Another story about Yi Shu

【人物简介】    亦舒，原名倪亦舒，兄长是香港作家倪匡。
    亦舒於1946年生于上海，祖籍浙江镇海，五岁时来港定居，中学毕业后，曾在《明报》任职记者，及担任电影杂志采访和编辑等.1973年，亦舒赴英国修读酒店食物管理课程，三年后回港，任职富丽华酒店公关部，后进入政府新闻处担任新闻官，也曾当过电视台编剧。现为专业作家,并已移居加拿大。

【人物生平】
    亦舒十五岁时，就被报刊编辑追上学校来要稿，成为编辑们不敢得罪的『小姐』。当亦舒一露头角就迅速成名时，两兄妹就成了香港文坛上的两杂奇花。有人称之为奇迹，说亦舒、倪匡、金庸是“香港文坛三大奇迹”。“金庸创作流行武侠小说，倪匡创作流行科幻小说，亦舒创‘流行’言情小说。 另有笔名梅峰、依莎贝和玫瑰等。
    她美丽而豪爽，“有着追求理想的翅膀”，因之她的小说充满幻想色彩——虚无飘渺，却又执着而不肯放弃。她更具有敏锐的观察力与触觉， 有擅于将平凡的字眼变成奇句的纔华，她的写作正如她的人，麻利、泼辣， 而又快又多，但即使换上十个笔名，读者也不难一下子从作品中把她辨认出来。
    至今，亦舒的作品已结集出版的有七十种，代表作是《玫瑰的故事》、《喜宝》、《朝花夕拾》等。

【作品风格】
    亦舒走红的时候琼瑶也在走红，于是人家说；“香港有亦舒，台湾有琼瑶”，她却说“那个琼瑶，提了都多余”。但她承认琼瑶有琼瑶的本事，把“那一路”小说写到了尽乎顶点。与琼瑶小说中高大完美、给女人带来幸福的男主角相比，亦舒笔下的男人大多令人失望仅《我的前半生》一书中就有如下数类：多年来老实正经、勤奋向上的丈夫，忽忽然发现了真我，发现了激情，死心塌地要随女演员去过全新生活，全不顾妻儿的感受；在公司踌躇满志而窝窝囊囊混了半辈子的男同事，打着“我老婆一点儿也不理解我”的旗号向单身女人讨便宜；20多岁的男孩子，大学刚毕业，却想在成熟女人身上寻找经验及安慰；文雅体贴、热爱艺术、知情识趣的合伙人，却是个同性恋者；试探几招一看不行立即出言不逊、转舵而走的洋鬼子……当然，他们并不坏，正如张爱玲说过的，“不过是个男人”。“不过是个男人!那你还能有多少指望?
    所以亦舒的女主角，大半是早早放弃了古典浪漫主义深情的女人，只以自爱自立为本。她们当中有单身的女强人，虽孤单并不叹怨，有时嘴巴还相当硬，笑话一大箩；也有最终找到另一半的(却是用头脑，不是用心)——稳妥、开明、体贴的男人，是经历沧桑的女人最好的归属，与那种惊天动地、可生可死的爱情相比，这一种亦舒更有把握。
    然而，“这是另外一回事，”亦舒反复说着，似乎有一丝凄凉之意。也许她心中仍有梦想?梦想又如何?我们生活在一个现实的世界里，一切都注定充满矛盾，包括爱情。
    爱情是可疑的，友谊——女性间的友谊——却被亦舒推到了至重的位置。她的女主角大都有至少一个女性挚友，或是姐妹，或是母亲，或是女儿，或是同学、同事，甚至陌生人、情敌，和她站在同一战线，欣赏她、鼓励她、帮助她。在这里，女性友谊是女性对自身性别的认同、尊重与热爱，是感情的需要，甚至是对另一性别的不公正对待的联合反抗。
    亦舒写出了这种友谊的温暖和珍贵，也写出了它的脆弱——的确是脆弱的，在男性为主宰、女人们“念的是男人，怨的是男人”的社会里。《我的前半生》中就有这样的情节：子君因唐晶与未婚夫同居而倍感失落，甚至的她“无理取闹”，知道往日友情不再，悲叹“无法力挽狂澜”……纵然后来她们言释前嫌，重归于好，那种悲哀却仍然存在。唐晶远嫁，从此天涯，从前相依为命的日子只能留在回忆中，成为永远的牵挂了。
    孩子是亦舒心中的另一种牵挂。她的小说中常有孩子的角色(大多是单身母亲的伶俐早熟的小孩)，她对他们充满感情。这种感情，甚至化成了对整整年轻一代的爱与欣赏：“他们会享受生活，知道什么是自己所要。”“他们多么会思考，多么懂得选择。”“我们那时，越是不切实际越觉着浪漫，跟情不投意不合的男人分手都要分三年才成功，一个人有多少三年?这一代年轻人真正有福，社会风气转变得这样开放活泼，弹性大得多……”
    而这一切，在另一些作家眼中，也许就是人越来越自私、浅薄、耽于现实享乐的表现，就是古典优美之情不再的忧心感叹。但亦舒不。亦舒是开放和务实的。也许就是因为对孩子的热爱，她愿意相信未来，相信一切的转变是为了生活更美好——所以20多年过去，一代人读过亦舒，另一代人又在读亦舒了。
    亦舒小说与其它流行小说最不同的地方，大概是她强烈的女性意识，而且这一点并没有影响其作品流行(女性主义作为卖点在现阶段，尤其是在中国，是非常不合适的，连杨澜这样的女人接受采访时还要说自己真正的理想是当贤妻良母)。这其中的秘密，大概是亦舒的那一种女性意识，是以非常感性而生动的形式表现出来的。
    不止一次从内地发行的生活杂志上看到这样的“温馨故事”：女孩子谈恋爱，“失了身”，又没嫁成，自知犯下弥天大罪，痛苦中却遇到了真爱的男人。几番挣扎后终于决定以诚实为重坦言相告，男人居然原谅了她。天哪，多大的恩典，多大的幸福，多么的感动……
而同样的事，在亦舒的《玫瑰的故事》里，男人追着女人，“我会原谅你的”，女人却义正辞严：我有什么要你原谅?我有什么对你不起，要你原谅?每个人都有过去，这过去也是我的一部分，如果你觉得不满，大可以另觅淑女，可是我为什么要你原谅?你的思想混乱得很，女朋友不是处女身，要经过你的伟大原谅才能重新做人，你以为你是谁?
    这个女人已经29岁半，竟有这么大的胆子对待未婚夫，这来自于她心理上的自立，更来自她经济上的自立。“我是个有本事有能力的女人，我自己双手可以解决生活问题，”所以她有权利要求真正的爱与尊重，若他不给，她不必迁就他。-- 这简直是标准的女性主义的姿态了。
    然而在另外的一些亦舒小说里，女主角最终却是迁就的——两个人都作一点让步，合作愉快。也许这是亦舒的局限，也许正是她的聪明所在。人们说，男女真正平等还要等一千年，我不怀疑这话，因为人们花了几千年来制造它。那么，与其苦等千年，倒不如抓住点实惠的东西——所以，在《她比烟花寂寞》中，女记者尽管年少气盛调子颇高，然而当她在对女演员姚晶死因的采访中发现，所谓女人成功的灿烂背后，竟是如此凄凉不堪，立即去抱男朋友的大腿：当我死的时候，我希望丈夫子女都在我身边。我希望有人争我的遗产。我希望我的芝麻绿豆宝石戒指都有孙女爱不释手，号称是祖母留给她的。我希望孙儿结婚时与我商量。我希望我与夫家所有人不和，吵嘴不停。我希望做一个幸福的女人，请你帮助我。
    很好笑是吗?笑的时候你流泪了吗?这就是亦舒，生于香港这个国际大都会，受过西方教育，骨子里却是中国的，这是我们觉得她最亲切的地方。放一本亦舒在背包里，犹如放一盒珍爱的胭脂——亦舒说：一个女人，无论是什么年代，什么身份，都少不了这一盒胭脂——胭脂是一种象征，过去的女人，现在的女人，这种女人，那种女人，都要努力让自己活得更美。
Source: http://www.40zw.cn/yishu.html

Short Fiction: "Home-coming" by Yi Shu, Renditions Nos.29/30 Special Issue on Hong Kong (Spring & Autumn 1988), pp.108-113.

Apple App store peddles stolen Chinese books?

Anyone can submit apps for Apple’s approval in order to be available for sell at Apple App store. Now, I am curious what legal responsibility Apple has in ensuring the sellers actually have the proper rights? In particular, I wonder how does Apple ensure proper copyrights for foreign languages books?
I wonder if Apple simply asks all apps sellers to sign legal documents claiming they have proper legal and copyrights to sell whatever they try to sell and indemnify Apple in the process?



Ni Kuang (倪匡) and Yi Shu (亦舒) are two famous Chinese authors in Hong Kong and many of their books are still in print and available for sell in bookstores. So it came to me as a big shock and surprise to see a collection of 712 (yes, seven hundred and twelve) of Ni’s books (倪匡作品全集(简繁体712部)) and a 200+ collection of Yi’s books (亦舒小说集200+部（簡繁體）) available for sell for only US$2.99 and $1.99 respectively!!!

Wow, $2.99 for 712 books and $1.99 for 200+ books, what a deal if it is legit?! From what I can gather, Yi’s books collection has been available for purchase at least since a Oct 30, 2010 update. And Ni’s books collection has been available for purchase since Dec 30, 2010.

Both ebook collections are being sold by a seller name “Jingang Chen”. I don’t know if this “Jingang Chen” person has the proper legal rights to sell the books collections or not, I do hope Ni’s and Yi’s authorized publishers can check and confirm if these two book apps are indeed legit.
Hate to see anyone selling stolen copyrighted materials so internationally and so easily.

Source: Ideas Revolution Kempton Wordpress

Yi Shu (亦舒) Talks about Shanzhai culture and fake goods

An interesting article about “sham glam” caught my attention. It was a Reuters report by Tyra Dempster that the world-wide economic downturn has driven more people inside China to buy fake fashion and imitation products. With chic appeal, these faked fashions are no longer shunned and looked upon as knockoffs and imitations but products with its own brand names. It’s a fine line being tread between imitations or faked goods. The products cost much less than the brand-name equivalents and have altered or different names. For example:  Samsung becomes Samsing, Adidas changes to Odidoss or Avivas. Guess what Hike, Like or even Mike are substitutes for? At times, they even reversed Nike’s famous logo (see photo).

The Chinese consumers even coined a fashionable moniker for it – shanzhai, which is applied to fashions to electronics to lookalike celebrities to anything and everything.
In reality shanzhai is not new but rather is an existing word acquiring a new or additional meaning. Shanzhai is composed of two words:  shan (山) which means “mountain” and zhai (寨) which means “wooden fortification” or “rampart.” For thousands of years this term refers to the headquarters of rebels, bandits, or bands of outlaws.

By the fact that this industry is given such a moniker, one may conclude that the general public frowns upon it. But the reverse may be true. With a quick glance at Chinese folklore, one can find many examples of outlaws being portrayed as heroes who frequently took up the causes of the common people and fought for justice. A good example of this is the popular novel Water Margin (水滸傳) and its characters.
Beijing student Cui Lai  offered an explanation for the popularity of shanzhai goods inside China and why the government seems powerless to stop it. “It’s an imitation, so it’s not a fake and it’s not infringing copyright. Maybe it lacks innovation but it’s not really bad.”

This is not only the view of many people inside China but also of Cai Lan (蔡瀾), a well-known Hong Kong writer, movie producer, television personality, entrepreneur, and food critic, who has expressed a similar viewpoint. In a book published on June 2006, Mr. Cai wrote a piece on the e-book readers he saw while visiting Japan. He was truly impressed and taken by these e-book readers. He lamented the fact that all the electronic books so far were in Japanese only and wondered about the availability of Chinese e-books.
Mr. Cai didn’t see software as a obstacle as Chinese software engineering have made great progress. As for hardware, he figured it is a simple case of buying an existing unit and reverse engineering. He stated that imitation is nothing to be ashamed of, the only shame is when the imitator can’t improve upon the original. He iterated this would be nothing more than taking a page from Japan’s playbook as that country grew from a defeated nation to become the world’s second largest economy.

During the latter part of the 1990s another well-known Hong Kong writer, Yi Shu (亦舒), wrote an article on knock-off purses. Her view at the time was that those purses were of such low quality that people can spot them two blocks away. But people do have the right to live in fantasies if they so wish. Yi Shu is the aunt of Hong Kong writer Joe Nieh.
In a nutshell many in China do not see the production of imitations, fakes or knock-offs in the same light as western multinationals and governments. They don’t see it as an intellectual property rights issue at all. This means western interests and the original, mostly foreign, brands have a long struggle ahead of them in protecting their intellectual properties in not only China but in Asia as a whole.

If Mr. Cai looks familiar, it is because he has appeared numerous times in the original Iron Chef cooking show as one of the judges. He also has a Chinese-language blog.
Source: DailyQi

Yi Shu (亦舒)

Hong Kong is a land of miracles. Its popular literary boasts tremendous readership in Hong Kong, on the Chinese mainland, Taiwan and wherever Chinese live. Dubbed Three Miracles in HK's literary circles, romantic stories by Yi Shu, martial art novels by Jin Yong and science fictions by Ni Kuang have enjoyed unbelievable popularity for decades among all the Chinese people. As a female writer, Yi Shu stands out with her romantic but sober stories and concise and fashionable style.

Yi was born in Shanghai. She published her first short story when she was fifteen and has since become one of Hong Kong's best-known popular fiction writers, with a truly prolific output. Her representative works include Story of the Rose and Once Deeply in Love.

Yi is a prolific writer, with more than 180 works published: full-length and shorter novels, short stories. Her writings are a vivid depiction of middle class life in Hong Kong, from the point of view of someone who has been influenced by both Western and Chinese cultural values.

Yi's family, which was an average middle class family, moved to Hong Kong from the mainland when she was a child. She is a natural writer and had her first story published when she was only 16. She worked as a journalist, and many of the events she covered gave her access to the upper echelons of Hong Kong society. She draws from this experience when writing her novels.

After establishing her reputation as a writer of idealistic romantic novels, Yi has branched out in recent years, and her works now include ghost stories, tales about dreams or unexplained phenomena and "life lesson stories" -- moralistic tales about how to deal with everyday problems. Although no market research has been done, it is estimated that more than 80 percent of Yi's readers are women aged between 15 and 35. Not only is she an extremely popular writer in Hong Kong, but her fiction is also widely read in mainland China, Singapore, Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries.

Yi's work contains few cultural or literary references. Her readers prefer something entertaining and interesting, with characters similar to themselves. It is for this reason that Yi Shu is looked down on by the literary world in Hong Kong.

Concise and Despairing
Even the writer's name is invisible at the end of a story, Yi's fictional works are easy to recognize for her unique and concise writing style. Using short sentences, use employs as few words as possible, managing to use pungent tones and providing sober insights into human deep heart.



Novels by Yi can't simply be categorized by comedy or tragedy. They do have a happy ending. But it does not help soothe readers and draws them back from the disappointments and sorrows in life and love. Readers can relate to the characters' ups and downs, and vivid comings and goings.

Men and women under her pen are corrupted, which is not terrible at all. At most, it's woeful. But the terrible thing is that they keep perfectly conscious while they are sinking, and they can do nothing to stop it. They give up all their hope to live better but don't really abandon themselves. They are mean to themselves, and to people around them.

Yi Shu likes to cast a strong shade of gray in all her fiction, leaving readers with the suspicion that she is a cynic who hates the world and scorns it. In reality, she has a great love for society and dreams of gaining warm and true love. But truth turns out to fail her and drives her to be hysterical despairing of the world. In Xibao, one of her stories, she took down a love-and-hate attitude: "I want loads of love. If love is absent, I want health. If health is beyond my reach, I want plenty of money."

Calculating and Independent
Men in Yi's stories are usually disappointing. Just have a look at the characters in My Early Life. The hardworking and honest husband seems to find his true self and the long lost passion all of a sudden, and is determined to live a new life with the pretty actress, abandoning his wife and children; the ambitious colleague working in the company for half of his life, without any chance to be promoted, complains his wife doesn't understand him and chases pretty girl colleagues; the fresh college graduate in his early 20s wants to have an affair with a married woman; and the handsome and gentle and thoughtful man who has a good taste in art turns out to be a gay… They are not bad guys. Just ordinary men.



Most of the women in her stories are wise, diligent white-collar workers who experience hard time in their love affairs and find it too difficult to find their Mr. Right. They have a clear view of the relations between lovers, and do not hold impractical dreams of their future and lives. Love and marriage in their mind are just something that is impossible to be perfect. They are independent and calculating. They are lonely, but do not complain. Even some lucky girls among them find their Mr. Right, they get married through deliberate calculation rather than their emotion and passion.

Cold and Contradictory
It's impressive that most of Yi's novels are set in a cold metropolis where men women are under great pressure in their psyche and character building.

"Yi was brought up in Hong Kong and her stories are Hong Kong in character, keeping the same pace with the vibration of Hong Kong people," says Yi's brother, well known Hong Kong science fiction writer Ni Kuang. "You won't find her stories affected or unnatural. They stand for Hong Kong people's character."
Yi's attitude to love is contradictory. She does believe that there is something in the world that is love -- pure love with no worldly participation. She affirms that the pure love is simply beautiful because no custom, tradition or morality is involved.

On the other hand, she knows clearly that pure love has little chance to last in the material world. So love in Yi's stories is a metropolitan game, adding some ingredients to the busy and ordinary daily life. Lovers are ready at any minute to divert their love to someone else within changing society. Marriage is no longer the fruit of love. It's a sober choice after careful calculation of the world.

Xibao
Xibao is one the Yi's best full-length stories. Xibao is a beautiful, intelligent and elegant girl who is 21 and studies in Cambridge University. One of her best friends, Xu Conghui, is born into a rich family. At Xu's engagement ceremony, both Xu's father and her brother are fascinated with Xibao. Xibao finally accepts Xu's father, an old, charming and rich man in order to guarantee her study and a better life in the university. Mr. Xu's huge wealth facilitates Xibao to be an upper-class lady. But the changes in Xibao's life are confined to the material. Xibao finds her private space intruded upon to a great extent due to Mr. Xu's strong possessive desires. She does not have freedom and everything she does will be reported to Mr. Xu by his men.



The unhappy Xibao picks up her long lost feelings of relaxation when she meets a young German professor and soon falls in love with him. Word comes to Mr. Xu and the enraged man shoots the professor. Later on, Xibao in great sorrow is informed her mother has committed suicide just after her second marriage. Xibao gives up her studies and becomes addicted to alcohol. Money at the moment is not able to settle anything for her. Xibao finds to her sadness that wealthy the Xu family is, none of the family members are happy. Her best friend, Mr. Xu's daughter Conghui, gets married to a man who loves her money instead of her and leaves her husband and the family. Conghui's cowardly brother is on the edge of collapse because his deep and constrained love to Xibao does not get any feedback from her; and, Conghui's seemingly happy sister is afflicted with her husband's affairs with other women. The poor lady is afflicted by cancer and puts her life to an end by herself. Mr. Xu, the millionaire, dies after all the changes to the family.

Xibao inherits Mr. Xu's money but it doesn't appear attractive to her anymore. She has lost her youth, the prime time of her life, her love and most important of all, her strength to live.
In Xibao's eyes, the world is cold and her decision to live with old Mr. Xu is a wise choice. "I won't complain to society. There's nothing wrong with the world itself. It's my own decision," Xibao says. Her choice shows her despair with men and feelings of horror of facing a lonely and poor life. It's a means to make living, and has nothing to do with love. "Love is another matter. It's too luxurious for me to enjoy," Xibao says.
(Source: chinaculture)

Isabel Nee Yeh-su, a genius writer

Yi Shu or Nee Yi-Shu is a popular romance writer who "dies" herself when her works published. Her works will everlasting beyond her age. A true writer like her no need to find popularity like did by many other authors/writers, especially young writers.