The ancestors of Donggan people in Kazakhstan are descendants of Hui people who migrated to Central Asia in the late Qing Dynasty in China, Gansu and Shaanxi. In their minds, there is always an image of their motherland. In the novel Love on Silk Road, Shaanxi writer Ba Longfeng takes estelle, a China girl of Donggan descent, as the protagonist, and tells us about a foreign girl's trip home. After reading this novel quietly, it is like walking on the Silk Road with the protagonist, which has gained more excitement and more emotion.
Estelle graduated from the Confucius Institute in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan. She loves life and is influenced by her elders. It is difficult for her to leave her motherland. After graduation, she carried her grandfather's old photo album and traveled eastward along the Silk Road to Xi 'an, the starting point of the Silk Road. The novel takes the marching process as the main line, and the experiences along the way are like branches and leaves, which makes the meaning of the novel as lush as towering trees.
Accompanying estelle are her Russian "rich" boyfriend Ivan, her warm friend Fatia and others. They passed through Almaty, Horgos, Turpan, Urumqi, Dunhuang, Baoji and other places, and skillfully highlighted the local customs at home and abroad with the help of character dialogue and plot description. Whether it's the Ruins of Broken Leaf City where Li Bai was born, the ancient city of Gaochang, or the ruins of Nero's Battle that witnessed the sword and shadow, these scenic spots along the way can always see traces of Chinese civilization, which, like Esther who was born in a foreign country but has China blood, also reflects the powerful radiation of Chinese culture.
Ba Longfeng has set up various reasonable experiences for estelle, so that her homesickness can be truly revealed. For example, after arriving at the border between China and Kazakhstan, she met an old man who wrote local characters in the port square. During the chat, she learned that the old man is also her hometown in Shaanxi and Gansu. When asking the old man for a book, the old man wrote a poem "Welcome to the Capital" by Cen Can, a frontier poet in the Tang Dynasty. This poem was written by Cen Can on his way to the west and compared with what happened to estelle and his hometown.
Estee Lauder's trip to China is more than a travelogue. The word "love" in the title is the core point of the novel, which is not only a national condition linked by blood, but also Estee Lauder's personal feelings. As she gets closer and closer to the target Xi 'an, she feels more and more distant from her boyfriend Ivan who has been in love for seven years. When she arrived in Xi 'an, she met Zheng Neng, a young man who had a deep study of Donggan culture, and she and Zheng Neng. Ivan, who left soon, quickly "married" another woman for several purposes. It turns out that the relationship between her and Ivan may only be maintained by material things, and at most it stays at the level of liking.
At the end of the novel, Esther not only feels the affection of the old country, but also gains love. Her trip to the East has the same significance as Turgut's tragic trip to the East in history, expressing overseas travelers' recognition and sense of belonging to the Chinese nation, which is obviously a strong foundation for China to stand among the nations in the world. (End)