Ｓｏｍｅ Ａｎｅｃｄｏｔｅｓ ｏｆ Ｏｌｄ Ｄｕ， ａ Ｂｉｂｌｉｏｐｈｉｌｅ

I’ve known Old Du for more than 10 years. The gentle 75-year-old Old Du looks dapper and cute， his face white， his brows black and thick， his silver hair combed tidily on two sides. He prefers wearing white jackets and black pants， and he speaks Hangzhou dialect softly. And he is a bibliophile. That means his dapper and cute looks would disappear after he images from dusty old books in dusty old places where such books are available.

A month ago he stormed unexpectedly and excitedly into my office at the Arts Weekly where I was working. He had traveled all the way from home to my office， just to find out where some books at the weekly were to be disposed of. While I made calls to find the information he needed， he complained about the pain in his back. He had got his back injured a few days before while sunning thousands of his books. More than an hour later， he reappeared at my office. He had just spent about 70 yuan for four books. He showed me the result of his treasure hunting and explained why the four books were so precious. He went away happily， laughing weightily at my teasing remark that his wife would nag him if she saw him come back home with a pile of books.

His wife has complained about his expensive hobby for past 30 years. I got to know Old Du through my coverage of his private library of 8，000 books years ago. That year， his library was selected as the city’s top ten private libraries. Over years， we have visited each other now and then and chatted frequently over phones. He still lives in his small department and his collection has grown to 11，000 books. In the collection， some 400 are threat-binding versions printed in the early republican years and he bought them from secondhand bookstores or from recycle stations. The oldest and most precious volume in his collection is a threat-binding one published in the years of the Emperor Qianlong who reigned 60 years from 1735 to 1795. The book he loves most is a pocketbook series published in 1891， the 17th year of the reign of the Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). The pocketbook series is a tiny encyclopedia with 30 chapters in six volumes. The provincial library does not have this series.

As his library grew， the large room that faces the south became gradually crowded with books. Now his wife sleeps in another room， leaving the room to the books and Old Du. When his wife first moved out to another room， Old Du could stretch comfortably in the bed. But now he sleeps on a narrow wood board as if he were practicing the famous weightless kongfu stunt. Worried about the books in rickety piles and bookshelves， his wife and daughter fear that these books would crash and fall upon him.

Toward the end of 2007， I visited Old Du， bringing him a piece of news that a bookshop owner in Hong Kong died in his book warehouse where he was alone sorting out books and books crashed upon him and killed him. His body was not found until more than 10 days later. Old Du’s wife and daughter nagged him again after hearing the scary story. But Old Du laughed， commenting that such a death was worthwhile for a bibliophile.

He fell in love with books because of her daughter Du Juan. Old Du himself has only four-year school education. He was discharged from the army in 1959 after he fell sick. He worked at the Uptown District Government until he retired in the late 1990s. When his daughter Du Juan began to work as a professional calligrapher at the Wangxingji Fans Plant in the 1970s， Old Du began to visit bookstores in Hangzhou in search of copybooks and found excellent artists to teach his daughter. This way， he came to know many established artists who were then politically brushed aside and ignored. Gradually Old Du came to know a lot about calligraphy， painting and books. He started a collection of art books and it has expanded gradually over years.

Before I made acquainted with Old Du， I thought only masters of letters and artists were bibliophiles. They had leisure and money and had the knowledge to write essays about the books in their collections and about things mentioned in the books. After Old Du became my friend， I came to know that ordinary people can be bibliophiles too. Old Du is knowledgeable about editions. Sometimes he repairs books in poor conditions. And unlike some miserly collectors， Old Du is generous when his friends want to borrow books from his collection. He remembers who borrowed which books and who did not return them later， but he believes these books can be more useful with his friends than in his library.

Sometimes Old Du jokes with himself that he is playing with books. It is interesting and eye-opening to know that he explains his addiction to books this way. Some books collectors might belittle bibliophiles like Old Du as if people like him devalue books. But addiction to books is just like any other addiction.

Old Du’s complete name is Du Chuanzhong. He may be just an ordinary man in Hangzhou， but he is an unusual bibliophile in Hangzhou. □