A Life of Books

Cao Jingxing as a scholar has many distinguishing characteristics. One description that defines him is that he is the son of Cao Juren (1900-1972)， a celebrated writer， scholar and journalist of the 20th-century China. Cao Jingxing is a professor of history.

Born in 1947， the junior’s first exposure to books in his childhood years was in his father’s library. While working in Hong Kong， the father had a collection of thousands of books. It was this library that opened the young Cao Jingxing’s eyes to the world whose truths and lies and beauty are discussed in books. He finished reading Chinese classic novels before he finished primary school. In his middle school years he began to explore the best of the world literature.

Cao Jingxing majored in history at Shanghai-based Fudan University in the late 1970s. In these years， he borrowed books in bundles from libraries and read them fast. He went through “Twenty-Four Histories” at a speed of one dynasty a week. What an awesome number of books he read in these years. Years later he recalls that he learned how to write from Chinese classics such as “Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio” and “A Dream of Red Mansions”. He understood Chinese history by reading all these histories. And he learned about world literature through translated books.

In years when there was no personal computer， Cao Jingxing took notes while reading. He accumulated two large boxes of note cards. Like some Chinese scholars in days of book scarcity， he copied books. One of the books he copied was the first volume of “The Glory And The Dream” by William Manchester. He copied the book from cover to cover and it was his first introduction to the modern history of America. Another book he copied was “History of the Second World War” by Basil Henry Liddell Hart (1895-1970). The book opened his eyes to things that could be understood in different ways. He commented that this is one of the books that cast new light on the past and enable the reader to say， “So， that’s what really happened!”

According to Cao Jingxing， copying a book creates more profound impressions than does reading a book. “Copying a book is more than a passion. It is also about perseverance.”

It was this same perseverance that enabled him to go through the English edition of “The History of the World” in a year. This year’ long read of the book helped him master the essentials of the English language.

In the 1970s Cao and his wife made 80 yuan together a month as young scholars. They spent 40 on food， 20 for raising their child and 20 for books. Years later Cao joked about the financial arrangement this way: “Fortunately my wife as a student of science did not buy as many books as I did.” He ran into Winston Church’s Memoir one day in a bookstore but he had only 10 yuan about him. He visited a relative and borrowed another ten and came back and bought the book.

Though he did not have much money to buy books， but over years， his library began to expand. Gradually his collection was as big as his father’s years before. Today， his private library in Shanghai is larger than the two he keeps respectively in Beijing and Hong Kong.

After he moved to Hong Kong in 1989， he worked as a media man for a while. His biggest loss during that time was the time he had originally assigned for reading. The introduction of Internet has marginalized his reading further. Instead， he now spends two or three hours per day surfing and reading online. And he reads newspapers and magazines for another three to four hours a day. The largest chunks of time he has for book reading are in an airport terminal or in a plane when he has a lot of time for reading things at a long sitting.

His private library in Hong Kong is housed in a rather large study. Bookstores in Hong Kong are mostly located in downtown Hong Kong where Cao has bought quite a few books on history of modern China. He has bought many books while traveling in Taiwan， including some well-translated bestsellers in Chinese such as “The Devil Wears Prada” and “The Kite Runner”. Cao comments that “The Kite Runner” helped him understand Afghanistan more than any other book does. □