The Mountains Are High: a year of escape and discovery in rural China

(Hardback)

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What is it like to radically change your life Writer Alec Ash meets the Chinese who are doing just this, 'reverse migrating' from the cities to the remote countryside of southwest China - and joins them himself, in an extraordinary and inspiring journey of self-discovery. In 2020, Alec Ash left behind his old life as a journalist in buzzy Beijing, and moved to Dali, a rural valley in China's Yunnan province, centred around a great lake shaped like an ear and overlooked by the Cang mountain range. Here, he hoped to find the space and perspective to mend heartbreak after a broken engagement and escape the trappings of fast-paced, high-pressured city life. Originally home to the Bai people, Dali has become a richly diverse community of people of all ages and backgrounds, with one shared goal- to reject the worst parts of modernity and live more simply, in tune with the natural world and away from the nexus of authoritarian power. It is into this community that Alec embeds himself, from political dissidents to bohemian hippies, charting his first year of life in Dali among these fascinating neighbours. The Mountains Are High is a beautifully written, candid memoir about the catalysts for change and personal development that comes from taking a leap of faith, and how remodeling your attitude to conventional success can genuinely transform your life. As one of the 'new migrants' tells Alec when he arrives- it is easy to change your environment, far more difficult to change your mind. Praise for Wish Lanterns- 'A gem of a book. Its brief chapters flow like a skillfully crafted set of interconnected short stories, yet all are rooted in the real life experiences of six individuals. An impressive debut book by a writer to watch, who makes the most of all he learned while spending his twenties coming of age in the same shapeshifting China as the half dozen Chinese youths whose varied passages to adulthood he chronicles so elegantly and empathetically. ' -Jeffrey Wasserstrom, author of China in the 21st Century Praise for Wish Lanterns- 'Wish Lanterns is a beautiful and thoughtful book about the life of young people in China. Alec Ash has succeeded in giving us an intimate and complex portrait of the one child policy generation. It skillfully documents their features, modes of life and dreams of the future. I enthusiastically recommend you to read it.' -Xiaolu Guo, author of I Am China Praise for Wish Lanterns- 'A provocative portrait of a fast-changing society riven by internal contradictions ... a fine addition to the field, one of the best I have read about the individuals who make up a country that is all too often regarded as a monolith, but which abounds with diversity on multiple levels. Fluently written with nice touches of humour ... this books supplies much food for thought, informing the wider debate while retaining its value as a closely observed picture of how some Chinese live today'. -Financial Times

Reviews

Praise for Wish Lanterns:

A gem of a book. Its brief chapters flow like a skilfully crafted set of interconnected short stories, yet all are rooted in the real life experiences of six individuals. An impressive debut book by a writer to watch.

Praise for Wish Lanterns:

A beautiful and thoughtful book ... Alec Ash has succeeded in giving us an intimate and complex portrait of the one child policy generation. It skilfully documents their features, modes of life and dreams of the future. I enthusiastically recommend you to read it.

Praise for Wish Lanterns:

A provocative portrait of a fast-changing society riven by internal contradictions a fine addition to the field, one of the best I have read about the individuals who make up a country that is all too often regarded as a monolith, but which abounds with diversity on multiple levels. Fluently written with nice touches of humour this books supplies much food for thought, informing the wider debate while retaining its value as a closely observed picture of how some Chinese live today.

Author Bio

Alec Ash is a writer and editor living in China. He is the author of Wish Lanterns, literary nonfiction about the lives of six young Chinese people, a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, reviewed widely, and featured in a New York Times interview. Ash's longform articles have appeared in NYRB, LARB, The Guardian, 1843, and Dissent, among others, and he has written correspondence for The Sunday Times and The Economist. Born in England, he studied English literature at Oxford University. He learnt Mandarin in Beijing from 2008---10, returning in 2012 to write freelance. He is now based in Dali, Yunnan.