Chat with the elderly

Author: Li Hui
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-09-01
Features: Since childhood, I have loved chatting with the elderly, and this interest has continued to this day. Chatting is the best way to get close to the lives of the elderly. Chatting can gradually enrich historical details, and it can also make one's thoughts less superficial and less aimless and self-assured. On a few nights when I had nothing to do, while clearing out during the office move, I decided to go through all the notebooks I had accumulated over the years. Those hastily written notes from back then made me cherish the days that had passed. As I looked, I suddenly had an idea: why not organize some of the conversations I found interesting over the past twenty years? I had friends who had suggested I compile a book of my own interviews or something similar. If I could really compile such a book, I would be particularly happy with the title: Chatting with the Elderly. In many things, I still have quite a bit of perseverance and can persist, but writing diaries is an exception. I only wrote diaries regularly and consistently during my university years and the few years immediately after graduation. Later, they became sporadic and intermittent. Despite this, my stack of notebooks still contains quite a few records of conversations with elderly literary figures. Some of them were recorded on the spot when I needed to write an article, while others were added later because I felt they were important. Compared to long essays or dialogues, I have a bit of a preference for these casual conversations. At the time, I didn’t think of publishing them, and the brief scene descriptions I added casually were apparently just to provide more context. But now, when I reread them, some faint memories gradually become clear. I hope that these conversation records, while satisfying my own interest, can also bring others some reading satisfaction and joy.
Besides casual chats, over the years, I have also sought out different people and discussed various topics according to the needs of my research. Some of the content has been compiled and published in advance. For this selection of "Chatting with the Elderly," I have specifically chosen dialogues that are stylistically similar. It should be noted that "Dialogues on..." is actually a special form of historical research and is considerably more somber compared to other conversations. However, I still chose to include it in this book to fully represent my interactions with the elderly.
Nature may change, but character is hard to alter. I think I will continue to chat with the elderly as I have in the past. I suspect I will always do so, until I myself become an elderly person.
July 3, 2001, Beijing