MY NEW BOOK: Loving China, Loving Bulgaria

This is a true story, told in essays and verse. This is the inner journey of two people toward one another, in quest for the higher meaning in life and love. And the journey has only just begun.

IT WAS THE MID-1980s. A SHY COUNTRY BOY LEFT HIS HOME in the Bulgarian middle North and went to study in the English Language School of Plovdiv. It so happened, that at 12 he heard “The Beatles” for the first time, and fell in love with their music. Consequently, he wanted to learn «the language of the Beatles». But this was only the dawning of a yet greater dream and love. The Chinese film «Shaolin Temple» and the beauty of Ding Lan, the martial artist girl, her songs and the language of the age-old Middle Kingdom made him share with his friends, one summer vacation of 1988: «If I ever marry, it shall be a Chinese girl I’d marry!»

1988 was the year when he began learning Chinese on his own. In 1991, he became the first official student of the newly founded scholarship of Chinese studies in the University of Sofia. But then, Bulgaria’s social and economic crisis ruined his idyllic image of his Motherland and… he decided to withdraw from this world and be a monk.

He buried his Chinese dream for long and secluded in a monastic cell. Amid books, studies and prayer he lived for almost 20 years. In 2010, he suddenly jumped into the world, without CV, without knowledge of money and social experience whatever and went directly to… China. Alone he went, but three returned: his Chinese wife Xiao Li, their first, unborn yet child, and himself. He returned to dedicate his life to translating Chinese literary classics and his family. She came to a land she’d hardly heard about, to find new life and dedicate her love and labour to her family and children. His dream to translate the greatest Chinese novel, A Dream of Red Mansions, came true, along with the family dream of his teenage years.

THIS EDITION OF THE BOOK includes hundreds of photographs and illustrations, from the personal archives of the authors. They share them in public for the first time, to make the edition delightful to the reader’s eyes.

«IT IS SUCH AN UNUSUAL MEMOIRE at this stage of a person’s life, and it has left a great impression. I think I have not previously known such a scholar as Mr. Hinov proves to be. There is a wonderful child-like (in the best sense of the phrase) clarity about his writing that is very compelling. I have never felt so engaged by an editing task, and so much enjoying an account of a journey of such faith. It would be wonderful to see the book published in the UK and perhaps marketed through the Confucian centres that are being established in many universities there.»

Paul Brown PhD, Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Monarch Business School Switzerland, editor of Loving China, Loving Bulgaria

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Smallness (A Foreword)
Chapter One. A Small Town
Chapter Two. A Land Beyond
Chapter Three. Home is Best
Chapter Four. Grandma Penka and her stories
Chapter Five. A Question Beyond All Answers
Chapter Six. Music and Words
Chapter Seven. Dullness and Sharpness
Chapter Eight. Beauty Prevails
Chapter Nine. Don Quixote, the poet
Chapter Ten. My Eternal Summer
Chapter Eleven. The Dictionary Lover
Chapter Twelve. Between Stars and Mud
Chapter Thirteen. Death and Beyond
Chapter Fourteen. The Great Loosening
Chapter Fifteen. The Beginning of a Dream Fulfilled
Chapter Sixteen. A Shroud of Darkness.
Chapter Seventeen. Light
Chapter Eighteen. On the Path to Monastic Life
Chapter Nineteen. Farewell, World!
Chapter Twenty. Burning Down the Bridges
Chapter Twenty-One. Don Quixote the Monk
Chapter Twenty-Two. I Am Orthodox, but Chinese As Well
Chapter Twenty-Three. In the Brighter Colours of Literature
Chapter Twenty-Four. “My Motherland Is Dying…”
Chapter Twenty-Five. Mountains Blue and Lofty
Chapter Twenty-Six. Off the Rails
Chapter Twenty-Seven. Farewell, Bulgaria
Chapter Twenty-Eight. My Third Assignment
Chapter Twenty-Nine. Guangdong—Foshan—Nanhai
Chapter Thirty. The Spirit of a Child
Chapter Thirty-One. First Middle School in Luocun
Chapter Thirty-Two. A Letter
Chapter Thirty-Three. Alone
Chapter Thirty-Four. Autumn Without Falling Leaves
Chapter Thirty-Five. My Dear Chinese Children
Chapter Thirty-Six. Exploring the “Southern Sea”
Chapter Thirty-Seven. Nanhai, Cradle of My Love
Chapter Thirty-Eight. Deciding Our Future
Chapter Thirty-Nine. Cowhorn River Hamlet of County Chongyi. Our Betrothal.
Chapter Forty-One. Officially Married—Ganzhou, Nanchang and Back.
Chapter Forty-Two. Farewell, Luocun
Chapter Forty-Three. Our Chinese Marriage
Chapter Forty-Four. Shimen Experimental School
Extraordinary Impressions from Ordinary Children
The Little Girl and the Spider
Chapter Forty-Five. Bulgarian Kindness in the Memories of a Chinese Girl
Chapter Forty-Six. My Life in Southern China
Ben’s Café
Back to Chongyi
Images from Chongyi, 2012
Chapter Forty-Seven. The Dream of Red Mansions
Chapter Forty-Eight. Our Life in Xiqiao
A Moment of Sunshine
Spring in the Autumn
Chapter Forty-Nine. “Rich Village” in a Poor Country
Chapter Fifty. Rustication for Culture’s Sake
A Winter Melody
Just an Ordinary Evening
Chapter Fifty-One. The Town of Childhood. Our Family Culture
Chapter Fifty-Two. Two Cultures, One Road
2016—Hand in hand with the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press of the Beijing Foreign Studies University
Beijing, August 2016
The Never-Ending Dream of Red Mansions
The Wings Allowing a Nation to Soar
On the Role of China in Building the 21st Century World
Chapter Fifty-Three. A Diary of an Unexpected Journey
21st of August, 2017
22nd of August
23rd of August
The Balance
Chapter Fifty-Four. Impressions from Chinese Culture and Hopes for Its Future in a Uniforming World
What is Bulgaria’s Place on the new Silk Road?
Epilogue
APPENDIX 1
APPENDIX 2