As Evergreen as the Fir [antikvár]

1 ¦ ¦ . 1. I ' , ¦ ! r i ) ¦ . ¦ I : ¦ , ; ¦ ¦ - 1 : i I I, 1 I ¦ ," .1 1 i ! : ; • it!' , /h II : ^ , ! I ' : \ I ¦ \',t .1 . ¦ 1 ¦ . • ! ' i Ml I . i I i; t ^ . . ; 1 1 ' I ¦ I , I I J-.J-— PUBLISHER'S NOTE For more than forty years picture-story books have been extremely popular with Chinese readers, particularly with children. Each page of these little books has a picture with a brief explanatory text. They are easy to understand, even for those who can barely read and write, and this accounts for their immense popularity. In the past, most of these picture-story books contained stories which were mainly reactionary, obscene, or irrationally fantastic in nature — stories that exerted a bad influence on the readers. Since the founding of New China, however, a host of new, attractive picture-story books have been published. Some of them are devoted to well-loved stories and personages from the past, others to the life, struggle and aspirations of the Chinese people today. As Evergreen as the Fir is adapted from a long and well-known poem .of ancient China. The story, originally a legend, tells the love story of a young wedded couple, Liu Lan-chih and Chiao Chung-ching, whose tragedy was that