Home on Earth

【Content Introduction】
"The years here are clearly countable, allowing you to live with such clarity and tranquility. In this village, I feel my age with each passing year, and I also carefully feel the rise and fall of all things in the world. Through my gradually dimming eyes, I see the leaves around me aging, the raindrops on the eaves aging, the insects aging, the clouds in the sky aging, and even the sound of the wind blowing through the valley seems to age. This is my hometown on the earth, where all things grow old together."
Caizigou Village is filled with stories: waking at the rooster's crow, working at sunrise, ploughing and reading, chatting about earthly matters heavenward; watching crows conferring in a tree, waiting for a mouse to die of old age, the scent of dreams being sniffed by a dog; imagining a hillside lined with windows, caring about food and the harvest, slowly growing old beneath a majestic tree. These stories, floating in the air, often overlooked by others, are the major events of his life.
The world is also a larger Caizigou Village. Xinjiang food, served on a long journey, comforts the weary traveler. A migratory road stretching over 300 kilometers, along which millions of livestock traverse each year, stretching for thousands of years. For the unknown elderly, every ritual they perform throughout their lives seems a rehearsal for their grand funeral in the future. Peace of mind is home. Through the blooming and falling of flowers, through the hustle and bustle of life and death, we will ultimately live like our own hometown.

【Editor's Recommendation】
☆This is the latest work by Liu Liangcheng, winner of the 11th Mao Dun Literature Prize and master of nature literature, and his first work since winning the award☆This is his return after many years since the prose classic "A Village of One Person", a model of Chinese writing that has moved countless people. With the leisurely nature of Tao Yuanming and the time and space of Hayao Miyazaki, he writes a sincere chapter on the earth and hometown, condensing the essence of his thoughts and culture over the past ten years. Liu Liangcheng is a true pastoral writer of the 21st century and a spiritual guardian amid the clamor of material desires.
In 2014, he single-handedly founded Caizigou, Xinjiang's first artist village, and devoted himself to building Muli Academy, incorporating the power of literature and art into the growth of all things in the village. He personally practiced a lifestyle of farming and reading, living a poetic life between ideals and reality, and can be called a "contemporary Tao Yuanming."
He upholds the worldview that all things have spirits, smiles at a flower, watches the wind blow his shadow sideways, measures how far the wind blows, he uses Miyazaki-like ethereal imagination to heal the body and mind of modern people, and explains his understanding and imagination of the world from a child-like perspective.
A Chinese version of "Walden": Step into a different kind of life beyond the bustling city, a truly enviable "life" at Muli Academy: wake up to the chirping of insects and birds, and grow old beneath a tree. "Here, the years are clearly counted, allowing you to live with such clarity and tranquility."
Reclaiming Home: "We are all destined to lose our hometowns." A peaceful heart is a home, and everyone will eventually become their own hometown. Liu Liangcheng believes that we are all destined to lose our hometowns. When we can no longer return to our former villages, our hometowns only remain fragmented, remnants of those places that resemble home on the earth. "Caizigou is a village that I vaguely recognize as my hometown. It preserves so many memories of my childhood."
Everyone's hometown is buried in the dust, waiting to be discovered and claimed. "When I travel, my hometown wanders too. When I was young, perhaps my parents were my hometown. When they return to the ancestral land, I become my hometown and that of my descendants. Everyone has his or her own hometown."
☆ The view of life and nature that all things are spiritual: "Nature is the best education," "When people cry, insects also chirp"
In 2013, in his early 50s, Liu Liangcheng decided to settle in a pristine village at the southern foot of the Tianshan Mountains, quietly awaiting the arrival of old age. This small village, called Caizigou, preserves his childhood memories: two houses scattered along a stream and a mountainside, creating a landscape painting from every angle. "Chinese landscape painting fully expresses our ancestors' attitude toward nature. Humans inhabit a small corner of the earth, leaving more space for nature."
In the countryside, time creeps slowly across the earth like the shadow of a tree. Settling into nature, the growth and aging of humankind and the birth, aging, sickness, and death of all things on earth are all part of an endless cycle, interconnected: "When people cry, insects chirp and leaves rustle; human life is only a part, and human suffering is also part of the myriad lives of the world."
☆ On Work and Internal Consumption: Deeply understand the life experience of a wise man, from his views on education to work to parenting, reject involution. Any confusion can be found here. "A good childhood should be accompanied by sunshine and wind."
“Young people today don’t read too little, they read too much.”
“Work is a man’s best companion; if you don’t do some work, it will be gone; but if you do it, you will never be able to finish it.”
On how to age naturally: "Aging is inevitable, even if you run to the horizon. I'd like to spend my later years surrounded by mountains and rivers like this." Bravely face the inevitable growth and aging, and gain inner peace and stability. "When I was fifty, I wanted to find a place to spend my retirement, certainly not in the city. I chose a small village like Caizigou and raised a dozen chickens. I wanted to wake up to the sound of roosters crowing. This was my early life. When I was born into this world, I heard the crowing of roosters, and I woke to the sound of roosters crowing. Even in my old age, I still want to wake up to the sound of roosters crowing and go about my work."
Liu Liangcheng feels more at peace in Caizigou, wondering how old age can come so quickly. He wonders if old age arrives when one becomes idle. "I watch myself slowly grow old in a courtyard amid the chirping of insects and birds. I was originally aging in the shadows of high-rise buildings in a residential complex. You can't escape old age, even if you run to the horizon."
☆The latest collection of "Works of Liu Liangcheng" (seven volumes) (exclusive collector's edition) covers all the important works of Liu Liangcheng. "Works of Liu Liangcheng" (exclusive collector's edition) has a total of seven types, including the new work "Hometown on the Earth", the Mao Dun Literature Award-winning work "Benba", the representative work "A Village of One Person", the novels "Empty Land", "Drilling Through", and "A Message" (top ten of the 10th Mao Dun Literature Award), and the only interview essay collection "Talking about Things on Earth to Heaven", which covers all the important works of Liu Liangcheng and fully presents the overall picture of Liu Liangcheng's creation and spiritual world.
☆ Designed by Zhu Yingchun, the winner of the "World's Most Beautiful Book" award and recommended by Yi Yangqianxi, the book is perfect for both reading and collecting; the book also includes a special "Easter Egg" chapter where the author and the designer collide with each other's minds.
This book features a comprehensive binding and a uniquely inspired design by renowned designer Zhu Yingchun. As the author of the "Insect Book," Zhu Yingchun is deeply fascinated by nature and possesses a deep love for all living things. His aesthetic, resonating closely with Liu Liangcheng's, perfectly captures the chaotic, self-sufficient world of his writing. The book also includes a captivating and insightful "Easter Egg" chapter, a spirited encounter between author Liu Liangcheng and designer Zhu Yingchun.
【Expert Recommendation】
Liu Liangcheng's talent lies in the fact that he seems to be able to put words into a clear and transparent stream to wash them, making every word clean, but there is a kind of heaviness in the words that have been washed clean.
——The writer Li Tuo and Liu Liangcheng is one of the last essayists in China in the 20th century. His works are full of sunshine, reminiscent of Tahiti described by Gauguin, but without that primitive romantic sentiment. What grows in them is a kind of hardship, a kind of crisis, a kind of helplessness, joy and happiness in destiny.
—Poet and scholar Lin Xianzhi: It's rare to read such simple, serene, yet profound and rich writing. I'm truly amazed at how the author, amidst the rolling desert sands, has achieved such a profound understanding of both life and language. In this desert of garbage, spiritual corruption, and repetition, reading Liu Liangcheng's prose feels like finding an oasis of joy and comfort.
Writer Li Rui is incredibly sensitive to time. When he discusses it, he's actually revealing a writer's deepest compassion for the brevity of life and the helplessness of human life in the face of death.
——The kind of writing that I have wanted to write for many years, written by writer and scholar Moro, has been written by Liu Liangcheng.
——Writer Han Shaogong

2024-03-01

译林出版社

287

9787544798556