Yangfang

Name: Yangfang
ISBN: 9787550048393

唐小斌Baihuazhou Literature and Art Publishing House · ChinaMar 2024

3.0

Word count: 151K words
Chapters: 24
ISBN: 9787550048393

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Summary

The essay collection *Yangfang* begins with the author's hometown of the same name, where he was born and raised. Writing in a realistic, storytelling mode, he starts from his ancestors' legends and goes on to portray Yangfang's landscapes, amusing village anecdotes, the fates of its people, local dialect and sayings, Hakka cuisine, and the impact of urban expansion on the countryside. As the economy and society have developed in recent years, rural culture has increasingly declined and drifted ever further from people's view. By documenting Yangfang's people, old appearance, and local features, *Yangfang* seeks to awaken the beautiful memories of home and hometown buried deep in readers' hearts, and to prompt reflection on human nature, village customs, and nostalgia. In its prose—sometimes light, sometimes weighty—thousands of years of fine traditional culture and virtues leap off the page. Readers can feel the rich Hakka customs and the old-and-new changes in the countryside amid the turbulence of the times, and, as the years recede, experience the fate of the countryside and the feeling of hometown ties and hometown voices.

Editor's review

Yangfang is a collection of essays set against the coordinates of the author's hometown. Through storytelling, Tang Xiaobin moves from ancestral legends to landscapes and local customs, the fates of villagers, dialect and folk sayings, and Hakka cuisine, weaving the daily life and memory of a village into a tangible text. Its value lies not in grand narrative but in preserving a vanishing rural culture through dense, realistic strokes: as urban expansion continually rewrites the rural landscape, these light or heavy words become a vessel against forgetting. The book's rich Hakka flavor and its contrast between old and new changes let readers feel both the warmth of hometown ties and voices and the predicament of traditional virtues and rural ethics amid the turbulence of the times. It suits slow reading on quiet nights or on the way home, entering Yangfang's lanes and fields essay by essay, and reexamining one's relationship with home in receding time. For readers interested in rural writing, local memory, and Hakka culture, this is an essay collection with both warmth and thought.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers who enjoy rural essays and hope to revisit hometown memories through slow reading
Researchers and writers concerned with rural cultural change and local chronicle writing
Readers interested in Hakka customs, dialect and folk sayings, and local food
Readers living away from home seeking comfort in hometown feeling through short and medium essays

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer strong plot and fast-paced fiction may find the narrative slow
Readers expecting systematic academic argument or a rural sociology monograph
Readers with little interest in the essay form who read only practical books

Reading tips

Read by theme—landscape, people, local customs, food—rather than strictly in order
When encountering dialect sayings or folk details, annotate them against experiences of one's own hometown
After every few essays, write a short hundred-word note recording hometown moments that resonate
Read around trips home or family visits, checking the text against real rural observations

About the publisher

Baihuazhou Literature and Art Publishing House China · Founded in 1990

Baihuazhou Literature and Art Publishing House is a professional literature and art publisher. Judging from the books in the database, its publishing focus is on foreign literature, world classics, prose and miscellaneous writings, and classic works, while also covering literary appreciation and cultural reading. Representative titles include The Painter of Modern Life, Jane Eyre, Six Chapters of a Floating Life, The Moon and Sixpence, Selected Prose of Ji Xianlin, A Sportsman's Sketches, and Collected Prose of Famous Masters, involving Chinese and foreign authors such as Charles Baudelaire, Charlotte Brontë, Shen Fu, and W. Somerset Maugham, as well as translators including Guo Hong'an, Chen Jinhui, Jing Xing, and Jiao Haili. Overall, the press emphasizes the introduction of classic texts and the compilation of prose works, presenting a publishing profile centered on literary reading and cultural accumulation. As public information is limited, other aspects are not elaborated here.

版权信息
自序
引子
一千秋岁
二江南春
三浣溪沙
四如梦令
五少年游
六采桑子
七酒泉子
八清平乐
九贺新郎
十伤春怨
十一菩萨蛮
十二炼丹砂
十三调笑令
十四南乡子
十五满江红
十六谒金门
十七归去来
十八生查子
十九醉蓬莱
二十喜迁莺
后记

FAQ

Is this book fiction or nonfiction?

It is a collection of essays. The author records the people and events of his hometown Yangfang in a realistic, storytelling manner. It is not fiction; readers can enter essay by essay at an essay's pace.

Can readers with no rural life experience read it?

Yes. The book writes about landscapes, villagers' anecdotes, Hakka food, and dialect sayings with concrete, sensory detail, so urban readers can also understand rural life and rural cultural change through these words.

What does the book mainly cover?

According to the materials, it covers ancestral legends, Yangfang's scenic landscapes, villagers' anecdotes and fates, local dialect and sayings, Hakka food, and the impact of urban expansion on the countryside.

Is it suitable for reading in one sitting?

Not necessarily. The essays are relatively independent, suitable for reading a few each day, leaving room for reflection and for comparing the hometown feeling in the book with one's own experience.

Comments

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About the author

唐小斌 Author

Tang Xiaobin is a Chinese author for whom public information is currently limited; basic details such as his biography, nationality, and dates of birth and death have not been clearly recorded. According to the library's holdings, two works are currently attributed to Tang Xiaobin: Yang Fang and The Dragon South Sacred Relics of Yangming. They are commonly classified as prose and miscellaneous writings. Judging only from the titles and genres, his writing appears to focus largely on local figures, historical sites, and regional culture, with a certain documentary and essayistic quality, and may emphasize firsthand observation and cultural inquiry. Because verifiable material is insufficient, it is difficult at present to offer a more specific assessment of the full range of his work, the development of his style, or his social influence; readers may learn more from the two works themselves.