Reading on 華生的珈琲館

Rise and Fall of Shanghai’s Bookstore

Sun, 03 Nov 2019 17:28:54 +0800

Last week in Shanghai, an official directive has yet put another cultural recollection spot in jeopardy. Swatow Books, a small newsstand in Foochow Road was required by the authority to shut down as it is “unruly built”. The reason might be preposterous to an unintiated outsider, but quite common for the natives.

If you came two decades before to Shanghai and wanted to have some street-smart advices on bookstores, Foochow Road, I’m sure, would be definitely on your top list. The place, like Charing Cross in London or Chung-King South Road in Taipei, gathered the most major culture outlets of the city. In its salad days, roaming around for books, stationaries and curios was not only recreation for citizens, but also typical activities at weekends for students and professors, as it was practically impossible to find the title elsewhere if you can’t position it here.

I used to be one of them in early 2000s, at the eve of the Internet age when there are still several years for e-commerce to prosper, grubbing for favoured books and magazines on this road in some of the finest places I think the city can provide. Shanghai used to be a major cosmoplis during the nationalist years when magazines like New Yorker and Times were everywhere to be found and films released parallelly at the same time with North America. Its openness was completely devastated after the communist takeover. For ideaology’s sake, strict control has long been posed by the authoirty on the publications from overseas ordinary people can get access. However, as a history lover my desire to read foreign magazines has prompted me to explore further possibilities.

日本的小學教育

Mon, 24 Sep 2018 21:53:26 +0800

在我們的傳統印象裡，日常生活中的日本人總是彬彬有禮，為人著想。這種印象不光來自於各類新聞報導、電視劇、文學作品中，我們似乎也能從日本觀光回來的人們那裡得到印證。這種情感確實發自內心還是虛情假意暫且不論，你不得不承認至少表面上的那套禮儀還是讓你如沐春風，心曠神怡。據說日本人從小就被教育凡事要懂得感恩，體恤他人。我不禁好奇，日本孩子從小接受的是怎樣的教育？這種教育制度的淵源為何？最近有兩本書可一探究竟。

其中一本《日本國立小學365天》於去年出版，由在日本大學任翻譯科教師的中國人所撰。作者兒子小學的大部分時間都在北京度過，六年級的時候來日本入東京當地國立小學接受了一年的教育。日本的小學要求學生寫日記記錄生活，孩子母親在此期間也頗多感悟，因此將這些感悟和孩子的日記匯集成這一本書。另一本《教養與文明》，是在日本唸過碩士的中國人所作的研究而成。其實這本書初版於2012年，去年再版，打算有空看完再作介紹。最近我剛讀完從多抓魚上淘來的第一本書，下面是讀書時的一些筆記：

學校對家長的要求是很具體的，在學年初就會公佈整個學年的日程表，家長需要為子女購買學具、治裝等，規定細緻詳盡，還有上學的路線、各類活動的安排。防災帽是日本小學的一大特色。因為日本是災難頻發的國家，佩戴防災帽的要求不僅旨在從小樹立學生的防災意識，也確實堅固耐用，具有實際意義。每週有一日學校不提供午餐，學生各自帶來母親準備的便當在午餐室四人圍一桌共同用餐。班主任每天輪換不同餐桌與學生一起吃飯，這樣的形式保證了老師與學生間充分交流的機會。老師和學生更像是朋友，老師和學生共同成長。

開學之初老師便對學生說：**上學的目標是交100個朋友。**日本小學注重培養孩子的個性。**做得和別人一樣等於沒做，只有做到和別人不一樣才有可能得到認可。**這似乎和我們對日本的傳統認識有些不一樣吧？日本不是都要服從上級嗎？書中是這麼說的：「日本的集體意識是建立在個性的基礎之上的，追求在集體中發揮個性。」調皮的學生才風光，乖乖女按部就班沒有市場。

書展脞語

Sun, 18 Aug 2013 08:06:52 +0800

上海書展雖然一年不如一年，但還是被我作為夏天的保留節目，延續至今。逛書展沒什麼別的原因，就是想在工作之餘，出來透透氣，看看出版業的動向。

電子閱讀器

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 17:49:02 +0800

今日互聯網普及的速度之快，在幾十年以前是難以想像的。網上資源的流轉和豐富亦是不可想的，在網上可以迅速找到所有 1923 年以前出版的公有領域的書籍，而不費吹灰之力。這些書之所以免費，乃是基於國際版權公約之規定。那麼多書可供下載，何不利用起來呢？這樣就可以省下大把銀子去買網上沒有的新書了。長久以來，這些資料都只能在電腦熒幕上閱讀。這聽起來似乎還行，可真的讀起來，這種方式對眼睛傷害極大，身體的姿勢亦頗不適。因為現在一般的 LCD 液晶顯示器都會自發光，而這種顯示方式比起傳統印在紙上的墨水，對眼睛傷害更大。幸好技術發展日新月異，一種稱作 E-Ink 電子墨水的技術將幾年前的癡人說夢變成了實實在在的東西。

國際售書巨頭亞馬遜公司便眸準時機，生產出 Kindle 電子閱讀器與它全球最大的網路書店相連，讀者購書就在彈指一揮間，閱讀體驗亦與紙書相埒。我也是愛書之人，電腦裡又囤積了數以百計的掃描書，終於抵不住誘惑於年初入手一台大熒幕版的 Kindle DX Graphite，至今已讀了不下二十本書。

A Story of the Boy with Round-framed Glasses

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 05:25:19 +0800

These days I was reading the last volume of a story series that have accompanied me for nearly a decade. Yesterday when finished and turned over the last page of the tome, I signed with a complex smile, one for my ultimate witness of Harry and his friends’ happy ending and the other for the termination with my further expect for the whole story. From 2002 to 2010, Harry Potter series is the children story that gives me the deepest impression and influence during my study life. Ten years have passed away; however, I still have a vivid memory of my initial connect with this legend initiated by J.K Rowling.

In a breezy and clear night, I entered a restaurant with my father, attending a dinner hold by his colleagues. The moon was round, shrouded with several nebulous clouds in the midair. That day I had a fine mood as the restaurant was situated on a road near my old house, which aroused much of my thoughts back to the happy old days in the lanes.

With exquisite spectacles, my father’s colleague, Mr. Shen, was a lanky young man with a tinge of genteel manner. Though having little word and anecdote shared with his companions in comparison with my father, who was quite gregarious and talkative, he was not restrained but quite penetrating. He bade us welcome. To my surprise, he brought a present for me as the first-meeting gift. It was a book as I spotted it, without any wrappings or decoration. However, I still liked it since reading was one of my hobbies in leisure times.

He told me, with a gentle voice, that he really recommended this book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, as it was the most popular in 2001 and remained the bestseller for several weeks in UK years before. Still an innocent boy at that time, I did not have a thorough concept that night when I first reached it. But as reading the story further, I was gradually mesmerized by the wonderful world that Mrs. Rowling had created and the little boy with round-framed glasses.

福州路兩書店

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 07:01:35 +0800

因為手頭有兩張新華書店的抵券，昨日便去了福州路。進了書城，倒像是進了大賣場，看客們似乎買的不是書，是咸肉。對于店里的營業員，大概也是如此。平生從未見過業務素養如此之差的，報一書名，他們只會去電腦上查，查出以后也就揮揮手朝遠處一指，道：“去那

Life and Death in Shanghai ----上海生與死

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:07:12 +0800

One score and two dozen years ago, communist China was stuck in a calamity involving almost everybody from the citizens who had even menial jobs to party dignities. These decades, including the disastrous political movements one after another since 1949, has constituted the whole figure of the miserable childhood in most middle-aged peoples’ memories. Up to this day and age, although a multitude of fictions, stories and poems accusing this absurdity have seen their light of day, never a book can be more vivid in reminiscing a personal experience with first-person description than the autobiography of an elegant and dignified lady, Nien Cheng.

To be candid, I don’t have any knowledge about this woman, nor her book before hearing the recent news of her demise at the age of ninety-four, which is longevity in my eyes. Hardly had I been curious about the book when I finished reading a brief introduction of it as well as finding the noble and graceful portrait of the old lady on the cover. Instantly I decided to get this book to have a read. In my first thought, it is utterly impossible for me to buy this book in local bookstores selling foreign books as most of them are state-operated. As a matter of fact, the political air in contemporary China seems to be much tighter in comparison with that of twenty years ago. A same book of this kind is more likely to be published before 1989 than today. Looking to a fish out of the net, I tried to search it on my university’s library because there are tons of foreign volumes and references. Fortunately, this rare suvival book lay silently with its torn cover and yellowish pages when I positioned it on the book shelf in one school reading room.

《國家地理》雜誌中文版

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:02:08 +0800

前幾天突然從寫字臺邊上的紙板箱里翻出一本《國家地理》，這個是我多年前在地鐵錦江樂園站前的小攤覓得的。當時估計要價￥30元，現在又把它讀了一遍，不禁贊嘆正體字的排版和臺灣譯文的精到。本來大陸也可以出簡體字本的，可惜“版署”硬性規定外刊不得出簡