Text│ Shan Lingyi
In the 1990s, when Pudong was developing and opening up the environment, finance became a topic of concern to everyone, and people had a lot of new understanding of banks, ICBC Shanghai Branch invited nearly 50 well-known writers in Shanghai to write their stories with banks, and published the book "Writers and Banks". Writers, as ordinary citizens, talk about the banks in their eyes, talk about their relationship with the banks, and share interesting stories about them and the banks, which are still enjoyable to read today. In order to let the majority of readers enjoy these famous stories together, we have specially set up a column of "Finance" as a "Talk Club" to invite you to warm up the "old" with us.
Author: Zhao Xinshan
Philosopher and writer
He has published forty-six books, including "Science, Art, and Philosophical Assertions", "The Soul of Planck", and "The Earth is Crying", and is dedicated to the comparative study of Eastern and Western cultures.
It always feels a little strange to use such a topic to write something worth writing. Yes, not strange, but weird, weird, weird, and awkward.
From this feeling, at least two points are explained: first, how strange the Chinese have been to the market economy for half a century; second, how poor Chinese intellectuals have been in the past half century! The farther people are from the bank, the poorer they become.
In 1955, I was admitted to Peking University. A monthly stipend of $14.5 (including $12 for food and $2.50 for pocket money) is my entire financial resource. In six years of college, I never walked into a bank. However, at that time, the bank buildings in the Haidian area of Beijing were also shabby enough. In my impression, its appearance is not much more grand than that of the commissary and Xinhua Bookstore. It's actually a savings house. Next door to it is a post office and a small restaurant "Hai Shun Ju".
After graduation. After 20 years of working, I have been taking 56 yuan, and the distance from the bank is still very far. After all, the post office next door is very familiar to me, because every month I have to send money to my mother in Jiangxi, month by month. For the savings house, I am a chicken and a dog, and I don't have contact with each other.
In 1983 I moved from Beijing to Shanghai. One day my friend accompanied me on the Bund, and he pointed out to me one by one where the British HSBC bank and the Bank of China were, and where the Golden City Bank and the Hua-Russian Daosheng Bank were. Those tall and sturdy buildings surprised me and completely changed my original impression of the Beijing Savings Office!
In 1985, when my debut book "Science, Art, and Philosophy" was published, Beijing Sanlian Bookstore sent me a remittance slip to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China to collect the manuscript fee. This is the first time in my life that I have officially dealt with a bank!
People's Bank of China Savings Institute (1950s)
You won't believe it until 1988, when I never opened an account in the bank and deposited money.
For thirty or forty years, the proficiency with which I walked into the library and the strangeness and clumsiness of my walking into the bank formed a very grotesque contrast.
This is the sadness of Chinese intellectuals.
I look forward to the slow disappearance of this contrast. When, when, month, and day, I walked into the business hall of a big bank as I walked into a library, no longer helpless? No longer shrink your head and shrink your head, do you not have the minimum of self-confidence?
How much human dignity will there be in other fields? If this is the case for individuals, how can a country and a people not be like this?
When I went to Germany in 1993, my first appearance was not at an academic seminar, but at the bank of Dresden. Because I don't even understand ABC in this area! It's hard to say that this is a very decent, very glorious thing. Of course this is not my personal disgrace.
The German did not understand my ignorance in this regard, when he saw that I was a professor, a senior visiting scholar.
In today's world, the farther away and stranger people are from the bank, the more prosperous they are. In my opinion, a person must be very close to these things, so that his happiness can be guaranteed:
Man is close to nature;
The human heart is close to the human heart;
People are close to the country;
Man is close to himself;
People are close to banks.
Recently, when our unit pays wages, it no longer pays cash. Each person is issued a Pujiang card from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and at the same time gives a secret number that only they know. With this card and number, my distance from the bank began to shorten. This is a good thing after all, an improvement.
People are close to nature and far from banks. - That's not good.
People are far from nature and close to banks. - Not bad either.
This article was published in the 1996 issue of Writers and Banks.
The editor has something to say:
Friends who like to write articles will more or less have the experience of receiving contribution fees. Take the money transfer slip, bring your ID card, run to the bank or post office, cash is king, and the bag is safe. Professor Zhao Xinshan's first intimate contact with the bank was also opened due to the fee.
With the rapid development of science and technology, nowadays, many newspapers and publishing houses will directly enter the manuscript fee into the bank card number provided by the author in advance, and writers and friends and literary enthusiasts can directly query their own manuscript fees on the mobile phone and computer, eliminating the hardship of running the bank.
The official public number of "Shanghai Bank Museum".