Capturing Chinese — Zhu Ziqing

The next book in the Capturing Chinese series is almost out!  We are reading over the final draft of the book before shipping it off for publication.  This book takes a departure from the previous books in our series in that we have used five different Chinese authors.  They are: Lu Xun, Zhu Ziqing, Hu Shi, Zhou Zuoren, and Lin Yutang. We have picked some of the most influential pieces of literature from these five authors and formed a collection of Chinese stories called "Capturing Chinese Stories: Prose and Poems by Revolutionary Chinese Authors". Each one of these authors has played an instrumental role in China and having a grasp of them and their work will lead insight into China's past and present.  Learning Chinese through literature is the backbone of the Capturing Chinese philosophy.  As always, each story includes a short summary, footnotes for difficult vocabulary, pinyin located at the end of each story, as well as an author introduction.  Audio files will also be included free of charge with each purchase of the book.  The audio files will include a male and female native speaker and will be available later this year. Capturing Chinese Stories: Prose and Poems by Revolutionary Chinese Authors has been requested by several Chinese professors to be used in their Chinese literature course.  Each new book in our series quickly becomes our favorite.  Some of the stories are absolute must reads for Chinese students.  The stories are famous throughout China and many make up the course syllabus of young Chinese students in Mainland China. Capturing Chinese Stories: Prose and Poems by Revolutionary Chinese Authors includes the following prose and poems: Zhu Ziqing Haste, Spring, The Silhouette of His Back, The Moonlit Lotus Pond, The White Man — God’s Proud Son, Thinking of Wei Woqing Lu Xun Excerpts from Wild Grass: Epigraph, Autumn Night, Hope, and The Evolution of the Male Sex Hu Shi Mr. Almost Man, My Mother, and In Memory of Zhimo Lin Yutang My Turn at Quitting Smoking Zhou Zuoren The Aging of Ghosts ISBN: 978-0-9842762-3-3 If you would like an email update when the book is available then make sure to join our mailing list by adding your email at the top right corner of this page. Cheers, Kevin and the Capturing Chinese team

We are going to continue with the pieces of work by Zhu Ziqing.  Here is a nice short work of his called Haste.  It was first published in 1922. Enjoy. Zhu Ziqing - 匆匆 Haste

Here is another piece by Zhu Ziqing and is one of his most famous pieces of work.  The work is called Moonlight in the Lily Pond and was first published in 1927. Enjoy. Zhu Ziqing - 荷塘月色Moonlight in the Lily Pond

Happy New Year! In 2011, Capturing Chinese will publish weekly Chinese stories to encourage our readers to tackle some of the best in Chinese literature.  We know it is hard to find the important Chinese authors and know which stories to read so each week we will post one story on our website.  These stories will be picked from a range of authors that have had a large influence over China.  We will pick out some short stories as well as some longer ones. Our first author is Zhu Ziqing (朱自清) who was a native of Shaoxing and was a contemporary with Lu Xun.  He studied a Beijing University between 1916 to 1920 during the New Culture Movement (the May Fourth Movement) and joined the literary revolution.  After graduation he became a professor at Qinghua University.  He wrote poetry in his early years and then moved on to writing mostly essays.  Zhu Ziqing died in 1948. The first essay we are introducing is known as My Father's Back in English and as 背影 in Chinese.  This essay is a very famous piece recounting the scene between a father and son at a railway station.  As the father sees his son off, he clumsily climbs up the train platform. Enjoy. Zhu Ziqing: My Father's Back - 背影