Beneath Changbai Mountain: Sixty Years with My Spirit Familiars

My name is Lin Ye. These days, everyone respectfully calls me “Master Lin.” If you ran into me on the street, you'd probably think I was just an ordinary old man from Northeast China, squatting in the sun by a wall, a cigarette between my lips, squinting at the snow. But if you were willing to pull up a little stool and sit down to hear me ramble, I'd tell you this: I've spent my whole life working for “them.” It all started in a little village at the foot of Changbai Mountain. Fate is like wild grass: it keeps growing, and no matter how much you pull, it never goes away. My grandfather was an old shaman, my father died young, and in the end, the thousand-pound burden fell on my shoulders. There are no flying swords or immortal cultivation in this book. Instead, there's the rumbling exhaust of a Huang Hai minivan, the mournful clang of iron from the ruins of the Tiexi factories, and pairs of glowing green eyes in the deep forests of Changbai Mountain. Over the course of my life, I've lived through three generations: * As a child, I was afraid of the idols filling the house, the ritual drum Grandpa beat in the middle of the night, and the weasels in the mountains that could call people by name. * As a young man, I hated this damn fate. I wanted to run away and live an ordinary life. But reality forced me to establish a spirit altar and invite the immortals, showing me what “Hu, Huang, Bai, Liu, and Hui” meant, and how “human and ghost are separated by a single thought.” * Only when I grew old did I finally understand what Grandpa meant. There's no such thing as absolute gods or ghosts in this world, only cause and effect, and a little human kindness. In this book, you'll find: * The most authentic folk customs of Northeast China, from shamanic songs and spirit dances to paper-cuttings used to summon souls