Longing to Shed the Glamour and Return to My Rural Hometown
On June 3, 2022, the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, which was the Dragon Boat Festival. I made my first harvest on my balcony vegetable garden. This batch of vegetables had been sown on April 20 and grown for over fifty days. For the first time I picked back a variety of small vegetables that altogether would make one stir-fry: crown daisy, romaine lettuce, Chinese chives, and water spinach. I asked my wife to cook them into a meal while they were still fresh.
Perhaps the lockdown had gone on for far too long, but during this period I had a particularly strong desire to go back and live in the countryside. In these days away from nature, although I could create a patch of "little nature" in a corner of this great metropolis of Beijing to console myself, it was merely better than nothing. I still hope that one day I can return to the countryside, own a large courtyard, and have a far more spacious orchard that doubles as a vegetable garden, flower garden, and medicinal herb garden. I would grow all the plants I want to grow, water them every morning or evening, and converse with them—all things have a spirit, and as long as we are willing to listen, we can hear what they are saying.
This is the most beautiful thing I can imagine. Nature is so simple and sincere; it asks for nothing, yet it bestows upon us food, scenery, and a home, gives us life, comforts us, and accompanies us, and after we die it is nature that takes us back and shelters us. When we become one with nature, we find our true home, where both our soul and body can rest.
When the plague broke out in London, Newton fled to the countryside to avoid the epidemic and devoted himself to scholarship there. He was truly a wise man; no wonder he became one of the most luminous figures in the history of science. During times of raging plague, the big cities were indeed no longer livable, and the countryside was instead a pure land. Breathing the free air in the countryside every day and strolling along country paths, one inevitably feels refreshed and joyful, and the efficiency of study and research is much higher.
The only reason I am temporarily staying in Beijing is that my child receives his education here; as a father, I have the responsibility to care for and accompany him. Once I have completed this task in life, I will consider moving back to the countryside of my hometown in Hubei. My hometown already has a ready-made house and courtyard, and there is even a well in the yard. My father has already tidied it up nicely, planting peach, plum, tangerine, jujube, loquat, and fig fruit trees, as well as a small amount of medicinal herbs and vegetables. When I return home in the future, I will make this ancestral property even more livable.
My home is at the highest point of the village, backed by the tallest hill in the whole village. It is warm in winter and cool in summer. In winter, sitting in the sun by the door or on the balcony is warm enough without any heating. In summer, placing a deck chair by the back door, with the gentle cool breeze blowing and lying there reading, is very cool, and there is simply no need for air conditioning or fans to cool down. That place is my eternal home; Beijing is only a temporary residence.
My generation went through tremendous effort to wash our feet and climb ashore, but after living into our forties and reflecting on the path we have walked, I do not feel that the city is truly as beautiful as we once idealized. People who have been accustomed to city life since childhood may never love the countryside, but those of us who grew up in the countryside can hardly ever wholeheartedly love the city, especially megacities that shut nature out. Tall, ugly concrete buildings block our view of the distant mountains and nearby waters.
If I were to describe the beauty of rural life, I cannot find sufficiently beautiful words to describe it. The only thing I can say is that it is a life of natural unadorned simplicity. Dealing with familiar people in a familiar environment, the field of vision is broad, the mood is relaxed, and life is so simple that most rural young people find it tedious—so much so that they cannot bear it and must escape it, preferring to leave their hometown rather than return.
But I am no longer a young man in my early twenties, although I am not prematurely aged either. I am already a middle-aged person who has weathered countless storms. Nowadays the outside world holds almost no attraction for me, and my life has returned to the depths of my own heart. When one lives deep within the heart, what one loves is simplicity, ease, and focus.
When I was in high school, there was a period when I was particularly infatuated with flowery rhetoric in my writing, feeling that only that way could I show the beauty of the essay and my own talent. My teacher promptly corrected me; he brought me many works of great masters with plain, unadorned language, letting me see the natural beauty in their writing.
Having reached my current age, I no longer need my teacher's guidance to disfavor ornate diction, just as I no longer like flashy clothing or a dazzling life. I can wear the same cheap T-shirt and the same old-style cloth shoes day after day for ten years, unafraid of others' glances. I can live an unchanged life 365 days a year, walk along the same path every day without finding it monotonous, and need no novelty or stimulation.
So for me nowadays, the countryside is a good place. To shed all adornments, return to my native home, and wash my feet in the rippling waters—spending the rest of my life this way is more than enough!