Chen Dan Yan · West Wind Rushes In

Author: Chen Danyan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
Features: This book is Chen Danyan's New Cultural Essays, as part of her series of travel essays on European culture. It primarily records her journeys to Austria and Germany, accompanied by photos of hands, telling the fragments of (Sisi), Zweig, Freud, and the Blue Danube that have been embedded in the memories of a generation. I know I’m a little homesick for Vienna, so I bought that picture book filled with too many German words, which I could barely understand. In the autumn afternoons of Berlin, the sky darkens early, and the city is covered in gray. Vienna, even when it rains, is a soft gray-green—it’s so gentle. Thinking of Vienna while in Berlin is truly natural, and also quite indulgent. Berlin is hard, Vienna is soft. Berlin is serious, Vienna is enchanting. Berlin motivates you to strive forward and gives you opportunities, while Vienna encourages you to be delicate—how delicate is never too much. In Berlin, you must keep your consciousness highly logical and as rational as possible, becoming a person with a sense of order. In Vienna, you can endlessly explore your subconscious, blaming all eccentric behavior on it, while you can gracefully withdraw. I found that my own paradise in my heart still glows softly, like the infinite reflections and interplay of light in the Mirror Hall. The facts didn’t extinguish it but transformed it into pure fantasy, separating it from real life. Sometimes, standing far away by the fountain, I gaze at this pale-yellow Baroque palace. The hundreds of tightly closed windows on the walls shimmer in the sunlight. My own Sisi suffers and rejoices behind those windows, and my own princess’s story weaves reality and fantasy behind them. This is the Europe I finally built.
Author Chen Danyan began writing novels and essays in the 1980s and has published over twenty works. Starting in the 1990s, she embarked on a lifelong journey of travel. Europe is her spiritual homeland. The customs and cultures of foreign lands, the history and art of distant countries—she writes as she travels, leaving behind a series of travel records filled with delicate reflections.