the night light cup campus tour came to shibei middle school. zhao lihong suggested that high school students should not miss these 10 books
2024-09-21
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photo caption: zhao lihong, a famous writer, poet and vice chairman of the shanghai writers association, gave a lecture on the theme of "the realm of reading" to students in shibei district. photo by xinmin evening news reporter tao lei (same below)
in a strange rural area, a 17-year-old boy faced the unknown, lonely and confused. the only light in his heart came from the lamp in the hut after a day of work, and the books and diaries under the lamp. people around him were worried about why he didn't speak. but he knew that words were his best friend, recording the people around him and describing the nature he loved.
more than half a century later, he is now well-known for his beloved books and writings. facing the high school students in the audience, he said that he is still moved by the selfless writings he wrote when he was 17 years old; he said, "the most impossible thing to give up in this life, the most beautiful thing, is reading."
this "reader" is zhao lihong, a famous writer, poet and vice chairman of the shanghai writers association. on the afternoon of september 20, the "night light cup" campus tour, guided by the shanghai municipal education and health work party committee and shanghai municipal education commission and hosted by xinmin evening news, came to the campus of shibei middle school and invited zhao lihong to lead the students into the "realm of reading".
photo caption: students from shibei middle school experience the charm of words at the on-site exhibition
reading a book is like "living one more life"
to the surprise of the students, zhao lihong asked the staff to move the tables and chairs away and started the lecture standing up. he said that this way, everyone could see each other more clearly and the communication would be smoother.
caption: teacher zhao lihong stood up during the nearly two-hour lecture
"why should we read?" "how to read?" "what books to read?" the lecture unfolds slowly around these three questions.
"if you like reading, the world will open up infinitely before you. reading a book means you live one more life, your experience will be infinitely broadened, and you can go anywhere you want." in zhao lihong's view, it is very important to understand the world through words. words are abstract and can express scenes, thoughts, and emotions vividly.
he believes that "books are the best books", because reading books can make him beautiful and bookish. "as a chinese child, the most important thing is to get close to our mother tongue, which enriches our emotions." zhao lihong recited the famous line from the movie "twilight" in english, "i love three things in this world: sun, moon and you. sun for morning, moon for night, and you forever." the english expression is simple and straightforward, but if it is translated into classical chinese, it has a different artistic conception, "there are three thousand people in the world, and i love three things: the sun, the moon and you. the sun is for the morning, the moon is for the evening, and you are for morning and evening."
read carefully, whether fast or slow, you will gain something
if you read a book carefully, do you have to make excerpts and write a reading note? zhao lihong admits that, in fact, not necessarily. since he was 5 years old, he has had a dream - to read all the books in the world. of course, this is an impossible delusion, but it also made him unconsciously develop the habit of reading fast. when he was in elementary school, he always urged his sister who was in high school to borrow books from the school library. he could borrow five books at a time, and he would read them one by one every day.
when he was in middle school, he once wrote a composition about fishing, and used "a silver arrow dancing in the green grass" to describe the scene of the fish tumbling after being caught, which was praised by the teacher. he suddenly realized that although he did not deliberately memorize it, those vivid descriptions were clearly accumulated in the process of reading the text again and again.
"read in your own way, write in your own way. if you read with your eyes and heart, no force can take the books you have read away from your memory." this is the reading experience zhao lihong shared with his classmates. he also hopes that the classmates will realize that "reading is not a simple acceptance, but a process of thinking. reading turns us into thinkers, people with independent opinions, and people who don't follow the crowd."
"useless book" makes life rich
more than 20 years ago, zhao lihong had a conversation with british writer doris lessing, a nobel prize winner in literature, which still left a deep impression on him. lessing was worried that some people had enviable titles but were emotionally cold. zhao lihong believed that this was due to not reading literature. "it is precisely some 'useless books' that allow people's spirits to grow and become wise, insightful and emotional people."
"300 tang poems", "dream of red mansions", "resurrection", "don quixote", "stray birds", "dawn blossoms plucked at dusk", "walden", "random thoughts", "the sailor of horseback mountain", "a brief history of chinese philosophy"... zhao lihong selected 10 books from the vast sea of books and recommended them to students. "if time is not limited, i really want to tell you the stories of me and these books." zhao lihong can name them all - for example, when mr. ba jin was writing "random thoughts", he was almost a writer "showing his soul to others", and his true attitude was soul-stirring; for another example, after reading mr. feng youlan's "a brief history of chinese philosophy", you can better understand the wisdom of our ancestors.
"in the digital age, reading should keep pace with the times. the current and traditional reading methods are also facing changes. what do you think?" during the interactive exchange time, a girl's question resonated with the audience. "the books of the past may exist in museums in the future. but no matter how the methods change, the essence of literary works has not changed. what is touching is the text itself, not these forms." zhao lihong also wanted to remind the students not to indulge in online fast food. these words are too short and will be forgotten soon after reading them.
xinmin evening news reporter lu zihua
