After “Computer English Course” came into being in May of 1999, an idea began to occur in my mind, to write FBEC (Finance and Business English Course) independently. My profession was teaching English, but I was wearing an official title “the dean of the Financial Department”. A Chinese proverb says “Difference in profession makes one feel worlds apart.” Accordingly, I didn’t concern myself with the operation of the financial courses. However various professional courses and terms were coming into my ears everyday and gradually I got to know the names of the courses the financial students should study before they could acquire their diploma. Section 29 said that after I began to work at Pengda, I undertook the task of teaching accountant English in my spare time. Although I didn’t know the knowledge of the accountant, I discovered I could read and understand this professional English because I had a solid base of the essential English. Having experiencing the process of compiling computer English course, I decided to try editing a business and finance English, because I thought, the route and the pattern were available. I began to search for appropriate materials in the books imported lately from the U.S, copy them and then put them into the computer, producing a list of texts I brought to Beijing. I went to the economy and management editing room of the HEP (High Education Press) and an editor, whose surname I remembered was Fu, received me and promised me orally that this subject could be a choice. The conversation between us lasted only minutes and he was in a hurry to attend a meeting.
Back to Pengda, I began to write and tried to get touch with Mr. Fu. Because our meeting was too short, he was not very impressed with me and my subject. When I try my best to say to him by phone, I got the bad news that he had been transformed to another editing room in charge of publishing the books for the vocational junior colleges, which made me dumbfounded.
I had already finished two thirds of the whole book and I could not stop. I continued to work until the whole compiling work was completed. I went to Beijing with the typed manuscript and entered the economy and management editing room. The head editor in the room was a lady and did not recognize the oral promise by Mr. Fu. I went to see Mr. Fu and he said that he was incapable of helping me. I asked him for one thing that when the HEP went into it he should admit that he had promised orally this subject could be a choice. Mr. Fu looked sincere and promised me to say so.
I thought of the director of HEP, Guohua Yu, but it was a difficult thing for me to find him and to be received by him. I decided to go back and then think of ways to solve the problem.
I wrote a letter to Mr. Yu, telling him about what had happened to my transcript of FBEC, clearly and briefly. Mr. Yu really was such a man courteous to the wise and condescending to the scholarly, who wrote to me and told me that his assistant, Mr. Yuheng Su, would deal with it. In the letter he offered the way for me to get touch with Mr. Su. I went to Beijing again and entered Mr. Su’s office and he promised me to persuade another editor to accept my transcript.
A period of time passing, an editor, whose name was Qingtian Liu, telephoned me, telling me that my manuscript was being proofread and asking some questions. At the same time, he made a request that I should buy a certain quantity of books. Different from the Computer English Course, the FBEC was used only by the undergraduates, not by the students of the junior college. In addition, I didn’t hold the dean of the Finance Department. All that meant that I was incapable of selling such books. I had no way but to ask an acquaintance to find an English teacher teaching business English in CUMT, China University of Mining and Technology. A middle-aged lady teacher came to my home, who was an associate professor and was accumulating material for applying for the qualification of the professorship. She promised to cooperate with me. Mr. Qingtian Liu was not very serious about my buying and selling books and in the publishing agreement, it was not written strictly, only saying that Party A (the writer) should also undertake the duty to try his best to sell a certain quantity of books.
The first version of FBEC was published in December of 2001 in the end. About in the spring of 2002, Mr. Qingtian Liu phoned me, saying that I had not sold a single book, with serious mood. At that time, I was staying in bed because my thigh bone had broken and I had to apologize to him for not fulfilling the duty. Zhihong Ge also lived in Fenghuayuan and were our neighbor. I was ashamed at mentioning the thing of selling books. The Course published, I had not got any reward, which made me balanced in my heart. I had no choice but let it be.
FBEC (Finance and Business English Course) published by HEP
No news came until ￥15000 appeared in my bank book in April of 2004, which was proved to be the royalty of the FBEC. I was very excited to see the reward. It came late but was better than never. It would become a rather large fund for our tourist activities.
Later October of 2005 and June of 2010 saw the second and the third version coming into exist respectively. The FBEC has become a regular book to be revised about every five years until I can’t work on it.
The FBEC was made up of three parts. The first part is the business administration, which is a great learning. It is difficult for an ordinary businessman to manage a small shop, but why those consortiums and international multiple shops are administrated in perfect order. It is the reason why the tuition fee for the degree of MBA is so high as to surprise us ordinary people and graduate can earn so generous salary. The second part is about the macro economy. When the third revision began in the first half of 2010, the financial crisis broke out in the whole world. I chose stocks, bond investment, stock market crash, inflation and deflation and giants of Finance, John Maynard Keynes, making me understand the macro regulation measures adopted by many governments. The word trade is the core of the third part, including international trade organizations, globalization, international system of payments, cashless payment, international currency exchange and the foreign exchange market. What impressed upon me most is the negotiation principle of the WTO. The trade is based on a completely equal position. A lot of trade agreements are achieved by means of patient negotiations, any side being not allowed to enforce the other side. The negotiation of China restoring the membership of the GATT and the WTO began on 11th , July of 1986 and ended on 11th December of 2001, lasting 14 and half years. The degree of the patience caused my deep admiration. The patience means undertaking the suffer, and impatience can make you enjoy an instant delight, but worthless. The last victory belongs to those who show endless patience. A lot of westerners appreciate the Chinese proverb: With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown. Patience means knowing one’s own destiny and doing things according to the natural law. Patience is a kind of wit and the symbol of the maturity.
The composition of the FBEC made me familiar with a lot of financial English words, which is useful for me to read and listen to English news, and at the same time helped me to write and translate relative English sentences, making me reach a higher step of the English level.
May 21, 2011, in Xuzhou
March 20, 2012, proofreading in Chicago
Aug. 7, 2023, uploading in Xuzhou
