It is time to sit down and write something about my book, from the very beginning to the finish product.

Guided by my mother, I was exposed to Chinese classical poems since very young. Becasuse the poems were very short and rhymed, so it was easy for me to memorize, although I didn't know the meaning at all.

After entering elementary school, teachers started to teach us those poems, word by word. Since then I knew the meaning, just like knowing how to write a new word.

At middle school, teachers asked us to feel the poems by using imagination, becasue there were pictures inside. But I still didn't see the pictures at that time. Don't know since when, maybe from high school, images started to float into my mind, and I just realized how beautiful they are.

I won't say everything is in control right now, because time is a big issue to me. I won't say that I am a perfectionist, but I do want to make a good book. It would be much easier and more freedom if I just do the Chinese version, right now I have to compromise with the sources I can find.

I haven't written my blog for quite a few days, and there are so many details need to be done, like searching for the best translation and then matching the content with the right images, finding paper, doing layout, etc. I start to worry about my book now.

chinese calligraphy

Chinese painting

My book is about chinese classical poetry, which I was guided to learn since very young, and they are also state-required content of textbooks. The poems selected are mainly from Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618-907) and Song Dynasty (A.D. 960-1279). Many of them are composed of four or eight lines, with five or seven characters each line. Eventhough they are very short, I feel like a picture is unfolded before me when I am reading.

In traditional chinese painting, the art of calligraphy was inseparable from painting, therefor most of the old paintings contain text and picture, and I want to keep this style in my book.

Basically, the book is divided into 4 sections (spring, summer, autumn and winter), each section has its own theme and the colour of the book will change with their theme