For the sake of Jiang Shumei's new work "My Man", the long-lost insomnia problem has returned, and the reason is that I think too much......

By chance, one night, we met at a meeting of Jiang Shumei's new book readers in Beijing. Since then, I have been in constant contact with Jiang Shumei's daughter, Ms. Ai Ling, and they have all become authors of our publishing house, and I have become the topic planner or editor in charge of their manuscripts.

It was about one day on CCTV's "News Network" that I saw Jiang Shumei, a white-haired and energetic legendary old man, for the first time, and knew her legendary story of "reading at the age of 60 and publishing a book at the age of 76". It is precisely because of this first impression and out of professional sensitivity that after I met in the Beijing bookstore, I asked Jiang Shumei and Ai Ling for a manuscript. Although they were willing to publish their works in the publishing house in their hometown in Shandong, and also recognized the brand of Shandong Pictorial Publishing House, they proposed that in order to cooperate with our company, they must obtain the consent of the grinding iron company that discovered and achieved the legend of Jiang Shumei. Fortunately, despite his reluctance, Mr. Chen Liang, the project manager of the Iron Gourd Books of the Iron Grinding Company, was finally an adult beauty. Mr. Chen Liang's philanthropic act makes me believe that there is more than just a competition of interests among peers in the publishing industry.

For me, the process of editing the manuscript of Jiang Shumei's book is a process of learning and enjoyment. I was born in the early sixties of the last century, and I have personally experienced the poor and hard times described in the manuscript. Similar to the family and personal stories told in this book, there is also a "good supply" in my hometown of Qingzhou (formerly Yidu County). It's a pity that there is no pair of mother-daughter writers like Jiang Shumei and Ai Ling who can write stories in Qingzhou.

When I was editing this book, I also had a dream of being a writer in my mind - like the old man Jiang Shumei, I wrote the history I had seen and heard in the form of storytelling. Future works should be based on photographs as clues, focusing on old and new photos. Unfortunately, in addition to the lack of rich experience and the baptism of hard life like the old man Jiang Shumei, the most lacking is naturally perseverance, perseverance and the necessary time. In addition, it is difficult for us intellectuals who have been systematically educated and trained in writing literature and history to achieve the original folk narrative of the old man Jiang Shumei.

The narrative of the old man Jiang Shumei is completely vernacular, the text is concise and simple, only presents facts, is unreasonable, there are no lies, clichés and nonsense, and there is no comment or praise or disparagement, which is a folk history without ideological filtering and screening. For more than half a century, the changes at home and abroad and the changes of the times have been written into the lives of ordinary people. As Mr. Zhang Shouren, a well-known writer, editor and publisher, said: "The old man used the language of the common people and a way that was very different from that of intellectuals to narrate and resurrect the difficult years she had experienced. Between the lines, it melts into the virtues of traditional women, the standards of good and evil of the people at the bottom, and the hardship, diligence and courage of the people, so it makes people feel moved to read it. ”

In the process of editing the manuscript, I was moved several times. In the last article of the manuscript, "Meet a Good Man", the author wrote that when she took her two young sons to Juye for funeral and returned to Heilongjiang, because it was late and there was no money to stay in the hotel, she was forced to stay in the waiting room of the railway station for the night, and happened to be taken to her home by a kind sister passing by for food and lodging; The next day, when she and her two children were not on the train at the train station, she and their two children were helped by a middle-aged man whom she did not know and who missed the opportunity to get on the train...... Somehow, reading this, my heart suddenly became sore, and I burst into tears. It is very likely that such a lonely and helpless night, the grief of losing a loved one, and the unexpected rescue of a well-wisher, touched a sensitive nerve or sad memory of oneself. Because of this, when Ms. Ai Ling proposed to delete the article, I suggested that she be "merciful" with the article.

The book in everyone's hands is the fourth new book of the old man Jiang Shumei. This book is identical in narrative style and prose to the previous three books; The difference is that most of the manuscripts of this "My Man" are published for the first time, and for the first time there are old photos and new photos with the text, as well as the "generational preface" of my daughter "Teacher Zhang" and my "postscript". These additions can give more added value to the book, so that readers can better understand the background and process of the book, and then increase their understanding of the connotation of the work.

Fu Guangzhong

April 26, 2016