where is my home

Watching "Tian Long Ba Bu", Duan Yu had already left Dali and went to Jiangnan. He said with a smile on the boat, the scenery here is good, but I still like Dali.

At this point, I couldn't help but be stunned, thinking that if I left Yunnan just to prove this, then should I go elsewhere. As if you haven't been there, you can't say this. Maybe it was because I already had the idea of going against all this, so "Fireworks in Yangzhou in March" didn't have much appeal. I still chose to turn my back and go to a deeper and narrower place.

This month, the map of Yunnan has been shown to me for the first time. It is no longer a shape that has nothing to do with me scattered everywhere except my home and my long-term residence.

From Kunming to Tengchong, I realized that I was taking the west Yunnan ring road. I passed a tunnel called "Azalea King" in Baoshan on the way, and I was surprised to find that the tunnels here are named after the plants that grow at this altitude, and the Rhododendron King refers to the one that once caused a sensation in the world. The most famous flower tree, the big tree Rhododendron, grows in the dense forest of Gaoligong Mountain.

About the big tree cuckoo, I always have some reverie. It grows deep in the mountains and forests and appears to be endangered from the day it was discovered. And with such a majestic and upright body, with descriptions such as "big tree" and "king" in his name, he can even be transformed into a woman, involving a "previous life entanglement" with plant hunters.

In 1904, George Forrest, a British biologist and missionary, was commissioned by the Edinburgh Botanic Gardens to go to Yunnan to collect plant seedlings and specimens focusing on rhododendrons. He discovered the big tree rhododendron known as "the king of the world's rhododendron" in Gaoligong Mountain.

Forest was widely known among the people of Tengchong, Yunnan as "Fulishi" and "Consul of Picking Flowers".

In 1918, when Fu Lishi was collecting on the west slope of Gaoligong Mountain in Tengchong, he discovered a huge rhododendron tree with a height of 25 meters, a diameter of 87 centimeters at breast height, and an age of about 280 years.

Considering that it was unrealistic to bring such a huge rhododendron back to the UK, Fries hired workers to cut down the rhododendron tree and took a wood disk specimen and shipped it to the UK. After identification, it was named Dashu Rhododendron and called it "The King of Dashu Rhododendron".

This tree trunk specimen taken from the "Azalea King" is displayed in the British Museum to show off the great discoveries of the British to the world. Forrest is also known as the "plant hunter" in the world.

When writing about Rhododendron and Forest, many sources have an obvious position based on their own national interests: foreign hunters are "hunting" Chinese plants .

As a result, the discovery of Rhododendron azalea has become a "shameful plunder" by Westerners. Even if this flower has the illustrious name of the Rhododendron King, it is only a "love affair" of plant hunters, which has become an iconic "trauma" in modern Chinese history. Included in the narrative of national humiliation: a century-old rhododendron blooming in the deep mountains of Yunnan, the corpse lies in the British Museum.

It seems that there is nothing you can do with the Rhododendron King without turning it into a woman. So I still hate plant anthropomorphism. All kinds of plants are endowed with irrelevant qualities by writers, such as peach blossoms being frivolous, "light and thin peach blossoms flow by water", and then there are "peach-colored news, peach-colored transactions, and peach-colored events", as long as It is related to peach blossoms, and it has obvious derogatory colors.

In my opinion, whether it is to name the big tree rhododendron as "king" or write it as a victim, there is a bit of beautiful and absurd imagination. However, the "Cuckoo King Tunnel" has a feeling of elusiveness and wishful thinking. This tunnel is named because it is equal to the altitude where the big tree rhododendron grows. Although I was not able to walk into the depths of Gaoligong Mountain to see this flower in person, but after passing through this tunnel, it is unforgettable at first sight, and I don't know who it is.

Along the way, Gaoligong Mountain seemed to surround me all the time and was always close to my eyes, but in fact, I had no chance to see it clearly. Later, I saw the geographical model of the three parallel rivers in a cultural and creative store before I could imagine its whole picture.

The Nujiang River also appears at the foot of the highway. The colors are different in different seasons. At this time, it is turquoise, winding through the deep canyons. Along the river, you can go back to the home of your Lisu friends.

The story of the Lisu people that I often tell, whoever has the cherry blossoms will celebrate the New Year, and I have a clearer understanding on the way. It turns out that those cherry blossoms are wild cherry blossoms that grow in the valley, not the Lisu people planted intentionally. . This is a native cherry tree in Yunnan. It is small in shape and blooms like frost sleet. Because of the good colors in this winter, the impression of Yunnan that "flowers and branches are always spring" will be complete.

The cherry blossoms are blooming, and the Lisu people are also celebrating the New Year. A friend who has been living in Chuxiong told me that she always thought she was of the Yi ethnicity, and she didn’t know she was of the Lisu ethnicity until she entered junior high school and accidentally turned to the household registration book. She also talked about the Chinese New Year and invited me to their house to eat slaughtered pig rice, which is completely the living habit of the Yi people in Chuxiong. People will choose a good day in the twelfth lunar month to slaughter the pig for the New Year, and hold a banquet at home to invite relatives and friends.

The aunt who lives in Heshun also said, stay in Tengchong to celebrate the New Year with us this year. Your uncle cooks delicious food. Mom called from home, come back this year for the New Year.

When I wrote this title, I was facing a "where is my home" question, and my heart was sad. I can't solve it now, but I seem to understand that I can use any place as my home as long as I want.

I don't know where I'm going, but I feel like it's been a very different year and I've really made a connection to the world since I left school.