[Repost] “When Eastern Mimi Meets Western Stars and Moons” Beijing Station (Gossip Edition)

I’ve been trav­el­ing around for a long time and just got back. I just saw it today. I’ll write down my thoughts on this tour when I have time, but I’m too tired now, so I’ll take a break first :)Orig­i­nal address:“When East­ern Mimi Meets West­ern Stars and Moons” Bei­jing Sta­tion (Gos­sip Edi­tion)author:Peach Blos­som Spring   
Sat­ur­day, May 14th, was a delight­ful day for the Hong­ni­ba Bei­jing book club. Accord­ing to a rough esti­mate, all the 90% book club mem­bers showed up at the venue, and we had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to spend the entire after­noon chat­ting at a near­by dumpling restau­rant. I had ton­sil abscess­es and a low-grade fever, but that was­n’t a big deal. There were also book club mem­bers who drove all the way from Inner Mon­go­lia. Because the morn­ing ses­sion was for chil­dren, while the adults stayed for the after­noon lec­ture, many book club mem­bers, includ­ing me, left their chil­dren with their par­ents at the end of the morn­ing ses­sion so we could focus on the after­noon lec­ture. One ded­i­cat­ed book club mem­ber, who brought his child with him, even drove back to Chang­ping at noon and returned again in the after­noon, demon­strat­ing the impor­tance every­one attached to this event.
   
I under­stand Tom­my’s nature. He (a six-year-old boy) does­n’t enjoy these kinds of activ­i­ties, so we skipped Red Mud’s month­ly book club. I brought him here because I love “Stars and Moon” so much and did­n’t want him to miss this oppor­tu­ni­ty. Upon arriv­ing at the venue, he could­n’t sit still after just one part of Mim­i’s sto­ry, say­ing he did­n’t like it. The sun was scorch­ing out­side, so we had to go back, bored­ly antic­i­pat­ing Aji­a’s turn to read “Stars and Moon.” The fol­low­ing is a record of Tom­my’s actions dur­ing this event. Late­ly, I’ve repeat­ed­ly seen the prob­lem of boys’ lack of inte­gra­tion into cur­rent edu­ca­tion­al devel­op­ment. Many boys seem to be per­form­ing poor­ly these days. Regard­less of their future suc­cess, this presents a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge for par­ents.
 

 
   
   
The venue for the event was also very appro­pri­ate. It was locat­ed in a court­yard house in the heart of Bei­jing. The Bei­jing YWCA was said to be Zuo Zong­tang’s res­i­dence. I think Tai­wanese and Amer­i­can friends would def­i­nite­ly like it more. Although the build­ings were dilap­i­dat­ed, the court­yard was qui­et and tidy. Com­pared with the noisy streets and dirty alleys out­side, there seemed to be an aura here that could calm peo­ple’s hearts in an instant.

   
Jen­ny’s per­son­al trans­la­tor is a moth­er who loves read­ing to her chil­dren. We met at the Run­shengyuan Read­ing Camp in Hong­ni­ba. I was deeply impressed by her because I was inter­est­ed in for­eign books in the Bei­jing book mar­ket. She always reads Eng­lish sto­ries to her daugh­ter, and her Eng­lish is very advanced. In fact, hav­ing this moth­er as her trans­la­tor is a great hon­or for Jen­ny. It’s obvi­ous that she is an extra­or­di­nary trans­la­tor, as she kept her head down and pro­vid­ed simul­ta­ne­ous inter­pre­ta­tion for Jen­ny through­out the con­fer­ence. Her Chi­nese trans­la­tion was also very accu­rate, with almost no trace of lin­guis­tic stilt in the lan­guage. It was as if the trans­la­tor was giv­ing us a lec­ture! After all, she is very expe­ri­enced in the field of pic­ture books and par­ent-child read­ing. What an amaz­ing moth­er! What an amaz­ing book friend!
     
Red Mud has always been focused sole­ly on books, with book sales and mar­ket­ing seem­ing­ly becom­ing side hus­tles. Such a rare event for an author, yet they did­n’t sell books! Most mem­bers assumed they could buy books on-site. I even wait­ed specif­i­cal­ly to buy a book and get an auto­graph there. I com­plained to the inspec­tor about this, blam­ing them for their lack of sol­id foun­da­tion­al work. The inspec­tor laughed at me for rarely attend­ing Red Mud events like this and not know­ing their rules. While I com­plained, I knew deep down that if this event had actu­al­ly list­ed “book sign­ing” as a “book sign­ing,” I prob­a­bly would­n’t have come. It would be a waste of pre­cious time for authors from Tai­wan and the Unit­ed States to come all the way here for a book sign­ing. What would I have learned? But the inspec­tor is the inspec­tor. He would­n’t com­pro­mise his prin­ci­ples, and he could­n’t bear to see us spoil the fun. He had sev­er­al copies hid­den in his back­pack, well pre­pared! Those who com­plained ear­ly got the books! As long as those who did­n’t snag a book were sin­cere, the inspec­tor promised to ask Jen­ny to sign a batch after return­ing home. The sign­ing was just a for­mal­i­ty; we were just there for the fun. It seems that painters would add a small illus­tra­tion when sign­ing their sig­na­tures. When Jen­ny was sign­ing a bat for a child, some­one next to her touched her arm, and the brush drew a four or five cen­time­ter diag­o­nal line on the paper. The painter then added clouds around the bat, mak­ing the sig­na­ture more mean­ing­ful.

    It might seem dis­re­spect­ful to intro­duce the author last, but I tend to save the most valu­able infor­ma­tion for last. Mim­i’s author, Ms. Zhou Yifen, has some con­nec­tions to Janelle Ken­non. She was the mas­ter­mind behind “Stars and Moons” and “Green Flute,” and “Stars and Moons” had a sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence on her cre­ation of Mimi. Although both are remark­able painters and cre­ators, I did­n’t feel unfa­mil­iar when I met them. I arrived 20 min­utes late that morn­ing and did­n’t see Zhou Yifen. When she took the stage that after­noon, my first impres­sion was that she looked so unre­mark­able, hud­dled in the crowd, unno­ticed. Her short, unstyl­ish hair, a white short T‑shirt, and unre­mark­able pants. But some­thing she said res­onat­ed with me. Both she and Janelle are peo­ple who don’t spend much effort on their appear­ance. If they find a piece of cloth­ing or shoes that suits them, they’ll buy three to six iden­ti­cal pairs, sav­ing them the trou­ble of wast­ing time on out­fits. Janelle also said that the first thing she thinks about every morn­ing isn’t how to dress, but “Am I in a good mood today?” I’d like to inter­ject here: what’s the first thing we all think about when we wake up each morn­ing? As a work­ing mom, I don’t real­ly have time to think about any­thing else every morn­ing. I’m busy get­ting my kids ready, feed­ing them, get­ting them to school, and then rush­ing off to work. Back on top­ic, I admit I’m an out­lier in many areas, like when it comes to dress­ing. All my female col­leagues love to dress up, and while I appre­ci­ate look­ing good, I’m not will­ing to put the ener­gy into it. Espe­cial­ly in recent years, fol­low­ing the red mud group, I’ve even become sloven­ly. Three close female col­leagues have remind­ed me to dress up, but I’ve always felt that with­in the red mud group, look­ing attrac­tive makes me an out­lier. Now, after hear­ing Zhou Yifen’s words, I final­ly under­stand. If a fel­low read­er at a study group wears fash­ion­able make­up, unique jew­el­ry, and a care­ful­ly coor­di­nat­ed out­fit, I’d think she was­n’t focused on her stud­ies. Haha, that’s just my per­son­al opin­ion, just some gos­sip. Any­way, Jen­ny speaks to our hearts: Every­one has the same amount of time each day, and we all pri­or­i­tize spend­ing that pre­cious time on the things that mat­ter most to us. What tru­ly mat­ters to you is up to you to choose.