Li Juan's Pasture in Winter: The Last Winter Nest, a pure pastoral of the ultimate confrontation between life and nature.

Li Juan's Winter Ranch presents a distant and unfamiliar way of life for most people. For thousands of years, this traditional mode of production has been staged repeatedly in the vast land, circulating the civilization of nomadic people.

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.

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.

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.

In any case, cold is cold in "too". This is the inevitable law of the four seasons and the hope of life in nature.

02 the confrontation between nature and life: extreme cold VS warmth

Under the extreme cold, there is warmth everywhere, flowing and growing.

Many people say that Li Juan's Winter Ranch is suitable for reading in summer and can cool off the heat. Yes, she is trying to restore all the cold that winter. However, the author thinks that this book is also suitable for reading in winter: the more cold it is, the more you can feel the warmth of human nature. As the author said—

Cold is not all. I also showed the opposite of cold with more patience. It is in this cold, in the endless wilderness, in the long winter, a small group of warmth and tranquility spread out with both hands.

Here, you can feel the warmth of the earth. Although vilen is bare and windy, it is silent and stable under the earth. Therefore, herders seek living space downwards. This underground cave, which is only over 20 square meters, is the shelter and warmth of the herdsmen's family in Li Juan throughout the long winter. Surrounded by a wall of dried sheep dung, it is covered with a layer of sheep dung. It is stable, solid and full of light and warmth.

Here, you can feel people's warmth for animals and sympathy for the weak. Camels have long hair, sheep wear sweaters, and only cows are bare, so cows without sweaters are allowed to enter the ground; Depressed sheep with moderate fission diseases can also be put into special care. Li Juan gave it a small stove, left it fresh corn kernels, tied it with a red scarf, and made it a unique sheep in the wilderness. Also, the family is holding hands with each other and pampering the plum blossom cat. Every scene is immersive and interesting to read.

Of course, it is inseparable from the warmth of people here. Although there are only Juma's family and the next-door neighbor's family here, all the villagers who can stop by need to ride back and forth for a day. But some rules on the ranch always make people feel warm. For example, here, a horse is basically not lost. Even if one day it gets lost and goes to someone else's house, other herders will help raise it and wait for you to get it back.

The most tearful thing in the book is about the careless Juma. Juma seems to be full of impatience with Li Juan and always plays jokes on Li Juan. Li Juan never answered questions seriously, but Li Juan said on New Year's Eve that tomorrow will be the year of the Han people. This Juma turns one song after another in the stereo and stops on a Chinese song for a long time. He said-

Every day is our song. Now, if we play one of your songs, it will be a new year for Li Juan.

Seeing this scene, I fell in love with Li Juan. She left all her feelings behind and went to that lonely wasteland. I think she must be crying at this moment.

03 confrontation between matter and spirit: poverty and abundance

When the pasture is so barren and the material is so barren, people try their best to make the spirit feel rich and full. People are trying to taste the boring, monotonous and repetitive life.

On the pasture, the man's job is to go out to herd sheep and go out early and come back late. And women, at home, carrying snow, preparing food and sewing clothes, seem to repeat the same life endlessly. How boring is it? Besides, it's cold.

But they will wear shiny jewelry and shine in the winter sun, here, whether true or false; Juma will clamor for new clothes, and even if no one comes to see them, she can only wear them to those sheep buried in the grass, but-that's different; Sister-in-law can clean the nest, even if only one guest comes to the door in a winter, she will clean the whole winter.

People, even if they are bored, are looking forward to living better. And love is the best magic weapon against this material barrenness. Ma Ju's warmth to the old woman, the old woman's concern for Ma Ju and their care for the children are all shown in Li Juan's works.

The ridicule of Li Juan's words also makes people full of rich imagination about the wilderness-

When I first entered the wilderness, the moon was bright and elegant in my eyes. Before long, it was golden and crispy in the border town, and it was just right. ...

Because water is not easy, everyone saves. When she described washing clothes for her sister-in-law, she wrote:

The washed water is like chocolate pulp. The first clear water is like soy sauce, and the second clear water is like soy sauce. It is estimated that it will take three times to clear the production.

In the conversation with Juma, because Juma can speak Chinese, Li Juan thinks he can ask anything he wants to know. As a result, he didn't ask much about the shepherd, but asked about himself. Besides, Juma immediately went to the neighbor's house to broadcast.

And in the process of broadcasting, this guy boldly imagined and played extraordinary. So, in the rumors of nearby herders, I became an unemployed person who stole the skills of herding sheep, a laid-off reporter from a county TV station, and a princeling who was decentralized to the grassroots-I really don't know where my mother is.

She diluted the dreary silence in the wilderness with the love and fun of such people.

The Intersection of Civilizations: Tradition and Modernity

The ancient and traditional mode of production is shrinking and being eroded. The wilderness will eventually be abandoned.

The distant Dongwozi, even the place where Li Juan is located, can't be marked, but it has shown the instinctive desire of human beings for modern civilization.

Juma's family must talk about the sunshine from bright to weak until it is all gone before they want to end the day and lie in bed; Children must be fully prepared before herding sheep, charge their mobile phones and resist the boredom and loneliness of herding sheep for a long time by singing or listening to music. What impressed me the most was watching TV with my neighbors. Black-and-white TV, antenna pan, a person shaking the antenna pan outside, a person staring at the display screen in the house repeatedly debugging, and this may even be the only family with TV in the whole winter ranch. This is the scene of our village twenty years ago. Unexpectedly, it appeared in a distant place again.

Although the older generation is still sticking to the pasture with the rotation of seasons, in fact, they are also eager for a stable and modern life. In the children's generation, they all go out to school and only come back to this ranch when they are on holiday. After experiencing external stimulation, children's desire for modern civilization is even stronger.

Zada is a herdsman's child. Of course he loves the ranch, but what he yearns for is the shining life outside the ranch.

The farther behind the book, the more readers can feel the author's inner anxiety. The more you know, the more you don't know, so the more you know you can't change.

In the development of the times, this wasteland is about to be abandoned. Yes, overgrazing has overwhelmed this pasture, but what if this mode of production disappears? Li Juan raised this question at the beginning of the book-

The wilderness will eventually be abandoned. Shepherds are no longer the masters of this land, and cattle and sheep are no longer wandering in every corner of this land. Poor and thin vegetation will lose their most important nutrient-a lot of livestock manure. Without repeated trampling by livestock, grass seeds in autumn have lost their power to penetrate deep into the soil. They float lightly on the dry sand, can't take root, rot gradually, and then are blown away in the strong wind in spring. The fragile ecosystem is becoming more and more fragile. The yellow leaves stay completely in the vast and helpless silence ... the wilderness will eventually be abandoned.

For the pasture, full of her observation, her thinking, but can not be solved.

This contradiction and confrontation runs through the book, including the presentation of structure. In the first three sections, Dongwozi, Yezhu and Quiet, Juan Li wrote about the coldness of Dongwozi and the extreme lack of materials, but between the lines, he was full of affection, trying to capture every warmth in life.

In the last chapter "The Last Thing", she gently uncovered the pain hidden in peace. The oral ulcer caused by not eating fruit for a long time, the pain caused by extreme living environment and the rapid consumption of human body by extreme natural conditions are shocking.

Li Juan's words, like a long lens, photographed the rise and fall of the moon in the wilderness. However, seeing Juma's family eat painkillers as food to relieve their whole body pain, all she can do is to try to dissuade them. For shepherds, sheep can't give up, and endless pain is all over the sky. How can they live in the isolated wilderness except by medicine?

"Winter Ranch" is extremely cold in writing, and it is also trying to show the other side behind coldness. After reading the postscript written by Li Juan and seeing the photos attached at the back of the book, I couldn't help crying.

When she wrote these words faithfully and sincerely, she could only be an observer and recorder, unable to interfere with the laws of nature, unable to interfere too much with life and death, and the wheel of time was still rolling forward.

Dongwozi may still disappear soon. But these words written down below are irrelevant.

I put a green pen with buds on a branch in the book, as if I saw long grass growing in the cold wilderness. In this way, every life there may not have to live so hard.

Winter pasture