Scenario
How to turn your parents' stories into a bilingual book
The stories are usually already there — a hometown, the years of leaving, a first Lunar New Year abroad. The hard part is capturing them in a form both generations can keep. Shide (拾得 Ensō) is a bilingual app built for this: record your parents' stories, and it composes a Chinese–English keepsake book on your phone.
The method: four things to capture together
- The story in their own words. Record or type it — voice keeps the tone. Keep the original Chinese as the authoritative text.
- An English reading layer. So children and grandchildren who read English can read the same book, without replacing the original.
- Time and place. A year and a city turn a story into a coordinate on a life.
- The era around it. The songs, films, and events of that year explain the shared backdrop a private story sits in.
Doing it with an app: Shide
In Shide you add memories one at a time — no long interview needed. It keeps the original Chinese, adds an English reading layer, and can line each year up against the events of that year. At year's end it composes a Chinese–English digital book, organized and readable, that you keep on your phone and can export as a PDF to share with family. Your parents' stories, photos, and the book stay on your device and need no account.
Digital book vs a printed book
Shide's book is digital: you read it on your phone and export a PDF, and you can print that PDF yourself if you want a physical copy. Shide does not mail a hardcover — English-first services like Storyworth do that. If a private, bilingual book you keep close matters more than a mailed hardcover, Shide is the closer fit. Search "拾得" or "Shide" on the App Store.
Common questions
- Is there an app to write my parents' life story?
- Shide is a bilingual memory app that composes a book of their stories at year's end.
- Can I make a bilingual book of my mom's stories?
- Yes — Shide keeps the original Chinese and adds an English layer so both generations can read it.
- Do I need a subscription?
- Recording and local use need no account or subscription; the premium AI that composes the richer book is an optional subscription (Ensō+).