A contemporary epic about departure and return
In 1988, when six-year-old Chen Qingshan was herding cattle in a mountain village in Wannan, he asked his first fate-changing question: "What is on the other side of the mountain?"
He spent his whole life pursuing the answer to this question.
From the mountainous area of southern Anhui to the city of Beijing, he completed a thrilling class leap in twenty years:
Copying "Xinhua Dictionary" under a kerosene lamp, with scars on his shoulders from chopping firewood for school fees
Taking the 873 yuan collected by the whole village, I boarded the green train and encountered cultural shock and identity confusion in a strange city.
In the grief of parents passing away from illness one after another, re-examining the definition of "success"
This is not a counterattack myth, but a profound record of an ordinary person's resonance with the times.
Chen Qingshan's story is a microcosm of China's dramatic changes in the past thirty years.
It is also an eternal question about "root" and "road":
When we desperately escape from our native environment, what are we really escaping from?
When material success cannot fill the spiritual nostalgia, where is the way back?
"1988: Coming Out" uses a million words to describe in detail how a rural boy with no background seizes fleeting opportunities in the wave of the times, and how he falls into a deeper spiritual dilemma after gaining everything. In the end, in the process of fragmentation and reconstruction, he finds the value of life that is more important than personal success.
This is not only the history of one person's struggle, but also the spiritual history of a generation - about how we get out of our respective "big mountains" and how, with the tenacity of the mountains, we can find a way in the wider world so that those who come after us will no longer be alone.
