by: Mumu

Around two weeks ago, ruxubooks (@facebook, @meetup) held one book exchange meetup event in Singapore. As the first step to my “book dream”, it was far away from perfect. Even so, I am still proud of myself and full of gratitude for him and her who gave me inspiration and encouragement along the way.

I have been asking myself: “what exactly is my ‘book dream’”? To be honest, I don’t know the answer yet. The original motivation came from my ultimate life goal: if I could do only one thing in my life, I would want to be a mother which is the biggest impact I could bring to this world. Intentionally or not, parental influence to each of us can hardly be avoided.

However, every parent have their own limitations: they may have strong bias towards a group of people due to their personal growth experience, they may not be able to bring their kids around the world to see how varied and wonderful it is, their philosophy of life may be out of date and don’t apply to the new era any more etc. Reading turns out to be one of the easiest way to overcome parents’ limitations and awaken kids’ potential. As one of the disappearing species, I do believe that the experience of reading physical books, feeling its weight, texture and smell while writing notes on the margins cannot be replaced by ebooks. (Historically were there anyone fighting for oracle books compared to paper ones???)

At this point, my “book dream” could be described as “spreading the beauty and wisdom in physical books across generations”. Well…that still doesn’t draw a clear picture how would it look like. And I have so many other excuses not to move forward: I am already busy with daily stuff, I need to work a full-time job to pay the bill, I don’t have any publishing connections nor experiences in the industry…as a result, it has been there for many years but I have rarely made any progress.

Two years ago Sun showed me the little pad he used to jot down all the flashes of ideas of his own startup. “I have written over two notebooks already.” He said to me on the Seattle waterfront. The same day on the way back to Bellevue, I thought about my “book dream” seriously and came out the name[1]. Several months later, I registered the domain name, ruxubooks.com, and set up the wechat public account. Last year, after moving to Singapore, I activated the website ruxubooks.com and was about to build it as a book review site but ended up using it as a personal blog with only one article posted during last year.

In early June this year, ZhangMiao introduced me to the owner of “Book Island” in Beijing. He is an idealist who founded “Book Island” to connect people through books. He claimed “there is no book on the island. Islanders brought their own books, exchanged with each other and passed by…it’s like a journey of the book, no matter how quirky your reading tastes might be there must be someone else same as you, hope you could meet each other on the book island…” I felt so excited and encouraged that there is someone doing something so similar to what I have dreamed of. Although I had no experience I wanted to give it a try.

When facing new challenges I usually feel more worried than excited. Adelina and I talked about this and she observed that it’s quite common for females, girls have always been educated to be “polite”, “organized” and “perfect”… However, we should be encouraged to make more mistakes and be non-perfect, to keep trying and practicing to become better and stronger. Early May she invited me to join the SAAS PM meetup she held, which was my chance to learn how to organize such a meetup event in Singapore.

During the preparation for the first ruxubooks(@facebook, @meetup) event, I received lots of support and surprises. Jinyu, Liubo and Shicheng went bookstore-hopping with me to identity the location, and the kind-hearted clerk in woods the books told me which bookstore provides room rent service. ShiZhang shown up as the MC plus photographer and took a bunch of memorable photos while keeping eye-contacting with the nervous me. An “insider” mentioned us in the “7 ways to pass your used books to other readers in Singapore” on thefinder.com. A former book club organizer participated the event and gave me a letter a physical one with two pages of suggestions and tips. The most beautiful moment was when Yulu read Gibran’s poem “On joy and sorrow”, I can see the feeling of peace and touched from everyone’s face—exactly what I would like to spread in ruxubooks(@facebook, @meetup)!

July 2nd 2016 is my first year anniversary of living in Singapore. The book exchange event was an anniversary gift for myself. I was so excited that I couldn’t fall asleep at night. I felt my book dream is just around the corner where I will arrive soon. Recently, I heard that a bookstore closed on the same day in Osaka. A 94-year old man who has been running it for the past 70 years has just passed away on that day. Life is always full of uncertainties, I am doubtful whether there will be a better tomorrow. Rather than just dreaming and coming out a well designed blueprint, I would prefer to keep moving my butterfly’s wings and see what kinds of tornado they may trigger in the future.

I am going to hold two more book exchange meetups before October 2016, join us on @facebook or @meetup to get the latest updates. If you are a booklover who would like to share your passion about reading, you’re more than welcome to drop me a line ruxubooks@gmail.com.

[1]. "ruxubooks":

  - "ruxu" comes from Zhu Xi's poem <The Book> written more than 800 years ago. The oblong pool is a metaphor for book reading. It is not a pool of stagnant water because there is always fresh water flowing in. The last two lines of the poem are frequently quoted to indicate that if people can be broad-minded enough to tolerate and embrace different ideas, they will be able to have ever-flowing fresh thoughts.

  - "ruxu" is also the alias (unique id) during my first job :)


The Book
观书有感
ɡuān shū yǒu ɡǎn


Zhu Xi
朱熹（宋）
Zhū Xī （Sònɡ）

There lies a glassy oblong pool,
Bàn mǔ fānɡ tánɡ yí jiàn kāi,
半亩方塘一鉴开，


Where light and shade pursue their course.
tiān ɡuānɡ yún yǐnɡ ɡònɡ páihuái.
天光云影共徘徊。


How could it be so clear and cool?
Wèn qú nǎ dé qīnɡ rúxǔ,
问渠哪得清如许,

For fresh water comes from the source.
wèi yǒu yuántóu huó shuǐ lái.
为有源头活水来。