A thousand stories and ten thousand glimpses of everyday life, distilled from the word-of-mouth traditions of villages across the land and gathering the many flavors of life in both town and country.
Here are curious legends hidden in the northern frontier's biting winds, and gentle tales drifting through the misty rains of the Jiangnan region. There are old customs and little bits of wisdom passed from neighbor to neighbor, small joys and steadfast resolve among ordinary people in bustling streets and narrow lanes, enchanting encounters in the wilderness, comforting home cooking by the stove, the heritage of the seasons woven into folk customs, and the warmth of human feeling threaded through every story.
There are no world-shaking sagas full of twists and turns, nor any ornate prose. Only the plainest words and the liveliest portraits of everyday life: the wisdom of living handed down from generation to generation, and the warmth and delight scattered throughout the everyday world.
A thousand stories, a thousand scenes. Turn these pages in your spare time, and you'll discover the customs of every corner of the land and savor the simple pleasures of everyday life.
