Author: Ma Rujun, President of New Star Publishing House.
The excellent traditional Chinese culture has lasted for thousands of years, and to a large extent, it is realized by taking the lifestyle as the carrier and relying on the family from generation to generation. Yao Renxiang's "Heirloom: The Wisdom of Chinese Life", as a set of encyclopedias about the daily life of Chinese families, has been published by Xinxing Publishing House for more than ten years, updated four editions in ten years, and sold more than 300,000 sets, which has played a positive role in inheriting the excellent traditional Chinese culture.
Ten years later, there was this "Family Biography" again. Without "Heirloom", there would be no "Family Heirloom", because the latter is mostly compiled from the former. On the 10th anniversary of the publication of "Heirloom", I hoped to do something commemorative, so I discussed with Mr. Ren Xiang to extract the narrative text in this set of four volumes of "Heirloom" and make a separate book, Mr. Ren Xiang agreed and made it. Therefore, if "Heirloom" is a "useful book" because it tells how Chinese should live exquisitely, then "Family Heirloom" is a "useless book" because it is only a story interspersed in "Heirloom", which has no utility compared to the main body, and is a "useless book".
It is impossible not to talk about "Family Heirloom" when talking about "Family Heirloom".
Heirlooms is a set of books written by mothers to their children. According to Mr. Yao Renxi, the husband of Mr. Ren Xiang, after his eldest daughter went to college in the United States, Ren Xiang really made up his mind to publish "Heirloom". He said that when her daughter had to leave home to go to college, the mother drove her daughter from the West Coast of the United States and began the three-day, 3,000-mile journey, making her last admonitions before leaving home. After returning to Taipei, Ren Xiang finally set the ultimate goal of this set of books - "heirloom". She wants to completely pass on the wisdom of life of the Chinese people that she knows to our next generation.
Teacher Ren Xiang's compilation of "Heirloom" is natural, she divides the volume into four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter, according to the six categories of "atmosphere life", "festivals of the year", "food as the sky", "ingenuity and craftsmanship", "family heart language" and "life notes", in a ** and lush way, vividly telling the daily clothing, food, housing, transportation, household use and etiquette of Chinese. This set of books is beautifully written and instructive, and the illustrations are good enough to follow the map, so it is no wonder that Mr. Bai Xianyong called it "an encyclopedia of beauty".
Talking about "Family Biography", it is impossible not to talk about Teacher Ren Xiang.
I have heard of Mr. Ren Xiang's reputation for a long time, but after I worked for New Star Publishing House, I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Ren Xiang, and the first time I met her was in Beijing in April 218. Mr. Ren Xiang has always hoped to translate "Heirloom" into English and publish it overseas, so that more foreign readers can understand the beauty of excellent traditional Chinese culture.
To this end, I arranged a meeting between Mr. Ren Xiang and overseas publishers. I took Ms. Lucy, the copyright director of HarperCollins Publishing Group, to a conference room in the East Third Ring Road and met Mr. Ren Xiang for the first time. After a brief pleasantries, the two sides went straight to the point. Teacher Ren Xiang told Ms. Lucy in English throughout the whole process, which not only expressed the deep affection and sincerity of a mother who hopes that her children will inherit the traditional family style, but also accurately conveyed the unique beauty of Chinese life wisdom.
This communication made the international copyright expert impressed with "Heirloom", and she agreed on the spot to recommend "Heirloom" to her editorial colleagues in the United Kingdom and the United States. This meeting also led to the publication of the English version of "Heirloom" in the United Kingdom in 221 and the sale of books in Europe and the United States. It seems that the spread of good things can transcend cultural differences.
Talking about "Family Biography", it is inseparable from Mr. Ren Xiang's daily life of Chinese people.
In Mr. Ren Xiang's view, the inheritance of family is in the taste of one meal at a time. As the saying goes, "the people take food as the sky", Mr. Ren Xiang also has a soft spot for food, and in this family, "the emperor eats big"! "Heirloom" has a special category of "food as the sky", which tells a lot about the diet of Chinese, and often involves food-related content in other categories, and there are seven stories related to food at the beginning of "Family Biography".
Once, I talked to Mr. Ren Xiang about fried noodles, and Mr. Ren Xiang said that it was difficult to buy authentic yellow sauce in Taipei. My family often went to an old grocery store in an alley on the edge of Beihai Park to buy a kind of dried yellow sauce, and it tasted very good, so I bought some for her. When Mr. Ren Xiang returned to Taipei, he immediately tried to make fried sauce with Beijing's old-fashioned dried yellow sauce, and sure enough, it was still a traditional and authentic taste. Mr. Ren Xiang specially sent a ** for making fried noodles with his own hands, and asked me to tell the shop master to keep the production skills of dry yellow sauce when I was free.
Teacher Ren Xiang attaches great importance to eating, in her eyes, taste is a person's food memory, and "stomach tract is a person's food memory bit by bit accumulation", in fact, let the whole family spend more time together, "go home to eat" is the best solution. Teacher Ren Xiang's dietary logic is: I don't know that when the taste of my own family is set, the natural stomach tract will be used to it, and parents really need to think twice! A warm home must be able to exude a healthy and unique heritage, so that children's memories linger!
In Mr. Ren Xiang's view, the inheritance of the family is also in the daily life of words and deeds. 2. On August 17, 18, I invited Mr. Ren Xiang to give a lecture on "Heirloom" in Shanghai. Unexpectedly, a strong typhoon swept through Shanghai the night before, and I was secretly worried about whether it would affect the flight from Taipei to Shanghai. Fortunately, the next afternoon, the wind and the sun were beautiful, and Mr. Ren Xiang came to the Jiantou Bookstore on the bank of the Huangpu River on time.
Teacher Ren Xiang talked eloquently, witty words, and unconsciously, the two-hour speech ended in bursts of applause. When I took the stage to thank me, I raised my eyes and saw Mr. Yao Renxi, the husband of Mr. Ren Xiang, quietly appearing, standing on the sidelines, looking at Mr. Ren Xiang on the stage. Later, I learned that Mr. Renxi made a special trip to accompany Mr. Ren Xiang to Shanghai. I suddenly remembered that today was "Tanabata".
In "Family Biography", Mr. Ren Xiang also vividly described the daily words and deeds of his father. In her memory, her father was warm-hearted and kind, always caring for the most needy and vulnerable. When the author was in elementary school, his father was the president of the parent-teacher association, and the teachers were poorly paid at that time, so he especially helped them set up the "Employee Welfare Committee", which was unheard of at that time! Fathers are kind to people, not only out of concern and action, but also never say anything that hurts people's self-esteem.
There is such a detail in "Family Biography": (The author) did not get good grades in junior high school, and once the school teacher invited him to go, thinking that he would lose face, and he was very ashamed, worried that he would count me down when he came back. Unexpectedly, as soon as he entered the door, he said: "The teacher said that you love to laugh, I am very happy to hear it!" Girls just have to smile, in the future, when the husband comes home after a tired day, his wife has a stinky face, so how can he do it! I'll tell you, with a smile and good grades, of course I want you to smile! All you need to do is pass 60 points! ”
In Mr. Ren Xiang's view, the inheritance of the family is still in the etiquette of going back and forth. In the early summer of the year, I met Mr. Ren Xiang again in a courtyard near the Summer Palace in Beijing, and Mr. Ren Xiang first gave me a seasonal dim sum in a bamboo basket, which was handmade and made by herself. In fact, most of the clothing and food items shown in the ** and drawings in "Heirloom" are from the hands of Mr. Ren Xiang. Mr. Ren Xiang always sends gifts from Taipei in different seasons, including homemade soap that looks like dim sum, private oolongs that look like fragrant rice dumplings, and pottery seal ...... engraved with the words "24 solar terms" in different seasonsOver the years, I have always inadvertently received surprises from Taipei, even if it is the epidemic for three years.
In "Family Biography", Mr. Ren Xiang incisively summarized the truth of Chinese courtesy: the first thing to understand is the object of gift-giving, and generally need to understand the background first so as not to send the wrong one; The second is "do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you"; Then it is to entrust a florist to give gifts, and you must explain the use and nature to avoid taboos, and it is better if you can choose it yourself; Finally, don't touch things that you are not good at, because the risk is too great, and you may offend people if you spend a lot of money.
Of course, the transmission of good things needs to go beyond material gains. When we were working on the fourth edition of "Heirloom", Mr. Ren Xiang asked me, can I lower the new version of **? I know that Mr. Ren Xiang not only paid out of his own pocket to make "Heirloom", but also gave up all the royalties. Just imagine, the price is hundreds of yuan, hundreds of thousands of copies are sold, and the royalty income is naturally expensive. Teacher Ren Xiang did this because he never forgot Mr. Nan Huaijin's entrustment to let more ordinary people read "Heirloom".
I have no reason not to agree to Mr. Ren Xiang, so the ** of "Heirloom" has dropped from the original 560 yuan to today's 480 yuan, which is probably not many exceptions at a time when the price of books is only rising and not falling every year. The price of this "Family Biography" is less than 100 yuan, although the "useful" content is abandoned, but as a "useless book", it may be more beneficial for more ordinary readers to understand the excellent traditional Chinese culture.
Originally, Mr. Ren Xiang made "Heirloom" in order to pass on good things in his own home; Later, the English version of "Heirloom" was made in order to pass on the good things to the outside, and later, to make this "Family Biography", Mr. Ren Xiang hoped that every family should pass on the beauty of their own family from generation to generation. In fact, the excellent traditional Chinese culture is precisely in the "beauty of each beauty, beauty and beauty", to achieve continuous inheritance and continuation.
Like the Heirloom, the binding retains its inherent and unique beauty, but the Heirloom focuses on the beauty of color, while the Heirloom is more sober and elegant. Holding this "Family Biography" in his hand, it is like holding a letter from home that he has just received, warm and cordial. To borrow a phrase from the end of the book "Family Biography", this family heirloom is given to many people: many people who cherish the unique cultural wisdom that we have passed down from generation to generation.
Source: CIPG).