Ballad of the Long River: A Century of Stories from the Loess Lands

This is the story of four generations striving and persevering through changing times on the loess highlands.

[Great-Grandmother's Years of War and Chaos]

Great-Grandmother's life was filled with hardship, from the pain of foot binding in childhood to the grief of losing loved ones in middle age, from struggling to survive natural disasters to being helpless and terrified amid war and chaos. Yet even when fate was so harsh, she raised her children with tenacity and kindness, even taking in the children of relatives and protecting the warmth of a family through years of suffering.

[Grandfather and Grandmother's Journeys Across the Land]

Grandfather started from nothing, traveling far and wide to do business with a shoulder pole and goods, using hard work to secure food and clothing for the whole family. Grandmother's tiny bound feet once made her walk with difficulty, but they never stopped her from pouring boundless love into her children and grandchildren.

[The Turning Years of Our Parents]

In the 1960s and 1970s, our parents took part in collective labor on the production team. Father's figure, carrying a hoe before dawn; Mother's 모습 as she chopped grass to feed the livestock; the little tunes Mother hummed while mending clothes for the whole family under the kerosene lamp: every story of the loess land is carved into my memory.

[Our Spring]

From walking along frozen dirt roads into a drafty classroom to having a small family of our own, we who were betrothed as children at the age of six have so many, many stories.

Let me tell them one by one.