Why is it called "Zi you"?

Hi friends! Nice to talk with you on the beautiful Sunday night again! Today is Chinese Moonlight festival also, so take a look at the wonderful moon and enjoy your night!

Remember we have talked about that Xiao Tianshi left mainland of China in 1949 and went to Taiwan with all his Taoist collection and later created the "Zi You"(自由) publishing house in 1952. Today I am wanna tell you a short story about why he brought all his collections and named the publishing house "Zi You"(Freedom).

Taoist Temple

Back in 1944, when Xiao Tianshi was worked as magistrate of Guan county(灌县) in Sichuan provience, one of the local Taoist priests told him that one day Xiao Tianshi would chose the path as they did and publicized books about Taoism on one sea island and helped Taoism avoid one or two decades of chaos which would happened in mainland of China. Xiao Tianshi didn't believe any of that Taoist priest told him at that time, he strongly believed that Nationalist would win the civil war against Communist. Three years later, after Nationalist lost the war with Communist, Xiao Tianshi realize that everything that Taoist priest said was true and he also afraid that under Communist's dictatorship, all those collections of Taoism would gone forever. He followed the order from that Taoist priest and started to assemble all his collections and finally sent these books to Taiwan. 

After Xiao Tianshi settled down in Taiwan, he realized that religion and culture under high-level dictatorship will never develop correctly. He started to follow what that Taoist priest told him and began to establish the new publishing house called "Zi You"(freedom) to publish all the Taoist collections he brought. He named the publishing house "Zi You" to express his feeling about hoping mainland China will get freedom someday religious, cultural, and political. Also, Xiao Tianshi use the name freedom to show his wish about one day he can feel free to go back to his home, mainland China.

And this is why Xiao Tianshi brought all his collections with him and named the publishing house "Zi You." Hope everybody have a great coming week and enjoy your moonlight tonight!