Foreigners want to know about China culture. What books are more suitable for recommendation?

In my new book Reading Publishing Wisdom from Life: A Publisher's Thinking and Practice, I have devoted a lot of space to China's book "Going Out", but I have never written about what foreigners like to read in China. This paper tries to cut in from this angle and see what this problem really looks like. But one thing must be clear, that is, what I say here is only my experience, which is not supported by statistical data. Because this is an empirical talk, I can only talk about what I have experienced or learned, and my experience and understanding of the relevant situation is very limited, so I can only talk about this topic in several fields for your reference only.

Don't be preconceived.

Speaking of what books foreigners like to read, some readers immediately asked me what subjects foreigners are interested in in in China and what subjects we should provide them with to choose from. Frankly speaking, this is a preconceived view, which generally does not hold water. Therefore, in order to find out what books foreigners like to read, we must first solve this preconceived assumption.

How can we conclude that foreigners must be interested in our books? This idea is somewhat self-centered at work. If we often go abroad, especially to Europe and America, we will find that foreigners are unfamiliar with China. When I went to the United States in the mid-1990s, the book classification of an American bookstore impressively wrote ImperialChi? No. When I went to the World Trade Center, the staff heard that I was from China and kept talking about Tsingtao Beer, which was probably all he knew about China. Although twenty years have passed, foreigners should know more about China. Even so, we should not be too optimistic. There is a simple reason. For them, China is just a distant country. Do they know that the impact on their lives is very limited? It is natural not to rush for success and take the initiative.

There are indeed foreigners who know China, but they are usually people who have close contact with China or experts who study China. If you get in touch with these people, you will find that they sometimes know some aspects of China better than ordinary people in China. These people are all China hands. If you talk to them carelessly, you will be tongue-tied. I once accompanied an American expert to interview and write in the south of China, and the questions raised in the interview often embarrassed some interviewees. Unfortunately, most of our books are not aimed at this kind of things, but at the general public or the general public. This is why if our books want to "go out", they must be based on the fact that foreigners' understanding of China is generally zero or close to zero, so that the works produced or recommended will not be preconceived or lack pertinence.

Starting with cultural similarity

Foreigners are a very big concept, including Europe and America, which are thousands or even tens of thousands of kilometers apart, as well as our close neighbors. If the general public in Europe and America have very limited understanding of us, our neighbors will have very different understanding of us. First of all, the cultures of our neighbors have a historical origin with China, and many things are the same or similar, so there are fewer obstacles for them to communicate with us. With the increasingly close economic and cultural exchanges, books, as a cultural carrier, can easily enter the public in these countries. What I call "walking in" is not appreciation for most people, but a need of life.

A few years ago, Korean publishing houses contacted me with a large number of Chinese learning books, even to the point of buying copyright indiscriminately. Ordinary Koreans, especially young students, learn Chinese for a simple purpose, mostly to find a part-time job in an enterprise that has business dealings with China. In the series of Practical Chinese, 500 sentences of practical spoken Chinese, 200 acts of practical Chinese painting and 300 marks of practical Chinese grammar are very popular with Korean publishing houses. Also popular in language learning are Chinese learning test books, the copyrights of which can be easily sold to South Korea, such as HSK Chinese Proficiency Test, HSK Listening Keywords and HSK Listening Idioms, of which the last two books have been authorized to Korean publishing houses twice. In recent years, the strength of Korean native authors has increased, and the demand for Chinese learning books from China has dropped significantly.

Readers in neighboring countries are also interested in China's books with China's cultural wisdom, such as Reading History with Strategies: The Most Valuable Conspiracy and Open Plan in 5000 Years, The Way of Business and Humanity, The Way of Business in China-From Hu Xueyan to Li Ka-shing, and Fifteen Episodes of Learning Great Things. Some countries live a large number of Chinese because of their own historical reasons. In order to expose their descendants to China culture, reading some books related to China's history and culture has become a moderate demand. For example, the copyright of the vernacular and English versions of Caigen Tan, which I translated in cooperation with the British, was sold to a Singapore publisher.

In recent years, the trend of introducing our books to neighboring countries has changed. First of all, the number of books on Chinese studies is decreasing. As the largest destination country for Chinese learning books, South Korea's demand for Chinese learning books from China is decreasing due to the maturity of its own authors. Secondly, some books related to the ancient wisdom of China that publishers in these countries were interested in before are not as interested as before. Instead, there are works on economic management and mass economy, such as Reading Economics in One Breath and Waste is Profit. The truth that Japanese publishing houses bought Wenzhou people rich coincided with the rich era. There are psychological books full of China's cultural wisdom, which are also very popular in some neighboring countries. For example, the copyrights of Psychology Around You, Playing Psychological Tactics and Healing Psychology are all sold to South Korea. With the development of the times, the demand level of our books in neighboring countries is also increasing. For example, Korean publishing houses are interested in the prose collections of some writers in China, and people often ask for these materials. In some countries, due to the relationship between cultural level and economic level, our literary works, especially youth novels, are very optimistic. Only 40 or 50 copies of this kind of books sold from me are copyrighted, such as Angels Will Love You for Me and Summer of Bubbles. Some countries are becoming more and more interested in our early childhood education books, especially those with new ideas. I once sold the copyright of early childhood education books to Vietnamese publishing houses. Another theme is very popular in neighboring countries, that is, martial arts novels, such as Zhu Xian. This kind of subject matter is probably the most vital and lasting interest in all books.

Different backgrounds can seek common ground.

Neighboring countries have strong adaptability to our works, and the themes are wide and diverse. European and American countries far from Qianshan are very different. As mentioned above, ordinary people in Europe and America know very little about China, so it is obviously beside the point to regard them as readers of neighboring countries. Since they are so different from us, we should think less about "differences" and more about "similarities".

Let's talk about the difference first. Although there are many difficulties in dealing with "differences", it is not without its merits. As early as hundreds of years ago, westerners came to China, and some things from China were naturally recommended to Europe and America. Many of them had a very good foundation in those countries, such as Laozi and The Analects of Confucius. If we go along this road, despite the great cultural differences between China and the West, we can still achieve good results without spending too much effort. Among them, language comes first, so it is necessary and desirable to provide some Chinese learning books suitable for some western readers. Before I retired, I sold the electronic copyright of the latest practical English-Chinese Pinyin Dictionary published by my publishing house to an American company. This dictionary is specially written for westerners to learn Chinese. Its biggest feature is that all the example sentences have Chinese Pinyin. As long as the reader has learned Chinese Pinyin, it is much easier to understand the whole sentence even if there is no teacher to teach him face to face and read unfamiliar words. Beyond language is culture. As mentioned above, we are not afraid of differences. As long as we have a foundation, we can also make a difference. The publishing house where I worked before retirement published The Analects of Confucius and The Formation of Chinese Civilization, both of which were copyrighted and sold to Europe. The difference between the above two aspects is acceptable to foreigners now because the predecessors have done a lot of work and laid a solid foundation.

While trying to be clever in "difference", we should make more efforts in "similarity". The Legend of Wealth: Their First Bucket of Gold tells the story of private entrepreneurs starting their own businesses. American publishers are very interested in this-they want to know the development trend of China's economy, and the factors of private enterprises can not be ignored. Later, the English version of this book was published by American Crown Publishing Company. This book has two similarities, one is economy, and the other is private, which we call private. These two similarities allow us to find a point of convergence with American publishers. Another similarity is health, which is probably everyone's concern. If it can provide health-preserving ideas based on China culture, West Renye Fang is very welcome, such as "The Book of Health-preserving in Chinese Medicine" and "Magic Qigong". These two books are written and published according to the traditional theory of keeping healthy and getting rid of diseases in China. For European and American readers, such health care is not only fresh, but also may achieve unexpected results.

However, there are too few similarities in this respect, and the most common thing between China and the West is the expression and embodiment of emotion, and literature has a unique position in this respect. No matter how different Chinese and western cultures are, love, affection, friendship and the pursuit of perfect personality should be very consistent. For this reason, Wolf Totem, Feather Snake, Love of Hawthorn Tree and Bronze Sunflower are very popular among European and American readers. Among them, the Bronze Sunflower, which I represent, has been published in English not only in Britain, but also in the United States, and its influence in English will span the whole Atlantic. There is another theme that we can also make a difference, that is, works related to Europeans and Americans, which is also a kind of "similarity". Such works may not be directly related to their lives, but they will have a great impact on their culture and even their cognition, such as Riverside Dialogue: Friendly Exchange between an Atheist and a Christian, which is about religious issues in China, and Food Safety: A Food Safety Survey in China. Although the latter is only reportage, it is said that foreign copyrights have been sold a lot.

In short, to find out what books foreigners like to read in China, we just need to find out the similarities and differences between our culture and readers' culture. If we further investigate the market, the accurate pulse will touch our hands.