The Fragrance of Osmanthus in Yugu

The year I was born was a time of reform and opening up. China’s countryside was changing at an astonishing pace, shifting from collective farming and communal meals to household land contracts and responsibility assigned to each family. After the land was contracted to individual households, farmers worked with greater drive, grain yields rose, and their pockets grew fuller. Chinese farmers were no longer limited to having enough to eat and wear; they had bigger ideals and goals. As the winds of reform and opening up swept across the country, Western culture gradually seeped into rural China. Traditional Chinese values of simplicity faced a severe test, and family traditions began to change. Everything has two sides, with both benefits and drawbacks. As people’s lives grew more prosperous, their emotional lives changed along with society’s productive forces. Joy and anger, sorrow and happiness, partings and reunions: the simple aesthetic sensibilities of the past gradually faded, and new challenges and trials awaited us. Xicun, a remote mountain village on the border of southern Shaanxi, is a microcosm of China’s vast countryside. From poverty to prosperity, and from comfort to greed, it constantly lays bare human weakness. Yet the simple beauty of Chinese farmers has endured through the ages. The novel’s heroine was born into a poor farming family and grew up in humble circumstances. Kind and brave, diligent in her studies, and full of ideals and goals, she refuses to give in despite a fate full of hardships. With unyielding resolve, she strives to achieve her dreams. This is an inspirational story about ordinary people: finding joy in hardship, taking risks in despair, and seeking answers in the midst of everyday life. Even in struggle, they shine.