Dream Tourism -- Ancient Villages and Old Towns (20 Places with Ancient Charm and Style): 20 Places with Ancient Charm and Style

Author: Li Liwei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-06-01
Features: The Terracotta Army is history, Lishan is history, and the Horse Trampling the Flying Swallow is history. History always appears in very distant places, separated from us by thick museum glass, rough metal railings, and dull history books, requiring us to rely on a considerable degree of imagination to reconstruct it. Our habitual understanding of the term "history" has made us miss many beautiful and valuable things around us. The twenty historical villages and towns selected by authoritative institutions and included in this book are themselves histories—in our midst, and on the verge of disappearing (if neglected and unprotected). We may become the last witnesses to this history, holding old photographs and still fresh memories many years later to tell our children—by then, for them, we ourselves will be the "thick museum glass," the "rough metal railings," and the "dull history books."
In a certain sense, why "Feeding the Horse and Chopping Wood, Traveling the World" is poetic is because it is not equivalent to life and does not earn life's recognition. It seems to guide us in a direction, yet its brilliance makes it difficult to approach. Perhaps poetry exists because it excludes reality and is equally excluded by reality; it "misleads" life and is equally misled by life. It is a pair of powerful wings yet dragging an ostrich's body; it is a flawless artwork that exists only within the heavily guarded halls of a museum.
So, when we finally reach an era, seize an opportunity, and walk in the real world through a secluded Jiangnan water town, is it also an opportunity to make poetry equivalent to life, to let the wings of the wild geese carry their bodies, and to become a true member of the Bloomsbury Group? To let the poetry and paintings of the Rossettis, the Impressionism of Vanessa Bell, the stream of consciousness of Virginia Woolf, and so on and so on—essentially, to let all beautiful things become a part of our daily lives and, in turn, to let us become a part of them, mutually inclusive, mutually identified, and unified as one.