"Fruits of the World, People of the World" Author: Grandma Xiuying/ Lv Yonglin Publisher: Guangxi Normal University Press

Introduction · · · · · ·
◇Selected for the 2023 annual book list long list

◇ Grandma Xiuying can read and draw at the age of 65. Life can be wonderful at any time.

◇Return to hometown and cultivate the fields of life

◇Liu Zhenyun passionately recommends “Because of fear, I can only be brave. Because of my family, I can only be strong.”

◇Recommendations for in-depth interviews with Sanlian Life Weekly, Jiefang Daily, China Youth Daily, Xinmin Evening News, and West China Metropolis Daily

◆This book was written and illustrated by Grandma Xiuying, who was born in the countryside and only attended elementary school for one and a half years. In Grandma Xiuying's memory, there are always some old people and old things lingering, often muttering and sighing and unable to let go. With the advice and help of her son and daughter-in-law, she once again used a pen to express the whispers in her heart in words and paintings. The unique plants in Inner Mongolia and the relatives and friends around her came out of the memory that she was unwilling to let go, intertwined with each other, and outlined the ecology and history of the Hetao Plain in Inner Mongolia for more than 60 years. Fruits and people reflect each other, leaving a vivid mark of life. It can be said that this is a history of the common people, an ordinary worker witnessing the collective destiny of the group she belongs to.

◆“In Fruits of the World, People of the World,” plants are no longer the protagonists of the book, but just small introductions to the life stories of those around my mother-in-law, which are either rising or falling, or dying or continuing. “A living person is gone just like that. Like a fruit melting into the soil, quietly, without a sound.” In the past, I was distressed and bored when I heard my mother-in-law sitting on a small stool and chattering about the fate of my four aunts. Now, reading her words and pictures, I am addicted. I especially want to get closer to those beautiful lives that have passed away, to find those relatives who have been separated for many years, and those kind people who gave my mother-in-law warmth during the difficult days.”——Rui Dongli

◆Editor's recommendation: If Grandma Xiuying's first book, "The Sky of Sesame", is a book that makes everyone miss and re-recognize their mother, then "Fruits of the World, People of the World" is a bold attempt to "reclaim the wilderness of mother's life". Lv Yonglin and Rui Dongli, following their mother (mother-in-law) Grandma Xiuying, look at their mother's life in the past 75 years and the world she remembers from a new perspective when the shadows of all things lie quietly around.

◆Media recommendation:

◇ "Liberation Daily" interview recommendation:

The Fruit of the World, the People of the World also includes Yonglin's articles and Dongli's paintings, which are like a multi-handed piano, forming a polyphonic record of family life. But Yonglin and Dongli, two doctors, did not write for their mother. Yonglin quoted Liu Zhenyun's words, "It is better to speak out your own 'silence' than to let someone else speak for you."

◇Recommended interview by China Youth Daily:

Before writing, Qin Xiuying felt that her heart was "a little small" and she kept everything in her heart and couldn't let go. When she first started writing, she would cry when she thought of the past. Gradually, after writing down the past that was stuck in her heart, she let go and "her heart was not so small anymore."

◇ "Xinmin Evening News" interview recommendation:

Everyone can pick up their own pen and record their own life, and "The Fruit of the World, the People of the World" is the silent voice of such an ordinary life. At present, the term "spiritual internal consumption" is popular on the Internet, and Grandma Xiuying's story also provides a solution to this phenomenon.

◇Exclusive interview recommendation from West China Metropolis Daily:

In recent years, "oral history" has begun to receive attention, but it is usually written by intellectuals, and most of the narrators are celebrities. It is very rare and precious for ordinary people like Qin Xiuying to pick up a pen to record their life history when they are old. Qin Xiuying's record demonstrates the value of ordinary people recording their daily lives and writing folk memories.

About the Author
Grandma Xiuying, formerly known as Qin Xiuying, was born in 1947 in the Hetao Plain of Inner Mongolia. She attended elementary school for one and a half years and loves nature and flowers and plants. At the age of 65, she learned to read and draw again. Following her daughter-in-law Rui Dongli (one of the earliest advocates of nature notes in China), she began to make nature notes, farming notes, and social life notes. In 2015, she published her "nature notes" "Sesame Sky".

Lv Yonglin was born in 1975 in the Hetao Plain of Inner Mongolia. He holds a PhD in literature and currently teaches at Shanghai University, where he is engaged in research on contemporary Chinese literature and culture and teaching Chinese creative writing.