Wen | Li Qiang
Why do stars blink? Why is the sea salty? Why do pigeons fly back to their homes from distant places..." The three words "why" represent the inexhaustible curiosity of children and teenagers, and the ever-changing things in nature also attract every enthusiastic and inquisitive teenager. "100,000 Whys" - this is a book that will not be unfamiliar to all Chinese children, and it is still one of the first choices for children's popular science books to this day. In the more than 50 years since April 1961 alone, "100,000 Whys" has been published in 6 editions, with sales of more than 10 million sets and more than 100 million copies. Perhaps in the minds of many people, the earliest edition of "100,000 Whys" in mainland China was published by the Shanghai Children's Publishing House. Actually, not also!
In 1929, the famous Soviet popular science writer Mi Yilin published a popular science pamphlet "100,000 Whys", the first edition was only a short 50,000 words, but it immediately caused a reading climax, the number of prints increased repeatedly, and soon appeared in English translation, French translation, German translation and so on. In Russian, "one hundred thousand" is an adjective that describes the sheer number of them. And this somewhat exaggerated title actually appears earlier in a poem: "Where are the five thousand, what about the seven thousand, one hundred thousand whys." It is a poem by the 1907 Nobel Prize in Literature winner and British poet Gibburyling (also translated as Kipling). In 1932, the famous Soviet writer Gorky wrote a letter to the French writer Romain Roland, in which he mentioned Ealing: "One of Ealing's books was published in German, entitled "Five Years to Change the World", and another was published in English, and the title is equally interesting, 'One Hundred Thousand Whys'. ”
In China, one of the first translators to translate Yilin's 100,000 Whys into Chinese was Dong Chuncai, whose version was published in October 1934 by the Enlightened Bookstore in Shanghai. Dong Chuncai (1905-1990), the first generation of popular science writers in mainland China. In 1931, he began to create popular science, and in 1937 he went to Yan'an to participate in the revolution, engaged in education and science popularization work all his life, and was the first generation of popular science writers in mainland China with the same name as Gao Shiqi.
Dong Chuncai's own popular science works mainly include "MaLan Paper" and "Phoenix Butterfly Biography", and his translated works are also many. Only by consulting the Shandong Provincial Library's book "Bibliography of Revolutionary Literature (Compiled and Printed in 1987)", the author found that Dong Chuncai's translated works were published in the anti-Japanese base areas and old liberated areas that year: "People and Mountains - Man Conquering Nature" (northeast bookstore published in October 1947), "What time is it - The Story of zhong" (published by northeast bookstore in November 1948), "The Tale of the Phoenix Butterfly" (jidong Xinhua bookstore published in May 1949) ... At that time, his translation of popular science works reached the standards of letter, da, and ya, and were not only loved by the people of the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region and other old liberated areas, but also praised by Chairman Mao Zedong.
In 1956, the Party Central Committee issued a call to the people of the whole country to "march toward science" . At that time, the editors of Shanghai Children's publishing house, one of the only two professional children's publishing houses in the mainland, were encouraged. In two or three months, they mobilized dozens of teachers and students from schools and children's palaces to ask questions, asked scientific and technological workers and university teachers to ask questions, and also excerpted questions from a large number of newspapers and periodicals, collecting more than 4,000 questions in total, and then selected more than 2,000 according to the criteria of "why", and finally adopted 1484. These questions became the basis for the writing of the large-scale popular science book "100,000 Whys". Since April 1961, the editor has published a total of 8 volumes of "100,000 Whys", which has been welcomed by a large number of readers after publication. In 1964, they revised the set of books according to the requirements of readers, and published the second edition in 1965, expanding from the original 8 volumes to 14 volumes - on the list of reviewers of the revision of the 1965 edition of "100,000 Whys", there were the names of some famous scientists who shone: Li Siguang, Zhu Kezhen, Hua Luogeng, Mao Yisheng, Qian Chongshu, Su Buqing... They were all the most prestigious people in the Chinese scientific community at that time.
Later, the Children's Publishing House was merged into the Shanghai People's Publishing House, and a new team was organized to "revise" the series from beginning to end. From 1970 to 1978, the Shanghai People's Publishing House continued to publish "100,000 Whys". At the end of 1977, the Shanghai Children's Publishing House was separated from the Shanghai People's Publishing House, and the subsequent 18 to 21 volumes were published by the Children's Publishing House. In 1980, "100,000 Whys" began its third major revision, and the fourth edition was launched based on the scale and characteristics of the 1964 edition, still divided into 14 volumes, totaling 1919 questions. In 1990, a further 10 fascicles were published as "sequels", which were merged with the previous 14 fascicles to form 24 volumes of 100,000 Whys. The number of "whys" reached 3007, known as the fifth edition.
In August 2013, the sixth edition of "100,000 Whys" was launched in Shanghai. The book is 6 million words, a total of 18 sub-volumes, including 4500 hot issues representing the frontiers of scientific and technological development and the concerns of young people, and a total of 3438 "whys" have been answered. But we must also admit that we are still far from being designed to be true to the "100,000 Whys".
What is even more amazing is that in addition to the continuous release of new editions over the years, even during the Liberation War, our children still had the opportunity to read "100,000 Whys" published by their bookstores.
In my hand, I have a copy of "100,000 Whys" published 77 years ago, which is a translation by Dong Chuncai. The book was issued by Bohai Xinhua Bookstore in October 1945, with a print volume of 3,000 copies, priced at 6 yuan, 32 kai, lithographed, rough edge book, folded binding, 64 pages. The cover design also looks high-end according to the current vision: "100000" below the center of a big "? It can stimulate the curiosity of readers, especially young children. The catalog page is printed with "Indoor Travels", the first stop: the tap. Second stop: the stove. Third stop: food cabinet and iron stove. Fourth stop: pot rack. Stop 5: Cupboard. Stop Six: Wardrobe.
"Indoor Travels" first proposes some common "whys" in daily life. For example, "Is it warmer to wear three shirts, or is it warmer to wear a shirt that is three times thicker?" "Can you build walls out of air?" "Can fire cast shadows?" "Why can't water burn?" "Why blow a fire when we extinguish the firewood?" "The stove warms us because there is fire in the stove, but why does the coat also keep us warm?" ...... Through the various "whys" that human beings often encounter in daily life, a detailed discussion is carried out in a simple and simple way, and a total of 64 "whys" are answered.
It is understood that bohai Xinhua Bookstore was established in January 1945 in kenli county, Shandong Province, the eight groups, the earliest subordinate to the "Bohai Daily" agency, directly led by the Propaganda Department of the Bohai District Party Committee of the CPC, mainly reprinting books published by various anti-Japanese base areas, in 1949 because the Bohai District was about to be abolished, immediately stopped the book publishing business, in fact, only existed for more than 4 years.
Bohai District was an administrative region of Shandong during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, which was formed in January 1944 by the merger of Jilu Border District and Qinghe District, together with Jiaodong, Luzhong, Lunan and Binhai, and was called the five strategic districts under the leadership of our Party, until June 1950, when it was abolished at the same time as other administrative districts. Nowadays, the newspapers and books published in the Bohai Liberated Areas are becoming increasingly scarce and difficult to find.
Flipping through the historical materials published in Shandong, it is known that the 1945 lithographed "100,000 Whys" is a very precious version in the entire Shandong Liberated Area. "Lithography", that is, printing with lithography. The method is to first write the original manuscript on the medicinal paper with special ink containing oil, and then roll it on the lithograph, and coat the plate with a layer of peach glue, so that when printing ink, due to the repulsive effect of water and oil, only the part of the layout is inked with words, and then the paper is covered on it for printing. Perhaps the topic of "100,000 Whys" is far from over; perhaps the "100,000 Whys" series will be republished with a new look... We firmly believe that the value of the edition, literature and collection value of "100,000 Whys" 77 years ago will become more precious with the passage of time.