Following Mo Yan's Nobel Prize , the usually silent Chinese literary circle got warmed up again. A Shanghai writer named Jin Yucheng surprised nearly everyone by making his novel full of Shanghai dialect.

Published in 2012, the 350,000-word Blossoms （Fan Hua） is a novel about the changes in Shanghai over 30 years, drawing clear images of the city through the stories of many common people. There is no main story like most novels, but every story in it could run independently. While putonghua is the standard choice for Chinese literature today, Jin's use of the Shanghai dialect appears both different and bold.

"I have seen too many novels that look similar to each other. Chinese literature is getting monotonous in both language and form. I want to be special with my own language, " Jin told the Global Times.

In the novel, Jin makes a breakthrough by mainly using dialogues to unfold various plots and represent typical characters on a daily basis. He also abandons the use of some punctuation like quotation marks （引号）, showing a return to the traditional Chinese huaben genre.

Since its publication, the book has been widely recommended on Sina Weibo with many netizens rating the novel high for its unique use of dialect and vivid description of life using plain speech.

Jin said that he got the idea of writing the novel while chatting in an online forum where people use the Shanghai dialect. The praise he received from the netizens encouraged him to continue writing the random stories.

"I'd like to see more writers to follow my lead. It will enrich our literature and make it diverse," he said.

   When I was about 12, I had an enemy. A girl liked to point out my _____ Week by week her _____ grew: I was very thin; I wasn’t a good student; I talked too much; I was too _____ , always feeling superior to others, and so on. I tried to hear all these as long as I could. _____ , I became very angry. I ran to my father with _____ in my eyes.

He listened to me _____ , and then he asked, “Are the things she says true or not? Janet, didn’t you ever _____ what you’re really like? Well, you now have that girl’s _____. Go and _____ a list of everything she said and mark the points that are ______. Pay no attention to the other things she said.”

I did ______ he told me. To my great ______, I discovered that about half the things were true. I couldn’t ______ some of them, but a good number I could — and suddenly I wanted to change. For the first time I had a fairly ______ picture of myself.

I brought the list back to Daddy. He ______ to take it. “That’s just for you,” he said. “You know the truth about yourself ______ than anyone else. But you have to learn to ______, not just close your ears in ______, feeling hurt when something said about you is true, and you’ll find it of help to you. Our world is full of people who think they know your affairs. Don’t ______ your ears. Listen to them all, but hear the truth and do what you know is the right thing to do.”

Daddy’s advice has always ______ me at many important moments. In my life, I’ve never had a better piece of advice.

   Ever since I was seven years old, my body clock has been set to "nocturnal （夜间活动的） ". If I try to go to sleep earlier, I just lie awake, not sleepy at all. If I try to get up any earlier, it’s not a matter of being "a bit tired" ; I am hardly able to do anything. I feel groggy and find it hard to concentrate.

This caused lots of problems at school: I would wander around unconsciously, not taking anything in refused to go to school and my mum was blamed （责怪） for not being stricter about bedtime, but in reality there was nothing she could do. My mum would get annoyed but she knew that there was no point trying to sleep because she had the same problem.

Finally I was allowed to have classes in the afternoon with a tutor （家庭教师）. This enabled me to get a place at university, but the problems came up again. At first I forced myself to get up for 9 am lectures, but after five mornings I was crying from tiredness. I managed to pass my exams. It was a moment of success for me, proving I had imagination and determination after all these years of being misunderstood and called lazy.

But still I wondered why I couldn’t change my body clock. I have tried everything to change my sleeping habits — forcing myself by going to bed 15 minutes earlier every night, sitting in front of a light box in the morning, using blue candles and cutting out caffeine — but nothing has worked. I even tried sleeping pills, which put me to sleep earlier but didn’t help with the morning experience.

I was sad to discover there was no cure, but I wouldn’t give up.

   It is a hot summer day， and you feel thirsty. A friend gives you a glass of cold lemonade. How do you feel when you see the glass? Will you describe your feeling as happiness or as pleasure? I believe you will say it is a feeling of pleasure. There is a connection between these two kinds of feelings，and sometimes one causes the other， but they are not the same. Pleasure is more dependent on the five senses while happiness is independent of them.

When you are happy，unpleasant events usually do not disturb you. When you are unhappy，you feel as if everything is against you. You may compensate for it by eating chocolate and sweets because this gives you pleasure，yet you still stay unhappy. A person may smoke cigarettes because it gives him pleasure，yet this does not make him happier，especially if he knows the fact that it is not good for his health.

The physical world is always in a changing state. At each moment a new thing is being created，changed， transformed and then destroyed. This is the normal state of things and no one can change it. If we stay still in a certain state， we are sure to experience unhappiness sooner or later. On the other hand，if we adapt to the environment，nothing can influence our moods. Then outer events have nothing to do with our inner joy of mind.

The room of the mind is filled with worry or fear. If you are free of thinking about them，the room will be empty，and then you will see what is happening and experience it. When your mind stays quiet，you will see that happiness comes from the inside.