Text: Jiangcheng is an American journalist Peter? One of heisler's China Trilogy, this book tells the author's experience as a teacher in a school in Fuling as a "Peace Corps" volunteer from 1996 to 1998, and his life in this small town near the Yangtze River. From the "strangeness and confusion" when I first saw the town, I was later intertwined with the complicated and diverse lives of local people such as classmates, colleagues and restaurant owners. In this process, the author recorded from the perspective of a bystander that this small town in the hinterland of China "has more than 200,000 people climbing mountains, fighting for traffic, working for a living and buying and selling" every day, just like a river running day after day. But in the end, as a witness, I and the people in that small town, like all the people in China at that time, experienced rapid and profound changes in China after the reform and opening up. "
"Foreign monks are good at chanting!" This sentence is somewhat derogatory. However, this is the most attractive essence of this book. Imagine many people, things and things that we are used to, through the perspective of He Wei, a foreigner, through his keen observation, analysis and thinking, and with the help of a cultural system whose distance and connotation are far from us. What impressed me most was that, in heisler's view, there were many problems in China, such as noisy people, strong political and ideological atmosphere in schools, chaotic street order and so on. There are some things that we can't see ourselves and I don't realize. In the author's view, these unusual lives are out of tune with his original world. He does not look at everything in front of him with a condescending attitude, but actually records everything in front of him from the perspective of a bystander, with circuitous criticism and kind reminders. Maybe some of what he said made many people feel unhappy, but this is his account of what happened in front of him, and at least some of it is true.
"I came to Fuling by slow boat from Chongqing. It was a warm and sunny night at the end of August,1996-there were stars over the Yangtze River, but the faint starlight could not be reflected on the dim water. " This is the description at the beginning of the book. The Yangtze River and Fuling are the themes of the whole article.
In August this year, Peter Hessler and his colleague Adam Mailer came to Fuling, a small town near Chongqing, as US-China friendly volunteers to teach for two years. He was 27 years old that year and graduated from Oxford University. He has never heard of Fuling before. For more than 50 years, Fuling has never seen foreigners. They were strangers, but they met thousands of miles away. He also has a China named He Wei.
At that time, he was teaching Shakespeare and literature in Fuling Teachers College, and he had to wage a circuitous struggle with the old ideas, mobilizing students' hearts to feel the beauty of literature with the poetry of literature, instead of political routines and stereotyped rigid thinking. He made us realize that the power of great literary works partly comes from its cosmopolitan and universal value: a daughter of a Sichuan farmer can read Beowulf and associate it with her life; China students in Class One can listen to Shakespeare's poems and see the beauty of the Han Dynasty from them.
In the book, vivid three-dimensional images are presented to readers: honest and cautious department leaders; A decent teacher familiar with western literature; Teacher Liao with strong self-esteem and judgment; Ordinary families who open noodle restaurants, church priests; All kinds of passengers meet by slow ferry. During the holiday, He Wei took a long-distance train with an accent in Mandarin, and it seemed that he would never get to the station. He went to Xinjiang to watch Jiang Wen make a movie and saw China, which was different from Fuling. Also, more ordinary Jiangcheng people generously let him walk into their streets or fields and be honest with this outsider.
The description in the book, like a cross-section of history, tells the events that happened around us at that time, which makes people feel that people in Jiangcheng, like many years in the past, don't care about the real events around them. Due to the Three Gorges Project, some urban areas of Fuling, like many towns along the river, will be submerged. The water mark on the old building and the mottled notice on the wall remind us that the fate of people here will change forever, and historical buildings such as the historic site "Baiheliang" can no longer play its role in hydrological observation for thousands of years. Countless families will move to new towns and start new and unknown lives there. He Wei has never understood why Jiangcheng residents are so numb to the great changes around them. The fact is that no one has ever cared about their feelings, and they know it themselves. This scene is like a quarrel watched by a street stick army while waiting for life. They are carrying sticks wrapped with ropes on their strong shoulders, watching silently at the outermost part of the crowd, not participating, not commenting and not dispersing.
He Wei carefully observed this small mountain city near the Yangtze River. There is a huge cultural difference between him and the city. He is very novel about Fuling, but he can be peaceful with strong empathy and has no sense of distance and superiority. He likes to walk into the crowd and talk to them. He always stops and silently observes this simple city, including its streets, people and life, which has its own logic: the unique street pattern, special lifestyle and unique business style of the mountain city.
"I finally stopped worrying about the future or the past, so I finally took a look at the city. This building is gray. Due to the arrival of summer flood, the river surface of Wujiang River estuary has widened. A small sampan is sailing carefully on the surface of the shore. Zhaqi Mountain is hidden in the fog. Our spaceship sped up and sailed against the river. "
Conclusion: Everything is familiar, but a little strange. Fuling in Jiangcheng is far away from me, but China is at our feet.