The one who escaped

In the breathless pace of modern life, people are planning an escape. An escape from "the only normal" life, from their original families, social relationships, and bullshit jobs. Where are we going? · A life experiment where one becomes the test subject — "If I don't want it, I won't have it!" Buy a house for twenty to thirty thousand yuan, hoard food, raise cats. No work, no socializing, no romance, live a minimalist life, get off track, isolate oneself. · Tracked for three years, from cyber corners to abandoned cities, entering the closed doors of strangers' homes. Veteran journalist Li Yingdi explores the weary yet subtly courageous hearts of our generation. · Xu Zhiyuan, Yang Xiao, Yuan Changgeng, Du Qiang jointly recommend it. "A practical solution to the era of ennui, an important healing." — Yang Xiao, writer, author of "Retrace" · 🏆Douban Annual Social Documentary Book ☆Blade Book Award · Annual Non-Fiction Author ☆Jiemian Annual Book Recommendation ☆CITIC Bookstore Top Ten Books of the Year ☆ "Phoenix Reading" Annual Recommended Book ☆2024 Harvest Literary List · Non-Fiction List · Hegang, a border city in Northeast China, frequently appears in news headlines due to its extremely low housing prices. Behind the Hegang myth are towns that are similarly resource-depleted, economically declining, and forgotten by the world, such as Hebi in Henan, Huainan in Anhui, Yanjiao in Hebei, and the specific, confused young people flocking to them. This is a story of a group of escapees, and it also concerns a new way of life. Buy a house for twenty to thirty thousand yuan, hoard food, raise cats, don't work, don't socialize, don't fall in love, live a minimalist life on savings, and isolate oneself from others. From the hidden corners of the internet to small, snow-covered, marginal towns, author Li Yingdi shows us how people plan and carry out their escapes. She records where the escapees come from—Foxconn workers, security guards, platform customer service, the sense of compression and wandering these jobs bring, as well as indifferent and alienated families, and love that cannot be found; she also spends time with them in their off-track lives—in Hegang, facing long nights, huddled in warm old houses, discussing the meaning of life, and lonely death. This is a long journey, breaking into cities sealed by snow, entering the closed doors of strangers' homes, and also trying to explore the weary yet subtly courageous hearts of our generation: after all, how can one truly be free? And where will freedom lead us? · This book broadened my horizons; it turns out a group of young people are responding to the times in such a way. Escaping might be a form of cowardice, but it can also be a form of courage. Sometimes, we need to go off track to recognize ourselves. Li Yingdi's observations and writing are delicate and sharp. It would be even more perfect if she could provide a deeper presentation of the temporal context. — Xu Zhiyuan, writer, founder of One-Way Space A practical solution to the era of ennui, perhaps also an important healing. — Yang Xiao, writer, author of "Retrace" "The Escapees" symbolizes a certain attitude of a new generation of documentary writers. The world of others is no longer merely a textual intermediary for achieving "civilization," "justice," or "ideals," and writing no longer takes on a self-righteous, didactic tone due to its unquestionable moral superiority. Instead, others are countless reflections of the author scattered among people, and writing is an ordinary task of breaking down the "he-I" dichotomy and restoring the emotionally cohesive state of life itself. Yingdi's words, like the characters she portrays, have a heartwarming simplicity and hesitation. "Escaping" is sometimes a deliberately resolute bond, a seemingly destructive reconstruction. In this game created by the times, rules, paths, methods, and claims are all unclear, often giving up before even asserting them. Nothing is yet complete, and even the writing itself carries a hint of failure. Don't panic; I am confident that the meaning of this text lies in the future, in telling those who come later how the "today" of the past became the "yesterday" that created "tomorrow." — Yuan Changgeng, teacher, anthropologist I've been thinking about how I would write this book, but I don't have any specific ideas. I've always felt that life is like sliding down a smooth glass surface until one plunges into nothingness, and what saves us from this feeling of falling is nothing more than desperately grabbing onto something while sliding—wealth, family, achievements. You know there's no meaning, the only meaning is to slow down the panic of falling—even when trying to grab them, you know it's meaningless; the only meaning is in the grabbing itself. This is truly the most disillusioning aspect of being human. Reading Li Yingdi's story made this idea very concrete for me. — Du Qiang, media person, non-fiction writer

2024-08-01

文汇出版社

New Classic Culture

240

9787549642649