Branches Beyond the Dreaming Pine Hall

The Branches Beyond the Dreaming Pine Hall

In Dingjia Village, Dasha Township, Duchang, the Ding clan of Dreaming Pine Hall has lived beside Poyang Lake for generations. A new ancestral hall is still under construction, and the clan has agreed to rebuild its genealogy in 2028, once the hall is complete. The old genealogy, passed down for a century, records the men of each generation in meticulous detail. Every woman who married out, however, is summed up in a few words: "Ding, married to so-and-so." Their maiden names, lives, and descendants have all been erased.

As Ding Wenyuan leafs through the fragmented genealogy, a deep melancholy stirs in him. He cannot bear to see countless branches of the same bloodline vanish, so he decides not to alter the ancestral genealogy, but instead to make his own inquiries and compile a Record of Close Kin. From then on, he travels through Duchang, Hukou, Poyang, and Nanchang, seeking out generations of Ding women who married far from home and the descendants they left behind.

Along the way, he witnesses countless joys and sorrows in the countryside: the hardships of crossing Poyang Lake to return home, younger generations' long and helpless search for their roots, and the constant clash between old and new ideas. Elder traditionalists hold fast to ancient rites, while the young hope for their bloodlines to be recorded on equal terms. Ding Wenyuan keeps asking himself: What are the roots of a clan? Beyond its main trunk, are the countless branches spreading outward also worthy of remembrance in writing? Rooted in the rural landscapes around Poyang Lake in northern Jiangxi, the novel tells the stories of women overlooked by traditional genealogies and explores profound questions of blood ties, family affection, and rural customs and laws.