Mr Wen Yiduo said, there are many sages in Chinese traditional culture, but we treat Zhuang Zi differently. We revere many sages, but we not only revere but also like Zhuang Zi. Today I’ll talk about Zhuang Zi, his book and the essentials of this book. I’ll first talk about Zhuang Zi. There is not the biography about Zhuang Zi in Records of Historian, but in the Collected Biographies of Lao Zi and Han Feizi, there are 200 words mentioned Zhuang Zi. So, I’ll talk about the of life Zhuang Zi based on the Historical Records. Zhuang Zi’s name is Zhuang Zhou, a man from Meng of the State of Song, Where is Meng today? One version is that it is in Minquan , Shangqiu city, Henan Province. Another version is that it is in Mengcheng , Anhui Province. Another version is it is in Cao county and Dongming county, Shandong Province. There are some historical records indicating that Zhuang Zi’s hometown is in Minqquan , Shangqiu. Zhuang Zi was born in BC 369, and died in BC 286, the same period of the reign of King Wei of Chu and King Xuan of Qi. As to the life of Zhuang Zi, We can generalize it into three words. The first word is poor. He was first junior official in Qiyuan. But he resigned as being a official lacked ease. In those days if an intellectuals did not want to be an official, he had to be a teacher. But it seemed that he was not good teacher either. By contrast, Confucius was a good teacher, for he had 3,000 disciples. What’s more, they came from all walks of life. Such as the rich guy Zi Gong and the swordsman Zi Lu. Confucius was always crowded wherever he went, but it didn’t matter as Zi Lu could protect him. Confucius still had two students gifted with rare eloquence, one was Zi Gong, and the other who is unexpected to you was the man who was always sleeping in the daytime. It was Zai Yu who was often scolded by Confucius. Confucius always scolded him: “The rotten wood is not worth carving; a wall of dirty earth is not worth whitewashing” But the man was very eloquent. When Confucius was crowed, Zi Gong and Zai Yu appeared. So Confucius was seldom in trouble. It was rarely known how many disciples Zhuang Zi had and the names of his disciples. You see, he was good at being an official, and his disciples were few, so he was doomed to be poor. So he often weaved straw sandals to help out with the family expenses. Once he ran into the King of Wei. The king said, Once he ran into the King of Wei. The king said, Zhuang Zi argued: “I am poor but not puzzled. Being poor is just the external state, ragged cloth, but being puzzled is the mental state, drooping spirits. I am poor outward, but rich inward. This also reflects the second characteristic of Zhuang Zi. That is, pride. Man can live without the air of arrogance, but can’t live without self-esteem. Without self-esteem, you can never win respects from people. The Chinese word “zhi” is formed by “a man” and “straight”, It means a man can only be valued only when he stands straight. No one will respect those who bows and scrapes every day. Zhuang Zi is exactly the one with self-esteem. We can infer this from following history records. The first one is borrowing grains from an official. When Zhuang Zi ran out of grains, he came to the richest and greediest to borrow foods. If he didn’t lend him foods, he would curse him. Intellectuals can’t be easily offended, for once being offended, they will satirize you, which is hard to tolerate. When Zhuang Zi came, the official dared not offend him. He said, “Zhuang Zi, I had few grains now, can I lend you more this autumn?” Zhuang Zi then satirized him: “On my way here, I saw two fish in the ditch. They were spiting reciprocally to moisture each other. The fish said to me “Zhuang Zi, Could you bring me some water? I am thirsty to death.’ Zhuang Zi said, “it is useless to bring just a bowl of water, Let me to discuss with the Dragon King of the Donghai Sea to bring seawater here. How happy you are if you swim in the sea.” “Zhuang Zi,” the fish said, “I will become dried fish when you bring the seawater here. Then you can find me in the market.” The second record you all have learned in middle school. Hui Zi was an official in the State of Wei. He has been the chief councilor of Wei, equal to foreign minister nowadays. Someone came to Hui zi and said, “Zhuang zi is more renowned that you, He will take your place.” So Hui zi was very anxious. He had searched for Zhuang Zi in Wei for three days and nights. After knowing this , Zhuang Zi came to him. He told him:“there is a bird phoenix in the sky, and it rests only on the parasol tree, and feeds only on celestial stone. An owl caught a dead mouse on the ground. Seeing the phoenix flying across the sky, the owl thought it was gonna grab his mouse, so he made strange sounds to the phoenix.” Zhuang Zi said, “Your position in Wei to me is like the dead mouse to the phoenix. I have no interest in it.” From this we can see Zhuang Zi’s attitude towards high officials, noble lords and fame or fortune. Here I’ll share with you another thing. The surname Zhuang was very dignified then. It was rewarded by the King Zhuang of Chu We are all familiar with the king. He is the king who won sudden reputation after a long-term silence. He conquered the Central Plains and became one of Five Hegemons Zhuang Zi’s ancestors were meritorious in wars, so were rewarded the surname Zhuang. Just like Xuan Zang who was rewarded the surname Tang. So Zhuang Zi had some kind of relations with the nobles of Chu, and it was easy for him to be an official. He was unlike some people who said they didn’t want to but actually couldn’t be an official. So he was always uninterested in becoming high officials, noble lords and fame or fortune, which reflects his another characteristic—pride. Being proud, you need capital. Beside his family background, He had the other capital, that is, knowledgeable. This is the third characteristic, that is, knowledgeable. It is mentioned in the Historical Records that Zhuang Zi dabbled in almost every field. But in the essence, he was the successor to Lao Zi. He was a representative of Taoists. Dr Joseph Needham , the author of Science in Traditional China, mentioned that Zhuang Zi’s books included various knowledge, even including some profound biological knowledge. I can’t see biological knowledge in his book, but what I can see is