Fragmented Memories of Zhangjiajie
Fragmented Memories of Zhangjiajie by Mu Xian. If it is said that the mountains of Guilin, rising abruptly from the flat ground with graceful lines, are like slender, elegant maidens, making one feel a touch of tenderness and sentiment at first sight, then the peaks of Zhangjiajie National Forest Park are rugged and fierce, mighty and full of wildness, and each one is a man who has drunk three or five dou of corn liquor. Just stand before them, and you cannot help but be shaken, cannot help but be stirred, cannot…
Fragmented Memories of Zhangjiajie
by Mu Xian
If it is said that Guilin's peaks, rising abruptly from the flat ground with graceful, slender lines, are like elegant young maidens, making one feel a touch of tenderness and a touch of affection at first sight, then the peaks of Zhangjiajie National Forest Park are rugged and fierce, mighty and full of wildness, each one a man who has downed three or five dou of corn liquor.
Just stand before them, and you cannot help but be shaken, cannot help but be stirred, cannot help but be awed into submission.
Actually, I am not a person who enjoys climbing mountains, especially after passing the age of “knowing one's destiny,” I have even less of that refined inclination. I can be called extremely lazy. Ordinarily, if I have a cup of clear tea, a leisure book, and a reclining chair in which I can stretch out my lazy limbs, I would never be willing to let my legs suffer again, to expend that energy and spirit.
Yet even a thoroughly ordinary person like me was bewitched by the spirits of these mountains.
That time, a group of us walked from Tianping Mountain, through the primitive secondary forest to Tianzi Mountain, and then to Huangshizhai.
Along the way, in the forest so dense that sunlight could not penetrate, it seemed a witch was hiding, casting a magic that drove people mad, making us suddenly tear off the outer garment of our usual reserved, restrained, and refined gentlemanly demeanor. Under the teasing of this magic, every one of us returned to simplicity and truth, once again converted to primitive nature. We joked boldly and crudely, teased each other desperately and madly, and belted out songs at the top of our lungs. Whether it was a “hoarse and husky” foreign voice or a “duck-croaking” rustic throat, all together we “roared” without restraint. From Russian folk songs to Italian classical songs, from European classical operas to the eight model operas, from Chinese folk songs to pop tunes from Taiwan and Hong Kong. We rummaged through our guts and turned them all out, “roaring” until the people were drunk, the mountains were drunk, and the forest was drunk too.
Only when we climbed up to Huangshizhai did the singing, like a fishbone swallowed, get stuck crosswise in our throats. The boldness, the abandon, the wildness of just a moment ago all suddenly vanished. Every one of us stood on the viewing platform mute.
Because what we faced were the peculiar mountains of Zhangjiajie.
This is a tribe of male mountains, a clan of silent mountains. A mountain community of the most distinctive character yet in perfect harmony. As if in ancient times a immortal had cast a spell of immobilization, fixing a group of mountain men here, yet the mountains all hold their heads up unyieldingly, stretch out their arms. Fearlessly, they are arrayed in orderly disorder. Each stands in a different posture.
We silently climbed from one viewing platform to another, and at each viewing platform, the mountains we saw kept changing their postures. As if these mountains all had intense palpitations, possessed of vigorous vitality.
From the viewing platforms, we looked down into the deep valleys, and immediately a strange illusion arose in our hearts. It turned out that not only these peaks possessed life. Even the earth came alive. It held the mountains and spun them leisurely, spinning, spinning until one felt dizzy. A cloud rose from the bottom of the deep valley. Rising between the peaks, appearing and disappearing, like the mountain spirit in Qu Yuan's writings. Before these strong men it danced gracefully, displaying its thousand charms and hundred allurements, wanting to bewitch these men, to conquer these men.
Yet the men remained towering and unmoved, only summoning all the strength of life to let out wild laughter like the soughing of pines.
We were shaken, each standing dumbstruck on the viewing platform, letting the mountains, the clouds, the deep valleys and the sky collide within our hearts.
That night, we lodged at Suoxiyu.
To wash away the overload of both body and spirit from the day, we came to the edge of Suoxi in the moonlight, each stripping completely naked, and lay down in the shallow waters of Suoxi.
The stream water, already dyed dark blue by the night, was coated with a layer of shining silver light. It slowly and softly slid over our skin, and the day's fatigue gradually dissolved in this coolness.
We lay there, wordless, motionless. The man-like peaks also blurred in the night, wordless, motionless. Only the disc-like moon still swam imperceptibly in the mid-sky. The whole world seemed congealed, stilled. And in this stillness, all the legends and myths about Zhangjiajie came alive in our hearts, making it impossible to tell whether all this was illusion or reality.
That mystery, even now I cannot explain clearly.
Looking down at Zhangjiajie's mountains from the viewing platforms, the mountains are magnificent, yet also distant, as if distant to ancient times. Following Golden Whip Stream, looking at Zhangjiajie's mountains from the foot of the mountains, they become resplendent, yet also within reach, like a group of deep, unsmiling friends standing beside you.
Once, I accompanied a group of scholars and literary theorists from all over the country to tour Zhangjiajie. Returning from Huangshizhai, everyone was exhausted and collapsed. A friend from Beijing suggested to me that tomorrow we need not go to see Golden Whip Stream, saying that after seeing Huangshizhai we had already feasted our eyes on the mountains. Naturally the other guests would not agree. The Beijing friend, helpless, and unable to bear the loneliness of sitting alone in the hotel, had no choice but to set off with us.
He was a literary theorist with many works to his name, and also a person of extremely rigorous scholarship, calm mind, meticulous attitude toward life, and emotions he rarely revealed. At first, he followed everyone casually, but gradually his expression became excited, soaring. Probably in his study on ordinary days, facing the vast sea of books, this was how he looked. By the time we were halfway, he suddenly, contrary to his usual manner, jumped up, raised both arms toward the mountains and shouted:
“I was wrong……I was wrong……” Because what he saw was no longer mountains, but an incomparably spectacular, long gallery. Every peak presented before him had become a blade-edge, a sculpture of rugged and exquisite lines. Those giant rocks piled up, towering peaks, like giant arms, like giant brushes, like swords drawn from their sheaths, making one utter praise of force, “strength to uproot mountains.” And the bronze color left by the polishing and erosion of wind and rain made one's thoughts fly to ancient times.
People cannot help but be awed by the amazing creation of nature, that great artist, whose workmanship is like the divine. Whether Michelangelo or Rodin or Picasso,恐怕 all are unable to match this artist, nature. It seems to casually pile together so many giant rocks, and these giant rocks immediately have life. Standing before each peak, one cannot help but produce different associations. Yet what people face is a forty-li gallery, forty li of peaks, forty li of exquisite works of art.
No wonder this friend from Beijing suddenly changed from a serious scholar into a fanatical poet.
Actually, who was fanatical besides this friend?
Along the way, we bought a masked palm civet from a hunter, which people in Xiangxi call the white-faced wild creature. At a roadside inn under an overhanging cliff, we asked the cook to prepare it and bring it out. How should its taste be evaluated? How does it compare to the roast duck at Beijing Roast Duck Restaurant? How does it compare to the Western food at Shanghai's Red House? But one thing was very interesting. These characters, usually as deep as philosophers and as refined as scholars, now ate with wolfish voracity. Someone even used five fingers instead of chopsticks to start in. Though it was a bit of a loss of dignity, at the same time they also ate with the bold spirit of the mountains, the wildness of the mountains.
Along the way, what excited me and moved me was not so much the fantastical and resplendent peaks, or the Golden Whip Stream murmuring like a lute, but rather these people, these utterly lovable people.
A young man who had returned from Taiwan, entrusted by someone to visit me, in casual conversation expressed quite a few criticisms of the mainland. How inconvenient the transportation, how filthy the public toilets, how poor the hotel service. And he repeatedly said he wanted to return early.
I strongly disagreed, yet was helpless. I could only sincerely urge him to stay a few more days, to see more of the mainland's mountains and rivers and scenic spots, to see more of the lives of ordinary mainlanders. Naturally, I did not fail to urge him to visit Zhangjiajie National Forest Park.
He indeed went.
A few days later, he returned dusty and travel-worn. Though he looked somewhat fatigued, he was extremely excited, completely contrary to the arrogance of our first meeting.
“How was it?” I asked.
“The trip was worthwhile, the trip was worthwhile,” he said.
Afterward, he began to ask me whether private individuals were allowed to buy land on the mainland, what procedures were needed, asking in the most exhaustive detail.
“Buy land? To do what?” I thought of his earlier words at our first meeting about returning early, and could not help but be astonished. He smiled: “To build a house.”
It turned out he wanted to build a small building, to give to his aged father in the future, so that he could return and settle down. Before and after, he was truly like two different people. What exactly caused such a tremendous change in him within a few days? What was the reason?
Was it not Zhangjiajie?
In an instant, I felt he was extremely lovable, because he also stirred up in me a longing for Zhangjiajie's magnificent mountains. But was it Zhangjiajie that made him lovable? Or was it he who made me add another measure of affection for Zhangjiajie?
I cannot say clearly.
Indeed, I cannot say clearly. I cannot understand whether it is because of Zhangjiajie's magnificence that people become lovable? Or because people are lovable that Zhangjiajie becomes so enchanting?
Who can tell me?