A Farmer's Son: Village Chronicle

Author: Cheng Baolin (Compiler)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-08-01
Features: The story of a person who has struggled to leave the countryside and enter the city, expressing endless longing for their rural roots; an autobiography of an urban "little man." The author, who grew up barefoot in a rural cottage, inherited money from his grandparents and parents, which was also his only asset—kindness. Kindness from the soil nourished him like milk; kindness from the soil flows through the articles of this peasant son like blood. When I read the passage where Grandma uses a "bamboo basket" to carry bean cakes and urges me to deliver them to my grandmother three miles away, tears cannot help but stream down. Today, revisiting these warm, traditional flavors is just like occasionally hearing folk music—truly a rare and sublime sound. Reading Cheng Baolin's A Peasant Son's Village Chronicle is like seeing a cultural spokesperson standing alone in the flood of information in a consumer society. From his observations to his reflections, the book makes you laugh, feel light and cheerful, shake your head at his innocence, and then grip his seriousness, unable to let go, wishing you could cry your heart out. This, perhaps, is the combined power of great writing.