Written | Beijing News reporter Jiang Yan
With the phrase "I confess my unbeauty", the Beijing News began a ten-year journey of encountering cultural elders. The person who said this was Shen Changwen, who was revered as Shen Gong. Shen, 82, likes to carry a backpack full of books to and from work and home. When talking to people, he will put one ear to you and say, "My ears are not good, you are louder." The reporter put his mouth to his ear and said loudly again that he hoped to meet again, and he felt a piece of paper from his body that read, "I buy waste paper!" The business card, say out loud "Send me an email!" On the business card is a happy old man, carrying a large school bag and carrying two large bundles of books, which is a cartoon drawn by Shen Congwen's granddaughter Shen Fan when Shen Gong was 75 years old.
Shen Changwen was born in Shanghai on September 26, 1931. In 1951, he was admitted as a proofreader of the People's Publishing House, and later served as the president's secretary, director, and deputy editor-in-chief. From 1986 to 1996, he was the general manager of Life, Reading and Xinzhi Sanlian Bookstore, and the editor-in-chief of Reading Magazine. He later founded Vientiane and has been active in the publishing industry since his retirement. (Photo by Hou Shaoqing, a reporter from the Beijing News)
The joy of work
Happy to take a shower in the office
A meal does not exceed 30 yuan
Shen Gong, 82, is still working two jobs. In the morning, I work for a Taiwanese company, and when I am happy, I will take a shower in no one's office. In the afternoon, he went to the old owner's home to collect express mail and dated "Miss Fu".
Mr. Shen, 82, is still on work, and early in the morning of the week he arrives at the Beijing office of Taiwan's Chunk Culture Publishing Company. A few years ago, Taiwanese publisher Hao Mingyi invited Shen Gong to be a consultant for the company, and when he had business in the mainland, he would ask Shen Gong for advice. "Now I have fewer and fewer ideas, and no one knows me, for example, there is a man named Han Han, whom I don't even know." The last writer I contacted for Da Chun was Feng Tang, and I was still familiar with it. Shen Gong wanted to resign from the consultant job several times, but Hao Mingyi did not agree, so he took the job as a joke. The large office is located in a commercial and residential apartment in the East Third Ring Road, and other colleagues have to come to work in the afternoon, so the office belongs to Shen Gong alone throughout the morning. "Glad I'm still taking a shower there." It is said that when the bath is happy, Shen Gong will also sing.
When he was not soaking in the bath, Shen Gong watched TV and flipped through the materials in a large office, and every morning at 6 o'clock he began to watch the news of Southeast Satellite TV, and he was concerned about the news of Taiwan. Just have fun until 11 o'clock. If there was no meal for lunch that day, Shen Gong would find a place to eat by himself, and he stipulated that a meal should not exceed 30 yuan. "How is this 30 bucks calculated?" If you invite me to dinner today, then I will eat 60 yuan tomorrow, and if someone invites me to dinner tomorrow, then I will eat 90 yuan the day after tomorrow, so I actually eat very well. ”
After eating lunch and resting for a while, Shen Gong picked up his backpack and ran to the Sanlian Bookstore, which was the mailing room for all his letters. Shen Gong's wife is a professor of medicine, specializing in cardiovascular and geriatric diseases, there are many people who consult her, often not at home, the express mail sent by others is not received at home, Shen Gong will notify the other party to send it to the bookstore. "Because every day, Triptych Bookstore took care of me and installed a desk for me." Shen Gong said that he still has a bad habit of printing out the good things he sees on the Internet every day, and Sanlian Bookstore has a printer and a photocopier, which is very convenient to use. He likes to joke with people that he comes here every day to find his girlfriend, Miss Fu. Miss Fu helped him copy a lot of materials he liked, and through his hands, these materials were passed to his friends.
Shen Changwen
A pleasure to travel
Practicing Qigong on the bus,
Enjoy a harmonious society
Shen Gong, who is in the business of publishing books, will now go to the Red Chamber to buy pirated books, and the trading place is in the toilet. Usually, he loves to take the bus, and when he encounters few people, he will sit back and forth to play. Sometimes I also practice Qigong on the bus.
By the end of the appointment with Miss Fu, Shen Gong's backpack had become bulging, and there were letters received that day, printed and copied materials, and new books and magazines in the triptych, and the triptych would give Shen Gong every new book published. Coming out of the Sanlian Bookstore, Shen Gong usually takes a bus home, but there is always a day or two a week when he will walk directly along the road of the art museum to the vicinity of the Red House of Peking University. "Pirated books are sold next to the Red Chamber!" As he said this, he leaned over to my side, covered one cheek with his right hand, and made the appearance of telling me a secret, but in fact his voice did not decrease at all, and no one next to him could hear our conversation. Meeting with the book sellers who sell pirated copies in the Red Chamber is said to be done in the toilet first, and then traded behind the toilet. A book is 30 or 50 yuan, and Shen Gong sometimes spends 150 yuan to buy 3 books at once and go back to turning it over. "Why is piracy still so expensive?" "It's all Hong Kong and Taiwan books!" To be honest, I used to confiscate their books, and I now buy them myself. ”
"I'd most like to take the bus, and as soon as I have this, someone will give you a seat." Shen Gong took out an old age certificate from his pocket. "If I encounter a bus empty, I often sit to the end and then sit back, which is fun!" Not a penny is spent. A few decades ago, if an old man took the bus, he had to ask him if he was a landlord and bourgeoisie, and now everyone will give you a seat, a harmonious society, I am enjoying the happiness of a harmonious society! ”
What would Shen Gong do when he sat on the bus? He said that sometimes he would practice Qigong. "I've been practicing Qigong for over 50 years, so I have to practice every day." In 1953, he met Jiang Weiqiao in Shanghai and followed Jiang to learn Qigong. "I treated Qigong as a person's ecology, which helped me to save a lot of trouble in the era of class struggle. I am not a brave member of the class struggle, and I am very particular about everything. Jiang Weiqiao taught me a lot of ways to avoid contradictions, and in the end he did not avoid it himself, and his son drew a right wing, and he suddenly couldn't think about it and died of anger. Shen Gong said that he could practice at any time now, and that when practicing Qigong, he should deliberately guard Dantian, so that Dantian would be hot and screaming, and after half an hour, people would have spirits. He also teased his friends that the traffic lights in front of Tiananmen Square, the red lights turned into green lights, and the green lights turned into red lights, all because they were working hard.
In 2003, when the Beijing News was founded, shen Changwen, a cultural elderly man, said, "I repent of my unbeauty", and began the journey of encountering cultural elders.
The joy of life
The happiest attitude leads the most mediocre life
The happy Shen Gong also often encounters troubles, and his coping strategy is to "tease himself all day long, find his own happiness, and live the most mediocre life with the happiest attitude."
The method of learning to reduce troubles from Qigong is used by Shen Gong in all aspects of life, but he is reluctant to wear hearing aids, "It is best not to hear, how much trouble we hear, we must reduce our troubles, and how good it is to always maintain a smiling attitude." Shen Gongzong also went to participate in various speeches by acquaintances, "I can't hear, I just watch his various performances." Shen Gong said while shaking his head and shaking his head.
No matter how much the annoyance is reduced, there is still a problem, such as catching a bus and falling, "Later I figured it out, this class went to the next class to come back." "Today I went to the triptych to copy something, and the copier malfunctioned and my efficiency was greatly reduced. Life is always a setback, it is impossible to go smoothly, as long as you think of the happy place, you feel very happy. "Isn't it the Chinese dream now?" My dream is four words - no disease. Song Meiling just ended up without illness, and when she slept, she was finished, which was the happiest. "I've been teasing myself all day, finding my own happiness, I've never lost sleep, I've lived the most mediocre life with the happiest attitude." How happy I am!”
Every day at four or five o'clock in the afternoon, Shen Gonghui would return to his special study near the old site of Taofen Library, a three-bedroom apartment that was all stuffed with his books, and each room had several rows of bookshelves, like a private library, and he sorted each grid into categories. There was a headset in the living room that he used to listen to Teresa's songs. "I like Teresa Teresa because a lot of the songs she sings are from old Shanghai, and I'm getting more and more nostalgic now. I don't want to accept new things, such as Han Han's novels, I don't read them. I have published a lot of books about Chiang Kai-shek recently, and I especially like to learn about the period when Chiang Kai-shek ruled Shanghai, when I lived in Shanghai. "I now turn to books every day, I can't be like a young person now, reading a book and a half a day, I don't have enough energy, I'm a book maker, I know where the essence of a book is." 」 Recently he was flipping through a book called "West Out of Yang Guan: The Age of Dementia for No Reason," and he made no secret of saying that he was slowly losing his wisdom.
The time in the study belonged to Shen Gong's private time completely, and on the wall in front of the desk hung the original work of "waste paper I bought", and on it was a line of brush characters, which was Su Dongpo's famous sentence - "There is no wind and rain and no sunshine", which was made by Shen Gong as the title of his autobiography. He stayed in the study every day until late afternoon, and then walked home to dinner with his wife. Every day, the wife would give him a handful of medicines, and he would obediently eat them, never asking what the medicines were, and the wife never explained. "If I don't have a stool, as long as I say something, after three days it will be passed, and the medicine I take will definitely change." After dinner at about 19:30, he went to bed early, got up at 3 o'clock in the morning, read the news on the Internet, and started his new day.
Editor| Li Yongbo