She is a simple farmer who works at sunrise and rests at sunset. If anything, she would recite the usual rural scenery into poetic words in between work.
Pei Aimin draws the people and things that are treasured in his mind Photo by Di Haixia
She is "Aunt Vole" Pei Aimin, a peasant poet who persistently pursues the "literary dream". From her poems, you can smell the strong earthy fragrance, and you can feel her warm and sincere feelings, strong and flexible character, and simple and romantic temperament.
Pei Aimin, 50 years old this year, is an authentic peasant woman in Shangxin Village, Xue Bai Town, Minqin County. On weekdays, under the name of "Aunt Vole", she records the four seasons of the countryside, agricultural activities, and customs in the northwest countryside on Weibo. In 2020, Central China Normal University Press stumbled upon Pei Aimin's Weibo "Aunt Vole", and was shocked by the simplicity and talent of her writing, and decided to publish a book for her. In September 2022, Pei Aimin's first book "The Diary of Aunt Vole" was published in Wuhan. The 200,000-word diary also includes 44 illustrations she drew with crayons. As soon as the news was reported, it attracted a lot of attention and praise.
Pei Aimin said that she was also happy in her heart, but as more and more reports were reported, her heart turned from initial joy and excitement to panic. "I'm just an ordinary farmer, I wrote about some of the trivial daily life of our farmers, I didn't expect so many people to like and support it. I like to diligently cultivate crops throughout the year, and I like to seriously record the daily life of spring, summer, autumn and winter in the countryside. ”
Pei Aimin and the children read together Photo by Di Haixia
After having a masterpiece, Aunt Vole became busy: accepting media interviews, participating in symposiums, checking in to the "Chinese Poetry Conference", receiving an invitation to the audience of the 2024 Spring Festival Gala, and participating in the Minqin Summer · Sunflower Carnival......
A peasant woman can write poems and publish books, which is a new thing in the township. The familiar place names, familiar crops, and familiar work patterns in the poems make the villagers read the familiar feelings that have also surged in their hearts.
"When the crops are planted, poetry grows naturally." In Pei Aimin's poems, he always writes down the scenery and emotions of the village, or the spring planting and autumn harvest, the natural scenery, and the people in the village...... can make people see the beautiful life of farmers.
When working in the fields, Pei Aimin carried a pencil and a notebook with him. When inspiration strikes, whether she is watering or weeding, she will put down her work and take out a notebook to record it.
Pei Aimin said that when she was working, she was most likely to be inspired, and when she gently touched the soil and green seedlings in the field, the spirit of poetry seemed to fly in front of her, and she wanted to talk to them and sing with them.
Pei Aimin participated in the Minqin Summer · Sunflower Carnival
She writes about alfalfa flowers, sunflowers; She writes about butterflies, crickets chirping at the base of the wall; She writes about the seedlings in the spring and the villages after the rains; She writes about watering and weeding in the summer, breaking corn and picking peppers in the fall; She writes about the kittens sleeping in the Zhuangzi and the sheep in winter; She writes about the people who work in the fields with her. Through writing poems, Pei Aimin expresses life freely, and the scenery and human feelings of the Great Northwest are bubbling with hot and fresh breath under her pen.
"The sunflower has set seeds, the bud valley is blooming, the summer is about to pass, I like this honest life, love the land, hard work, we follow the solar terms to plant crops, our hearts are steady." Pei Aimin's poems have encouraged many people, which has also given her more motivation to create. "What you think and desire can be expressed in words."
In "The Diary of Aunt Vole", Pei Aimin vividly shows the four seasons of the countryside, agricultural activities, customs, and changes of the times through daily records of 365 days a year, presenting the ordinary and trivial rural daily life to the majority of readers, and showing the spiritual outlook of the people of Wuwei in the new era who love labor, love life, and are open-minded and optimistic.
There are more and more people who like Aunt Vole, watching her share the dates in the village, farming, and herding sheep, and some netizens asked her in private messages if she could taste the agricultural products in the text. So, she began to send agricultural products to netizens, and later someone suggested that Pei Aimin open an online store to increase her income while writing.
In Pei Aimin's micro-store, local special agricultural products such as shallots, red dates, ginseng fruits, and honeydew melons are on the shelves. When business was good, she also helped other people in the village sell.
Aunt vole is on fire, and Aunt vole is also busy. In 2023, she went to Beijing to participate in the Chinese Farmers' Harvest Festival integration and communication action "Reading, Harvest in Your Eyes" program; As a New Year's Eve speaker, she participated in the "Earth Lecture" program hosted by CCTV's Agriculture and Rural Channel to talk about the power of the earth. As an audience, Pei Aimin participated in the 2024 Spring Festival Gala; She visited Sina Weibo, walked into the radio studio, and watched the "Chinese Poetry Conference" and chatted with Meng Man, a guest on the program and a professor at Minzu University of China......
Literature gave Pei Aimin, who was facing the loess and facing the sky, a hope and strength for life. Picking up farm tools, she sows the seeds of spring; Tapping on the keyboard, she writes freely in the poetry of the field. Unlike ordinary writers, she has a profound experience of rural life, farming, and farming, and she is an observer of field life and a recorder of the great changes in her hometown.
In the past 13 years, Pei Aimin has witnessed earth-shaking changes in the countryside, agricultural production has become more and more high-quality and efficient, unmanned plant protection machine spraying, large machinery deep cultivation and intensive cultivation, irrigation pipelines have been paved to the ground, and the solar greenhouse has changed from the first generation of "soil sheds" to the third generation of high-efficiency greenhouses, rural infrastructure and farmers' living environment have been continuously improved, and science and technology have become rich and the greenhouse economy has paved the "road to prosperity" for the revitalization of rural industries.
"As a vernacular author living in a grassroots village, everything comes from the most real life, and everything comes from love to love. The countryside needs culture, and it needs cultural communicators. Pei Aimin said that there is no income from writing poetry, and he cannot support his family. However, in the poems about sowing, growing and the four seasons, it seems that the crops planted also grow poetically.
Source: Minqin County Financial Media Center