half of Xiangzi's time in the mountains, half the time out of photography.
photographer Zhao Yuanxiang used to call himself Xiangzi. In 2013, she found a home in the southern mountain, without electricity, no tap water, and no network. She was 23 years old that year.
"the yearning for Zhongnan mountain makes me want to cry, as if it has been waiting for me there, and I am waiting to meet it, waiting for many lifetimes." After the first visit to Zhongnan mountain, Xiangzi fell in love with this place. "My soul is probably sick."
before, she had never heard of the story of Zhongnan mountain, nor did she know that this is the central area of Chinese hermit culture.
in the first encounter with Nanshan, Xiangzi fell in love with it. "There was an unspeakable force"
when Xiangzi came out of the subway, it was easy to recognize. She was wearing a white coat, a white skirt, a weak woman, but the big shoulder bag behind her, the bag on his hands, made her like a moving luggage rack.
she has just returned to Xi'an from her hometown, Taiyuan, Shanxi, and then returned to the residence of Nanshan, and has to take an hour's bus.
2013 years, a friend of Xiangzi, she came to the suburbs of Xi'an to play in the mountains, never thought, after one, she fell in love here, always feel the mountains have different features from elsewhere, "there is an inexplicable force", let her heart calm down.
Xiangzi was a freelance photographer who walked around and photographed people. Walking from all over the place, she felt tired and needed rest.
Xiangzi was different before and after the college entrance examination, but it was not because of the exam. When I talked about volunteering in the future, my parents insisted that she read the accounting profession. She did not like it and firmly disagreed.
the former Xiangzi was an introverted girl who listened to her parents, but during that time, she thought about the direction of the future, and she began to have a sense of self, and she didn't want to spend four years on things she didn't like. She decided to resist - not to take the exam.
but what can you do without reading a university? Her parents asked her to learn how to make clothes with her sister. After two months' work, she felt that she was not interested in it.
she began to be interested in photography. She took the initiative to go to a street in Taiyuan, Liu Lou, and asked whether she wanted an assistant from home. The people in the studio looked at her, a little girl who had no professional knowledge and no work experience, and naturally refused.
in the end, it was hard for a studio to see her sincerely, and accepted her as an assistant, but only 500 yuan a month.
Xiangzi doesn't mind. She feels that she can do what she likes. This is the first step, enough.
when she was just studying photography, her parents were very opposed. They thought such a career was not suitable for girls. In order to stop their daughter, they first came to the hard, scolded and quarrelled, "don't go home" if you want to learn. After a while, the hard ones didn't work. They came soft again. "As long as you don't learn photography and buy anything, we promise you."
but Xiangzi has only one reply, "no discussion".
the photo studio in Taiyuan has been waiting for a long time. She began to try to go to Beijing and applied for a photographer in a studio. In second years, he went down to Shenzhen and applied for photographer again.
everything seems pretty good, even Xiangzi's parents are beginning to change their attitude, but she feels tired of herself.
the studio's work has a patterned process, and Xiangzi is disappointing because of this monotonous repetition, all of the people, the same makeup, the same clothes, the same place, the same position, the same light.
"every girl is different. Every girl is so unique." She had her own idea again. "This kind of photography is a pain for me. I want to take pictures that I really want."
she bought a camera and began to wander around and set up a freelance photographer. She set a concept for her photography: every girl has different stories. She recorded her tracks in micro-blog. From 2010 to 2013, she traveled to more than half of China and nearly ten countries in Southeast Asia. There is no bus stop for
bus. The bus is coming slowly. We temporarily suspended communication. The conductor sold her ticket at the site. She kept her head with a mushroom, hoarse, like a kid, holding a stack of money in her hand, putting it on different denominations, like a piece of bean curd.
Xiangzi spent the night in the village and went to her mountain cottage in the daytime. There is a shortage of food in the mountains. She needs to go shopping in town.
a month did not go back to the end of Nanshan, go out to shoot, go home to visit relatives, Xiangzi once again into the village, once again, to shout, originally only to the foot of the grass long to half high, unknown wildflowers beautiful, the water in the small river has also changed. Rhubarb and Huahua also recognized her. The dogs in the two villages saw her shaking their heads and saw the strange Reporters Without attack.
now, Xiangzi stays in the village for the night and will go to her cottage in the daytime. It was not because she felt bitter, but that she had been caught many times, and for security reasons, she did not sleep there.
the most rampant time, the thief pried the window directly, the things in the house almost sacked, the quilt, the stool, the kettle, the cutting knife, the plate, the water, all the water, and only one of the Guanyin in the door did not move.
looking at the almost stolen room, Xiangzi was lost, but she quickly adjusted. "The only meaning of this is to reduce my dependence on material and let me simply learn to leave. Faced with these factors that we cannot control, we only accept them.
asked how to find the house, Xiangzi gave a mysterious answer, "fate."
her further explanation is even more metaphysical. One night after the first time to leave Zhongnan mountain, Xiangzi began to miss the life in the mountain. She made up her mind to find a small space of her own. It was so strong that she was so moved that she was moved to cry, drawing a picture and studying it in her heart: a house, a fence around, a continuous mountain range on the left, a clear river on the right, and a tree behind the front of the house.
she pointed to the cabin and told the reporter, "this is exactly the same as mine."
the house is a wall. It used to be a firewood. It sits East and West. It goes through a cherry forest, and passes through a peach forest on the edge of a small hill. There is no light source in the house. It is very dim. The lamp is solar energy. It only takes two or three hours. At night, the mountain is very quiet, the insect chirp, the water gurgling, the occasional train sound, that is not far from the Xikang railway, the roar of the train let Xiangzi have a feeling of crossing, like in Hayao Miyazaki's animation.
the kettle had been stolen. It had not been filled. Xiangzi burned the water in the frying pan and made tea. The tea soup was floating with oil flowers, and it was irritating to the throat and spicy.
she opened a small piece of vegetable plot on the south side of the courtyard, tomatoes, beans and vegetables. But the harvest in the vegetable plot is not good. She has not planted any seeds. She just scatters the seeds into the fields, weeding and watering them, and let them grow. There is a shortage of food in the mountains. She needs to go to the town to buy food, such as sweet potatoes and potatoes, which can be stored for about a week. A few years ago, she began to eat vegetarian, but not because of religious belief, but just like animals.