Hometown on Earth Author: Liu Liangcheng Publisher: Yilin Press

Introduction · · · · · ·
【Content Introduction】

"The years here are clearly countable, allowing you to live so clearly and peacefully. In this village, I feel my age year by year, and I also carefully feel the rise and fall of all things in the world. In my gradually dimming eyes, I see the leaves around me getting old, the raindrops on the eaves getting old, the insects getting old, the clouds in the sky getting old, and the sound of the wind blowing through the valley also appears old. This is my hometown on the earth where all things will grow old together."

Caizigou Village is full of stories: waking up at the crowing of cocks, working at sunrise, farming and reading, talking about things on earth to the sky; watching crows holding a meeting on a tree, waiting for a mouse to die of old age, and the smell of dreams being smelled by a dog; imagining a hillside full of windows, caring about food and harvest, and slowly growing old under a big tree. These stories floating in the air that are taken for granted and ignored by people are all major events in his life.

The world is also a bigger Caizigou Village. Xinjiang food on the long road comforts the tired body and mind of travelers; a cattle and sheep migration road of more than 300 kilometers, millions of livestock walk along it every year, stretching for thousands of years; all the etiquette of the unknown old man in his life seems to be a rehearsal for the grand funeral in the future... Peace of mind is the home, flowers bloom and fall, life and death are busy, we will eventually live like our own hometown.

【Editor's recommendation】

☆This is a new work by Liu Liangcheng, the winner of the 11th Mao Dun Literature Award and a master of natural literature. It is also his first work after winning the award.

☆This is a return to the classic prose that has touched countless people and is a model of Chinese writing, "A Village of One Person". With Tao Yuanming's leisurelyness and Miyazaki's time and space, this book writes a sincere chapter about the land and hometown, condensing the essence of his thoughts and culture over the past decade.

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 Xinjiang's first artist village, Caizigou, and devoted himself to building Mulei Academy, adding the power of literature and art to the growth of all things in the village. He personally practiced a lifestyle of farming and reading, and lived poetically between ideals and reality. He can be called a "contemporary Tao Yuanming."

He holds the view that all things have spirits. He smiles at a flower, watches the wind blow his shadow sideways, and measures how far the wind blows. He heals the bodies and minds of modern people with Miyazaki-like ethereal imagination, and explains his understanding and imagination of the world from a child-like perspective.

☆The Chinese version of "Walden": Enter another kind of life outside the hustle and bustle of the city, the truly "desirable life" in Mulei Academy: wake up to the sound of insects and birds, and grow old slowly under a tree. "The years here are clearly countable, allowing you to live so clearly and so quietly."

☆Reclaim your hometown: "We are all destined to lose our hometown." Peace of mind is your home, and everyone will eventually live like their hometown.

In Liu Liangcheng's view, we are all destined to lose our hometowns. When we can no longer go back to our old villages, our hometowns only remain in fragments in places that look like our hometowns. "Caizigou is a village that I can vaguely recognize as my hometown. It has preserved too many memories of the village from my childhood."

Everyone's hometown is in the dust, and we need to find it and claim it. "When I travel around, my hometown is also wandering. When I was young, my parents might be my hometown. When they return to the ancestral land, I become my hometown and that of my descendants. Everyone has his own hometown."

☆The view of life and nature that all things have spirits: "Nature is the best education", "When people cry, insects also cry"

In 2013, when he was in his early 50s, Liu Liangcheng decided to settle down in a primitive village at the southern foot of the Tianshan Mountains, quietly waiting for the arrival of old age. This small village called Caizigou retains his childhood memories: two rooms and two houses are scattered by the stream and the mountain, and it is a landscape painting from any angle. "Chinese landscape paintings fully express the attitude of our ancestors towards nature. People live in a small corner of the earth, and more space is left for nature."

In the countryside, time is like the shade of a tree, creeping slowly forward on the ground. Settling oneself in nature, the growth and aging of human beings and the birth, aging, sickness and death of all things on earth are endless and connected: "When people cry, insects are also chirping, and leaves are also rustling. Human life is only a part, and human suffering is also a part of the countless lives in that world."

☆ About work and internal friction: Deeply understand the life experience of a wise man, from education to work to parenting, refuse internal competition, any confusion can be found here

“A good childhood should involve sunshine and wind.”

“Young people today don’t read too little, they read too much.”

“Work is a good companion for people. If you don’t do some work, it will be gone. But if you do it, you will never finish it in your lifetime.”

☆On how to grow old naturally: "You can't avoid getting old, even if you run to the horizon. I would like to spend my later years among such beautiful scenery." 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 old age and retire. Of course, I didn't want to retire in the city, so I raised a dozen chickens in a small village like Caizigou. I want to wake up to the sound of roosters crowing. This kind of life was my early life. When I was born into this world, I heard the sound of roosters crowing, and I woke up to the sound of roosters crowing. When I am old, I still want to wake up to the sound of roosters crowing and do a day's work."

Liu Liangcheng believes that Caizigou has made him calmer. He wonders how old age can come so quickly. When a person becomes idle, he has reached old age. "I watched myself slowly grow old in a yard with the chirping of insects and birds. I was originally growing old in the shadow of a high-rise building in a community. You can't avoid aging, even if you run to the horizon."

☆ "Liu Liangcheng's Works" (Seven Volumes) (Exclusive Collector's Edition) is the latest collection, covering all the important works of Liu Liangcheng

There are seven kinds of "Works of Liu Liangcheng" (exclusive collector's edition), 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.

☆ Overall design by Zhu Yingchun, the winner of "The World's Most Beautiful Book" and recommended by Yi Yang Qianxi, suitable for both collection and reading; the book specially includes the "Easter Egg Chapter" of the soul collision between the author and the designer

This book is bound by the well-known designer Zhu Yingchun, with a spiritual design. As the author of "Insect Book", Zhu Yingchun pays attention to nature and loves all living things. With an aesthetic taste that is highly consistent with the author, he perfectly presents the chaotic and self-sufficient literary world of Liu Liangcheng. The book specially includes the "Easter Egg Chapter" of the soul collision between the author Liu Liangcheng and the designer Zhu Yingchun, which is interesting and heartwarming.

【Recommended by famous experts】

Liu Liangcheng's talent lies in the fact that he seems to be able to put words into a clear and transparent river to wash them, making every word clean, but there is a heaviness in the words that have been washed clean.

——Writer Li Tuo

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 is rare to read such simple, calm, broad and rich texts. I am really surprised how the author has gained such a profound experience of life and language in the wilderness of rolling yellow sand. In this desert full of garbage, spiritual corruption and mutual duplication, reading this group of essays by Liu Liangcheng really gives me the joy and comfort of coming to an oasis.

——Writer Li Rui

He is so sensitive to time. When he talks about time, he actually expresses a writer's deep consciousness, a kind of pity and compassion for the brevity of life and the helplessness of human life in the face of death.

——Writer and scholar Moro

The kind of text I have wanted to write for many years was written by Liu Liangcheng.

——Writer Han Shaogong