"Mountain people" is a symbolic image, which transcends the single-layered meaning of real images and facts, and leads readers to deep thinking about the nation's past and future. The "mountain man" has the desire to get out of the mountains. When he knows from his father that "the mountain over there" "is a mountain" and "the other side of the mountain" is "still a mountain", he feels "tired". The "mountain people" longed to see the "sea", but the "sea" was "very far away", so they felt "regretful" and had to place their good hopes on the next generation. Obviously, what the poem reveals is the common complex mentality of people in the process of society transitioning from a stagnant state to a process of reform and opening up. The poet grasped the overall reality of the era of change and expressed the restlessness of a nation eager to change the status quo when it was struggling to take off.