In early July, Zhang Zhong and his family were packing their luggage at home. Tomorrow they would fly to Yanjing to join Yang Fengxia and the others, and then leave for the United States the day after tomorrow.
Zhang Zhong had very few things. Apart from some essential supplies, he only brought two sets of changes of clothes, which were not enough to fit in a backpack.
He looked at the family helping Pengpeng choose clothes, and said with a smile, "You will definitely need to buy something when you go there. If you bring so many things, how can you carry them back?"
Hu Huifang said, "I picked it because I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to take it with me. Otherwise, it would be too troublesome to take it all with me."
"Bring them all over... Then you have to buy a plane."
“Can I buy a plane?”
Zhang Zhong smiled and was about to answer the question, but the cell phone in his pocket rang.
It was a call from Vice President Wen Han.
"Hey, Teacher Wen."
"Dean Zhang, I have something to report to you here, is it convenient?"
"Do we need to talk in person?"
"That's not necessary. Just talk to me on the phone. It's like this. A few days ago, a few students from the college came to see me. They wanted to apply for the college's project fund." Wen Han said.
Zhang Chong said with a smile, "This is a good thing. This project fund has not been touched after it has been established for such a long time."
This part of the project fund for students to engage in academic research was originally proposed by Zhang Zhong, with the purpose of stimulating students' enthusiasm for learning.
However, the reality is far from ideal. It has been more than two months since the project fund was established, but not a single student has applied.
The project fund was sponsored by Zhang Zhongrang's "Zero One" magazine, and 200,000 was allocated for the first issue.
I originally thought that if there were too many projects and the fund was not enough, I would ask the magazine to allocate more. However, so far, the two hundred thousand has not been touched.
Now there are students applying, and since Wen Han comes to report to him, it means that the projects applied by these students should still be valuable. Zhang Zhong is of course very happy.
If it can get off to a good start this time, the college's project fund plan may be able to get rid of its previous embarrassing situation.
"What project are they going to study?" Zhang Zhong asked.
"Speaking of it, you have some relationship with the dean. I can't explain the details in just a few words. Let's do this. I'll send their plan to your email for you to check. After you read it, we can talk about it again.
." Wen Han said.
Zhang Zhong nodded and said, "Okay, then send it over and let me take a look."
Just one minute after hanging up the phone, Zhang Zhong received a new email.
It was inconvenient to read the phone, so he ran to the study on the second floor to turn on the computer, then clicked on the email and read it carefully.
After reading it, Zhang Zhong understood why Wen Han said that this plan had something to do with him.
From Zhang Zhong's point of view, this plan is not perfect. It can even be said harshly that it is very crude.
But what the students wanted to express was roughly expressed.
There are five students who want to form a research group to study the secrets of European religious history. Their idea is very clear, which is to follow the diagram and follow the "Da Vinci Code" to trace the forgotten history of European occultism.
They also listed the information collected during this period and wrote a short paper based on the Rosicrucian Manifesto that Zhang Zhong had previously taught in class.
Moreover, they also plan to go on field trips to various parts of Europe during the summer vacation to experience and study local history more closely.
This plan is quite interesting, but to be honest, it is more suitable for students from the School of History.
However, Zhang Zhong feels that research on the humanities is completely necessary, whether in the School of History or the School of Liberal Arts.
Unknowingly, Zhang Zhong turned to the last page of the plan.
On the last page, several students wrote the amount of funds they hoped the college would provide.
"Um?"
Zhang Zhong was a little surprised when he saw the numbers.
Because they actually filled in 5000.
You wrote such a long proposal just for 5,000 yuan?
There are five of them in total for this plan. Not to mention other things, they are going to Europe. The round-trip air tickets alone are not a small amount of money.
The five thousand yuan given to them is not even enough for one person's travel expenses.
Did you fill it in wrongly?
Zhang Zhong felt that this possibility was unlikely. Although the plan was not perfect, he did not see any mistakes or omissions, which proved that the person who made the plan was a relatively careful person.
Since he is a careful person, he will not fill in such an important number incorrectly. He must have checked it several times when writing it, and focused on checking the number.
With doubts, Zhang Zhong called Wen Han again.
"Teacher Wen, are the financial needs of these students definitely 5,000?"
Wen Han seemed to have expected that Zhang Zhong would ask this, and said with a smile, "When I read this plan before, I was also very confused about this number, and I went to verify it. They indeed only need five thousand yuan."
"Why is this? After all this trouble, just for five thousand yuan?"
"I've figured this out. The children are not short of money, they just want to be famous."
Famous as a teacher...
This is not a war.
But then Zhang Zhong probably figured it out. Students may think that doing a school project is very honorable, and it is also to give themselves some confidence.
"Well, this project has been approved by me. As for the project funds, five thousand is a bit too little. Let's ask the finance department to allocate thirty thousand yuan to them first." Zhang Zhong said.
"Okay, I understand, Dean Zhang." Wen Han smiled, "They are still waiting for my news, I will tell them right now."
…
When Zhang Zhong and his family got on the plane to the United States, several people in dormitory 606 also embarked on their journey. In the far west, there was an entire continent of Europa waiting for them to explore and conquer.
"Yu Bi, how's it going? Uncle didn't make things difficult for you, right?"
Fengzi leaned on his seat and said with a smile.
Yu Bi smiled and said, "Making trouble for me? He heard that I used the school's fund to do a project, and he was so happy that he wanted to come over and send me to the plane. I had to persuade him to come down. But he didn't come.
, but the funds were in place. I have never seen my dad so generous since I was a child, and he gave me 20,000 yuan."
"Your dad is a rich man, and twenty thousand yuan is nothing to him."
"My dad does have some money, but he is very picky. Last time I wanted to change my mobile phone, he couldn't polish it for half a month. In the end, I went to his construction site to move bricks piecemeal for nearly a month before I changed my mobile phone.
"
"I support your dad on this point." Lao Qin said with a smile, "If your dad hadn't kept training you, how could you have such a durable body now?"
A few people were chatting lively, but Li Jin in the back seat suddenly said, "While you are taking advantage of this time, you can either catch up on the jet lag or read the information. In two months, we will conduct research on the research we are about to do.
It’s still a little short, so we have to seize every available time.”
Li Jin's words were like a basin of water pouring down on the heads of the other people, causing them to wake up instantly. Their trip was not just for fun.
Since the college approved their application and allocated 30,000 yuan, they cannot live up to the school's expectations.
If they only had enthusiasm at the beginning, now they have an additional sense of mission.
Several students secretly told themselves that they must produce results in the past two months to show to the dean.
…
Compared to dormitory 606, Zhang Zhong's journey here is longer.
Zhang Zhong and his family sat in the front and back rows, and Yang Fengxia sat on Zhang Zhong's left hand side.
Just halfway through the journey, Yang Fengxia said with a smile, "The exchange meeting will not start immediately after we arrive. We still have two days to rest."
"Then why don't you, Chairman Yang, tell me the specific matters of this literary exchange meeting? I can't do any homework."
Yang Fengxia nodded, "Okay, let me tell you. This time we will stop in two cities. The first stop is New York and the second stop is Los Angeles. You should know this."
Zhang Chong smiled and nodded. Of course he knew this. When they decided on the autograph signing station, both parties had communicated with each other.
Seeing Zhang nodded, Yang Fengxia continued, "We are being hosted in New York by Literary Newspaper and Columbia University. According to the itinerary, we will first go to the headquarters of Literary Newspaper for a literary seminar, and then we will visit
Columbia University. There are some famous American writers involved on both sides. The list they gave is quite long. Let me pick out a few of the more important ones and tell you about them. The most important one is probably Carlyle. Did you listen?
Are you talking about him?"
"Some people have heard that he is a veteran figure in American realist literature. He became famous in the 1970s with the novella "From Here to Forever". He was only 19 years old at the time. The mainstream literary circles in the United States speak highly of him.
Many young writers also said that Carlisle is the holy tower in their hearts, a holy tower that they have been chasing but can never get past," Zhang Zhong said.
Yang Fengxia laughed and said that she only heard about Carlisle, but she explained it in such detail.
Carlyle does play an important role in the mainstream American literary circle, but the trend of literature nowadays means that realist literature can only survive in the cracks.
It is also for this reason that American realist writers today strongly praise Carlyle, because in such a difficult environment, they need a leader.
Carlisle is the leader they need.
Contemporary American realist literature is the first literary wave that emerged after the war, but to talk about contemporary American realist literature, we naturally have to mention the sources of American realist literature first.
Influenced by the realist ideological trends and literary and artistic movements in Europe after the 1830s, realism soon became the main trend in American literature.
In the second half of the 19th century, the rapid development of mechanization, the rapid formation of monopoly groups, and the rapid accumulation of wealth constituted the characteristics of an era: an era of excess and extremes, an era of decline and progress, an era of poverty and wealth showing off, and depression.
and a time full of hope.
In such an era, American realist writers wrote a large number of novels with local characteristics that reflected the lives of people in the west, south, and east of the United States.
These novels widely represent people from different classes and fields, and strive to present people's life pictures truly, clearly and thoroughly.
In recent decades, the reason why realist literature has been able to survive in China can be seen from the history of the development of realist literature in the United States.
When society develops rapidly, contradictions will form invisibly.
There will also be an increasing number of works that criticize reality and expose the darkness of society.
"Speaking of which, he has some connection with you. After the book "Xu Sanguan Sells Blood" written by you came out, he made an evaluation, saying that this book was the best work of China in the past twenty years, and the evaluation was very high."
Yang Fengxia said.
Zhang Zhong shook his head, "I don't know about this."
He really didn't know that there were too many people who commented on him every day, and he couldn't write them down one by one.
And people are always like this. He can remember an inconspicuous literary bastard like Schubert, but he doesn’t know about Carlyle’s evaluation of him. This is entirely because people can always remember his critics.
And ignore those who praise him.
In fact, Yang Fengxia didn't say a word.
Although Carlyle spoke highly of "Xu Sanguan's Blood Seller", he criticized Zhang Zhong's large number of science fiction works and detective novels. He believed that a good writer should not waste too much energy on popular literature.
In his eyes, popular novels, no matter how wonderful they are, are just entertainment products and cannot reach the level of elegance.
Moreover, Carlyle had previously commented on "Border Town". He believed that Zhang Zhong's "romantic attempt" was unreasonable. He believed that literary creation should deal with original materials without compromise, that is, emphasizing the authenticity of literary works in reflecting social reality.
performance and accuracy.
"Carlyle is a writer representing the "Literary News". We can see him at the first stop. In addition to him, there are also people like Janet Austen, New York Norton and so on..."
Although Yang Fengxia selected some important people to introduce to Zhang Zhong, the whole process took more than an hour.
Zhang Zhong was not tired after receiving the information, but Yang Fengxia was already talking and her mouth was dry.
"There are still some details, let's talk about them later. And your task this time is relatively simple. I will probably only need you to speak during the seminar. How to speak specifically is up to you."
Although it represents the Chinese Writers Association and has a huge momentum, it is still an ordinary literary exchange meeting. Of course, it has a high degree of freedom. Zhang Zhong can decide what he wants to say or what he doesn't want to say.
Furthermore, Zhang Zhong’s literary status and English proficiency were much higher than those of the other members of the delegation. Yang Fengxia had nothing else to say except to introduce the process information to him.
She believed that she wouldn't have to worry about Zhang Zhong's performance when the time came.
Zhang Zhong hummed and leaned back in his seat with his eyes closed to calm down. He didn't sleep long last night.
It's not because of jet lag, but because he picked up a new book yesterday evening. For this new book, he worked in the study until midnight.