Those Things About Xiangtan Steel

There are no magnificent legends here, only a steel factory, a family home, a group of people and a time that can never be returned. This collection of novels is a long letter I wrote to my hometown of Xiangtan Steel and those years when I was growing up. It records how a girl stumbles to understand the world, understand life, experience separation and growth amidst the roar of machines, the smoke of family buildings and the ringtones of factory-run schools. You will read about the neighbor's voice scolding the children from the other side of the thin wall, about the hands covered with dirt while playing hide and seek behind the boiler room, about the stubbornness of studying math problems under the desk lamp late at night in order to be admitted to the same university as the class next door, about the first realization of being at a loss, about those childhood sweethearts who disappeared silently over the years, and about the peace of finally reconciling with their homeland and finding their own destination. Most of these stories are my personal experiences or things that really happened around me. They are as ordinary as the fallen sycamore leaves in the autumn of Xiangtan Steel, but in each vein, there is a common memory of a generation - about the unique collective life of the family home, about the longing and hesitation of the small town teenagers towards the outside world, about the confessions in youth that cannot be said in the future, and about why we finally choose to leave and why we choose to come back. This is not a grand historical narrative, just some "little things". But it is these trivial, real, and warm things that constitute the journey of our generation. I would like to dedicate this book to Xiangtan Steel and to all of us who have lived hard in small towns.