Public figures give thoughts on World Book Day

Loh Tuck Keat, consul-general Singapore, consulate-general, Xiamen

Reading not only for helps us gain knowledge but it also promotes mutual understanding.

It broaden our minds to new perspectives and appreciation of different cultures. In this regard, China Daily has played an important role in helping China understand the world and for the world to understand China.

Xie Heping, president of Sichuan University

Reading is the most valuable thing people do. Reading is learning, and a way to explore the world.

Recommendation: Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World

Philippe Le Gall, ambassador of Seychelles

Reading is of course a source of knowledge and wisdom, a formidable tool of discovery and an essential part of the personal development process, opening eyes, strengthening our critical mind and giving us the feeling we belong to different communities complementing each other intellectually and emotionally.

I also consider books as one of the most ancient traditional medicines, with preventive healthcare and even healing properties. Once absorbed in reading, especially fiction and essays, we disconnect from many work worries and from several forms of stress related to urban life. Then we restore correct breathing; of course not the optimal focused way martial arts understand it, but a state of smooth and comfortable awareness that makes us responsive to most daily challenges.

 I read to understand the world around me and to rely step by step on acquired rather than purely instinctive certitudes. Reading requires more humility than pride. It helps to build up the beginning of certitudes, enough to start understanding the meaning of life. Reading is therefore a discipline. And like each and every discipline it implies efforts and adjustments. There is always a price to pay to be wiser and more knowledgeable, as some of the most interesting books are also often the most difficult to read! Believe me: long after you have forgotten that price you still remember the benefit you drew from such reading.

Books didn’t change – as such - my life: they shaped it at a very young age. Is it exaggerated to say that my first books sent me into raptures? Children comic books, yes, ideal to open the gate of imagination!

These days I read mainly Chinese literature, right now a book by Wu Han about Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang. Did you notice that educated Asians are expected to be familiar with the works of, let us say Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens - seen from a western perspective as fine examples of a “universal culture” - while classical Chinese writers are still relatively unknown among western audiences and frequently assimilated to a branch of sinology ! Fortunately things are changing and I believe that in the coming decades, under the effect of global thinking, smart young westerners claiming to be modern, hip and educated, will have to be familiar with the works of Li Po (Li Bai), Cao Xueqin, Luo Guanzhong and Wu Cheng’en, to name but a few !

Related video: Thoughts on World Book Day

Special coverage: World Book Day 2014

Lose yourself in a bookstore