"Life and death are wrapped in the harmony of the universe." - Chi Zijian.
"The Last Quarter of the Moon," by Chi Zijian, depicts the lives of the Evenki people, an indigenous group residing in the forests of Northeast China, near the banks of the Erguna River. Chi Zijian’s narrative, delivered through the voice of an elderly Evenki woman, weaves a tapestry of personal and communal history. The book dives into the intricate relationship between humans and nature.
In her reflective recount, the elderly narrator spans across several decades of change, survival, love, loss, and the eventual decline of traditional ways of life under the pressures of modernity. Sounds familiar? Do not worry, you are not alone. The book is often referred to as the One Hundred Years of Solitude of the East.
Gabriel García Márquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" uses grand narrative elements to depict the landscapes, seas, flora, fauna, religions, ethnicities, and faces of all people across Latin America. Through the fictional saga of a family’s rise and fall over a century, the novel intertwines historical reality with fantasy, presenting an epic portrayal of the historical and fateful transformations in Colombia and the broader Latin American continent over the past century.
Chi Zijian's "The Last Quarter of the Moon", on the other hand, narrates the life of a 90-year-old Evenki woman, reflecting the development of the Evenki people over nearly a century. This ethnic group lives in the forest, surviving under the blessings and trials of nature. They faced Japanese invasions and experienced the Cultural Revolution, and under the “assault” of civilization, they were forced to oscillate between nomadic and settled lifestyles. Chi gently steps into the world of the Evenki people, recreate a century of perseverance and cultural transition among the Evenki, achieving a so-called Chinese version of "One Hundred Years of Solitude".
I have a preference for primal things; perhaps, in the end, our soul is anti-modern. On the right bank of the Erguna River, any two things might be directly connected. people are children of nature, not of man-made science. Back then, people held a reverence in their hearts, and compared to the world below the mountains, everything seemed much simpler.
Love and death were simple too. A promise made in a second can be a promise kept for a lifetime, completing the sacred tasks of “making wind sounds”, raising children, and dividing tribal labor, all the way until death. Our world is quite the opposite. People are hesitant to make promises, always seeking escape after only a brief attempt. Today, our approach to death is so solemn that it paradoxically makes death itself seem lighter, more denied, as if "humans are not meant to die." Right now, there's a trend of using AI to resurrect the dead, a one-way séance, which I find selfish. The world in the book treats death with a light yet profound touch; the gravity of death is extended. "Everyone eventually dies." It reminds me of a saying from the Analects, “雎鸠，乐而不淫，哀而不伤” (The Cry of the Ospreys is joyful but not wanton, sad but not distressing). This mourning is vast and boundless, yet it does not swell; for nature is restrained, and humanity, having strayed from nature, has lost this restraint.
Every time Ni Hao picks up the sacred robes and drums, deciding to trade the life of her own child for that of a stranger's, I cry.