Speak of Giving and Receiving: Chinese Culture and Life

Author: Jia Pingwa
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-03-01
Features: The world is composed of yin and yang, and living in it is a process of gaining and losing. A classic of brilliant essays written by a Chinese author. Shi Tiesheng is one of the most admirable contemporary Chinese writers. His writing is completely intertwined with his life. In his "writing nights," Shi Tiesheng, with his disabled body, expressed the most complete and rich thoughts.
Diary: Record dreams. When half awake at midnight, do not open your eyes, slowly sit up and recall, then quietly fall asleep, and the dreams continue. Dreams are like past lives—sometimes doing good, sometimes committing crimes, sometimes enjoying pleasure, sometimes suffering pain. Record the traces and experience the emotions to observe reality, observe through me, and thus I know myself. Knowing myself allows me to stand firm in the noisy and chaotic world. Eating with familiar people is delicious; eat more of what you love and less of what you don’t. You can burp, pass gas, or make jokes and curse. Can you do this with strangers? Can you do this with leaders? What people say reflects their spiritual world, and thus their literary language. Some people are ruthless in their hearts, and their writing is cold. Some are in love, and their writing is brilliant. Some are talented, and their writing is grand like mountains and forests. Some are modest. Those who (pay attention to structure) write like small (miniature gardens), while the great river never follows rules. The Western region is so beautiful, Lin Daiyu is so good—both have attained enlightenment through illness. If you live without illness, you will be poor and lack a sense of enlightenment. Buddha is not in the West or in scriptures; Buddha is not in deep mountains or temples, but in the bustling crowds. As long as you are not dead, illness can give you a living Buddha. Those who truly live, or those who achieve success, understand two characters: (shědé—let go and gain). Not letting go means not gaining; small letting go means small gain; great letting go means great gain. Letting go and gaining, gaining and letting go fill our daily lives, playing out stories of success and failure.
"On Letting Go and Gaining" includes 68 essays by the author Jia Pingwa from 1981 to 2005, totaling 160,000 words. Over these 25 years, the world has changed, and the author’s thoughts have evolved, but the theme of humanizing nature and harmonizing humans with nature has always been the fundamental subject of his writing. As the author says, "Using China’s traditional methods of artistic expression to genuinely convey the lives and emotions of modern Chinese people—that is what I strive for in my creation."
This selection preserves the original essays largely intact but makes significant adjustments to the titles. The order of the essays does not follow their initial publication dates but is arranged according to the intrinsic connections of their themes. The sole purpose of doing this is to present the editor’s selections more clearly to the readers.