Li Juan's "Winter Pasture" presents a way of life that is distant and unfamiliar to most people. For thousands of years, this traditional production method has been performed over and over again in the vast land, flowing with the civilization of the nomadic people.

Through books, we seem to be able to see that throughout the ages, lonely shepherds have stood in the vast wilderness for a long time, climbing up the sand dunes again and again and looking around, but no villages or people can be seen. There is only the coldness of the vast sky and the endless snow, and the sheep struggling to chew hay to continue their lives.

In 2010, the first systematic textbook-style book 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 project of "People's Literature" and followed the Kazakh herders to their winter pasture in southern Altay, Xinjiang, where she ate, lived and worked with Juma's family for more than three months. In 2012, the documentary essay collection "Winter Ranch" was published and reprinted in 2018.

Previously, Li Juan has published "My Altay", writing about her life in the Altay region for many years in fresh and vibrant words, making countless readers full of enthusiasm for the land she wrote about. Li Juan is also known as the "elf of Altay".

As for the winter pasture of the nomads, Li Juan is just a bystander. This is the biggest difference between "Winter Pasture" and its previous works. She is not a herdsman who has lived on this pasture for generations. She just caught up with this wilderness before it was about to be abandoned, "presenting a unique survival landscape of the last "wilderness owners" in Altai when they transitioned to winter." She followed the footsteps of this winter and went deep into the hinterland where no one except herdsmen had set foot, and also followed the footsteps of this winter's departure.

However, in this book, the purity, agility, and warmth of Li Juan's writing flow as always. This last "winter nest" is a pure and beautiful pastoral song on a distant land, but it is also riddled with scars, truly showing the ultimate confrontation between life and nature.

01 The Two Sides of Life Instinct: Fragility VS Tenacity

In the wilderness, every life is fragile, yet so tenacious, full of instinctive desire to live. Grow in silence, resist in silence.

In the cold and vast wasteland, life is too fragile. First, it’s extremely cold. This coldness is not a simple number on the thermometer, it is the wind, frost, and snow arrows blowing deeply on my body. Second, there is a lack of supplies. This is true for humans, and even more so for animals. Every ration must be fought for with all one's strength.

Li Juan tirelessly describes her experience of cold throughout the book. She herself was wearing clothes that weighed more than 20 kilograms, and her legs were so straight that she couldn't bend them. She needed help to get on the horse, and she couldn't turn back while holding the camel. In Juma, her legs were completely numb from the cold when she came back from herding sheep. When the sheep and other livestock came back, The body is covered with a thick snow quilt.

What's more, there are tiny cats, newborn dogs, and sick sheep.

But life is far more tenacious than imagined.

A panda dog braved the freezing cold wind to give birth to a litter of puppies, but the puppies survived. When a kitten is three or four months old, people forget to give it water, so it will crawl in and out from the cracks in the door every day to suck the remaining snow under the grass roots; in severe cold weather, the sheep need to dig through the thick snowdrifts to eat grass. , each one's front hooves were bloody, but they had no choice but to continue.

Including people.

If you want to survive in such a wilderness and such a winter, you will be despised if you cannot bear the pain.

When there is an extreme shortage of water, herdsmen need to carry sacks and walk far away to dig snow, and carry heavy snow bags back home, waiting for the snow to melt and settle. Filled with sheep dung, horse dung, and sand.

Here, it seems that all desires are superfluous, and people instinctively move closer to animals and plants. On the most stressful days, I have to save tea, so taking a bath, washing my hair, and doing laundry are habits that can be given up. Here, people not only rely on nature, but also fight against nature under the only conditions provided by nature.

Then the only thing left in life is survival? No. Li Juan is also trying her best to write about things other than survival, that is - life, a better life.

In any case, cold means that the cold is "passing". This is the inevitable law of the four seasons, and it is also the hope for life to survive in nature.

02 The Confrontation between Nature and Life: Extreme Cold VS Warmth

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

Many people say that Li Juan's "Winter Pasture" is suitable for reading in summer and can relieve the heat; yes, she is trying her best to restore all the coldness of that winter. However, the author feels that this book is also suitable for reading in winter: the more extreme the cold conditions, the more you can feel the warmth of human nature. As the author said -

Coldness is not everything. I also showed the opposite side of this coldness with more patience. That is a small ball of warmth and tranquility that humans hold open with their hands in this huge cold, endless wilderness and long winter.

Here, you can feel the warmth provided by the earth. Although the wilderness is bare and the cold wind is raging, underneath the earth, there is silence and stability. So herders seek living space downwards. This underground nest of only about 20 square meters provided shelter and warmth to Li Juan's herdsman family throughout the long winter. It is surrounded by walls of dry sheep dung, and is also covered with a layer of sheep dung on top. It is stable, solid, and full of light and warmth.

Here, you can feel people's tenderness for animals and sympathy for the weak. The camels have long hair, the sheep wear sweaters, and only the cows are bare, so the cows without sweaters are allowed to go into the ground; a languid, sick sheep with a middle head can also be put in for special care, and Li Juan gave it Turn on a small stove, leave fresh corn kernels for it, and mark it with a red scarf, making it a unique sheep in the wilderness. Also, the family restrains each other to pamper the plum cat. Every scene is immersive and interesting to read.

Here, of course, we cannot do without the warmth between people. Although there are only Juma's family and the neighbor's family next door, no matter how far away the villagers are, they need to ride a horse back and forth for a day. But some of the rules on the ranch always make people feel warm. For example, here, horses are basically not lost. Even if it gets lost one day and goes to someone else's house, other herdsmen will help raise it and wait for you to find it back.

The most tear-jerking point in the book is the carefree Juma. Ju Ma seems to be full of impatience with Li Juan, always joking with Li Juan, and Li Juan never answers seriously when he asks questions, but when Li Juan mentioned on New Year's Eve that tomorrow is the "year" of the Han people. This Juma played the songs on the stereo one by one, and after a long time he switched to a Chinese song and stopped. He said -

It is our song every day, now Playing one of your songs is a way to celebrate the New Year for Li Juan.

Seeing this scene, I fell in love with Li Juan who left all emotions behind and went to the lonely wasteland. I think she must have shed tears at this moment.

03 The Confrontation between Material and Spirituality: Poverty VS Abundance

The pasture is so barren and the material is so barren, people try their best to make their spirit feel rich and fulfilling. People are trying their best to bring some flavor out of boring, monotonous, and repetitive lives.

On the pasture, men's job is to go out to herd sheep, leaving early and returning late. And the women, at home, carrying snow, preparing ingredients, sewing clothes, seem to be repeating the same life endlessly. How boring? Not to mention it's cold.

But they will put on their shining jewelry and shine under the winter sun. Here, regardless of whether it is true or false; Juma will clamor to wear new clothes, even if no one comes to see them, just It can be worn for the sheep who are munching grass, but that is different; my sister-in-law will clean the den, even if there is only one guest in a winter, she will keep it tidy throughout the winter.

People, even if they live boringly, are still looking forward to living a better life. And love is the best magic weapon to fight against this material poverty. Ju Ma's tenderness towards the old woman, the old woman's concern for Ju Ma, and their care for the children are all presented in Li Juan's writings.

The interestingness of Li Juan's writing 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. Not long after, it was golden and crispy, and it was cooked to the right temperature...

Because water was not easy to come by, everyone used it sparingly. When describing washing her sister-in-law's clothes, she wrote:

The water that comes out of the wash is like chocolate syrup. The water after the first rinse is like dark soy sauce, and the water after the second rinse is like soy sauce. It is estimated that it will take the third time to clear the blood.

During the conversation with Juma, because Juma could speak Chinese, Li Juan thought she could ask whatever she wanted to know. However, she didn’t find out much about the shepherd, but she was asked about her own. go. Moreover, Juma immediately went to a neighbor’s house to broadcast the news.

And during the broadcast, this guy boldly imagined and performed extraordinary. Even among the rumors among the nearby herdsmen, I became an unemployed vagrant who stole sheep herding skills, a laid-off reporter from the county TV station, and a descendant of a high-ranking cadre who was decentralized to the grassroots. I really don’t know where my mother is.

She diluted the boredom and silence in the wilderness with this kind of loving and interesting people.

04 The Crossover of Civilizations: Tradition VS Modernity

The ancient and traditional production methods are shrinking and being eroded. The wilderness will eventually be abandoned.

The distant Dongwozi, Li Juan could not even label its geographical location, but it has shown human beings' instinctive desire for modern civilization.

The Juma family must talk about how the solar lights go from bright to weak until they are all gone before they end the day and lie down in bed; children must be fully prepared before herding sheep and charge their mobile phones Use electricity, sing or listen to music to resist the boredom and loneliness of the long time of herding sheep. What impressed me the most was watching TV with my neighbors. There is a black and white TV set and an antenna pot. One person is shaking the antenna pot outside, and another person is staring at the display screen and adjusting it repeatedly. This may even be the only house with a TV in the entire winter pasture. This was the scene in our village twenty years ago. Unexpectedly, it reappeared in a distant place.

Although the older generation still sticks to the pasture with the rotation of seasons, in fact, they also long for stability and modern life in their hearts. By this generation, the children have already gone to school and will only come back to this pasture during holidays. After experiencing the excitement of the outside world, children's desire for modern civilization becomes even more eager.

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

As we get to the back of the book, readers can feel the author’s inner anxiety. The more you know, the more you don’t know. And in this way, you will also know that it is difficult for you to know. The more things change.

In the course of time, this wilderness is about to be abandoned. Yes, overgrazing makes this pasture unbearable, but what if this production method 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 no longer visit every corner of this land. The already barren and thin vegetation will lose their most important nourishment - large amounts of livestock manure. Without the repeated trampling of livestock, autumn grass seeds also lose the power to penetrate deep into the soil. They float lightly on the dry sand, unable to take root, gradually rotting away, and then blown away in the strong spring winds. Fragile ecosystems become even more fragile. The yellow leaves completely stay in the vast and helpless silence...the wilderness will eventually be abandoned.

She was filled with observations and thoughts about the ranch, but she could not solve it.

This kind of contradiction and confrontation runs throughout the entire book, including the presentation of the structure. In the first three sections of "Winter Nest", "Master of the Wilderness" and "Tranquility", Li Juan writes about the coldness of the winter nest and the extreme poverty of material things, but the words are full of affection, trying to capture every bit of warmth in life.

In the last chapter "The Last Things", she gently reveals the pain hidden under peace. Oral ulcers caused by a long-term lack of fruit, illnesses caused by extreme living conditions, and extreme natural conditions that rapidly consume the human body, this contradiction is shocking.

Li Juan’s words are like a long lens, capturing the rising sun and the setting moon in the wilderness, rising in the morning and ending in the evening. However, seeing that Juma's family was taking painkillers as food to relieve the pain all over their body, all she could do was to try her best to dissuade them. For shepherds, sheep cannot be given up, and how can they survive the endless pain in the isolated wilderness except for the help of medicine to suppress it?

"Winter Pasture" is writing about the extreme cold, and it is also trying its best to show the other side behind the cold. After reading the postscript written by Li Juan, I couldn't help crying when I saw the photo attached to the back of the book.

When she wrote these words faithfully and sincerely, she could only be an observer and recorder. She could not interfere with the laws of nature, nor could she interfere too much with the birth, aging, illness and death of life. The wheel of time was still rolling towards forward.

Winter Nest may still disappear soon. But all the subsequent ones have nothing to do with the words written down.

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

"Winter Pasture"