Writing this documentary novel has been the deepest and most heartfelt dream of my retirement, now more than ten years in the making.
I am part of the second generation of builders on the New China’s hydropower front. My life began in a small building on Hongqi Street in Changchun. When I was four or five, I left my hometown with my parents, traveling from Beijing to the remote mountains of the plateau. We put down roots at one hydropower construction site after another, including Liujiaxia. My childhood, adolescence, and youth were all spent in canyon construction camps, on the rugged land where my parents’ generation carved mountains and built dams.
The lives of hydropower workers are defined by constant migration and steadfast commitment. Once a dam was built between the mountains, the Yellow River diverted, and the lights came on, it was time for us to pack up and head to the next construction site. We brought our families to barren places and struggled there for more than a decade. When the work was done, we quietly moved on, only to repeat the cycle. Those years were filled with the sweat and hardships of hydropower families, and held countless regrets and sorrows as well.
Growing up deep in the mountains, we were never short of talent or imagination, yet layer upon layer of peaks kept our light from shining. Children at construction camps started school early and grew up in meager conditions. Watching our parents, we learned at an early age what it meant to shoulder responsibility and make sacrifices.
Today, I have written about those true years from my own experience, bringing to life the dedication, selflessness, and tireless perseverance of China’s hydropower workers. This is no work of fiction. It is a history written with the lives of an entire generation of hydropower workers.
I hope to leave these burning years to future generations, and dedicate this book to all the builders who gave their youth, their families, and their entire lives to hydropower in the New China.
The truth is so touching. This is the first time I've seen this kind of subject. Documentary novel, the main line of the novel is true. The more you look at it, the more you want to see it. The father of the protagonist of the novel is a college student majoring in civil engineering who graduated from Changchun Cadre College in the early 1950s. In 1956, the first advance team of engineering and technical personnel entered Liujiaxia. He participated in the construction project of Lanliu Highway and did a lot of preliminary work for the start of Liujiaxia Power Station in 1958. After the start of construction of the power station, he was the leader of the excavation team. Due to his poor background, he was attacked in previous movements. However, with his knowledge and obsession with the hydropower industry, he devoted his life to Liujiaxia Hydropower Station and Longyangxia Hydropower Station. A true pioneer, he has been working in the hydropower industry for his whole life! Time is written into a story. Mountains and rivers hide all human love. This work is based on the real past. Describing the daily struggle of a generation of hydropower workers, it is full of fireworks and passion. Between the lines are the marks of the times. Touching but not distracting. Turn the pages of the book and relive those unforgettable and prosperous years together.