Those countries that have traveled in the past
Flashes sequentially under the wings
It's like a string of old friends' names
Mentioned one by one by a stranger
And the sea is like a long-lost alma mater
It has produced many outstanding talents
- Those ports scattered on the shore
Bring warmth and prosperity to the world
——Cai Tianxin
Reading and traveling are both ways for people in modern society to understand and perceive the world. The meaning of reading lies in thinking, and the meaning of travel is in discovery. Professor Cai Tianxin of Zhejiang University, who has multiple identities such as mathematicians, poets, and prose travel writers, wrote essay works such as "European Humanistic Map" and "American Humanistic Map" published by the Commercial Press, which have not only been recommended by many cultural scholars since its listing, but also welcomed by the majority of readers.
"European Humanities Map" is Professor Cai Tianxin's travel essay collection about 45 countries and regions in Europe, and "American Humanities Map" is a travel essay about 38 countries and regions in the Americas, and the two books together constitute a small series of understanding Western culture. Different from the general travelogue of the main scenic spots, the author's essay combines the present world and history, associates the characters with the story, not only integrates the characteristics of various countries with the history and culture, but also tells the humanistic story, both objective description and subjective feelings, from which you can see the author's delicate brushstrokes, broad thinking, mathematician's calmness, and poet's romance. In addition to the interesting text, the book is also accompanied by a large number of private photographic photos of the author, which reads like an old friend sharing what he has seen and felt, and is a popular work to understand the history and culture of Europe and the Americas.
Illustration in the book: The Man Who Blew the Bagpipe in England (by Edinburgh)
The perceptual expression of a rational scholar
The author Cai Tianxin was a juvenile college student, doctor of science from Shandong University, specializing in number theory, and is currently a professor, doctoral supervisor and Qiushi distinguished scholar at the School of Mathematics of Zhejiang University. In addition to this academic background, he is also a poet, essayist and travelogue writer, and has published more than 30 literary and scholarly works and translated into more than 20 languages. He has been invited to participate in literary festivals around the world more than 30 times, as a guest of the Geneva and Baghdad PEN Clubs, participated in the Frankfurt, Monterrey and Caracas International Book Fairs, CCTV's "Readers" program and the University of Iowa's International Writing Program, won the Naji Naaman Poetry Prize in Beirut in 2013 and the Kathak Poetry Prize in Dhaka in 2019. He has traveled to Europe more than 20 times, arriving in all European countries except Iceland, and has also been a two-year study tour in North America, seven times to Latin America, and has been invited to participate in nine poetry festivals in seven countries.
In 2004, the author joined Ma Yuan and Nishikawa at the Berlin Literary Festival
Such a rich work and life experience makes his works rich and interesting, with both the rational rigor of a scholar and the sensual humor of a writer. The writer Mo Yan commented that he was "originally a high-caliber student in the Mathematics Department of Shandong University, but now he is still obsessed with discovering the mysteries of numbers, and his poems and texts are also very well written, which is a small miracle." Poet (Pulitzer Prize winner) Forrest Gander said he was "a writing animal — across all fields." Writer Bi Feiyu praised his writing, "I like to read Cai Tianxin on the road, especially on the plane. His words are very much like the scenery outside the window, high, far, bright, or black. Cai Tianxin is tempting us to reverie. And director Jia Zhangke "is willing to give up the opportunity to go to Buenos Aires (to participate in the film festival) and exchange with you (Cai Tianxin) to go to Medellín in the Andes!" The poet Nishikawa said: "He (Cai Tianxin) is sensitive, but not the kind of aggressive sensitivity; his interest in anecdotes and trivia forms his profound knowledge, but this profound knowledge is different from the kind of evidence-based knowledge... He won't reach out a pair of rough hands to grab you, but if you're caught by him, you won't be able to escape. ”
Read, travel, write
Regarding the writing of a series of essays such as "European Humanistic Map" and "American Humanistic Map", Professor Cai Tianxin once shared his perspective and method of understanding and viewing the world at a book conference.
He argues that Europe's contribution to human civilization since Homer has been unattainable anywhere else in the world. Europe was the cradle of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. But after entering the twenties of the last century, the decline in Europe is also obvious to all. Even within Europe, there are different development styles, but it is precisely because each country has a very different national personality, cultural tradition and customs that shows us a colorful and colorful real Europe.
Illustration in the book: Mountains on the Greenland Ice Sheet (Taken by the Author)
The Americas are the continents where Cai Tianxin has stayed the longest outside of Asia. In addition to his rich travels to the Americas, what prompted him to write the Human Map of the Americas was that land was more accessible and richer than the sea. The difficulty is that every country and island in the Americas, whether you have been to the Americas or not, need to have a deep understanding and explore and present the highlights. Fortunately, writing, especially imaginative writing, is also a process of learning, research, and even more efficient than ordinary reading, and it is easier to store in the treasure house of memory.
Privately stored photographs are a surprise to read
The arrangement of the two books "European Human Map" and "American HumanIties Map" is also very charming. The author divides the two books into six sections according to regional characteristics, each plate includes a number of countries and regions, the author from the physical geography, involving famous people, historical stories, literature and art, etc., especially in each country (or region) At the end, add a "national business card", the country's area, population, capital, rivers, ethnicities, languages, religions, currencies, tourism keywords and other information exhaustive, knowledgeable, readable.
Illustration in the book: The New Seven Wonders of the World – Chichen Itza
At the same time, the two books are printed in four colors, with pictures and texts in the book, with a large number of pictures, most of which are the author's private travel photos, which are very precious. The information page after each country in the book has a road map of the country's major cities, and the two book covers also have hand-drawn drawings specially drawn by designers, which are vivid and distinctive, enough to bring expectations and surprises to read.
Illustration in the book: Lawn in England (By Cambridge)
Wonderful trial reading
sequence
Europe was the cradle of ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. However, after entering the 1920s, europe's recession was also obvious to all. Even within Europe, "some societies are better developed than others," writes Dennis Wood, author of The Power of the Map. However, it is the very different national personalities, cultural traditions and customs of each country that show us a colorful and real Europe.
The French novelist and author of The Red and the Black, Stander, wrote in Racine and Shakespeare: "We believe that there are more jokes circulating in one night in Paris than in a month in all of Germany. The older German poet Goethe did not refute this, but praised it, "The French are like mathematicians, no matter what you say, they can translate it into their own language and immediately become something completely new." Although France and Germany invaded each other during the Napoleonic and Hitler eras, the Franco-German Axis theory remained an important link in European diplomacy.
Historically, the British have contributed no less to human civilization than the French or Germans. However, in music and plastic arts, the Anglo-Saxons were slightly inferior. In the field of navigation and exploration, the Spaniards and Portuguese are at the forefront of all of Europe, and their artistic expression and interest in life are also impeccable. At the same time, the Iberian Peninsula did not contribute a great scientist or philosopher. In terms of academic research and fashion leadership, the Italians were the only Latins who could compete with the French, who only gained the upper hand slightly by virtue of colonial expansion and linguistic superiority.
Let's look at the vast empire in the East. On the one hand, Russian literature, music and ballet since the 19th century have enchanted European intellectuals. On the other hand, Western and even Eastern Europe have always had doubts and fears about Russia. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the "Cold War" era, Czechoslovakia was divided into two, Yugoslavia, the only country that dared to confront Big Brother, was divided into six, and Eurasia suddenly had twenty more countries. Even in Western Europe, the IRA, the Italian Mafia and the Spanish ETA threatened national security to some extent, while the referendum in Scotland became a british problem.
In contrast, the Nordic and Central European countries, which are ideologically indifferent and mostly moderate in political and military terms, have quietly developed over the past century, becoming the richest and most livable regions in Europe and even in the world today, and their common features are either geographical remoteness (such as the inland alpine country of Switzerland) or cold climates (such as Iceland and Scandinavia). At the same time, it has produced ancient myths and a good cultural environment, and contributed a large number of world-class cultural celebrities relative to the population.
Today, whether in terms of economic or military strength, the United States on the other side of the Atlantic has to win, and Japan, South Korea, and China in eastern Asia have also caught up. It is the rise of these countries that has given the old Europe a sense of crisis, from which a sense of cohesion and cooperation have emerged, as exemplified by the emergence and expansion of the European Union and the European Community. Take, for example, the conquest of Fermat's Last Theorem, the greatest mathematical achievement of the 20th century, a conjecture that was proposed by the French, provided by the Germans (who developed algebraic number theory, a branch of mathematics), and finally proved by the British.
Over the past twenty-five years, I have had the privilege of visiting Europe more than thirty times, arriving in every country outside iceland. These opportunities are due to visits to five countries, one to three months each, more academic conferences or literary festivals, and several transits to the Americas or Africa. Maybe life was too closed as a kid, and I only saw the train for the first time on my way to college, and I always managed to take advantage of these opportunities. Europe has contributed unparalleled ingenuity, both in the arts and sciences, and whenever I visit European countries and cities, I always feel like I'm revisiting the place. This book is a sharing and record of these perceptions, and we look forward to your criticism and correction.
Cai Tianxin
2020 years old, Hangzhou
Europe has a glorious history and rich culture, and many countries are familiar to us. I also had the greatest number of visits, ranging from mathematical visits to poetry activities to by way, forty-five countries missing iceland alone. As for the choice of means of transport, most of them are airplanes, but there are also waterways and land routes. If you divide it from the place of departure, in addition to China, there are also the Americas, Africa and other Asian countries.
Compared with Europe, the Americas are more distant and geographically dispersed, and the Cordillera Mountains are more than fifteen thousand kilometers long. Not only that, but there is no Schengen Agreement organization in the Americas like Europe. I also hold a Chinese passport and must apply for a visa for each country (in recent years, Latin American countries have exempted Chinese valid visa holders from the United States). Fortunately, I have visited the Americas three times, each time for more than a year. Two of them were on the east and west coasts of the United States, one in Colombia, South America (where he learned Spanish), and he was invited to nine international poetry festivals in seven countries.
In other words, the Americas are the continentStas I have spent the longest time outside of Asia. In this way, I have the confidence to complete the Human Map of the Americas. On the other hand, the Americas are not only four or five times larger in size than Europe (excluding the Asian parts of Russia and Turkey), but also have more countries than Europe. That's mainly because the Caribbean sea has many islands belonging to Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands or the United States, some of which are only a few tens of square kilometers, and most of the islands may be known to everyone, and some have never even heard of it.
That's why I've combined the many islands of the Windward, Leeward, and Netherlands Antilles into one (and as a result, information on these three places can't be presented on a single page). However, the Virgin Islands, Guadeloupe, Saint Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago are all separate chapters, largely thanks to the civilizations they have created. For example, three small islands are associated with five Nobel laureates, four of whom are literary laureates, and St. Lucia, with a population of just over 100,000, has produced two Nobel laureates. As a result, there are thirty-eight countries or regions in the catalog, divided into six series, namely North America, Central America, Greater Antilles, Lesser Antilles, South America (north of the equator), and South America (south of the equator).
But juxtaposing behemoths such as Canada, the United States, and Brazil (all among the top five in the world) with those of miniature island states, each described in nearly a similar length, is undoubtedly a challenge. Fortunately, I had experience writing the Human Map of Europe, and the challenge was nothing compared to Christopher Columbus's "discovery" of the New World. Columbus was physically challenged, and I was faced only with literal challenges. Columbus's five voyages were mainly in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, and my more than a dozen trips to the Americas have been fortunate to reach a wider area with the help of modern transportation.
Finally, let's talk about the naming of the Americas, which commemorates the Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci, a financier who first arrived in the Americas seven years later than his compatriot Columbus and took someone else's fleet. But he liked to think independently, map and write letters, asserting that Columbus had "discovered" not Asia, but a "new continent."
It was after reading his letter, at the suggestion of a poet, that the German geographer Martin Waldsemüller, when mapping the world, first used the term "America" to mark South America. Subsequently, the name was referred to generically throughout the Americas. Later, the United States of America also named him.
Whether compared with Portugal and Spain, the pioneers of the Age of Discovery, or the old capitalist countries of Britain, France, and the Netherlands, Italy is farther away from the real ocean, and Mediterraneans, including the ancient Greeks, even believe that the Strait of Gibraltar is the end of the world. I believe that from Columbus to Amerigo, their belief in the conquest of the world came from the blood of the nation, "only adventure is hope", which is the famous saying of the Roman historian Tacitus in the first century, and the fellow philosopher Machiavelli, who was a contemporary of the two adventurers, also said, "Courage is better than caution." ”