Li Yuansheng is a poet and Ban Xia is a novelist, both are insect lovers, and both have reached a fairly professional level. The English Romantic poets Pence, Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Claire, etc. loved the earth and attached importance to the interaction between man and nature, and their works repeatedly mentioned the specific animals and plants of Britain, educating and influencing generations of people. I believe that in building an ecological civilization, Chinese writers will certainly contribute to conveying the deep feelings of ordinary people for nature with their own unique perceptions and language.
——Liu Huajie
"This time, I believe incomparably that these humble and great beings, who share the same origins as me, have undergone different evolutions and continue to this day, and that we are brilliant chapters of the same book, sometimes across the mountains and the sea, sometimes by some valley. Finally having the opportunity to be with them at this moment, I was a little overwhelmed with excitement, as if I were suddenly in the midst of a strange grace. ”
--Without a preface or a self-prologue, After Lu Xun Literature Prize poet Li Yuansheng said this passage at the beginning of his new book "The Hunt for Insects in Menghai", the typesetting of the book is the table of contents of the book, and my fingertips directly open the chapter "Watchtower in the Rainy Season" along the page, and I instantly became his heel on the journey of finding insects in Menghai. You know, I'm also a worm lover. Reading this book I have been very excited, teacher Li Yuansheng and teacher Zhang Weiwei are my idols, they co-edited the most indispensable chinese insect people's thick tool book - "China Insect Ecology Map", after knowing them, encounter insects that can not be found in the data, will privately ask them for advice.
Moving between the lines of Teacher Li Yuansheng's "Menghai Insect Hunting", it was as if I had also crossed the green field and the tropical rainforest of Menghai in Xishuangbanna, and when he met and photographed the fairy insects and insects one by one in front of my eyes, my mood resonated with his discovery, shooting and description of his mood. I followed him holding my breath, the atmosphere did not dare to breathe close to the insects, when the insects suddenly flew, my disappointment with the fart insects was the same as that of him holding the camera, and immediately and foolishly imagined following the distant insects' backs turned into a cloud of ash and nothing, and then I was empty of self-pity. It is said that some encounters are long-term reunions, so they know to come again, but there are really some encounters in this world that are long partings that never come back, and it is difficult for people and insects to love.
Spend two days to read this book, originally all night is my chase time, an eighty or ninety episodes of the American drama only the last five episodes, I can not chase, holding the book to track the footprints of teacher Li Yuansheng straight to read until 1:30 a.m., after closing the book, and then opened, the worm treasure map quickly passed the eye.
Ah, Gecai Arm Golden Turtle! Ah, The Mechs Pseudo-Sword Mantis! Ah, the green butterfly! Ah, mantis! Four years ago I saw a green phoenix butterfly in the Hani Cottage of The Half Slope of The South Nuo Mountain in Menghai, when I was so excited that my heart jumped to the throat, I took a mobile phone to follow the green phoenix butterfly to shoot, chased for more than 20 minutes, only took a few photos of the flower paste from a distance, it finally decided to go away, helpless, and still can't be relieved today. Teacher Yuansheng wrote in his book that he had the same experience of shooting green phoenix butterflies, and this time he finally photographed it in Menghai! After reading this book, I itched and wanted to take this book to the place where he walked to see and shoot insects.
"Menghai Insect Hunting" is a photo album and a small biography taken by teacher Li Yuansheng for the insects and insects in Menghai, and the books of this kind of natural museum in a "small place" of grass and trees and insects are mushrooming out of the soil like mushrooms. Not long ago, I also bought Liu Huajie's "Menghai Botanical Records", and if you look closely, these two books belong to the planned series of ma Yuan, a famous pioneer writer who settled in The Girl Village of Nannuo Mountain in Menghai County, Xishuangbanna. It seems that Teacher Ma Yuan really rooted himself in the girl village and actively participated in the construction of local culture. Today, we call for a revival of naturalism, which is a kind of "learning" that needs to be localized and localized.
Menghai County belongs to Xishuangbanna Prefecture and is rich in biodiversity, but this place has not yet been disturbed by tourists, and scientific investigation is not enough, which can be called the last secret place of Xishuangbanna.
This book is not simply looking for insects and shooting insects, I think it has at least a few features worth pursuing and praising. When Mr. Yuansheng crossed the green field of Menghai, the unpredictable weather in the tropical rainforest, the misty scenery of Lin Hai was also described by his words extremely vivid and poetic, and between the lines, he picked up the legendary stories he heard from rangers, friends, and villagers and wrote them in the book. In addition, Mr. Yuansheng also wrote his experience in shooting insects in the book without reservation, which benefited those who liked to shoot flowers and insects in the wild. When he talks about how to shoot butterflies well, he said: "What is most needed to shoot butterflies is a reasonable camera position, that is, the relative position of the camera and the target. The camera must be close enough and low enough for the butterfly to become the only protagonist in the picture, in order to get an angle that shows its beauty and dignity. ”
In the last two chapters of the book, I read it very happily, because a big horn popped out of the text. Mr. Yuan Sheng took his good friend Zhang Weiwei, a famous Chinese insect master, from Borneo, Malaysia directly to Menghai. Teacher Wei wei promised to come and hold three ambitions: one was to photograph the angel worm he had in mind, one of the most concerned species in the insect world, the wingless insect, the second was to see the Mei's pseudo-arrow mantis that had appeared in Banna, and the third was to see how the Brown Mountain people ate the five-horned big pocket (a beautiful beetle with five horns on the head of the male insect). Teacher Weiwei's character exploded, and the insects favored him, and all 3 ambitions were realized within a few days. God paid off, they lured a meishi pseudo-arrow mantis, and they thought of scraping a new wingless insect under the bark of a rotten wood, increasing the number of wingless insects in China to the fifth. In the biodiversity-rich Banna Menghai, miracles happen again and again!
Teacher Li Yuansheng went deep into Menghai to conduct fieldwork and obtained a large number of precious graphic materials. His book draws on the writing methods of naturalists such as the Malay Archipelago Natural Expedition, and records the expedition process and the discovery of various exotic species in nature reserves such as Menghai County, as well as primary forests such as Su Lake and Great Black Mountain. The book is full of clues about species conditions, unique animals and plants related knowledge points, and it is endlessly interesting. As a poet and writer, this personal account reveals the author's deep love and love for nature.
After reading the book "Menghai Worm Hunting", I "wasted" two days, and I felt very comfortable and comfortable. Li Yuansheng is the great poet who won the Lu Xun Literature Prize for writing "I want to waste time with you", there are fairy trails in the green field, and it is not only those strange insects that are immortal, but also the author himself who sticks to the immortal.
I borrowed a phrase from Russell in my book, "Wild with Worms" – if you waste time and gain happiness, it's not a waste!
Reading time-consuming, wild shooting insects time-consuming, follow the poet's "Menghai Worm Hunting" waste time, from this very readable and infectious text you will get a lot of fun, you are not a waste of time!
(Ban Xia, formerly known as Yang Hongyan, dedicated to the writing of novels and nature essays, naturalist survivor, author of "With insects in the wild", "seeing flowers is a kind of world view", "lead gray dark red", "Flowers of forgotten rivers", "Cordyceps on the heart", etc., "With insects in the wild" won the second "China Nature Good Book Award")
The original china green times may 15, 2020 "reading and thinking" edition.
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Editor-in-Chief: Liang Fang | Edit: Shaw Shaw