Our Landscape
Our Landscape Peng Xueming As if thousands upon thousands of knives fell from the sky, as if thousands upon thousands of swords thrust out from the ground, thousands upon thousands of mountains were suddenly planted here with a great whoosh, looming before the eyes. One by one, patch by patch, pole by pole, cluster by cluster, bundle by bundle, like axes, like hammers, like halberds, like needles, like pillars, like people, like beasts, like bamboo shoots all over the mountains and plains, growing densely and sharply from the mountain roots. Where dense, they stretch...
Our Landscape
by Peng Xueming
As if thousands upon thousands of knives were falling from the sky, as if thousands upon thousands of swords were thrusting up from the earth, thousands upon thousands of peaks were suddenly planted here with a great whoosh, jutting out before our eyes. One by one, patch by patch, pole by pole, cluster by cluster, bundle by bundle—like axes, like hammers, like halberds, like needles, like pillars, like people, like beasts, like bamboo shoots all over the mountains and fields, growing thick and sharp from the mountain roots. Where dense, they stretch in unbroken waves for ten thousand acres; where sparse, they stand alone and erect. Bold and vigorous, steep and elegant, the whole world is filled with masculine energy.
I do not know why Heaven should have favored this patch of land so exclusively—was it not a stroke of supreme craftsmanship? All the finest mountains have gathered here in such neat ranks, posing here in such beautiful forms?! Look, a golden turtle has crawled out of the vast West Sea and crouches atop Huangshizhai, raising its head to await the sunrise. A general who has campaigned north and south all his life is deep in thought at his outpost, directing a battle of life and death; the spear he used in those years still has its red tassel tied to it, summoning the rolling shouts and neighing cries of thousands upon thousands of troops on the ancient battlefield of Shentang Bay. The golden whip with which Qin Shi Huang drove the mountains pierces the blue sky in the image of a bayonet, cutting through history, walking toward antiquity, gazing afar at that row of imperial brushes that sweep across the world and write splendor. On the summit of a lone peak rising a thousand feet from the ground, a square box sits, its lid pulled open a section, flaunting, enticing, waiting for us to take out the jewels and the heavenly book—but no one can. You cannot pull the lid, nor can you climb up; you will never be able to read this wordless heavenly book! And this couple that fell from the sky, though their bones and flesh are made of stone, have noses, eyes, faces, mouths, ears, and hair all full of lively spirit. With that faint smile, you would simply take them for a living pair! Perhaps this is Meng Jiangnu, after weeping down the Great Wall, finding the husband who had been conscripted to the frontier; perhaps it is Fan Li returning on a snowy night to see his beloved Xi Shi—only then could the two nestle and embrace so tightly, so tenderly.
Thank Heaven for leaving us such remarkably lifelike masterpieces and such a truly, truly auspicious treasure land!
These mountains that have exhausted all "peak" prominence, because of their knife-cut, axe-hewn steepness and their proud, lofty nature, are every one rugged and hard, iron-boned and clanging, wildly unrestrained, firm and deep. Yet when those flowers, grasses, and trees sweep over, surround, cover, and occupy them with green all across the mountains and fields, these old fellows become so full of tenderness, so rich in poetry, so charming again and again. Grandeur and delicacy, masculine and feminine, are incredibly harmonized and unified here; by an aesthetic rule of creating something from nothing and defying explanation, they go straight up and straight down, straight forward and straight back, doing as they please, coming and going alone.
Facing this mountain host stretching for ten thousand acres and these statues standing alone and erect, we naturally think of the ancient Yanshan Movement during the crustal changes; we seem able to hear the earth-shaking echoes when the deep strata were squeezed, uplifted, folded, fractured, and exploded. The great rises and falls of collision, the great joys and sorrows of washing, the great wisdom and courage of cutting, the great magnanimity of carving, the great suffering and tribulation of tempering, and the great intelligence of sculpting brought about by the Yanshan Movement achieved this incomparable mountain and incomparable beauty, composing this upright yet charming line of wind and shadow. This is a sublime beauty, a tragic and heroic beauty, a magnificent beauty. This beauty comes from the imposing momentum of stern ramparts and united wills; from the towering uprightness of sharp edges and proud bones; from the biting cold of unyielding, stubborn, untamed strength; from the insolent, domineering abandon of unreasonable wildness. It is both opposed and unified, both contradictory and harmonious, full of the charm of individuality—and only the charm of individuality is the great beauty of heaven and earth and the most beautiful of all.
In all four seasons, the flowers bloom so brilliantly—red and plump, white as snow, golden bright, purple glimmering—ten thousand mountains and ten thousand seas, vying in wonder and beauty. In these deep mountains and deep valleys, how can there be so many flowers that never finish blooming? Even on snowy days, you can see white plums and red plums you recognize and red flowers and white flowers you do not recognize.——Rare and precious flowers.
A tall slender stalk lifts a flower, red or yellow or purple or white, with distinct veins and long fine tendrils, exactly like a sea shrimp playing in a stream, known as the "lobster flower." The petals are plump and tender yet thin, like a daughter's delicate red lips painted with faint rouge. Over there, clusters of elegant white butterfly flowers are sprinkled with specks of purple and gathered patches of yellow, plain as the men of the mountains, pure as the girls of the mountains. These flowers swaying in the wind are colorful butterflies about to fly, and there are birds singing softly.
When there is no sun, above and below the mountains is the homeland of cloud and mist. From morning to night, clouds and mist entwine and mingle here, vast and gray, and one cannot tell at all which is cloud and which is mist. The cloud and mist are wet, as if just scooped from water; gullies, valleys, and ravines are covered with soft white and hazy poetry. We cannot see the mountains, cannot see the water; we can only imagine a white cotton quilt, broad and great, covering the people of two eight, and we do not know what these people of two eight are doing under the quilt. We can only walk in the mist and let songs drift in the clouds; we can only hear dogs bark, chickens crow, horses neigh, sheep bleat, and hear bells, laughter, shouts, doors, and all the sounds of humans and nature depending on each other.
Once the sun rises, the cloud and mist wave white gauze scarves and leave, turning back at every step, leaving patches of sunlight cheering and leaping in the forest. An unprecedented mountain-building movement made all these primeval trees roll over and tumble, horizontal, crooked, slanted, straight, hanging like golden hooks, disorderly yet orderly. All kinds of animals walk, crawl, and live here, in harmony and peace, a united nation.
Red-faced, long-tailed monkeys, as if they have taken stimulants, act crazy all day, jumping from this tree to that tree, from this mountain to that mountain. No matter how high, far, steep, or dangerous, they can lightly leap and fly over. This lightness and transcendence of life is truly too great; humans evolved from monkeys, yet lack the monkey's spiritual nature—what a tremendous injustice and regret! Cranes startle out of the forest, white and dense, a great swath, carrying a bright white song. Golden pheasants with yellow wings and red tail feathers, mountain birds with red wings and blue tail feathers, all come in flocks, appearing and disappearing in the forest. The crying-marriage bird—legend says the only bird princess is about to marry far away and is wiping her tears, both singing and weeping. The water-carrying chicken, because the mountain is high and the road steep, is washing itself and looking in the mirror by the stream, remembering the source when drinking water; it uses a balloon-like water sac to carry water up to feed its still chirping young.
Mountains are the soul of water, water is the spirit of mountains. Zhangjiajie, with three thousand peaks and eight hundred waters, is full of flowing springs, flying waterfalls, golden waters, and silver waves. In the crevices between mountains, on cliffs standing a thousand fathoms sheer, threads of water and hanging waterfalls either come down upright and proper or leap down free and easy. Like a distant freehand brushstroke of nature, gentle yet intense.
Suppose every peak is an erhu, a guzheng, and the streams are moving silk strings; wherever they flow, they strike up a road of folk songs, a road of singing.
This water buried deep underground, no one knows where it emerges from, forms the concept of streams, turning all over the mountains. Whether Golden Whip Stream or Pipa Stream, whether Pipa Stream or Suoxi, after layer upon layer of filtering and lovemaking through mountains, stones, mud, and trees, all are clear and sparkling, untouched by dust, soft and boneless; scoop it up, and you can hear the faint moaning of pain. In places with drops, villagers connect bamboo poles into bamboo rafts and place them at the openings; the water gurgles down, fish are blocked, and they flip their bellies and jump white on the rafts. Pull up a clump of thatch or grasp a vine, string the fish, and set off; the villagers will cheerfully invite you to sit at home. Stream water boiled with live fish, plus bacon and sausages smoked over kitchen smoke—that is absolutely superb!
At the water's edge, cave after cave squats or sits, gazing at us. These are black eyes growing on the earth. These are dark pupils fallen from the sky. Walk in, and a thousand wonders and ten thousand scenes are all in the pupils. The caves are deep and long, big enough to hold the entire population of Zhangjiajie City. If hundreds or thousands of cave doors were all opened, not to mention Zhangjiajie, the people of all China could crawl in and hide from a war that might happen. We would never have thought that in the deep strata without sunlight or air, life could grow!——Hard, stone life! The cave ceiling is a vault; ancient limestone, having drunk its fill of the earth's sweet rain and fine nectar, overflows with clear milk dripping down drop by drop. The water in the milk evaporates, mineral components settle, and drop by drop, day by day, year by year, generation by generation, they form bizarre underground palaces: stalactites like arrows, like pillars, forests of spears and swords, some hanging in rows from the top, some rising in clusters from the ground. Short ones, three feet to one zhang; tall ones, seventy or eighty meters. Stone flowers bloom on them. Stone lions crouch on them. Stone chickens perch on them. Stone rabbits lie on them. Lingzhi, mushrooms, ginseng, monkeys, eagles, and Taishang Laojun, Guanyin Bodhisattva—all become stalactite statues, lifelike, and white, black, yellow, green, red, colorful. In Yellow Dragon Cave, we actually saw two heaven-created, earth-designed Long March 1 and Long March 2 bundled rockets dozens of meters tall! This life formed by dripping stalactites grows only one meter in 270,000 years; then life dozens of meters tall must be at least tens of millions of years old! When we see stalactites still tenaciously dripping down to forge life, we truly taste what is an instant, what is eternity, what is life, what is immortality; we truly cannot help but sigh at how great nature is and how small we are, and we will understand how to cherish nature and love life.
Where else can one find such vast, magnificent, continuous, beautiful, and outstanding landscape and life? Only here, only ours, only Wulingyuan, composed of the incomparable scenery and realms of Zhangjiajie—Tianzi Mountain—Suoxiyu—Yangjiajie! It is really too embarrassing; we should share some with others!
To guard this landscape, our ancestors for generations rolled and struggled, opened up this land, and made it grow grain and homes. Generation after generation died, and generation after generation were buried, yet they still remained, guarded, and created, not only feeding descendants but also enriching this land, not only enriching this land but also beautifying this landscape. The mountains rising from the ground are their strong, upright backbones; the crisscrossing, vigorous trees are their tenacious sinews and bones; the rushing, murmuring streams and rivers are their ceaseless bloodlines; and the knife-cut, axe-hewn stone cliffs are their deeply wrinkled, weather-beaten faces. They come from nature and create nature; they create nature and return to nature. They are a human landscape fused with nature, a handed-down landscape as eternal as nature.——Our landscape.