Bai Shuo

Bai Shuo is a selection of speeches and essays by Bai Yansong, a veteran CCTV journalist, following Are You Happy? and Pain and Joy. First published by Changjiang Literature and Art Publishing House in September 2015, it has sold steadily for years and become an influential, phenomenon-level book. The content comes from the author's public exchanges with audiences, students, and peers over roughly fifteen years, sharing his worldview and values with equality, candor, and freedom. The subjects range widely across current affairs, education, reform, music, reading, health, public welfare, and life choices. The book unfolds in five sections—"Years," "Value," "Communication," "Attitude," and "Times." "Years" discusses happiness and failure and the meaning of doing something useless; "Value" discusses how reading and music settle the heart, and rereads the Dao De Jing in his own way; "Communication" explains how a journalist tells a story and faces the information explosion; "Attitude" covers public morality, a long-distance-run approach to life, doctor-patient relations, and the volunteer spirit; "Times" looks back at China's timeline, homesickness, and China as the world sees it. The author calls it an "autobiographical" spiritual resume—one that records his inner changes and confusions more truthfully than any paper CV. The title Bai Shuo is both a self-deprecating pun on his surname Bai ("white/plain") and an allusion to a stubborn attitude: what one says may be in vain, but not saying it would be a waste. The book contains lines readers quote again and again, such as "A beautiful failure is another kind of success" and "Be someone who races against yourself," while retaining a news commentator's sharpness and self-reflection. For readers hoping to understand how a Chinese television journalist thinks about his times and his personal situation, this book is a fairly complete concentrated statement.