"Tayuhama Natural History": Searching for the "Spring Eye" of the Village

"The Natural History of Tahyuhama"

Author: Zou Hanming

Edition: Dafang CITIC Publishing Group

July 2021

Tribute

Tayuhama is both a geographical term that has disappeared and a spiritual coordinate attributed to literature. The author's panoramic look back and scanning of his hometown reaches the depths of time, which is especially precious at a time when the process of urbanization is advancing. Wooden bridgeheads, cement white fields, tombs within the walls, eight points, pig houses, swing fields, old people's lower, houtoutian, etc., the geographical architecture of villages is both "limited territory" and the beginning of "infinite roaming", and the seasonal festivals, natural customs, grassroots sentient beings, etc. reconstructed based on memory in the book outline a picture of natural life in the past - the reproduction of this paper village, which contains the story of the secular survival of man and nature.

We pay tribute to the Natural History of Tayuhama, as a non-fiction work, it reconstructs the history of the existence of Tayuhama, an old village in Jiangnan, from the perspective of almost rural fieldwork, leaving a well-documented spiritual historical material for the present and the future. We also pay tribute to Zou Hanming, who, with the acumen and insight of a poet, conveyed and recorded the traditional life of harmony between man and nature.

Thank you

I am very happy that my book was selected for the "2021 Beijing News Annual Reading Recommendation". This is an affirmation and great encouragement to this book and to me personally. Takyuhama is my birthplace, where my imagination soars. In short, this little-known place on Earth is a source of inspiration for my own enjoyment. But now, it is only one of the countless villages that have disappeared in the land of Jiangnan, and because by chance, I wrote it, and because of good luck, the book was published and remembered by a small number of readers. More because of your newspaper's recommendation, more people know, for which I am deeply grateful. Thank you to the judges, and to CITIC Press, especially my editor- Ms. Luo Mengxi, for her contribution to this book. Although Takyuhama is gone, the nutrition it has given me has been nourishing me. If it had known, it would have been as happy as I am at this moment.

From the very beginning, I have been writing about my hometown of Tayuhama as a typical village in Gangnam. The writing process of this book is very long, and the writing process is also the process of my comprehensive understanding of the village, because Takyuhama is ordinary, unremarkable, and nameless, but it makes it representative and universal. I can even say that in any secluded old Jiangnan, there is a tayubang, which can be called tayuhama.

Today, an interesting book can be passed smoothly to the reader, this process is not the author alone can complete, in such a wine is also afraid of the deep alley, good books also need to continue to shout in the era, the popularity of the book is the result of everyone's joint efforts. Serious media, on the other hand, have the ability to wash the pearl shell from the grains of sand – as a public gift, to give it bitterly to readers. In this different winter, thank you for the precious warmth that the Beijing News Book Review Weekly has passed on to the readers and for giving me this author.

--Zou Hanming

Edit | Miyako

Proofreading | Xue Jingning