Book Review: Great Cheap Books

There is one fabolous thing about Shanghai, Cheap Chinese Books!

The books doesnt come cheap in the expense of its quality. And i can assure you these are not pirated books like the one you can get in Pasar Seni. In fact, i bought all of these books from the BIG bookstores which are on par with Borders or Kinokuniya in KL.

The three books which i've bought only cost me RMB 65, which is around RM 32.00, can you believe that?

1。 <徐志摩散文珍藏>

This is one of the best recommended books (along with others from famous authors like 朱自清，鲁迅 etc.) by the scholars for young adults in China. Its a collection of the famous author/poet/Romantisist-徐志摩's writings. Most people recognized him for his famous poetry-“偶然”

我是天空里的一片云
偶尔投影在你的波心
你不必惊异， 更无须欢喜
在转瞬间消灭了踪影　

你我相逢在黑夜的海上
你有你的，我有我的，方向
你记得也好，最好你忘掉
在这交会时互放的光亮

The book is kinda like a self revelation and travel log of the writer. In which during his stay in foreign land (in Cambridge, Paris, Itali etc.), he converted all the ignited thoughts about life into beautiful words.

Chinese like to use tea art to represent life, the more you tasted, the more fragrant it is (看生活似茶，愈品愈浓). Thats exactly how i felt when i read his poetry words, the more i read, more thoughts/inspiration sprang out of my mind. This is definitely a must read book, as his writings does not confined to the definition of time and generation.

2。分手信

An English-Chinese translated novel by Nicholas Spark ( the one who wrote message in the bottle, the notebook, a road to remember etc.). Not sure whether the translated version is as good as the english version or not. However what really attracted my attention is the excerpt at the back cover of the book:

離開，才是真正的愛。

一紙揉皺了的分手信
一句不得不說出口的對不起
一個關於割捨的故事

什麼叫做真正地愛一個人？在你內心深處，是否也有這樣的迷惘？
甚至，是否也藏有一個分手的決定、一段分手的記憶？

3。听说爱情回来过

A love story by an unknown china writer, the story was first published online and received great comments from its readers. will see how good it is.

Shanghai

Shanghai, how can i describe the city?

BIG City.

The famous Pearl Tower at Lujiazui district

Thats all, do i need to describe more? Honestly, thats my first impression when i stepped down from the plane and thats the same impression i had in my mind when i board the plane leaving the country after 3 days of stay.

Chinese faces, here, there, everywhere.... I think this was one of the rare moments in my life that i'm actually felt bored looking at so many Chinese faces. In fact after some time, all of them look monotonous and unvarying, blame it to my eyes, which has been pampered too much by the different myriad of colors, culture and diversity we had in Malaysia. For some reason, the chinese faces with fair skin, small eyes, but very fast moving lips and super loud voice are not appealing to me. Ironically, despite of my chinese blood running wild in me, i felt more Malaysian than Chinese when i'm on this land where chinese is most vastly populated.

In attempt to try to experience the local life, as usual i went for the street food, travel around the city in their very very packed LRT, engage in conversation with the taxi drivers etc. However, nothing much ignited my interest. There are BIG shopping malls with hundreds of stores, well, Malaysia have mega malls as well; there is a world 3rd tallest viewing platform-Pearl tower, well our KLCC can do the same, except maybe not as tall as them; the shanghai river which seperates the habour city into Pudong and Puxi is the source of all the economic activities, i have seen the similar river (wider and greater view) in Paris and Edinburgh; Then there is the XinTianDi, which is supposed to be the famous french quarter copycat shopping street, but sad to said that it was totally blown out of propotion (in the tourist guide) as the street is just few hundred metres long, full of starbucks and coffeebeans, not even a bit close to how the real french quarters in European countries look like.

Kudos to the Shanghainese! As what their leaders had envisioned, Shanghai has truly become a global city, for the global villagers, in which foreign people came from all around the world would find easy to adapt and blend in. However, it has also lost the charm of the old Shanghai. The city which never sleep, the city which full of chinese music, food and nostalgic old streets. The city which i craved so much to see and experience.

Its funny that when i'm travelled thousands of kilometres back to my ancestry home, a place where my bloodline traced back to, i felt totally foreign.

*sudden surge of proudness*

i'm felt like a Malaysian more than ever.

Departure

Susan shouts: Here comes a late late post, which is supposed to be published 5 days ago before i fly to pudong, Shanghai. Anyway, will write something on Shanghai Trip, soon....

Am at KLIA now. 1205 in the morning.

The airport looks a bit ghostly.



As far as i can remember, this airport, which is as big as 72 football field was always full of crowds, passenger, flight and airport attendants. Silent was never the word to describe this busy place, with the endless flight announcements blasted from the speaker in different languages, monotonously, one after another.

But tonight, without the usual crowds and the noise, the airport looks sorta empty, and.... lonely

Which makes me felt abit lonely too...

* Imagining Akon singing the song "lonely" to me *