Mysterious currency

Author: Zhan Xiangyang, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-10-01
Features: This series of books, written by a group of financial experts and industry professionals over three years, aims to introduce financial instruments and common knowledge from the perspective of ordinary people, using simple and easy-to-understand language to explain financial principles and analyze the colorful and ever-changing financial phenomena. Commenting on this series, Zhao He, a director and host of the Economic Channel of China Central Television, said: "Understanding finance is a difficult thing. Simplifying complex things is also a difficult thing. But what if people who have understood finance simplify complex finance? It's worth taking a look at this illustrated financial popularization series. Maybe it will open the door to the treasure trove of finance for you."
This series consists of nine volumes: The Mysterious Money, The Priceless Credit, The Omnipotent Bank, Leveraging the Power of Banks, The Foggy Foreign Exchange, The Strange Securities, The Volatile Stock Market, The Insurance for Rainy Days, and The Art of Turning Stones into Gold. Each volume contains approximately 100,000 words. The entire set is exquisitely printed and bound, illustrated, and comes with a gift box. The language is simple, the writing is concise, the content is practical, and the format is lively, making a bold attempt at popularizing financial knowledge in a new way. It is highly informative and engaging.
This series is undoubtedly the best tool for those who are eager to learn and master financial knowledge and skills, helping them enter the world of finance. It is an excellent choice as a leisure read for non-financial professionals, a gift for clients outside the industry from large institutions, or promotional materials.
As China's economy moves toward marketization, financial concepts and products such as banks, financial markets, bills, bonds, stocks, and funds, which were once unfamiliar, are increasingly entering households and becoming an indispensable part of daily life. However, due to various reasons, financial science popularization education in China remains a blank. How to introduce financial instruments and common knowledge from the perspective of ordinary people, using simple and easy-to-understand language to explain financial principles and analyze the colorful and ever-changing financial phenomena, and to bring finance out of the professional ivory tower and into the hands of the general public is a need driven by China's marketization of the economy. Therefore, it has become a significant mission for the financial academia and industry in China today.
The Introduction to Finance series, edited by Dr. Zhan Xiangyang, is a popularization series that uses clear and simple language and everyday examples to explain the basics of monetary finance, helping readers understand fundamental knowledge related to money and finance. It fills the gap in China's financial popularization literature.
A market economy is one centered on the general public and widely participated in by the masses. The level of financial knowledge and familiarity with the interest mechanism and market regulations among residents to some extent determine the maturity and quality of the financial market. The primary nature of China's economy and financial market is not only due to underdevelopment but is also directly related to the lack of financial knowledge among the public. Clearly, with the rapid advancement of marketization, finance has reached a stage where popularization is no longer optional.
By "popularization," we mean targeting non-financial professionals and the general public, starting with young people and even children, to liberate the mysterious world of finance from obscure professional terminology. Using everyday language and engaging stories, we aim to teach financial common knowledge in an entertaining way, turning the "pearl of the crown of economics" into a basic skill that everyone can master. This is an innovative endeavor, and its difficulty lies in the fact that no one has ever done it before. It is precisely because of this that the series by Dr. Zhan Xiangyang and his collaborators stands out as particularly valuable.
Internationally, financial popularization has been given widespread attention. For example, financial masters like Friedman often use popular methods such as TV programs to explain their financial views to the public, striving to make "theory accessible to the masses." Since the reform, China's financial reading market has developed rapidly. However, there are some unsatisfactory phenomena. On one hand, poorly produced and mediocre works that hype financial hot topics fill the shelves; on the other hand, serious financial works remain inaccessible due to their complexity, leading to a market where "the noble is discarded and the vulgar reigns."
The Introduction to Finance series, written by a group of young researchers from the Urban Finance Research Institute of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, connects financial theory to practice and introduces financial common knowledge with extensive references and broad research. Overall, the book has a fresh and elegant character, combining breadth and specificity, and is both profound and accessible. It covers fundamental knowledge from the nature of money, finance, and credit to international currency and exchange rates, analyzing them in a clear and comprehensive manner while also revealing deep insights in everyday examples. The book is both easy to understand and rich in depth, making it a pioneering work in China's financial popularization literature and a rare gem in the financial reading market in recent years.
For ordinary people, especially young people, who are eager to learn and master financial knowledge and skills without pursuing a financial profession, this is undoubtedly the best tool to enter the world of finance. As an older professional in the financial field, I am gratified that China finally has financial popularization literature. "What one learns from books is always shallow; true understanding comes from practice." Compared to complex and profound works, making things simple and easy to understand is even more challenging.