Tales of history get a dash of modern color

In their new book China Simplified: History Flashback, Stewart Lee Beck and co-author Sun Zhumin created colorful descriptions for historical figures such as "the master of strategy", "the hippies in ancient China" and "the floating CEO".

"The master of strategy" refers to the legendary general Sun Tzu (544-496 BC), author of The Art of War, vividly portrayed by illustrator Yang Kanzhen in the book wearing a headset commanding troops with the help of virtual reality or augmented reality technology in front of a display screen.

The book lists the commonalities between the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove in the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) and the hippies in the United States in the 20th century. They shared the same strong attitude against war, enjoyed a Bohemian environment and lifestyle, used recreational drugs and had a love for music. The floating CEO is of course the most famous sailor in the Chinese history, Zheng He, the eunuch who led the first Chinese fleet as far as the Indian Ocean.

By placing these complicated dynasties, events and figures from Chinese history in a context that is familiar to contemporary readers in English, the authors, Beck from the US and his Chinese colleagues Sun and Yang, have created a book of Chinese history that is fun to read and rich in information.

Rana Mitter, director of the University China Center and professor of the history and politics of modern China at the University of Oxford, says that, "you'll enjoy yourself so much you might not realize how much you're learning".

Together with China Simplified: Language Empowerment, the series of books by Beck and his Chinese collaborators are the latest publications from a new project at Shanghai Translation Publishing House aiming to promote Chinese culture to the international market. The books are supported by the National Publication Foundation of China.

The other book of the series, Language Empowerment was praised by David Brooks, chairman of Coco-Cola in the Greater China region and South Korea, to be "a lively and original approach to navigating the bottomless mysteries of Chinese language and culture".

Michael Volz, the Chinese program coordinator at the University of Missouri, says that: "With humor and clarity, Language Empowerment weaves together rich cultural and linguistic background information of the Chinese language with practical implications for daily communication."

In Language Empowerment, the authors Beck and Lu Haiyan didn't only present colorful Chinese expressions in different dialects and cultural context, idioms, quotes and puns, they even made a diagram that helps language learners to understand the nuanced ambiguity in Chinese from buzenmeyang (not so good) to taibangle (great).

The book's Chinese editor Lu Yaping had the most fun reading the column My Favorite Mistakes, where language learners confuse the expression for "left" with "dead", and "young man" with "little monkey".

Beck has more than 20 years' experience living and working in China. Beck and his co-authors are "masters of storytelling", said Shi Lingkong, chief editor of STPH, at the book launch which took place at Jazz at Lincoln Center Shanghai on Dec 11.

Beck explored a new angle to interpret Chinese culture, Shi says. "The books contain many cultural references that will bring about a smile on Chinese and Westerners' faces alike."

According to Shi, the project was launched in 2018, with the publication of Limited Views on The Chinese Renaissance by French columnist David Gosset, which consisted of a collection of essays on the author's observation for contemporary China.

While the China Simplified series will break down lots of barriers for Westerners interested in Chinese culture and language, the books also provide new perspectives for Chinese readers to view their own culture. "It is entertaining and enlightening at the same time," Shi says.

Beck was born in 1962 and grew up in Chicago, Illinois. He was working as a computer scientist in Brazil in 1992, when he got a job offer and decided to move to Hong Kong. In 1995, he moved to Shanghai with his wife, a Chinese Malaysian.

In 2013, he and Sun, a passionate story-teller with a master's degree in English literature from Fudan University, decided to start a part-time job, and work on some books that tell cultural stories. They named it China Simplified, and a friend came up with a slogan for the new project, "Untangling the Noodles", inspired by Beck's favorite Chinese food as a child back home in Chicago.

Beck decided that the best way was to first create a website and test his ideas and articles, get feedback and refine his thinking. "I think that's the best way to do it," Beck says.

Their work started with heated discussions. Beck and his Chinese co-authors, Sun on the history book, Lu Haiyan on Language Empowerment and Yang on the illustrations, would argue about what Western audiences might be interested in, and what were too important to miss. If they believed the story was best presented in pictures, they would leave out the verbal description.

It was difficult to reach agreement. It was only after "fierce battles" that they picked the stories and figures to be presented in the book. Sometimes what Sun thought interesting did not spark any light of interest in Beck, and a lot of names and facts had to be eliminated in order not to confuse their readers.

They took their time, worked on the stories and eventually accumulated plenty of good content to make the books.

In this age of social distancing, quarantine and isolation, a series of books to keep us connected seems to be the perfect companion, according to Beck and Sun, who are both confined to their homes in Malaysia and Shanghai respectively.