Win the 8th China Book Award - Huang Chang's Selected Prose

Author: Xu Baorong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-09-01
Features: Huang Tang's literary career began during his student days when he was studying at the Department of Electrical Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. As an engineering student, he developed an interest in literature and, in addition to his coursework, engaged in writing and submitting his works. According to the author's own recollection: "The target was the《》 of the on the 'Island,' and the writings were small essays and 'palm-sized novels,' which are similar to the currently popular 'micro-fiction.' The motivation for writing was imitation—I think this is quite similar to how children enjoy imitating adults' speech and actions." It is evident that Huang Chang's literary awakening was closely tied to his early love for literature and his familiarity with literary works from a young age. Huang Chang came from an intellectual family; his father studied mining. Huang Chang was taught by his older uncle, who was the last imperial scholar of the Qing Dynasty and used the textbook from Shanghai's Chengzhong School. After learning a few characters, he began reading the , starting with the teachings and sayings of Confucius and Mencius compiled by Zhu Biao. However, Huang Chang preferred reading works like , , and . Except for , all of these were banned by his father. The book Huang Chang read "voluntarily" was . was read later, but it provided him with the greatest benefit. The author recalls: "I feel it was the best textbook that helped me develop the ability to read classical Chinese—almost all the grammar and sentence structures of classical Chinese were deduced from , and later, reading even older books did not pose much difficulty." In addition, Huang Chang was fond of poems by Du Fu, Li Shangyin, and others. It can be imagined that these readings during his childhood not only laid the foundation for his classical Chinese skills but also inspired his artistic imagination and thinking abilities. Huang Chang was particularly impressed by the "direct method" of teaching English he encountered at Nankai Middle School. In this teaching approach, students did not need to rigidly memorize rules but could directly engage with the works to "guess" the grammatical patterns. This training and habit, from a negative perspective, may lack systematic and solid foundational training, but the advantage is that it allows for easy absorption of knowledge wherever one goes, making it convenient to read anything encountered. This was especially beneficial to him during the turbulent years of his later life, unknowingly shaping his open-minded and erudite nature.