Through books, it seems that we can see that lonely shepherds have stood on the vast Yuan Ye for a long time, climbed the sand dunes and looked around again and again, but there were no villages, no figures, only the cold of the vast snowfields and the sheep struggling to live on eating hay.
Sheep in winter
20 10 the first systematic textbook in the field of non-fiction literature was introduced to China for the first time. In the same year, Li Juan participated in the non-fiction writing plan of People's Literature, followed Kazakh herders to their winter pasture in southern Altay, Xinjiang, and lived and worked with Juma's family for more than three months. 20 12 Documentary Prose Collection "Pasture in Winter" was published and reprinted on 20 18.
Prior to this, Li Juan had published My Altay, which wrote her life in Altay for many years with fresh and lively words, which made countless readers full of expectations for this land she wrote, and Li Juan was also known as the "Elf of Altay".
As for the winter pasture of nomadic people, Li Juan is just a bystander, which is the biggest difference between Winter Ranch and previous works. She is not a herdsman who has lived on this pasture for generations, but just before this wilderness is about to be abandoned, "it presents the unique living landscape of the last batch of' wilderness owners' in Altai during the winter transition period". She followed the footsteps of this winter, went deep into the hinterland where no one except herders set foot, and followed the footsteps of leaving this winter.
But in this book, Li Juan's purity, agility and warmth flow as always. This last song "Winter Wozi" is a pure pastoral song on the distant land, but it is also scarred and truly shows the ultimate confrontation between life and nature.
A horse walks in the wilderness in winter.
0 1 Two aspects of life instinct: fragility VS tenacity.
In the wilderness, every life is fragile, but it is so tenacious and full of instinctive desire for survival. Grow up in silence and fight in silence.
Life is too fragile in the cold and vast wasteland. First, it's extremely cold. This cold is not a simple number in the thermometer, but a wind, frost and snow arrow that blows deeply on the body. Second, there is a shortage of materials. This is true for people, especially for animals. Every ration must be fought for desperately.
Throughout the book, Li Juan took pains to describe his cold experience. She herself, wearing clothes weighing more than 20 kilograms, was so straight that her legs could not bend at all. She needs help to get on the horse and can't turn back with the camel. Living in hemp, my legs are completely numb when I come back from herding sheep; Livestock, such as sheep, come back covered with thick snow.
What's more, there are kittens, newborn dogs and sick sheep.
But life is far more tenacious than imagined.
The panda dog braved the cold wind to give birth to a litter of puppies, but the newborn puppy survived. Three or four months old kitten, people forget to water it, it will get in and out from the crack of the door every day to suck the residual snow under the grass roots; In cold weather, sheep need to pull open thick snowdrifts and chew grass. Their front hoofs are covered with blood, but they still have to pull.
Including people.
If you want to survive in this wilderness and this winter, you will be despised if you can't stand the pain.
When there is extreme water shortage, herders need to take sacks to far away places to dig snow and carry heavy snow bags home. When the snow melts and precipitates, it may still be full of sheep manure, horse manure and sand.
Here, it seems that all desires are superfluous, and people are instinctively close to animals and plants. In the most tense days, tea must be saved, so bathing, washing hair and washing clothes are all habits that can be abandoned. Here, people not only rely on nature, but also confront nature under the only conditions provided by nature.
Is there only one thing left in life? That's not true. Li Juan is also trying to write something other than life, that is, life, a better life.