The search and discovery of spiritual homes

Kang Kun

"Notes on the Source of the Taohe River" is another masterpiece by the Gannan writer Wang Xiaozhong after the "Notes on the Source of the Yellow River". Since ancient times, Taohe has been a place where soldiers and families must fight, and the place where border plugs are handed over, filled with the atmosphere of slaughter, desolation and tragedy, and has also laid a tone for literature and poetry. Taohe is a place where dreams begin and a place of spiritual home.

Reading the "Notes on the Source of the Tao River", what we see is not a kind of desolate scene of "the snow is exhausted and the Tao River is full of moons, and the Hu'er Qiang flute plays the side sound", there is no special introduction to the natural scenery of the Tao River, nor too much attention and analysis to their own hearts, but a warm text to narrate their own life experience. The book consists of eight essays, each of which is full of the author's love for his homeland and his deep concern for the spiritual homeland of modern people.

In the process of alternating traditional culture and modern thought, the countryside is also developing in the direction of the city, and the rural people have an inherent cultural psychology, so how people who leave the countryside and enter the city should find their inner spiritual home has become increasingly important. In "Xiangyun", the mother, an ordinary rural woman, finally found a place of spiritual sustenance because of her brother's condition.

The people on both sides of the Tao River have multiplied for generations and have never moved away, and Hu Haisheng's family has lived there since he can remember. After Hu Guangyi returned to the village, he did not farm, but raised stone flower fish in the pond left behind after the diversion of the Tao River at the head of the village, and the business was once doing well. Relying on mountains to eat mountains, relying on water to draft water, the homeland has nurtured generations of people, and the spiritual homeland can also be built and inherited, and people's attachment and sense of belonging to the homeland will be very strong. Living in a place for a long time, suddenly leaving will only be exchanged for geometric multiples of thoughts. Later, Hu Haisheng had a stable job after graduating from college, in order to let his children receive a better education, he bought a house in the county town, just when the previous fish breeding canal was also razed to the ground, Hu Guangyi took the old companion Hu Haisheng's family to live in the county. But the old house in the hometown and the attachment to the homeland cannot be abandoned. On the one hand, the continuous and urgent urbanization of the countryside, on the other hand, the spiritual emptiness caused by the lack of cultural psychology in the homeland, the contradictions caused by the two fierce collisions, is the confusion in the survival and development of the people of Taohe. Under the process of modernization, how to keep the spiritual support of the homeland is a question worth thinking about, and it is also a basis for the expression of "Taohe Stone Flower Fish".

"The Man on the Slope" is a family story between Youcai and his brother and his elderly mother. As a result of the Jiudian Gorge Diversion Project, a large area of land in the middle of the Tao River was submerged, and people in the relevant villages had to relocate, and talented families also faced the same problem, leaving their hometowns and going thousands of miles away. Leaving the homeland, the stronger the feeling of missing home, and the more urgent the heart to find a spiritual homeland. Different from the essay "People on the Slope", "Greenhouse Vegetables" uses a first-person narrative method to tell the story of "I" revisiting the hometown and trying to find the taste of my hometown, but I found that under the process of modernization, the original planting industry gradually shrank, and the taste of my hometown went farther and farther. As an old farmer, An Cai Rang did not have much affection for the land in his speech. In the final analysis, it is not the change of the homeland that causes the exhaustion of emotions, but the change of hearts of some people, and their choices make their hearts lack of support.

"Wind Crossing the Che Ba River" is cross-narrated by Sunu Dongzhi and "I", telling the various things about Malu, the "peach blossom source", and telling a history of the changes in zagulu town. In these vain and real red dust stories, Wang Xiaozhong expresses his attachment to his hometown and his desire for spiritual belonging, and unabashedly presents the weaknesses of human nature, which is rare and valuable.

The eight essays full of Gannan regional customs in "Notes on the Source of the Taohe River" record the landscape and humanities along the Taohe River, showing the beauty of a homeland. Just like Tao Yuanming's clean and pure peach blossom garden, human nature is supremely good, and everywhere it exudes attachment to the homeland and the desire to return to the spiritual homeland. Wang Xiaozhong also mentioned in the afterword of the book: "During the days when I was stationed in the village along the Tao River, I have been trying to fully integrate myself, and even deliberately integrated with this land in various ways. Because the new environment will have new thoughts about a person's understanding of life and things. However, I became a drifter, listening to the roar of the river and the roar of the cold wind in the snow-filled Cheba River, but I could not find the fulcrum of integration." Under the unstoppable process of modernization, the author tries to find the spiritual home in his memory, and even tries to integrate into the current land, so that the wandering spirit can find a home. He used the most sincere words to write the human touch and the smell of fireworks in his homeland.

Obviously, in the fictional and realistic narrative, the author found the fulcrum that was enough to support his soul, that is, the persistence of the heart, that is, no matter how the years changed, the Tao River was still flowing quietly, never changing because of the changes in personnel. In the journey of searching for "roots" ten years later, the people and things he sees are very different from those in his memory, and the culture and traditions along the Tao River are constantly disappearing, but his love for his homeland is becoming more and more intense. This trip is not only the author's physical journey, but also a spiritual journey, in the endless Tao River water bank, the author found his inner initial perseverance, the distance between the Tao River in memory and the Tao River in reality is gradually shortening, and the spiritual home in his heart is becoming clearer and clearer.

Manuscript source: Qinghai Daily client Statement: In addition to indicating the source of the manuscript, the above content is the original manuscript of Qinghai Daily, the copyright is owned by the media platform of Qinghai Daily, and it is strictly forbidden to reprint without written permission.