Liu Daxian's Creation丨Chinese Stories and World Stories: How to Write a Place

Local writing has become a literary hotspot in recent years, at least in the media. As far as my own experience is concerned, I have participated in the "New Northeast", "New South", "New Beijing", "New Zhejiang School" and "New Frontier" ...... Such naming and propaganda activities are also welcome to be mentioned in academic discourse, such as "local path" and "locality", because as a discourse, whether effective or practical, it can promote the production of some words to some extent.

Logically, in fact, all "new" becomes "old", and there is hardly any kind of writing that is not local. There may be someone with big dreams, or simply a delirium-dwarfed person, who claims to be writing for humanity, or cosmopolitan, or even under undefined terms like "modernity" and "globality", but they have to start somewhere – even if it's in a cosmopolitan metropolis, it's a kind of "place." So, we can say that almost all literary writing is local. The question is simply how to write a place?

When I set out to write the non-fiction work "To Beichuan", the first task was to solve this problem. For me, Beichuan is a strange Qiang Autonomous County in northwest Sichuan in terms of natural environment, human history and real life. Although he has been working here for a year, he is only a passerby after all. Passers-by often write travelogues, chronicles, sketches, and reports, or focus on the scenery or specific themes, and it is generally difficult to enter into the overall social folds and inner emotional fabric of the place. I have lived for a year, which is just rooted in an anthropological cycle, and I have been more or less integrated into local life, especially the work of government departments, and my understanding of local administration, economic operation, social security, cultural undertakings and other aspects is more comprehensive than that of the general public, which is the basis for me to fully present all aspects of Beichuan.

Three-dimensional and holographic images of reality are very important for local nonfiction writing, and if they can be presented as they are, then even after many years, when their "literary" nature has faded or has lost its readers, then there is still historical value for it. Aesthetic forms and fashions change with the times, and the once popular genre may soon become an "intangible cultural heritage" that needs to be protected and saved, but the historiographical value it contains does not disappear. I was not confident that my writing would have timeless aesthetic value, nor did I have the ambition to write for the eternal history of literature, so my focus was always on the present, that is, for the readers and the reality of the present.

However, it is not enough to only have the present and reality, any kind of writing about a place must be four-dimensional, that is, in addition to the three-dimensional geographical space, it must also contain elements of time and history. A person without a past, a place without memory, a race without history will be a hollowed out, an empty place. The reason why a place has its personality, identity, and characteristics comes from the legacy left to it by past history. We cannot make a solidified and static understanding of history, because history is always constantly reforming and renewing. If we want to inherit the legacy left by history, we must constantly return to our roots and start a new life. Those written records, archaeological objects, image preservation, oral legends, and the memories they retain eventually form the precious wealth of knowing oneself, others, and the world at present. In the same way, a place without ideals, imagination and planning is also a floating existence without a future. This is destined for me to be in the documentary, on the one hand, to deal with its origin, and on the other hand, to point to its destination. Of course, the past and the future must be settled in the present.

Just as a friend keenly discovered, I wrote three superimposed Beichuan in "Going to Beichuan". The tradition of Kitagawa that survives in ancient songs, epics, ballads, and folk tales is the basis for the formation of today's Kitagawa, and they are presented in the form of a message at the beginning of each chapter. To this end, I consulted a large number of materials and extracted some exemplary chapters and verses from written history and oral traditions to characterize the characteristics of the ethnic groups, beliefs, folk customs, and emotional structures of the Beichuan region. The reality of Beichuan is more of a confirmation of the government's operation, economic operation, and the development of science, education, culture, sports, and health.

From the perspective of conscious historical practice, both the past and the present are aimed at the future—the light from the future illuminates the past and projects it into the present. Beichuan is looking for its own way of life, which is to change the existing production and lifestyle in the past and present. If you zoom in a little more, it is a mountainous area of ethnic minorities, how to embark on the road of rural revitalization after poverty alleviation. Beichuan's original natural conditions are limited, the industrial base is weak, and it should also pay attention to ecological and environmental protection while developing with high quality. This development path is a choice that meets its own conditions and adapts to local conditions, and it is also a concrete embodiment of the new development concept in a remote and small county. Showing this modernity that blends the past, present, and future is the main part of the work.

A work is not only contemporary, but also universal, that is to say, a broad horizontal. Therefore, when I narrate, I am constantly interspersed with comparisons with other places and even foreign cultures. In the development of cultural tourism, through the comparison of the differences between Hunan Phoenix and Guizhou Tongren, we can see the importance of literary images in sustainable development, so the writing of Beichuan in the past is to continue the circulation of the cultural context. The similarity between the story of General Li Bao and the ancient Greece tragedy in the conflict of values is discussed for the intelligibility of readers of different cultures, and then towards a common human emotion. In other words, the story of Beichuan is not a story of exotic ethnic minorities in the southwest, but a story of China and a world.

This story of China and the world tells a side and a case of Chinese modernization. Modernization is a process with different aspects and paths, and it is constantly exploring and moving forward, and it is always full of fluidity. From the new democratic revolution in the early days of the People's Republic of China to socialist transformation, to a series of new policies and measures in the era of reform and opening up, to the current new era, with the improvement of comprehensive national strength and the overall quality of the people, China's role and weight have been enhanced in global exchanges. We strengthen cultural self-confidence in cultural consciousness, explore and experiment with the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and Beichuan is also one of the experiments and practices.

In this way, it seems a bit over-the-top and artificially elevated. Actually, no, the "I" as the narrator is present all the time. It is organized by the process of deepening the understanding of Beichuan step by step: entering from the real objects and events, tracing its history, laying out its origins, and exploring its trends, from animals and plants to food and customs, to emotions, marriage and family, and even the spiritual world. I am well aware that individual experience, observation, tracing, lyricism, and thinking are inevitably perspectivist, and there is always a hidden existence. I can't be an omniscient and omnipotent narrator, and that's what nonfiction is all about: the narrator understands his own limitations, and can only pursue limited truths and opinions on the basis of striving for totality.

Therefore, the invisible narrative logic of "To Beichuan" is historical records and similar books. I don't tell stories about exemplary people in a particular environment, or focus on the twists and turns of major events, as reportage does. For me, the Beichuan place itself is the object of writing, the characters and stories are the proper meaning of the title, and what I want to do is to show the style of a place completely, in addition to people and things, of course, there will be scenery, customs, emotions and spirits. For writing, the form is the logic of narration, and the chronicle contains different styles of description, record, chronicle, biography, diagram, table, and record, always from the surface to the inside, from the macro to the micro, and the miscellaneous events are integrated into a complete system.

In this "meaningful form", the "I" plays a subjective intermediary role, like a trigger or aminotransferase, allowing all this to be presented through the narrative of the "I". Knowing autumn from a leaf, specific people, things, things, feelings, and thoughts point to the past and present life and ideal vision of Beichuan in the new era. I became one with Beichuan in the process of writing, I witnessed and intervened in Beichuan's life, and Beichuan also reciprocated my affection and acceptance. "I see how charming the green mountains are, and I expect the green mountains to be like this when they see me." This is about the best state of a person writing a place.

Text: Liu Daxian (Researcher, Institute of Ethnic Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)

Editor: Fan Xin