A land of weak water and quicksand
□ Yang Xianping
Boundless pale yellow, sand dunes rise and fall, especially on the moonlit night, the vast Han sea, but there is a virgin quiet, deep and calm. In the past imagination, the desert mania, storms and sand and dust are rising and sweeping at any time, monopolizing and covering everything between heaven and earth, but I did not expect that what the ancients said about Hanhai Ze halogen also has a gentle and even beautiful side. In December 1991, I took my young and confused self from the South Taihang Mountains to the Ji'nan Plain, took a green-skinned train, all the way to the west, and at first I didn't know where I was going, what kind of environment and climate "where" it was, including its nature and humanities, and so on. At any given time, no one can determine what lies ahead of them, or even the specific orientation and environment.
The train arrived at Jiuquan, and on a cold morning, scattered snowflakes seemed to fall from the top of Qilian Mountain, the cold wind was biting, and the ears were first painful, then hot. Get out of line and board the big car that has been parked for a long time. The snowflakes became more and more encrypted, making a crackling sound on the window glass. More than twenty kilometers later, some buildings came to the front, mostly three or four stories high gray buildings, and the melting snow water made the whole street full of black sewage. The officer said that this was The Wine Spring. Li Baishi said, "If the heavens do not love wine, the heavens should have no wine stars." If the earth does not love wine, the land should have no wine spring. "I felt amazing, I didn't expect that the place I came to had such a direct connection with Li Bai."
This is clearly a frontier city, and its history is closely related to the nomadic peoples such as Wusun, Dayueshi, Xiongnu, Uighurs, Tubo, Turks, and Mongols. The big car passed through the city and went straight north. At that time, what I longed for most was to be able to live in a city in this life, even the most remote county.
Along the way, there are mostly dry poplar trees, crows gather on gray and white branches, croaking and flying black shadows, making the surrounding Gobi even more desolate, and the scattered villages are like huge loess piles, lifeless in the wind and snow. I was a little lost and didn't know where I was going. Crossing the Golden Pagoda Basin, the Great Gobi outside the window stretches indefinitely. Snowflakes were still flying all over the sky, creaking against the window panes. The surrounding wilderness was also covered with a layer of cotton wool white by heavy snow.
Entering the barracks, I found that the rows of poplar trees were full of crows, and their dry cries were also black. The wind of the knife held the frivolous sand dust, covering my thin body, and it began to move inside. I felt depressed, like a sapling, exposed to the lonely wilderness before it could take root. This is a mysterious military camp on the western edge of the Badain Jaran Desert. The weak water river in the west, in the middle of the desert riverbed, resembles a white snake that migrates hard. On both sides are patches of poplar trees that wrap the village. The iron-blue Gobi Desert is surrounded by a variety of pebbles and thick sand. It must have been 30 million years ago, before the Himalayan orogeny. In the middle of it, even if you stand still, you feel a sense of shaking and being overwhelmed.
The wind and sand in spring, autumn and winter have taken the entire desert and even the northwest as its frontier, and the stones carried by the wind are like the arrows fired by ancient soldiers, hitting the body, numb and crispy. Every morning when I woke up, a layer of gray sand fell on the quilt, shaking vigorously, and the sand jumped on the cement floor like a dance. Only summer is the beautiful season in the desert, and the fierce wind and sand are like giants and their children, staying in the depths of the desert, quiet and calm, in the hot sun, containing the sky. Most of the sparse grass and trees are gathered together, arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder, this posture reflects the spirit of cooperation and mutual assistance between all things. There are some sea seeds on the edge of the Gobi, and at the water's edge is a paradise of reeds, tender grasses and red willows, rich and verdant. Local farmers would put donkeys, horses, mules, sheep and other livestock in and let them nibble on. I like horses the most, red, white, black, and colorful. In the evening, they wag their tails and drive away mosquitoes and flies while throwing the sunset to the horizon. The sunset in the northwest region is particularly magnificent, and the place where the brilliance is projected is like a vast blood. People and other livestock are in it, like an ancient oil painting. The following autumn, almost in the blink of an eye, a north wind was strong, and the cold took the opportunity to seize everything in and around the desert.
The long winter in the northwest is like a torture, but also a kind of experience. However, as a person who lives in the desert, especially a young man from the countryside, the hidden fear and worry in my heart are deeper than in winter, and the surface is silent, and the clouds fly inside. I know that one's first need is not how to settle down with a certain group, nor to allow time to bring oneself to this time and then. I have always been very sober, and I have always considered myself a secular person, a fireworks people. My life has just begun, the front is so long, if I can't live well and be self-sufficient, I won't be a successful person. Of course, it will not be a competent son, husband and father, or even qualified to consider. This is both cruel and realistic. I believe that many people like me have a deep understanding and experience of this.
Survival is a grand proposition that everyone must face, dig deep, and practice it. At that time, there were many people around me who jumped over the dragon gate and realized the transformation in situ because of the care of various levels. At one point, I was saddened by my peasant status, especially my humble nature. Sometimes I also complain about my parents who are farmers, if they are also important officials and chaebols, even upstarts and smugglers can help me at this time. Sometimes depressed, a person sitting in a small poplar forest drinking, of course, I can't afford to buy a good one, so I drink two fifty cents of Beijing Red Star two pot head. It's spicy and has a strong fermented sweet potato flavor. I don't like it. But wine also follows the economic ability and social identity of the drinker. Dizzy from drinking, he stood up and shouted at the leaves of the tree. The leaves exchange colors in the seasons, from birth to fall, like some kind of inevitable fate of man.
Once, in the evening, the glow of the setting sun made the Gobi look like it was covered in blood. Alone in it, it feels empty and deep. The wasteland always brings despair. Due to the lack of rain all year round, most of the rare earths on the surface of the Gobi are compacted, like hard scabs after the wound has healed. When you step on them, they make a cracking sound. On the surface of the Gobi, there are also some red, black, white or camel red pebbles scattered, under the sunset, it seems to be eye-like, vivid and lively, and the feeling of looking at me from a low place upwards makes me feel frightened and can't help but think about it. I think that under this Gobi, there must be many secrets hidden; the vast and empty Gobi is also alive, and its heart is so deep that I cannot refer to it.
The sun began to fall. I continued to walk on the Gobi, looking out over the secret desert hinterland. The yellow sand dunes in the vicinity are erect, like the milk of a girl, undulating one by one in the Hanhai Desert. Standing on one of the sand dunes, the yellow sand on the flat place is calm and vigorous. Overall, it looks like a legendary flying carpet, stretching wide, light and brilliant. In the sand nest near the Gobi, sand plants such as camel grass, sand trees and mustard grow. This is the hiding place of sand chickens and hares, and these weak and tenacious beings, like camels and lizards, are dependent on the desert and exist with each other.
Black beetles and ants are always surprised, and in my slight rest or unconsciousness, suddenly miraculously appear. Sven Hedin, an explorer who has visited the area many times and excavated many relics of Juyan Hanjian and Western Xia, said in his book "Eight Years of Exploration in the Heartland of Asia" that in that year, they established a weather station in Ejina, including a scholar named Qian Moman, who repeatedly caught four-legged snakes and scorpions and used them to make wine. In his book, he also wrote about strange desert animals such as red spiders and red ants unique to Ejin. According to the conditions at that time, it would take them eight days to ride a fast horse from here to Jiuquan City, and it would take four days to get to the barracks where we were located. Sven Hedin, as well as Kozlov, Bergman, Stein, Bo xihe, Otani Mitsurui and others, are all well-known explorers and archaeologists in the early twentieth century, and their historical discoveries and academic research in northwest China are roughly unprecedented, but unfortunately, many cultural relics have been transported to their countries.
Personnel is always dying and being reborn, and the things of the past have become a certain discovery of posterity in time, and this phenomenon is actually full of paradoxes. But the world is the way it is, always creating, always abandoning.
When I walked back, I suddenly understood that just like the desert and the highlands, the north and the south, there is a difference between people in this world. Similarities, even cultural habits, but I, with him, and you, are different. One person is this one, not the other, nor is it irreplaceable. For the future of fate, the survival of the world, I am also me, how can I benefit or complain to my parents? Moreover, everyone's birth is glorious, no matter where they are, what kind of environment, it is lucky enough to have a life and give me the basic life, dignity, knowledge, culture and dreams of human beings. For this, I am deeply grateful.
Five years later, I temporarily left the Badain Jaran Desert to study in Shanghai. This is of course a rare life opportunity for the children of civilians, thanks to the help of many people, their names are deeply rooted in my destiny and heart. In the hustle and bustle of the city, with the lights of the night and the sound of planes and cars and boats, I found that this place was not for me. And the Badain Jaran Desert, which I initially hated, missed me to the extreme. I think that the vast expanse of the sky, the wind blowing dust, the blur of spring and summer, the long winter, and the sparsely populated human realm may be the right place for me to live and travel with life and soul.
At that time, there were many students who sought to stay in Shanghai in various ways. I was unmoved by that. I thought that I was born in the countryside, and the best way in this life was not to seek to live in a big city, but to do something that suited me, to do what I could do, and to fulfill my duties. Even if it is meaningless, or even eventually blown away by the wind, a failure, as long as you do it, it is always an interesting process.
Shortly after returning to the Badain Jaran Desert again, I got married. In fact, for marriage, I am rebellious in my heart. For a long time, I subconsciously felt that I was not suitable for marriage, and it was a lifetime; but from the perspective of parents, if the children did not get married, they would not be at ease and would feel that life was not normal.
Once people grow up, they are no longer their own, and everything must follow the inertia of tradition. Later, I had a son, Rui Rui. All this unfolded, like a dream, in the Badain Jaran Desert. In those years, my father, mother, brother and daughter-in-law, including my niece, who was still in her infancy at the time, also came to the Badain Jaran Desert. I also recommend that my parents and brother migrate to a nearby village or town. It was the mother's resolute attitude, the poor family that was difficult to give up, and finally gave up. Today, it seems that the mother's decision was right. Marriage between men and women is more complex and unreliable in this day and age. While people use various "tools" to liberate themselves and develop themselves, they also gradually lose themselves.
The anthropologist Morgan said in his Ancient Societies: "Successive survival technologies are innovated every long time, and they must have a great influence on the human condition, so that these survival technologies may be the basis for the above staging to satisfy us the most." The technological innovation and creation we call it is also accelerating the cruel process of human beings being replaced by "machines", "programs" and "intelligence" and even counterattacked.
When I was in the Badain Jaran Desert Barracks, I was willing to go deep into the desert. Dozens of kilometers away from the camp area is the Guri Nai Ranch in Ejin. The surrounding yellow sand is constantly attacking, and the reeds and wild grasses are constantly retreating inward. At noon in the summer, you can see the legendary mirage, standing under the scorching sun, the air waves are like a blazing fire, and there seems to be a city in the distance, and it is garden-like, with various pavilions and pavilions, as well as majestic palaces. On the promenade, there seemed to be hordes of singers dancing charmingly. Countless flowers bloom outside the porch, warm and delicate. There seems to be some fields, some of which wear bucket hats or straw hats and work in them.
It must be an illusion, and in the desert everything seems to be trying to "create" its own idealism, bringing spiritual comfort and encouragement to the people and other things that survive here. Shepherds can also be seen, herding sheep or camels, wandering the Gobi. Regardless of the animal species, there is always a thick layer of sand and yellow dust hidden in the fur. One year, The Ancient Ri nai held a horse racing festival, and the nearby herders all dressed up and rode their own horses on the pasture.
From this further north, to the town of Dalaikubu, the seat of the Ejin Naqi government, you can see a large area of poplar, every year in the late autumn, the poplar leaves all turn golden, walking in it, feeling the whole body is transparent, remembering the former Wusun, Yueshi and Xiongnu and other nomadic tribes, this poplar forest, it seems to be their khan's golden tent. It is said that Dayu, Jin Gao monk■ Tang Xuanzang, Li Yuanhao, Feng Sheng, Zuo Zongtang and others once passed through here. What is even more amazing is that it is said in the Daozang that Lao Tzu incarnated Hu into a Buddha here. But the most conclusive fact is that Wang Wei wrote the poem "The desert is lonely and the long river is full of sunsets" on the seashore of Ejin Najuyan. The most fascinating and lamentable thing is that in 99 BC, the young Jiuquan Sect archery lieutenant general Li Ling set out along the weak water river with "five thousand Jingchu disciples, strange swordsmen" and went deep into the desert north to find the main force of the Xiongnu, interrupting the Altai Mountains, and fighting with 5,000 people and horses against the enemy of 80,000 people, "fighting hard for eight days and nights, killing and injuring too much." In the end, "four hundred people escaped", Li Ling was captured, and since then the Li family in Longxi has fallen, and Li Ling has suffered a miserable life, and finally buried his bones in the desert.
This kind of sadness, I think, has been inextricably resolved through the ages. The relationship between the emperor and his courtiers, generals, and so on, is really a strange existence. What I have noticed is that, throughout history, the rise and fall of dynasties has been tied to certain people, who have become people and who have failed. The role of the Nengchen Liang general and even the Taoist Taoist strategists in the rise and fall of the dynasty and the chaotic world is really powerful. For example, Li Mu was to Zhao Guo, Zhang Liang was to Liu Han, Guo Ziyi was to Later Tang, Liu Bowen was to Zhu Ming, Liu Bingzhong and others were to the Yuan Dynasty, and so on. vice versa. And the tragedy of Li Ling, and the courageous determination of his whole army, is really a song of ancient sorrow.
Sometimes I wonder how Badain Jaran, a desert land, has produced so many past events, and it is full of legends. Many times, I went to Juyanhai to imagine Wang Wei writing about the scene where "the desert is lonely and the long river is sunset", and I also remembered the various unknown details of Wusun, Yueshi and Xiongnu stationed here in prehistoric times. Above the empty sky, the clouds flow like sailboats, like silk, like cracks. Reflected in the ripples of juyan sea, I suddenly felt that the metaphor and extension of "Yi" with "exchange" as "Ze" was simply a great creation. There is a day in the water, and the sky is like water. The water and the sky are the same, and the sky and the water are also reflected.
The most terrifying thing is the storm. As big as a tornado, at first the clear heaven and earth, suddenly a darkness in the distance, the wind pillars of the earth like angry dragons, like the collapse of the Heavenly Palace, rolled with a lot of sand and dust, quickly moving, sometimes, will be cattle, sheep, camels and other animals involved in it, even if not dead, will be instantaneously hundreds of miles out of thin air. A few times, I was filming a documentary in the Black City, that is, the Mongolian-speaking Harihot, when suddenly the sky was covered, the sky became dark, and the howling wind was like a rushing thousands of horses' hooves. A few of us hurried to the base of the wall in the black city, wrapped our heads and faces in clothes, and curled up at the base of the wall. After a long time, the earth quieted down, opened his eyes, and everything was as good as ever, and the storm just now was like a nightmare. This unstable storm in the desert makes me think that some of the tribulations of life are roughly the same, and it also reveals a basic truth, that impermanence is the constant state of all things in the world.
Just like this black city, whether it was the seat of the Weifu Sijun Town of the Western Xia Dynasty or the Yiji Nailu Governor's Mansion in the Yuan Dynasty, it was a place of human settlement. Feng Sheng of the Ming Dynasty was resolutely resisted here by the Yuan Dynasty defender Buyan Timur, and the army besieged the city for half a year, and there was no way to break the city. This Buyan Timur, in local legend, is known as the "Black General". Hence the name of the Black City of Harihot. In this regard, some of the fortune tellers in Feng Sheng's army said: "The black city is high and the river is low, and the officers and soldiers dig wells outside the city without water, but the soldiers and civilians inside the city do not see hunger and thirst, and there will be secret passages to open water, and if the waterway is blocked, (our army) will undoubtedly win." Feng Sheng followed the plan. The Great Destruction of the Black City. Then abandon the city and leave, and the ancient city is abandoned.
Regarding this period of history, the Ming Shi Liechuan XVII says only a few: "Zhi Yi Ji Nai Lu, the guard general Buyan Timur also descended." "Black generals and the like, mostly folk chiseled appendages, with certain subjective emotions, and strong personal likes and dislikes. However, Zhengshi also has many mysterious theories, such as the "Ming Shi Liechuan XVII" recorded: "(Feng Sheng) was born with black qi in the room, and the days did not disperse. "It's another kind of chiseling. For the people, legends and legends are what they really like. Chinese's heart and even bones have a strong occult color from beginning to end, which is roughly the embodiment and delay of the primitive animistic natural cognition and the collective spirit of "sublime".
The conflict between dynasties, one replacing the other, this deduction seems somewhat cruel. But for heroes, there is always a certain reverence and longing. From their fate, they often feel some paradoxes and mysteries. At the same time, taking advantage of the holidays, I often walked between the villages around the Badain Jaran Desert and talked with the local elderly. The topic of interest to me is, in what way did the people here, in the first place, migrate here and pass on to this day? Judging from the answers of most people, the people in the oasis areas of Ejina, Dingxin, bayannaoer and other oasis areas in the Badain Jaran Desert said that their ancestors originated from Sichuan, Anhui, Henan, Shandong and other places, and there were three ways to migrate here, one was that some dynasties were requisitioned to the border, the other was to participate in Tuntian, and the third was the descendants of exiles and debasers. Of course, there are also some who have immigrated in recent years from Wuwei Minqin and Qinghai and other places.
But the more common answer is that they don't know where their ancestors came from, and they don't care much. I was a little disappointed to hear something like that. The traditional Confucian atmosphere of cautious pursuit of the end is strong, and it has enveloped the cultural spirit and even belief of the entire Chinese nation, which is somewhat weak in the northwest region. This may be caused by the drastic changes in the history of the peoples in this area, and the time and depth of integration. On the other hand, this is not a bad thing. Caring about the "present" is also an attitude towards life.
Like the weak water river flowing around us, she comes from the ancient "Shangshu Yugong", from the Qilian Mountains named by the early Xiongnu, to the Juyan Sea in the depths of the desert. The name "weak water" refers to the nature of this river that "the hair is not floating, and the water is weak and cannot carry a boat". But this river has more and less meanings, life and death for Juyan and even the Alxa Terrace and many of the living beings in it. From prehistoric times to today, the creation, nurturing, and even burial and washing of a river are more than a thousand things, and the grace she gives to people and plants, as well as Bactrian camels, yellow sheep, wild donkeys, lizards, ants, four-legged snakes, ants, spiders, sand chickens, foxes, etc., is unparalleled and decisive. Of course, in the "Journey to the West", it is said that the weak water is the quicksand river where the sand monk is located, and the poem says: "Eight hundred quicksand realms, three thousand weak water depths, goose feathers can not float, and the reed flowers sink to the bottom." "Some people also say that the weak water is located in front of the ghost gate, which is the boundary river between the human world and the underworld. As for Su Shi's "Penglai cannot be reached, the weak water is thirty thousand miles", it is a kind of artistic generalization and exaggeration.
Some springs, I ride my bike with many people in the name of stepping on a green road, riding against the increasingly hot sun on the sandy and dusty roads. At this time, the weak water river, the riverbed is huge, and the flowing water is weak, and the snow water from the Qilian Mountains flows in a black, turbulent or soothing way. The river, which occupies only one-twentieth of the riverbed, looks like a white silk thread from a distance, flowing alone between the Gobi, the desert and the oasis. On both sides of the shore, there are many Han Dynasty beacons and passes scattered, such as Dawan City, Diwan City, Shoulder Water Jinguan and so on. Standing on top of the long-mutilated but still tough beacon tower, the overlooking river is like a canyon, meandering in the flat Gobi Desert. The tiny river is silent enough to remind people of a tiny blood vessel of its own. The desert is long and endless. The beacon is located in it, and no matter how high a person stands, in Hanhaize, it is tantamount to a speck of dust and sand. The desert wind blows, and the hunting is sound. Even if there is no wind, standing on the beacon platform, there are strong winds that cannot stop sweeping.
That wind is higher than the flat earth and the human world, belongs to the mid-air, even the soul and the spirit of the wind, only by climbing such a humanistic building as the Beacon Ancient Pass, can you truly feel its consistent strength and turbulence, thinking of the long cold weapon age of mankind, the soldiers who are guarding here, their pride and courage, seem to continue some of the nature and even paranoid ideals of human beings. Human beings have had this nature since ancient times. Throughout history, mutual attacks and defenses have filled every page of history books, running through the blood and fate of everyone's ancestors. Once, our unit organized an outing to walk green, and on the way back, we passed through the weak water river in the most turbulent section of the Dingxin Oasis, the river looked calm, but the inside was extremely deep, and the dark waves showed strength on our naked legs. Several of the girls, scared, and we were embarrassed to hold on our backs, so we had to sit in the back seat of the bike and push them over one by one.
On a few other occasions, the same villagers talked about the object in the local area. I followed them to the Weakwater River to play. It was noon, and there was not a single tree on the barren Gobi to block the daylight, and we hid in the red willow bushes, sweating. Their first love, in this reddened and blood-oozing bush, I was bored. In order not to affect the couple, I walked alone to the weak water river, washed my hands, and then picked up a handful and drank it. The icy water of the river gave me my first taste of what it was like to penetrate my heart and lungs and the cool breeze through my chest. Later, after I fell in love, I also took my girlfriend to the banks of the Weak Water River once, and also hid from the poisonous daylight in the red willow bushes. In this world, as long as there are people and places of life, there is love and marriage, as long as there are people, all the barren lands will become poetic and beautiful.
In the desert, an individual's life is with many people. The same unit, the division of labor is different, but all belong to a large collective. Division of labor and cooperation, for a big goal, I feel that such a life is positive and meaningful. Human beings are a whole, but because of the differences in cultural traditions and civilizations, coupled with the differences and differences in other aspects, there are naturally conflicts and reconciliations. The value of the existence of soldiers and armies is to stop the war with war, to be able to fight and fight well, so that peace is more lasting and even becomes a permanent state. However, the regional culture and even the breath and temperament are also powerful for people's subtle power, and many years of desert life, my body and even soul are filled with a strong desert flavor.
You are here, you are shrouded, and it is an all-pervasive, but impossible to ponder and examine, such as a rotating screwdriver, more like the daily diet and air and sunshine, all the time without being immersed and poured. I also found that I was already part of the Badain Jaran Desert, and I felt very kind to its sand, a green leaf, and even a grain of floating dust. Just as I cherished and worked hard to care for trees and flowers in the desert, my relationship with the desert grew deeper and deeper.
Elsewhere, many people have told me that the desert is too hard to be a place where people live. I have some rejection from my heart, and even feel that their statements are insulting. In my mind, the Badain Jaran Desert does not seem to be a region, but a brother who is in the same breath as me. In the Badain Jaran Desert, I have always felt fortunate that there is a desert, so how fortunate is it that some people, along with the rare but dignified animals and plants in the desert, care for and support each other day and night. In addition, I also feel that after so many years, my temperament and even my character have not changed much, and I have not yet been affected and changed by the exquisite, accompanying people, pretending and "pretending" in the vast world and the current society, and even proud of my humble origins, and through my own efforts and efforts, my son's living conditions are more than a hundred times better than my own.
This is actually vulgar, but only because of its vulgarity do people feel the meaning and value of living. Using the family visit holiday, my son and I constantly returned to our hometown in the countryside, so that he could familiarize himself with the countryside, understand the hardships of farming, and the living conditions of rural people. Fortunately, the eldest son, Yang Rui, has never abandoned the poverty and loneliness of the countryside, and has always gotten along well with the grandparents and sisters and brothers in the countryside, and there are no other popular problems of children who grew up in the city. I feel fortunate and relieved that the countryside is always a root existence, cultural and even national. It may be remote and despicable, but it is the most down-to-earth and the real place of human fireworks. The Badain Jaran Desert where I am located is also like an isolated island, an oasis in the desert to be precise, almost three hundred kilometers from Jiuquan City, and even farther to Ejin Banner. Usually, as soon as you go out, the iron-blue Gobi Desert will come to you hard. The desert oasis I am in is like a paradise relative to the outside world, although there is never a "paradise" in this world. All good endowments are an inexhaustible dream of human beings.
On some summer nights, I sit on the moonlit Gobi Desert and watch the stars in the distant sky, shining brightly or gently on the sky and the earth, and occasionally there are lizards that prey on the night on their legs. When the breeze began to cool, the earth was quiet, and the whole human world seemed to be asleep, but I was alone, in this sea, the isolation and arrogance in the emptiness, the calm and solidity in the freedom, but very few people in the world can experience it at the moment.
Heraclitus said, "Wisdom consists in speaking the truth, acting according to nature, and listening to its words." "At every moment in the Badain Jaran Desert, I am listening and trying to become enlightened. Ten years ago, my body left that field and entered the city. Empty and bustling, noisy and silent. This obvious separation, the environment in which I live, makes me always have some trance and uneasiness. Whenever I get late at night, I think that I'm actually suitable for the desert Gobi, especially in northwest China. But from another point of view, a person lives, not only himself, when we become the children of others, the parents of children, we have the most basic responsibilities and obligations.
Over the years, in Chengdu, prosperity and noise are linked, the loneliness of being in the downtown, and the various constraints and shackles of survival may be more tragic. Many times, although the Badain Jaran Desert became more and more ethereal in my impression, and even full of some distant and mysterious meaning, my heart and soul often involuntarily flew over guanshan and returned to the vast expanse and boundless wilderness again and again.
Until now, I still insist that under the vast and empty dome, in the vast expanse, above the earth, between the weak waters and quicksand, for man and all other things, it has boundless clarity and chaos, majesty and subtlety, which are not found in other regions. A person who has lived and experienced in the desert is more majestic, broad, and even naïve in his heart and thoughts. After soaking in the world for a long time, I really feel that the ancients' ideal of "self-cultivation and family governance and peace in the world" is actually not vain, even in this era, it has positive significance. That is, the purpose of a person's self-cultivation is to dream of being able to do something for more people, even if it is a piece of dry food in hunger, a pillow when drowsy. Just like the Badain Jaran Desert and the weak water river in it, a piece of sand cannot become a desert, and a drop of water can certainly not pass through the vast bitter cold and desolation, but the sand accumulates into hills and trickles into the sea.
—END—
Yangtze River Literature and Art, No. 3, 2022
Responsible Editor | Wu Jiayan Xiong Mengrou
▲Yang Xianping |
Yang Xianping, a native of Shahe, Hebei Province, whose main works include "The Glimmer of Water in the Desert", "Hometown of Life and Death", "Nan taihang as hometown", "Chronicle of Nan Taihang", "Middle age", "Between Yellow Sand and Oasis" and so on. He currently lives in Chengdu and works for The Star Poetry Magazine.