Kindle Notes & Highlights
The literati of the past relied on the ruling class for their daily bread, but things are a little different nowadays. I am delighted that the guardians of my living are neither emperors nor kings but the magazine-reading masses.
China is a nation of words. When an emperor met with misfortune, he would immediately change the name of the reign period in hopes of turning the country’s luck in the year to come.
Good people like to hear stories about mean people, but bad people most certainly do not enjoy stories about those who are good. This is why none of my stories has for its main character a saint.
Social flowers and prostitutes wore spectacles just for the way they looked, since spectacles were a sign of modernity. Such was the extent of the indiscriminate importation of things foreign.
We unfortunately live among our fellow Chinese. Unlike Chinese overseas, we cannot spend our lives safely and reverently gazing toward our exalted motherland at a comfortable remove.
Chinese people are always astonished by the ludicrously secretive attitude foreigners bring to completely inconsequential matters.
I believe that writers themselves should be like trees in the garden, growing naturally within its confines, with their roots extending deep into the ground below. As they grow, their viewpoint will begin to grow wider, and as their field of vision expands, there is no reason why they shouldn’t be able to develop in new directions, for when the wind blows, their seeds will disperse far into the distance, engendering still more trees. But that is the most difficult task of all.
