Books and Me
Ji Xianlin

Since time immemorial, in China and elsewhere, there have always been some people who love their books as if they were their very lives.
I would love to join the ranks of these people.
Books give people knowledge, wisdom, joy, and hope; but books can also bring troubles and calamities to people. During the ten years of the Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976, I was the target of criticism and struggle because I had a huge collection of books, Chinese and foreign, ancient and modern. In 1976, when earthquakes threatened Beijing, I was warned that the “mountain of books” I owned might prove a liability to me because they were likely to block my escape in the event of an earthquake. The times of criticism and struggle are gone like evaporated clouds and smoke, and the feared earthquake never materialized. I continue to love books like my very life, and my books have increased to fill several rooms. Aside from books I bought myself, I’m having an increasing number of books that were presented to me as gifts.
I don’t really know how many books I have. All I can say is that I have many more books than most people. A worker who had been involved in reinforcing buildings for fear of earthquake told me that he had never seen anyone who had as many books as I. Thanks to the extra care of our school leaders, I now boast several rooms for books. Gone are the days when the bedroom, the study and the sitting room were all rolled into one—and when a situation existed as described in “Notes on the Land of Peach Blossoms”: “the initial part of the tunnel was just wide enough for a person to squeeze through.” They eyes of some young people would pop wide-open when they saw my books. “Have you read all those books?” they asked me. I told them frankly that I have only read a very, very small part of them. “Why then do you keep all those books?” they pursued.
That was a question difficult to answer. Not having studied the psychology of book collecting, I’m not able to give a concise answer. And I believe that those who cherish books as they do their very lives—whether Chinese or foreign, ancient or modern—won’t be able to do that either. The reasons they offer will vary widely even if they could offer them.
My own books are far from enough if I am engaged in some authentic scientific research. Probably my profession is somewhat strange. As I have discovered, not a single library in China can satisfy all my needs to the smallest degree. Some of my research projects were suspended because of the lack of books. And in my table drawers there are unfinished papers on that account: they were simply given up half way.
That is why I would sometimes say to my friends jokingly, “In my profession, having a satisfying library is more difficult than realizing the ‘four modernizations.’ We might not be able to make a radical turn-round, even when China’s GDP has quadrupled.”
That’s by no means an exaggerated statement, made just o create a sensation; it is a fact. There are quite a few other professions which are more or less in the same boat as my profession. All this results from the fact New China doesn’t have a solid economic foundation to start with. A lot has been done to remedy the situation since 1949, the year of liberation, but the age-old situation cannot be turned round overnight.
All I can do now is to pin my hope on the future and to appeal to my colleagues. Let’s pool our efforts. As time passes, our accumulated, joint efforts will be rewarded by a thorough transformation of the situation.
Our ancients said, “While earlier generations plant trees, posterity will enjoy the cool under the shade.”
Let’s all be tree-planters.