MCLC: nature writer Zhou Wei

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: nature writer Zhou Wei
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Source: China Daily (7/23/14):
http://europe.chinadaily.com.cn/culture/2014-07/23/content_17901681.htm

Writer finds she's a natural in the wilderness
By Xing Yi (China Daily)

How to See Deer. This is the title of Zhou Wei's book. But she doesn't
provide any clues on how to spot the animal. What her newly published book
does do is remind city dwellers of the beauty of nature.

Once a minor genre in China, nature writing is gaining popularity here.
The public has gained awareness of such works through Cheng Hong, a
renowned scholar on American nature writing and the wife of Premier Li
Keqiang.

Different from other nature writings, which usually depict the wilderness
of one place, such as The Forest Unseen and One Square Inch of Silence
(both were translated into Chinese) that are part of the same book series
published by the Commercial Press earlier this year, Zhou's book has a
strong consciousness of "places".

Visiting a local farm, hiking with a birdwatching group and studying
plants in the backyard are just some of the 50 stories Zhou recounts in
her book, which details her encounters with nature during her time living
in Mount Vernon (Washington State), Beijing and Reno (Nevada) in the past
decade.

Zhou picked the title of the book from American poet Philip Booth's poem
of the same name.

"The word 'deer' should not be taken too literally, as it symbolizes all
things beautiful and elusive in nature, or an epiphanic moment in nature,
a sudden realization of truth and beauty," Zhou says.
But not every encounter is happy.

On a foggy night on Whidbey Island in Washington State in 2004, Zhou and
her friends were driving and chatting through a densely wooded area.
Suddenly, a frightened deer jumped on the road and was hit by the car.
"That's when I learned the word roadkill in sorrow."

Zhou was in a faculty exchange program and taught Chinese at Skagit Valley
College in Mount Vernon, Washington State. It was during that year that
she started writing about nature.

She set up her first blog to record her experiences during her yearlong
stay in the US, including her encounters with nature. She wrote about
learning the name of new trees and flowers, spotting a trumpeter swan, and
observing a cottontail rabbit in her backyard.

"Almost every day there were some exciting encounters with nature," Zhou
recalls.

Zhou kept updating her new discoveries in nature after she returned to
Beijing and taught at Beijing Foreign Studies University.

In Zhou's works, one will find traces of the tradition of North America
nature writing: She admires Aldo Leopold's simplicity and subtleness in A
Sand County Almanac and Henry David Thoreau's classic Walden has had a
very strong influence on her.

"Personally, I find the tradition of nature writing in Chinese literature
has always been something of a leisure literature - it's more of a private
taste, a connoisseur's hobby, lacking a bigger vision or environmental
consciousness," she says.

"Modern nature writers in China do not have their own tradition to rely
on, and they have to turn to other traditions, such as nature writing in
North America."

When Zhou became a visiting scholar at University of Nevada, Reno in 2011,
she visited Walden Pond like a pilgrim, and she also concluded her book
with an independent chapter dedicated to "Thoreau and his Walden Pond".
As a lover of nature, however, Zhou doesn't deny city life, and she thinks
cities shouldn't be seen as opposite to nature.

"I still remember when I was traveling in Hong Kong. I found a nice, quiet
urban park amid the busiest streets and took a walk there. It was a very
refreshing walk."

In Zhou's opinion, cities can be beautiful and inspiring, as long as
people take heed of urban planning and population control, and take the
habitat of wild animals into account during the process of urbanization.

"Human beings won't go anywhere if they don't know when to stop and leave
the wild creatures alone. We have encroached on wildlife habitats too
far," she says.

xingyi at chinadaily.com.cn