally withdraw from the scene? The author uses a large number of first-hand archives, literature and periodicals, oral interviews and other historical materials to not only clearly explain the ins and outs of the introduction project, but also try to present how different groups of people are built and how they live in the specific time and space of "concentrating on big things". At this point, the curiosity of the reader who wants to understand the history of this event has been satisfied. The "construction site society" proposed by the author, as well as the analysis of the existence of the construction site society formed by the construction of this project and its operation mechanism, need to be considered and discussed by more professional readers.
"Shouting Mountain Response"
Wang Yuewen/Author, Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House, September 2021 edition
Recommender: Gu Ming
Wang Yuewen, a famous writer known for his novels depicting officialdom, such as "The Great Qing Xiangguo" and "Chinese Painting", launched a collection of essays at the end of last year, "Shouting Mountain Ying". The book consists of three parts, namely "My Literary Hometown", which recalls childhood and hometown, and "My Literary Creation" and "My Literary Review", so the subtitle of the new book is "Review of Literature and Life". Teacher Wang Yuewen said that he used the original meaning of the word "review" here: summary analysis and research.
About childhood and hometown, let's not say, two articles about literary creation are very interesting. Teacher Wang Yuewen recalled his writing path, how to receive literary enlightenment in a junior college, assigned to a government agency as a civil servant after graduation, during which he began to publish his works, and finally wrote full-time. He carefully analyzes some of the important works he considers important, the characters and ideas in them, the inadequacies and prides, and the reactions of the readers that these works evoke. For example, the character Zhu Huaijing in "Chinese Painting", painstakingly operated in the official field, although not a big traitor, but also smooth and selfish, playing with power, the result of such a character is recognized and understood by many readers, Wang Yuewen analyzed in the book: "It shows that the moral expectations of officials Chinese are not high, and even shows that the moral standards of Chinese are degraded. A sentence of 'the common feelings of man', or a sentence of 'man in the jianghu', can dissolve all principles, morals, right and wrong. It's something very bad about our national character. Another example is the historical "Great Qing Xiangguo", Chen Tingjing of the Kangxi Dynasty was a Qing official, a capable official, a good official, and a moral official, but he was not very famous and seemed to have been forgotten by history. In Wang Yuewen's view, Chen Tingjing can be regarded as an ideal model of the way of being an official, he is clean and capable, but he is also as good as a stream, not a cool official, nor does he boast of high morality, so he is an official who has died for more than fifty years, and the Kangxi Emperor evaluates him: he can be called a whole person. Here, Wang Yuewen reminded that rather than corrupt officials, we should be more vigilant against so-called clean officials who sell their reputations and fish for reputation. Through the analysis of his own works, Wang Yuewen wrote the style of Lu Xun's essays, pinpointing the shortcomings of the times, and also talked about the inferiority of the people, what is good literature, whether literature is dead, serious literature and fast food literature, electronic reading, and so on. Although he does not agree with some of the literary views expressed by Wang Yuewen in the book, such as his contempt for the exploration of novels in formal innovation, and believes that telling good stories is the mainstream of literature, such as his understanding of realism, he has to admire Wang Yuewen's bold and outspoken words, bravely telling the truth and telling the truth, just like his Hunan character, Xiangchu fanatic.
Living Chinese Gardens: A Reinvention of Tradition from Classical to Contemporary
Tang Keyang/Author, Beijing Yanshan Publishing House, October 2021 edition
Recommended by: Zhu Fan
At a time when it is inconvenient to travel, "living Chinese gardens" are becoming more and more desirable. Compared with walking around and looking at flowers in today's "museum-like" gardens, reading this book provides a richer level for viewing gardens, historical, literary, man-made, natural, architectural, artistic... Different perspectives overlap to create a changing vein of Chinese gardens. There is also a perspective between East and West. The author of this book was inspired by an exhibition of the same title in 2008 at the State Art Collection in Dresden, Germany, and the Pavilion Pirnitz is itself an example of the prevalence of "Chinese style" in Europe in the 18th century. The Western vision also influences the way we look at the garden today, the title page folio is "the garden under the lens of a photographer", this photo is mentioned many times later, a description reads: "The two protagonists in the picture who are across the water from the photographer do not know whether they are the actual owners of the garden, and the look in their eyes is neither resistance nor true freedom." For the author, this photograph, which is taken at an unknown time and place, records an important moment in the history of Chinese gardens, where private gardens are open to photographers who may have come from the West, and the photographed become part of the landscape, while reflecting the photographer's own surprise. Whether classical gardens are obsolete or are being revived, whether in imagination or reality, the beauty of gardens still easily touches people's hearts.
Frozen Clouds: Forty Years of Memories of a Republic Peer
Wu Changsheng/Author, Social Sciences Academic Press, January 2022 edition
Recommender: Zhong Yuan
When a person looks back on his own life, it seems that he can use the phrase "everything is a floating cloud", after all, no matter how unforgettable his personal experience and experience, it is just a floating cloud in the sky of history. However, in the end, some floating clouds are difficult to disperse for a long time, because these "frozen floating clouds" not only belong to individuals, but also belong to nations and countries, and they should not be forgotten and should not be annihilated, otherwise they will once again fall into confusion and difficulty in the road ahead.
Frozen Floating Clouds: Forty Years of Life Memories of a Republic Peer is a memoir by Wu Changsheng, senior editor of People's Daily and former director of the International Department, covering the period from 1948 to 1988. "Childhood Past" recounts the author's childhood and the process of his parents' extended family from the old to the new around 1949; "Juvenile Wind and Rain" recounts the author's study and life in Beijing No. 4 Middle School from 1961 to 1968; "Tibet Years" recounts the author's experience of joining the team and engaging in journalism work in Tibet from 1968 to 1980; "Drumming and Shouting for Reform and Opening Up" describes the author's work history in the rural department of the People's Daily in the 1980s. Mr. Wu Changsheng's account is clear and vivid, and his personal life history is placed in family history and social history, and historical details are woven under the background of the times. This book is a masterpiece of memoirs and a good book for understanding the history of the Republic.
Raising Good Children: Ethics and Child Development
Xu Jing/Author Zhu Yuqing/Translation Xu Jing/Approval, East China Normal University Press, May 2021 edition
Recommended by: Han Shaohua
"Raising Good Children" is not a guide to raising children, but a clear and clear reference to how to cooperate with "good children". The author, Xu Jing, holds a bachelor's and master's degree from Tsinghua University, obtained a doctorate degree in the United States and completed a postdoctoral research in developmental psychology, focusing on how the socio-cultural environment and psychological cognitive mechanisms work together to shape human moral development. Excerpt from the book:
...... The dilemma faced by contemporary parents in moral cultivation. This dilemma manifests itself on multiple levels.
First, parents are disoriented because in moral education it is difficult to choose between multiple conflicting values. For example, when Mr. Jinqi falls, according to the Chinese method, especially the grandparents, they immediately want to protect the child and lift him up immediately, while according to the (imaginary) Western norms pursued by the young parents, they do not intervene, but cultivate the child's independent character.
Second, there is a contradiction between saying and doing, because parents' behavior sometimes conflicts with their words, and moral education ideas often conflict with what children encounter in reality. For example, Kinch's maternal grandparents say that even though his mother philosophically prefers Western norms, in real life, she doesn't always follow those norms.
Third, some parents believe that this is an immoral world, and it is difficult to achieve a balance between children's moral indoctrination and successful future survival, so they are helpless. A person's socialization strategy is inevitably entangled with other people's perspectives and choices, or more accurately, depends on predictions of the other person's behavior. As Kinch's maternal grandfather lamented, you're in trouble when your ideas conflict with those of most people. Moreover, these dilemmas are intertwined in daily educational activities.
Disenchantment: The Transmutation of Celestial Induction, Modern Science, and the Concept of the Late Qing Universe
Zhang Hongbin/Author, Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, December 2021 edition
Recommended by: Huang Xiaofeng
On page 1, the author clearly states the purpose of the study: "This book seeks to answer the central question: How did the traditional Chinese's belief in heaven, heaven, and various personalities and gods encountered and how it changed in the late Qing Dynasty?" In the first chapter, the author discusses the greatest common denominator that defines Chinese religion, which in his view is based on an "organic cosmology" and two subsystems of "pantheism" and "polytheism." The definition of religion, especially Chinese religion, has shown an increasingly broad trend, but the use of "pantheism" to cover so many qualities, the author has his own considerations: "There are the following reasons: First, the objects of belief in the Chinese religious tradition include both personal gods and impersonal gods... Second, most of the objects of belief in the Chinese religious tradition are not 'omniscient and all-powerful' and 'infinite' like the Christian God, so the abstract concept of "infinite existence" cannot summarize all the objects of belief in Chinese religion. Third, the personality god in Chinese religion does not precede the universe; on the other hand, the impersonal divine existence in Chinese religion is often equivalent to the universe and its order, and therefore not 'supernatural'. Therefore, the use of 'supernatural existence' to describe the object of belief of Chinese religion is not very appropriate. (pp. 18-19)
This is reminiscent of Toynbee's distinction in A Historian's View of Religion: "One view sees the rhythms of the universe as cyclical motions governed by impersonal laws... Another basic view is to think of the rhythm of the universe as a non-repetitive motion governed by reason and will. Toynbee believed that the representative of the latter view was Christianity. Perhaps, the author's use of the concept of "pantheism" is based on the response of modern Chinese intellectuals to Christianity (including Catholicism and Protestantism), because in modern times, in the field of religious belief, the biggest impact on traditional China is Western Christianity, in order to resist or oppose, Chinese consider various options, both local traditional resources such as Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and even folk beliefs and witchcraft, as well as other foreign religious belief resources. To include these resources, only the greatest common divisor can be sought.
The author then discusses some cases from the "three talents" of the heavens and the earth, indicating that the traditional sacredness of heaven has been impacted in modern times, that is, disenchantment. Among them, the chapter "Disenchantment of Heaven" discusses comets and praying for rain, the chapter of "Disenchantment of The Earth" discusses earthquakes and feng shui, and the chapter "Disenchantment of Man" discusses diseases and souls. Western missionaries, as well as domestic believers, fiercely criticized these areas. For example, in the article "Speaking of Rain", Hu Shi, who was 15 years old at the time, first concluded that rainfall had nothing to do with supernatural forces (Shinto, Rain Master, Dragon God), and then when explaining that sometimes asking for rain would really come true, he thought that "even the fumigated gas of the crowd can make a great change in the air, let alone use the sound of this gong and drum to shake this air." This naïve explanation, the author says, shows scientific arrogance in an exaggerated way, deconstructs miracles with science, seeks to drive away any supernatural force, limits the causality of anything to this shore world, and bravely moves forward even if the force is unable to catch it. (117 pages)
In the section on the disenchantment of the concept of the soul, the author points out: "The traditional Chinese mainstream concept of the vaporized soul logically tends to deny the knowledge after death, which can easily lead to the denial of the long-term existence of life after death, while funeral rites and ritual sacrifices need to set up the long-term existence of personified afterlife (ghosts), so it is inevitable to fall into a logical dilemma. (p. 201) However, according to my understanding, this contradiction of the concept of vaporizing the soul has been well resolved by Song Ru, and the Qing Ren Ji Yun also has an explanation in the Notes on Reading Wei Caotang, although it is a non-scientific explanation, it is still self-consistent.
In the fifth and sixth chapters, the author discusses the significance of mechanical cosmology and celestial evolution to China, which is a very wonderful part of the book, but it is interesting that Western natural theology strives to incorporate scientific rationality into religion and rationalize religion. This line of thinking in China encounters pantheistic thinking, Chinese can accept scientific reason, but it feels unnecessary for God who transcends the universe and creates the universe. And because the heavenly speech has removed God's seat, Chinese is easily acceptable.
The author believes: "Modern scientific knowledge in the late Qing Dynasty actually provides two different scientific cosmology, one is the mechanical cosmology of Newton's paradigm, and the other is the organic cosmology represented by the theory of heaven. Chinese religion and Christianity, on the other hand, have very different views of God and cosmology, and their understanding of the relationship between God and the universe is also very different, which makes Chinese religion and Christianity respond almost completely oppositely when facing these two scientific cosmology. The mechanical cosmology has added wings to Christianity, but it has made Chinese religion a great enemy; the theory of heavenly speech is like sending charcoal in the snow to Chinese religion, and it is worse for Christianity. Two different religious traditions react very differently to two different scientific cosmology. (p. 289)
From this point of view, the "disenchantment" of modern China seems to be difficult to say successful, on the one hand, Chinese will accept an explanatory framework that is more ironed with its own cultural traditions, and has nothing to do with whether this framework is more scientific and rational; on the other hand, Chinese pantheism is quite elastic, as the author quoted by Cheng Yi explains: "The heaven is called in terms of form, the emperor is called emperor by domination, the ghost god is called by function, the god is called god with magic, and the dry is called dry by temperament." "The history of the entire twentieth century has shown that we are extremely gifted in creating sanctity, or "restoration."
"Mountains and Rivers Chronicle: Journey to the Discovery of the Third Pole- Notes on Zang Mu's Scientific Investigation"
Zang Mu/Author, Jiangsu Phoenix Science and Technology Press, December 2020 edition
Recommended by: Zheng Shiliang
"Yamakawa Kiyuki: Journey to the Discovery of the Third Pole : Notes on Zang Mu's Scientific Expedition" is the best book I have read this year, and probably one of the most beautiful books I have ever read.
Mr. Zang Mu (1930-2011) was a researcher at the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, plant taxonomist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Professor Wang Wencai in the "preface" of this book, calling Mr. Zang Mu "an internationally renowned mycologist". This photocopy of "Mountains and Rivers Chronicle" brings together the scientific expedition diary written by Mr. Zang Mu when he participated in the first Comprehensive Scientific Expedition to Qinghai-Tibet, spanning from 1975 to 2000.
I know nothing about mycology, and I only have some common sense accumulated out of naturalistic hobbies, but Mr. Zang's scientific expedition diary makes me fall in love with it. One big reason is that this book is very formal. Mr. Zang wrote juanxiu's pen and small characters, all kinds of pictures drawn, from the color pictures of plants and fungi, to the famous mountains and rivers such as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the Hengduan Mountains, and the Emei Mountains, all of which were exquisitely presented through excellent editing work.
Inside page of "Yamakawa Kiyuki"
Mr. Zang has a clear and onerous specimen collection task every time he goes out on a field expedition, and his field diary is both a supplement to the collection work and an interest to him. He himself recalls: "I drew a sketch of the scene with a pencil and filled my head with color under the candle at night. Remember every day, on the one hand, is the need to collect specimens, if you do not record, the habitat of the specimens collected to nowhere is known. On the one hand, the scenery is very beautiful and charming. On the road, I rely on my brain to remember the color. So I always buy a little paint before I leave, and when I sort out the materials at night, I can't fill in the colors according to my memories. When I come back at night, I always sort out the specimens first, bake the specimens, that is, burn some charcoal, put an iron plate to bake, and when it is dry, I will quickly wrap it up, and then write a diary and fill in the color, so generally I can sleep at one or two o'clock in the middle of the night. Mr. Zang's attitude reminds me of what Hunan people love to say, "Eat bitterly and be patient."
In addition, what I marvel at is the beauty of Mr. Zang's words. As recorded on September 19, 1982: "The Pingba in Nitto is about 2 kilometers long in agricultural reclamation. The barley is being harvested and the wheat has turned yellow. The distant mountains surrounding the company are straight spruce trees and some broad-leaved trees. Pine rose is a clear tone, like the stone green sprinkled by the monk Shi Tao. From the south side of the picture, it is not a tall fir. This is a secondary seedling that has been destroyed and regenerated later, dark green, which appears noble and solemn. Their location is irregular, sparse, but beautiful. On a rare sunny day, the bright sun makes people dazzling. The blue sky, I forgot to go to the color. At the top of the distant mountain is a fir forest, which looks very pure and pure. Autumn is a delight and a joy, although there is another autumn rain in the afternoon. Such precise and emotional words are probably rare for writers to write.
Mr. Zang likes to use Chinese painting as an analogy, in addition to the aforementioned Shi Tao monks, he also often mentions Mi Fu, Ren Bonian, Wu Changshuo, Xu Gu, Qi Baishi, Huang Binhong, Fu Baoshi, Li Keyan and other calligraphers and painters. As recorded on October 10, 1976: "One day in the rain, all I saw was the inky landscape of rice and the beauty of Emei, and I saw it today." Another example is the record on June 8, 1980: "In the morning, we travel east from Shigatse to Gyantse." There are very few plants seen along the road, and there is almost no vegetation on the hillside, only a pure ochre brown, but the rock layers are crisscrossed, quite similar to the brushwork used by Huang Binhong and Fu Baoshi, and only trees are missing. Li Keyan's influence on Mr. Zang was particularly great, so he repeatedly greeted him in his diary, as recorded on August 8, 1978: "Lushui County is a very small mountain town. After nightfall, a few sloping mercury street lights can illuminate the nearby seven-up-and-eight mountain road. Several two-story buildings, white pink walls, black tile roofs, some like Li Keyan's painting of a house in the rain of the Li River. But the surrounding mountains are much stronger. Because of the continuous night rain, you can't see the stars in the sky, otherwise, you should feel that it is far away from space, not too far away. "This is the best illustration of Li Ke's painting that I have ever read. And such a poetic text can be described as a place to be found in the book.
Mr. Zang has had a wide range of hobbies since childhood, and has been engaged in scientific work since he was a long time, but he does not waste his love for calligraphy, painting and poetry, and his original intention has not changed until he is old, and he will always maintain the heart of a child. There are Si people, and there are Si shu also.
"She Smokes a Cigarette with a Mint Flavor"
Jie Zhang, Flower City Press, August 2011 edition
Recommended by: Ding Xiongfei
On January 21 this year, writer Zhang Jie died in the United States at the age of 85. This collection of essays includes Zhang Jie's most famous short-to-medium masterpieces, "Love, Can't Be Forgotten", "Emeralds", "She Smoked a Cigarette with a Mint Flavor", "A Life Is Too Long" (unfortunately confiscated the same famous "Child from the Forest"), as well as two interviews and three comments from others. Today, in 2022, reading Zhang Jie's novels written in the late 1970s, mid-1980s and early 1990s, those slightly unfamiliar terms, full of adjectives, and vivid and straightforward metaphors make people feel like they are in a trance. "What I hold in my hand is not a lifeless, fleshless word, but a burning heart full of love and pain." "Very important things did happen, but he couldn't remember what it was. He remembered only one woman, smoking a cigarette with a mint flavor. The fiery emotions, the entangled men and women, are the origins of our time.
A Study of Folk Beliefs in the Southern and Northern Dynasties of the Wei and Jin Dynasties
Chu Xiaojun/Author, Sichuan University Press, October 2021
The religious beliefs of the Wei and Jin Dynasties and the Southern and Northern Dynasties, in my opinion, are a bit like the process of various religious beliefs grabbing the track on the short-track speed skating track after hearing the starting gun, as the author points out: "During the Wei and Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties, the ethical values propagated by Confucianism were impacted, and new values such as Taoism, Buddhism and other ideas continued to exert influence on the people. There is a sense of confusion. It is also this sense of confusion that has led to the formation of a situation of pluralism of beliefs. (p. 64)
Personally, I feel that at that time, Confucianism had formed a mature model and run-in with the regime through the development of the two Han Dynasties, while Buddhism, Taoism and folk beliefs with the underworld as the core were still in their childhood, and there were many borrowed, distorted, integrated, and taken away from each other between their core concepts. For example, when the author discusses "Folk Witchcraft in the Southern and Northern Dynasties of the Wei and Jin Dynasties" in the third chapter, he divides it into traditional witchcraft, Buddhist witchcraft, and Taoist witchcraft to introduce the fierce struggle between the three. The author argues that "the status of traditional witchcraft has declined dramatically, and the influence of Buddhism and Taoism has been expanding" (p. 157). In the fourth chapter on the worship of folk gods, the author argues that "although the influence of the Western Queen Mother weakened during the Wei and Jin Dynasties, she was still active in people's daily lives. Due to different regions, the forms of the beliefs of the Queen Mother of the West are also different. But the general point has not changed, that is, the West Queen Mother is the representative of 'immortality', inheriting the main content of the West Queen Mother's belief since the Warring States. As for the role of the "savior god" of the Western Queen Mother that appeared in the Han Dynasty, it was not inherited during the Wei and Jin Dynasties, that is because a new god appeared and replaced this priesthood. (p. 219) This new deity is the Buddhist guanyin, which is embodied in "the emergence of a large number of Avalokiteshvara sutras, the emergence of a large number of Avalokiteshvara stories, and the emergence of a large number of Avalokiteshvara statues." (p. 221) In the imaginary realm of the concept of life and death, that is, the afterlife world, Buddhist and Taoist concepts are used by the underworld. For example, the Buddhist concept of reincarnation, if it is based on pranayama theory, necessarily denies that the spiritual subject in reincarnation still exists, which is absolutely unacceptable to the traditional Chinese concept of death and ghost. Therefore, the theory of "immortality" and "three real beings" advocated by Dao'an's disciple Hui Yuan, although according to Buddhist doctrine, belongs to the conventional truth, and is only a stage of realizing the truth of victory and righteousness, it seems to be more acceptable to the underworld than the concept of "bearing burdens" proposed in the Taoist "Taiping Sutra", thus forming a unique reincarnation of the underworld that integrates karma and reincarnation.
Therefore, from a technical point of view, it is precisely during this period that folk beliefs have absorbed a large number of various teachings and rituals of Buddhism and Taoism, without losing their practical characteristics, and have become more suitable for the development of social history. For example, the gods of the underworld that we are familiar with now, the king of Yan Luo, and the bodhisattva jizo, etc., originally began to appear in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Western Queen Mother and the Eastern Prince have always appeared as witnesses to the contract or land sellers, and there has been no change until modern times. On the contrary, in the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were funeral rites after the death of monks and Taoists, but they made contracts in accordance with the format of private land purchase vouchers.
Whether it is Taoism or Buddhism, while grabbing the runway, it is also necessary to strive to consciously move closer to and submit to the secular regime. In the words of Dao'an, a senior monk of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, it is said, "If you do not follow the lord of the country, it is difficult to establish the law." Of course, at the level of Dao'an, Huiyuan, Kou Qianzhi, and Tao Hongjing, they no longer belong to the category of folk beliefs.
"I Am the Beginning of Summer"
Yoko/Author, Writer Publishing, May 2021 edition
Recommended by: Zang Jixian
This is a collection of novels containing six novellas by the author. The novel is fast-paced, and although it is six different stories, I still want to read it in one sitting. After reading the first article "I am Xia Shizhi", I found that this was the new work of Yu Geng, the original author of the TV series "I am Yu Huanshui", and then suddenly realized - accidentally fell into the "Shuangwen Pit". "I am Yu Huanshui" was a hit three years ago, although the TV series and novels have been read, but the plot has been forgotten for a long time. In the collection of novels "I Am Xia Shizhi", there are three related to culture - vinyl records, man and nature, and Song and Yuan famous paintings, which are not quite the same as the realistic themes of "I Am Yu Huanshui", but the author can still create a fascinating story. However, I still prefer Yu Geng's realistic themes, sharp and unpretentious. "I am Xia Shizhi" is a bit like the female version of "I am Yu Huanshui", but unlike Yu Huanshui's counterattack, when the heroine Xia Shizhi encountered unfair treatment, most of them chose to swallow their anger, although the final ending was not so bad, in fact, it can also be regarded as a compromise result. There were some typos in the e-book version I read, maybe the novel was so good that the editor forgot to fine-tune the text.
Striving for Power with Axioms: A Biography of Gu Weijun
Jin Guangyao/Author, Social Science Literature Publishing House, December 2021 edition
Recommended by: Shanshan Peng
The 400,000-word biography of Gu Weijun is the ups and downs of a generation of Chinese professional diplomats and the epitome of the diplomacy of the entire Republic of China. Gu Weijun's diplomatic career has gone through various periods from Yuan Shikai to Chiang Kai-shek's defeat in Taiwan, and is unique among diplomats of his generation.
The most impressive part of the reading process is undoubtedly the bitterness and helplessness of a hesitant professional diplomat in the face of the political whirlpool. Gu Weijun's Paris eloquence was a highlight moment of "fighting for power with justice" and a key stroke of China's modern diplomacy; but in the face of contradictions within the delegation, Gu Weijun, who was still young at the time, lacked experience in coping, and this internal strife also left a long-term impact on his heart. Since then, he has served as the chief of foreign affairs in the Beiyang government many times, promoting the revision of treaty diplomacy, abolishing unequal treaties, and making great achievements abroad, but at home he still tastes bitter taste in the tilt of factional politics. When his brilliant career was coming to an end, retirement and departure inevitably experienced embarrassment and gloom in political struggle: Chiang Kai-shek had a new candidate for Washington, D.C., was greatly dissatisfied with Gu's failure to offer his resignation, and said in his diary that he "did not know himself, but what"; when Gu Weijun asked for permission to resign and leave Chiang Kai-shek's official residence, Chiang Kai-shek got up and sent him to the door of the living room, but did not accompany him out and send him to the car as before--gu still clearly remembers this detail when he dictated his memories more than a decade later. He did not make a comment, leaving only a "difficult for ambassadors" news commentary clippings.
Professor Jin Guangyao, the author of this book, has long studied Gu Weijun, and at the end of the last century, he went to Columbia University to consult a large number of documents donated by Gu Weijun to his alma mater, and had contacts with Gu Weijun's relatives Yan Youyun, Gu Juzhen, Yang Xuelan, Xu Jingcan, etc. The latter provided information help without asking about the evaluation of the characters, which can be described as a rare research condition. The author published a 200,000-word biography of Gu Weijun in 1999, and this time doubled the length of the old edition to rewrite the new biography, including fresh materials collected in recent years, solving important problems that were vague in the past, which is worth reading.
"Diary of a Mountain Tour"
Shu Menglan/Author, Yu Shujuan/Finishing, Zhonghua Bookstore, November 2021 edition
Recommender: Fang Xiaoyan
"Youshan Diary" is the "White Fragrant Dictionary" author Shu Menglan's diary of the 100 days of summer lushan at the age of forty-six, Zhou Zuoren and Lin Yutang are extremely promising, specially wrote articles on its wonders, the earliest point schooler Mr. Zhou Shao also said, this is "an idle book, idle is good, idle article, idle humor, idle can be sophisticated, idle can reach people" - such a small book that is not hard, idle to write, full of "don't worry" and "nothing to be busy" is really very suitable to say busy and busy. It's boring to look at in the New Year's Festival.
Shu Menglan said to himself in his diary, "The things that I enjoy are only a few ends. Inside and temperament articles, outside and landscape friends", and "literati things", "is there any other?" With his true disposition, he talks about his heart, and there is no mannerism." Therefore, his life in the mountains is full of freshness and elegance, full of the meaning of literati sketches, such as drinking and pecking, reading books and discussing the Tao, watching clouds and listening to rain, and even suffering from the freezing of cooking. For example, it is written that the mountain monk "shaved his hair in order to give the edict, the cave belonged to the genus, and he wanted to fall with a knife in his hand." Fear it or hurt it, and stop halfway. The monk was ashamed, and gave the day: 'Harmless. He shaved the monk's head and galloped at will. Imami I am different from the monk, so I can't be at ease, and the foot monster is also. Another example is to write that the mountain vegetables are exhausted and then the pumpkin leaves and wild baskets are boiled, and the author remembers the past when he was hired by Prince Yigong in the palace: "In the past, when he tasted food for Prince Yigong, he was ashamed of dozens of utensils, and Wang Yu asked: 'Who has quite something new and delicious in the near future?'" He smiled and said, "Withdraw all the dishes, leave a thing at will, and eat until the sun is full of food, and all of them will be delicious." The king also laughed. As for the "night, the tower bells talk, the cool moon is in the window, the crickets groan, and the miserable" is even more overlooked.
The diary is an article, extremely temperamental, Shu Menglan was brilliant when he was young, but he was embarrassed by the field house, and when he was thirty-seven years old, he was desperate to be on the field after the Beimin Autumn Test was once again on the list, and from this diary, it seemed that his chest was a peaceful and relaxed way of poverty and happiness, "the drama pity of the mountains lived in the past, and he liked to hear the sound of the spring and wake up all night", those who were entangled in poverty and illness and self-injury all the time had vaguely retreated to his interest in people and things.