The Shop of the Lin Family and Spring Silkworms

Mao Dun published both of these short stories, "The Shop of the Lin Family" and "Spring Silkworms, " in 1932. The first tells the story of a shop selling foreign goods in a small town in China, which Zhu Ziqing considers the best work written by Mao Dun. The second is about a silk weaver, Old Tong Bao, who takes very good care of his silkworms, until the armed conflicts caused by the Japanese in Shanghai in 1932 ruined his business. The stories are available here for the first time in traditional Chinese characters.

Mao Dun (pseud. of Shen Yanbing, 1896-1981) was a critic, novelist, and short-story writer. Sidney Shapiro is a former US lawyer who became a Chinese citizen in 1963. He was a language consultant to China's Foreign Languages Press and has translated several Chinese classics.