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