A Reader of Chinese Spirit

To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the book launch of A Reader of Chinese Spirit was held in the Great Hall of the People on Sept. 1. The book consists of master works of more than 100 politicians, writers, revolutionaries and poets written from 1840 to 1980. On the road to national rejuvenation, these works have influenced generations and are still a guiding light today.

Wang Meng, the former Minister of Culture and the editor-in-chief of the book, believes that the origins of the Chinese spirit can be discovered from The Book of Changes, The Analects of Confucius, Tao Te Ching or the idealist philosophy of the Song and Ming dynasties. It is noticeable that A Reader of Chinese Spirit focuses on modern and contemporary China. That’s because this period has posed great challenges to China and to the Chinese spirit. It is under these challenges that China has shown its sense of responsibility, reflection, self-adjustment, constant learning and reform.

Wu Shulin, the executive vice director of the Publishers Association of China, said that China has witnessed a change from a period of hardship to that of rapid rise spanning 1840 to 1980. China’s spiritual support over these 140 years is recorded in the book, featuring diverse literary genres, including papers, poems, songs, prefaces and essays.

The Chinese spirit is reflected in the works of Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Sun Yat-sen, Lin Zexu, Lu Xun, Mao Tun, Wen Yiduo and many others. At the moment of national calamity, this spirit made Guo Moruo abandon his study of medicine in Japan at the time and compelled him to devote himself to the New Culture Movement and the May 4th Movement. This spirit allowed the modernist poet Dai Wangshu to cease writing about personal joys and sorrows, but to eulogize national awakening and the feelings of the masses.

Nie Zhenning, head of the Taofen Foundation of China and vice director of the Publishers Association of China, said that the Chinese spirit is the national spirit with patriotism at its core and the age spirit of reform and innovation at its core. This spirit runs through the 5,000-year history of the Chinese nation, especially through the process of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation in modern and contemporary times. Reading these famous representative works can enable younger generations to inherit this Chinese spirit and Chinese culture, know the past humiliations and hardships of the Chinese nation, and establish a stronger ambition for national rejuvenation. A Reader of Chinese Spirit should be taken as a book for nationwide reading in the new era.