The village of Fliang

Author: Shu Feilian
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-03-01
Features: It is said that nostalgia is a disease, just like homesickness is a disease. However, there is always some doubt that nostalgia might become an epidemic, carrying viruses, pretense, and paleness, unlike homesickness, which resides deep in the heart, needing no contemplation and never forgotten. This insight seems to make little sense, a personal opinion that was never meant to be shown to the public, until I encountered a man named Shu Feilian and his quiet village—then I realized that there are fellow travelers who also refuse to suffocate a full life into yellowed old photographs. The Village of Feilian is one of the most widely discussed literary works online this year. The author posted it piece by piece online for a while before slowly revealing the origin: "I vowed to write The Village of Feilian years ago, and this year I had a special opportunity." Shu Feilian is the author's pen name, in his thirties, who grew up in the countryside, studied and left later, and now lives and works in a large city in Hanzhong. This is a similar trajectory for many peers in rural China. The hometown and the emotions associated with it gradually become fragmented and distant in the midst of changing lives. Thanks to Feilian's "vow" and "fulfillment," he has revived the of the hometown and the emotions in our hearts. As Feilian says, "Every inch of land under the city is originally a garden. One day, it might become a garden again." We published these texts in this year's print media to meet more friends. We also invited Sichuan cartoonist Jifeng to illustrate Feilian's words. The book, in the form of illustrated notes, meticulously records the local customs and people of the author's hometown, pouring into the author's boundless affection for every blade of grass and tree in his homeland. It also recreates the delicate beauty of folk life in the style of traditional New Year paintings, preserving many vivid and interesting customs of the past. The writing style is unique, calm, distant, refined, and somewhat classical. The Village of Feilian is largely a village of one person. Feilian recalls his past rural life with a gentle and warm brush. However, there is a significant difference in style between the two. In Liu Liangcheng's essays, the village is merely a pretext, more captivating is the author's imagination of the village, his exploration of the self-soul, or what is known as "philosophy of the countryside." In contrast, Feilian's writing is straightforward, without any grand ambitions, as the author says, he just wanted to build a small cloud mountain that would disperse with the wind. In his words, the soil is soil, the trees are trees, and the rapeseed flowers are rapeseed flowers. Through the years, appearances change, but all the changes of the human world are frozen into a historical scene. We see the village itself directly, without excessive decoration or evaluation. In this regard, he is somewhat like Wei An. Wei An's Things on Earth is renowned for its clean, simple, and transparent language. But in Wei An's concise and intellectual words, there is a devout sense of religion, akin to the purity of a saint. Feilian is not like this. He simply carries a hint of melancholy and longing, standing by the pond where he once wandered as a child, gently picking up a small stone and throwing it into the water, then watching the tiny ripples on the surface for a long time. This is the nostalgia of a grown man who has just begun to feel the passage of time for the past. This emotion is not intense but enduring. Along the long path of life that follows, it may rise and fall in response, leaving deeper and deeper traces in his heart, finally also tinged with a touch of religious devotion. Of course, there is another possibility. After years of torment, he may finally grow weary and forget. Childhood experiences may become hollow in his consciousness. Shu Feilian, the author, is a friend I met online. However, when I first met him, he had not yet begun to tell us about his village. He spoke of martial arts. He was an editor for a martial arts magazine. We discussed the glory of swordsmanship, the brevity of swords and the length of emotions, the duty to the nation and the people, the greatest heroes, and even affairs and the passage of youth. At that time, Feilian had the demeanor of a youthful spirit, but from his use of another pen name, one could already sense his gentle and nostalgic side. "Spring Grass," like his hometown Xiaogan, is a very poetic name, "Spring grass is always green, but will the prince return?" For modern urban dwellers who are tied to the city, the village where they grew up may often become a spiritual home. The village in Feilian's writing cannot remain unscathed from the erosion of time, but he tries to restore it in memory, or perhaps recreate it, "building it piece by piece through my insignificant words, one blade of grass, one tree, one brick, one tile, one person at a time." Thus, the author's vow to write The Village of Feilian also contains some observations and hopes about life. Beneath Feilian's seemingly plain, warm, and even slightly joyful words lie some traditional Chinese moral values, such as the alternation of yin and yang, the withering of grass and the flourishing of leaves, the growth and decline of nature, and the cycles of the world. Therefore, he says, "The village of Feilian still revolves in this mortal world like a clock, without error," and "Every inch of land under the city is originally a garden. One day, it might become a garden again." The growth of human civilization does not necessarily have to come at the cost of destroying nature; the progress of industrial cities does not necessarily have to destroy the pastoral songs of the fields. In Feilian's writing, there is nostalgia and sorrow, but not strong emotions. When he mentions rural life in the text, he does not deliberately contrast it with the city. What it is, is what it is, with a touch of rural landscape painting. Occasional comments are also very simple, stopping just short of letting the reader's imagination run wild, then carefully. More often, Feilian says nothing, and time has already changed his village in many ways. Time may change it even more. There are also some interesting passages in The Village of Feilian, such as the sections about the Book of Songs in the village, which the literary classics into the lively folk life, reading them with a touch of deconstruction. Art originates from the folk, but after being refined and expanded by scholars, it becomes unrecognizable, even the inheritors of civilization find it difficult to understand. But on the natural and simple land, that vibrant poetic spirit remains unchanged after millennia. Finally, a suggestion. In Feilian's writing, the village is like water dissolving in water, round and, showing tranquility and peace. However, based on my personal life experiences, the warmth and cruelty, beauty and ignorance of the countryside are two sides of the same coin. If one side is, it often brings me a sense of unease. Additionally, Feilian's writing is calm and composed, not rushed, reflecting a good state of mind and writing skill. But it seems it could be more elastic. I enjoy the closeness to things that Feilian's language brings, but I also hope it could be more dynamic, just as his pen name suggests, to fly, to leave the city hung with scaffolding, to fly over the boundless fields, over the snow-filled sky and the sparrows pecking at insects, back to the village we dream of and the home we will never forget.