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In 2016, I read the prose works of Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie for the first time. I was a visiting scholar at Oxford University at the time, and while browsing the bookstore, I noticed two collections of essays published by Jamie: Findings and Sightlines. The cover of the former showed a peregrine falcon, soaring over the Scottish Highlands, while the latter showed a group of seabirds flying in the blue sky. Their snow-white bodies and black wingtips contrasted sharply. The postures of these flying birds were so relaxed and free that it was fascinating. I remembered this writer's name, and later encountered him repeatedly in relevant reviews of "New Nature Literature," so I began to dabble in representative works of contemporary British nature literature.
The label "new nature literature" was first proposed by Jason Cowley, editor-in-chief of the famous British literary magazine "Granta". In 2008, "Granta" magazine published the 102nd "Special Edition", which included 18 contemporary British and American authors. Among them, British writers include Richard Maby, Roger Deakin and Robert MacFarlane who have been translated and introduced in China in recent years. Catherine Jamie's essay "Sickness" was also published for the first time in this special issue, and was later included in her collection of essays Sightlines (the Chinese translation is called "Going to the Island"). In the preface, Cowley classifies the lyrical pastoral tradition of British Romantic writers as "old-school nature literature" and points out that contemporary creators no longer only enthusiastically praise and indulge in nature, but also view it with a "scientific eye" and write with "literary techniques", so it is a new nature literature. Although this distinction is too simplistic, the label was still used by British academics and media. In short, "new nature literature" corresponds to the prosperity of contemporary British nature literature creation in the past two decades. Its typical creations are non-fiction works, usually using personal narratives, focusing on meticulous observation of field scenes, focusing on exploring the intricate relationship between nature and culture, and reflecting on the impact of human activities on the ecological environment.
Catherine Jamie
Among the important writers of the "new nature literature" genre, Catherine Jamie is the only poet. Her perspective is the most unique and her writing style is distinctive. She once wrote in her autobiography: "My thoughts have what Robert Louis Stevenson called a 'strong Scottish accent'". Let’s first review her creative career.
"Going to the Islands: Northern Lights, Boobies and Whales"
Catherine Jamie was born in Renfrewshire, Scotland on May 13, 1962, and grew up in Currie, Midlothian. Currie is located in the western suburbs of Edinburgh, with the city center at one end and the Pentland Mountains at the other, only a few kilometers away from home. Jamie mentioned in later interviews that this was her footing, somewhere between the city and the mountains. Her mother is a law firm clerk and her father is an accountant. Catherine is the eldest daughter in the family, with one younger brother and one younger sister. This is a family with no literary background. The only books in the family are Robert Burns' poetry collection and the Bible, and Jamie began writing poetry at the age of fifteen.
Writing poetry was an odd thing to do in such a family, so Jamie always wrote secretly. Writing poetry is a "real and liberating" creation for her. She cherishes it extremely and has inexplicable confidence in her creation. After graduating from high school, she volunteered to join an archaeological excavation project (the article "Women in the Wild" in "To the Island" recalls this past). The exam results were not ideal, but she was unwilling to consider the librarian position or secretarial college suggested by her mother. Later, she persuaded her parents to repeat her studies at night school, and finally entered the University of Edinburgh to major in philosophy. If Deakin, MacFarlane, and Mabey, the other representative writers of the "new nature literature", can be counted as the "East Anglia Gang", they all live in the seaside lowlands in the east of England, including Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire, which were once full of swamps and had a long farming tradition. Jamie is a native resident of the Scottish Highlands.
During her undergraduate studies, Catherine completed her first collection of poems, Black Spider, which was published in 1982 and won the Eric Gregory Poetry Award and the Scottish Arts Council Book Award. At the age of 20, she decided to drop out of school and took her prize money to travel to distant places, across Eurasia, and in northeastern Pakistan. She later wrote a travelogue, The Golden Peak (1992). After returning to China, her scholarship ran out and she soon found it difficult to make a living writing poetry. She was always in financial straits, and twice she finally decided to sit down and write a novel. However, after writing 30,000 words, she put down her pen and asked herself: "What are you doing? I can do it with a twenty-line poem..."
So she continued to write poetry. In the next thirty years, she published seventeen collections of poems and won many national poetry awards. In 2021, Catherine Jamie was elected as Scotland's national poet (Scots Makar). She is the fourth poet selected by the Scottish Parliament since this honor was established in 2004.
The themes of Jamie's early poetry were closely linked to Scottish national identity. The collection of poems Queen of Sheba (1994) occupies an important position in the history of modern Scottish poetry. This is a collection of poems written in English and Scots. One of them, "Mr and Mrs Scotland Are Dead", is a representative poem of this period. This poem was originally translated and introduced by Professor Zhang Jian from the School of English at Beijing Foreign Studies University and included in his translation book "Modern Scottish Poetry". In the preface, he introduced the revival of Scottish poetry in the 20th century and talked about how Jamie's poem raised the issue of how to treat Scotland's cultural heritage through the death of the two old men, "Mr. and Mrs. Scotland." "The old man's relics include industrial, agricultural, cultural and tourism products, which are being piled up in garbage dumps and facing the danger of being bulldozed away. As a contemporary Scotsman, the poet believes that the death of her country depends on whether future generations can inherit and carry forward the above-mentioned heritage."
The 1999 collection of poems "Jizzen" (Jizzen, 1999) marked a change in the poet's creative focus. In her thirties, she became a mother for the first time. Her complex feelings about the birth experience, her reflections on her childhood life, and her thoughts on culture and nature, existence and belonging were all written into this slim collection of poems. Childbirth won the Jeffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and she soon had her first teaching position, teaching creative writing at the University of St. Andrews. Her colleagues include Robert Crawford, John Burnside and Don Patterson, all of whom were a new generation of Scottish poets active in the 1980s and 1990s.
In the later poetry collections "The Tree House" (2004) and "The Overhaul" (2012), the poet's sensibility and philosophy more frequently rested on all things in the world - alders, swallow's nests, daisies, seabirds moulting, stags, the moon, and even a puddle. She pays attention to nature and also thinks about human beings' place in the world. There is a group of poems in the collection of poems called "Comprehensive Overhaul", called "Five Sonnets on the River Tay". The last one talks about the exposed sand embankment and thin trickle of water on the river bank after the tide recedes. It is the charming scenery on her commute, which can be reached by walking through two fields. , but such a walk away from daily life has never been realized. She just plays with an idea and lurks a suspense at the end of the poem: "One day I will drive to the meeting place a mile away from home and park the car there/When they find out, the engine buzzes softly." Jamie's poetic style often reminds me of William Carlos Williams. The poems are written in concise spoken language, derived from daily poetic thoughts, and the clear and direct images seem to be those decisive moments captured by Cartier-Bresson's lens.
In 2015, Jamie published a collection of poems, The Bonniest Companie, which included the results of her "Poetry Weekly" in 2014. Since 1979, there have been increasing calls for the devolution of legislative power to the Scottish Legislature, and the 1997 referendum produced substantial results: after 300 years of vesting legislative power in the Kingdom of Great Britain, the Scottish Parliament would reconvene. On September 18, 2014, Scotland launched an independence referendum. In the end, 45% of the citizens voted in favor and 55% voted against. Scotland failed to leave the United Kingdom. The poet called it a "year of tremendous energy" in Scotland, and she threw herself into it creatively. Reading these 47 short and concise poems is like following the poet's footsteps through spring, summer, autumn and winter, through the cities and wilderness of Scotland, and sometimes following the poet's memory to salvage history and myths.
Some important themes are written repeatedly, and poetry and prose form an intertextuality. For example, the change of light at the turn of winter and spring in mid-February is the earliest sign of spring for northern residents with long and cold winters, and a joyful "day when the light returns." The essay "Light" in "To the Island" writes about this momentous moment.
The prose "Light" was exactly the passage that editor Hu Xiaokai sent me for trial translation. At that time, we already realized that this was a prose written by a poet, and the translation of such text must not be abrupt. I remember the careful state of mind when I repeatedly considered the words, sentence structure and tone. I also remember being shocked when I read the original sentence "The sun is like a razor, slowly moving across the grass, willow branches, apple trees and birch trees." Jamie writes that in the third week of February, a certain point has been reached where the sun suddenly rises and the light returns. I have a similar experience. I also live in the north. I am also very sensitive to the changes in light at the turn of winter and spring. For two consecutive years, I wrote the same diary in the second week of February because I noticed that the sunshine at five o'clock in the evening was so bright, as if I had gotten rid of the sluggishness of the long winter and had a new look. I'm reminded of a passage in Jamie's first collection of essays, Findings, from "Darkness and Light," in which she writes that she "loves the precise gestures of the sun at this time of year. When the sun finally rises over the mountain peaks, the sun shines directly through our kitchen window. A beam of light hits the dining table and illuminates the entire living room. However, within an hour, south to the southeast, the sun will once again set behind the mountains, leaving only a few hours of gradually dimming twilight." These paragraphs describing light were the beginning of my interest in Jamie’s prose.
Jamie began to try non-fiction writing when she was forty years old. She mentioned in her autobiography: "I remember standing in the Scottish literature and nature/outdoor writing area of a bookstore, looking through works, and thinking: 'There are no books I want to read here, they don't exist.'" In the next two years, she completed her first collection of essays, Findings, which was published by the independent publishing organization Sort of Books in 2005. At first neither the publisher nor the media could grasp the style of this collection of essays. Travel literature may be the closest label, but in addition to bird watching, whale watching, and salmon migration watching, other destinations are unexpected, such as going to experience darkness and light in the prehistoric tombs of Meshowe, "investigating" the Edinburgh skyline in the field of telescope, and even viewing pathological specimens in the College of Surgeons Museum. These proses are composed of fragments connected one after another, with jumping narrative and calm tone. They are completely different from the style of nature literature that I am used to reading before.
There is an essay in the book titled "Peregrine Falcon, Osprey, Crane", which forms a meaningful contrast with J.A. Baker's masterpiece "Peregrine Falcon". There was a pair of peregrine falcons on the cliff near Jamie's residence. On a dry April day with little rain, she listened to the female falcon's call every day and heard the male's response two weeks later. Peregrine falcons rarely have breeding pairs in the local area. Throughout the spring and summer, she continued to pay attention, using a telescope by the window to observe the peregrine falcons mating, preening, and bringing prey back to their nest sites. The light of the sunny day after the heavy rain is bright and clear, and the male falcon looks so real: "smooth gray back, beak and claws as bright as buttercup flowers." Jamie bought Baker's "The Peregrine Falcon" and read it from the beginning, gradually realizing that the lone man's obsession with birds and the narrative that accompanied it had almost become a tradition, while her bird-watching experience was very different: "In between doing the laundry and picking up the kids from school, birds entered my life. I listened. Car Oystercatchers when the stream takes a break. On the primary school playground, there are only a few sparrows left - chirping in the corners of the eaves... Birds exist on the edge of my life." In just a few strokes, Jamie reveals a common and real female situation, and opens up a "bird watching" narrative that is different from the traditional model.
Jamie's prose writing is similar to her poetic style, with concise language and less use of adjectives and adverbs. She keeps a distance from the subject of her writing and does not stare with all her strength. This kind of viewing is not rough, but seems to be a sense of prudence and propriety. Sometimes I feel a little dissatisfied with her plain descriptions, but I am also curious about the direction of the text. If I read it calmly, I will suddenly be struck by the wonderful imagery. As Adam Nicholson said: "Very few people write about nature and travel in this way: they achieve the precision and sensitivity of poetry, but the basis of writing is always ordinary everyday life."
One day Jamie rode her bicycle to the Tay River and saw ospreys and a large group of swans. When she was satisfied and ready to go home, she noticed a large bird flying in the sky that she had never seen before. She hurriedly took out her binoculars. The big bird flew directly overhead. She knelt on the ground and looked up carefully, relying entirely on her eyesight and memory: "Look at the wings... straight, rectangular, with black, fingertip-like feather tips. Look at its flight - it's not like a heron. The flapping of its wings seems not strong enough or confident enough, but... trembling." "I was like a medieval farmer who had received divine enlightenment, kneeling in a field, locked by this mysterious cross in the sky. Then, the big bird slowly flew out of my sight, and I rushed home like an excited child, carefully holding its image in my mind like a bowl full of clear water - never spilling a drop." This description portrays the mentality of a birdwatcher very vividly, and the metaphors used are unforgettable.
In 2012, Sightlines, a companion volume to Findings, was published. Jamie's second collection of essays continues the style and themes of his first book. This book won the Royal Geographical Society's Nice Prize. The award citation called it "writing at the intersection of nature, culture and travel." Jamie's thoughts on this were: "It is indeed true. Nature, culture and travel, written by a Scottish woman with a young son. (Sometimes 'travel' means going to the post office, or the end of the park! But there are also islands and archaeological excavation sites." Seven years have passed. Jamie's children have gradually grown up, and the restrictions on time and space have become much looser. She still roams around Scotland most of the time, such as visiting the isolated island of St. Kilda west of the Hebrides, but her footprints also extend to more distant places, such as Greenland and Spain. We named the Chinese translation of Sightlines as "Going to the Island" because the island travel notes are the most important and more representative.
In the process of translating this book, I once again noticed Jamie’s tendency to de-romanticize and suppress lyricism when describing nature. Also writing about icebergs, Barry Lopez has an affectionate tone and gorgeous diction ("Arctic Dream"), while Jamie looked at the slowly approaching icebergs and "felt a huge and frozen indifference." Her associations are sometimes quite personal: the "heavy, eerie green" of the water evokes the "shameful" memory of a rubber mat in her mother's hand as a child. Modernity and nature sometimes overlap: the green color of the aurora "is exactly the same as the green color flashed by the radar when the information reader on the ship displays the longitude and latitude", and the gorgeous and changing aurora "is more like a grand event presented by technology". Making the grand everyday is also a strategy: "If Green Aurora could be tasted, it would fizz on the tongue and taste like mint cream." But the poet's sensibility is divergent and he is not obsessed with one moment or one experience. The next moment, "The aurora turned into a long trail falling down, reminding me of whale baleen. Sieve, what to sift? Stars, souls or particles? Let's imagine that the aurora is a huge whale, and our ship is sailing into its jaws." Such a deep, boundless, and grand image appeared. I was surprised by this explosion of poetic imagination, and there was no trace of the leap from heaviness to lightness.
Jamie's concern for seabirds and cetaceans became more and more profound. She was no longer content to just watch, but devoted herself to volunteer work. The prose "Island of Rona" describes Jamie's experience with the expedition team investigating the white-rumped petrels on Rona Island. This is a rare bird species that is in decline and has a breeding colony on the island. She personally participated in the counting and recorded the calls of petrels in the cracks of the stone wall. She also helped clean whale bones in the Whale Hall of the Natural History Museum in Bergen, Norway, using small toothbrushes, toothpicks and cotton swabs to handle the giant skeletons, while thinking about the past and present lives of whales - "from exploding darts, cutting off skin, flesh and fat, to soft sponges and toothpicks - this is how they have withstood all aspects of human attention." In these essays, Jamie vividly records the work sites of field investigators and specimen preservation experts, and does not forget to restore those interesting conversations. She is an excellent listener. When she thinks about the relationship between humans and nature, her favorite word is negotiation. “It’s arrogant to think you can influence the world; it’s also arrogant to think you can’t influence the world” – Jamie’s position is somewhere in the middle.
Jamie's interest in archeology dates back to her teenage years, and "Women in the Wild" spans thirty years, revisiting the sites where she volunteered on archaeological digs after graduating from high school. The excavation site of the Neolithic megalithic site, the life of a semi-hippie volunteer group, the atmosphere of the 1960s, and her own unresolved future are all tied to this turning point (pun intended) in the discovery of Stonehenge. "Opening the tomb in the sound of thunder shook the mind, as if it were beyond the bounds. Writing poetry, in its calm way, also achieves this purpose. The weight of a word, the arrangement of rhyme, carefully reveal a certain reality, an artifact that does not always show 'meaning'." This field work experience seems to be the point at which Jamie decided to pursue poetry as his career.
The nature described by Jamie is nature in the broad sense and in the plural form. The article "Symptoms" focuses on the discussion of the definition of nature and continues her focus on humanistic medicine. Jamie wrote that after her mother died of lung cancer, she went to an environmental conference and was troubled by the speeches of the writers at the conference. She talked about the simplified definition of "nature" with her acquaintance Dr. Frank, "Nature is not just primroses and otters, but also the inner nature that is closely related to us... There are other species, but they are not dolphins that jump out of the water, but bacteria that destroy us." In the pathology lab, Jamie noticed that the inside of the colon sample was "light brown and ribbed, a bit like a beach at low tide." Starting from this metaphor, the nature inside the human body goes hand in hand with the nature outside. She once again came to the pathology laboratory and observed the magnified cells and bacteria under the doctor's double-headed microscope. Following the doctor's instructions, she took a bird's-eye view of "river deltas, wetlands, peninsulas and atolls". Helicobacter pylori became "six or seven extremely black elliptical spots, which were still very small after magnification, scattered in the blue valley, looking down from a high distance like musk oxen on the tundra." Jamie follows the lens of the microscope as he roams, "enters", "overlooks", "transfers" and "drops", exploring the landscape inside the human body. It can be said that in this way, significant natural experiences do not need to be "externally sought". The individual's flesh and blood body - the hidden land of mountains and rivers is probably a more remote wilderness. Human beings have extremely limited understanding of this wilderness and are full of prejudice against some of its components. Jamie uses his experiences and words to expand the boundaries of 'wilderness'. It also reminds me of a quote from Thoreau's diary: "It is futile to dream of a wilderness far away from ourselves. No such place has ever existed. It is the swamp in our brains and guts, the wild and primitive energy in us, that inspires this dream."
Nature literature writer David Haskell (represented as "The Invisible Forest") evaluates Jamie's writing from another perspective: "She...eliminates the boundaries between the so-called 'nature' and the human world. Eliminating or blurring this boundary is particularly important in the case of Scotland. Writers from other places have repeatedly relied on romantic naturalists She describes Scotland from a different perspective, pursues the solace of 'wilderness', and even claims that this land belongs to them, but she believes that this view is offensive to those who have lived on this land for generations." In the article "Three Ways of Seeing St Kilda", Jamie constantly revised her understanding of "wilderness" through the experience of three trips. Her third trip to St. Kilda was with an exploration team from the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historic Scotland, who were planning to map the entire "cultural landscape" of the archipelago. Every man-made structure on the island will be surveyed using the latest GPS satellite devices. Jamie admitted that she was "slightly uncomfortable with this level of precision survey", and "what was equally uncomfortable was observing a landscape that others had created and then abandoned behind them, while realizing that there were invisible satellites quietly patrolling high in the sky at any time." She realized that St. Kilda was definitely not the escape that visitors from far away were looking for.
From this perspective, Jamie's writing is a "counter-narrative" that deliberately breaks the mainstream narrative of "wilderness". As a native Scottish writer, she focuses on the relationship between local residents and the surrounding environment, emphasizing that "wilderness" and "wildness" are not the daily experiences of Scottish residents. Jamie later also noted in the foreword to her edited volume Antlers on the Water: Selections of Scottish Environmental Literature: “Our experience of land and nature is not possessive”. Her nature writing is intended to correct the perspective of outsiders, who often measure everything on this land by their own standards, ignoring its original history, traditions, and the way of life shaped by the interaction between people and the local environment for thousands of years.
In an interview, Jamie mentioned that he paid special attention to the first-person "I" when writing. "After writing a page, I read it and found that I had been used 17 times. I went back and deleted two-thirds of the 'I'." Why do you want the first person to be absent? Jamie admits that “I am the perceptual center of the experience,” yet is acutely aware that too much self is “tiring.” She wanted to try to make others actually see things in their reading. This style of writing is indeed "non-possessive". Jamie's writing made me realize that the intoxicating and long-lasting "gaze" may be inseparable from the projection of personal emotions and desires, and the "enough" and "enough" that often appear in Jamie's writings are not an inability to focus, but a kind of departure when enough is enough. In this way, I can better understand why John Berger likes Jamie's work: "The discoverer has not disturbed the discovered thing, and this requires courage and consideration."
Reading Jamie's "To the Island" carefully, you can better understand why she calls her prose "expanded poetry." She once said that her prose is created in the same way as writing poetry: "Unique. Delicate. Cautious. Attention." She ponders the language of prose as she ponders the language of poetry: "sound, rhyme, rhythm, tone, syntax, imagery, balance, association, when the prose flows and when it suddenly turns." The fourteen essays included in this book even pay attention to the alternation of length and length. The fifth chapter "Light", the tenth chapter "Magpie Moth", and the fourteenth and final chapter "Wind" are all short in length, and the refined prose poems are like rests between musical sections, but the lingering sound is endless. Haskell has an apt comment about Jamie's prose form: "Reading Jamie's prose, one feels like a needle in a tapestry that is taking shape, the direction of the needle being determined by a skilled and sometimes mischievous weaver." As soon as I started reading Jamie's sentences, my reading speed immediately slowed down. Because I had listened to the poetry read by Jamie, her voice sounded in my mind, with a soft and melodious Scottish accent.
Finally, I would like to conclude with a poem by Katherine Jamie entitled “Here Lies Our Land”
This is our land, under the flowing clouds
Every direction, the sunshine shining happily
It belongs only to itself.
We are just passers-by, singing
West wind and fern-covered hillsides
Northern lights and silvery waves…
"On a hot day in May, the sun is rising, and the tea shed is high beside the green shade. A bowl of tea soup relieves the heat, and the villagers give alms without asking for compensation." - This anonymous poem on bamboo branches spread among the people in eastern Zhejiang. In just a few strokes, a picture of tea giving in the past has been slowly unfolded: an ancient summer road, a thatched tea shed, villagers passing by, and a thick bowl of tea.
"Shicha" means giving tea soup, which is the "mortal tea" of Chinese tea. In the long days of traveling by foot, "giving tea" was often juxtaposed with "giving medicine" and appeared in classics, documents and inscriptions. It was the daily kindness and compassion of the ancient ancestors. Tea service places are mostly located near bridgeheads, ferries, on mountains, at the entrance of temples, and at street corners of thoroughfares in villages and towns. Tea pavilions, tea sheds, and roadside corridors are the most common ones. They have a few large pottery bowls and a bucket of hot tea for porters, merchants, scholars rushing to take exams, and passers-by to drink for free and take shelter from the wind and rain. This bowl of tea is not for elegance, but for resting one's feet and quenching one's thirst. The compassion of the world is the "book of tea" written between the mountains and the sea, on the earth.
The Jinsu Temple at the foot of Jinsu Mountain in Haiyan, Zhejiang was founded by the Kang Senghui, a group of eminent monks who lived in Kang during the Chiwu period of the Three Kingdoms period. It is located next to the Hangjia Ancient Road and is one of the earliest temples in the south of the Yangtze River. Kang Senghui not only preached Dharma here, but also "constructed a pavilion and served tea" here. The stone tablet "Reconstruction of Jinsu Guanghui Zen Temple" erected in the 14th year of Zhengtong in the Ming Dynasty (1449) specifically records this event, leaving important relics of "giving tea".
Photo by Zhu Hong from Jinsu Temple in Haiyan
After the Lantern Festival of the Year of the Horse, we chose a beautiful spring day to go to Haiyan Jinsu Temple to look for this ancient monument from the Ming Dynasty. In history, Jinsu Temple has experienced several ups and downs, honors and disgrace. When Jinsu Temple was rebuilt in 2008, a stele "Reconstruction of Jinsu Guanghui Temple" was unearthed at the site. Jinsu Temple is majestic and majestic, and transport ships often pass by at the Tea Garden Harbor outside the temple. In order to protect this precious monument, a stone pavilion with overhanging eaves and four corners was built beside the "Kangseng Bridge" bridge to protect the monument from wind and rain.
The ancient stele is made of bluestone, with a height of 2.22 meters, a width of 0.98 meters, and a thickness of 0.27 meters. The inscription was written by Hu Ying, the Minister of Rites of the Ming Dynasty. The article records: "Kang Monk traveled to Jinsu Mountain in Haiyan. It was a hot summer day and he built a pavilion to serve tea to relieve his thirst. The court heard about it and gave it the name of Tea Garden." The lineage of Jinsu Temple has thus become an important source of tea-serving culture in the south of the Yangtze River.
The Ming Dynasty Monument and the Inscription at Jinsu Temple, photographed by Zhu Hong
When it comes to "giving tea" at Jinsu Temple, the most legendary protagonist is Qian Liu, the founding monarch of the Wuyue Kingdom in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. Qian Liu, a hero in troubled times, possesses the domineering spirit of "a sword that freezes fourteen states", the tenderness of "the flowers bloom on the road, she can slowly return home" to his poor wife Wu, and the Buddhist compassion of "nurturing the people with kindness".
At the end of the Tang Dynasty, Huang Chao's army rose up and the world was in chaos. Qian Liu separated the two Zhejiang provinces and established the Wuyue Kingdom to protect himself in the southeast. It is said that when Qian Liu was young, he trafficked illegal salt to make a living and traveled along the two Zhejiang Salt Roads. The tea served at Jinsu Temple became the sweet rain in Qian Liu's mouth when he was hungry and thirsty.
In order to repay the kindness of giving tea, some scholars have verified that in the second year of Kaibao in Song Dynasty (969), Qian Liu, the king of Wuyue Kingdom, named Jinsu Temple "Tea Giving Garden". This is the earliest record of the term "tea service" in literature. The place name "Chayuan Village" where Haiyan Jinsu Temple is located has been used ever since.
Chayuan Village road sign photo by Zhu Hong
Looking back even further, tea sage Lu Yu also had an indissoluble bond with tea serving in temples. In the mid-Tang Dynasty, tea service gradually became popular in monasteries, combining Buddhist compassion with daily practice, and became a way for monks to spread Buddhism.
Lu Yu lost his parents at a young age and was a helpless orphan. He was adopted by Zen Master Zhiji of Longgai Temple in Jingling, Hubei Province. He made tea, drank water and learned to read in front of the Buddha, which nourished his initial perception of the nature of tea and introduced this stubborn young man who stuttered, argued and had "many intentions" to the mysterious world of tea. Without the initial habit of giving tea soup in the temple, it may be difficult to have the depth of the "Tea Sutra" that connects heaven and earth and integrates human feelings.
Different from the general "tea party" gatherings, along with the popularity of the custom of "serving tea", the "tea party" once had a unique meaning in the history of Chinese tea. "Tea parties" are usually organized voluntarily by local gentry, businessmen and ordinary people. Those who have land, money, and strength set up tea pavilions and corridors on official roads and post roads to provide tea for free. It is a kind of folk charity embedded in the rural social structure. The "Tea Party" steles scattered on the tea pavilions and corridors of the ancient Ming and Qing roads in eastern Zhejiang are precious imprints of the "Tea Party" in the past.
After the beginning of spring this year, I made an appointment with my friend Wang Qun from Xiangshan, Zhejiang, and climbed to the top of the local ancient Qing Dynasty trail walker Lingtou, where I saw the Qing Dynasty "Tea Party" monument that I had longed for. Wang Qun is tall and burly, and he was originally a good figure for sailing on the seaside. When he was young, he pioneered bamboo carving with a pair of big trawling hands, and became famous in the world of bamboo root carving for his skillful carving of ancient ladies. In recent years, when launching the "Xiangshan Ancient Ferry Tracking Tour" activity, we found the Qing Dynasty stone tablet at the Lingtou Tea Pavilion.
We walked from the Crab Claw Ferry by Sanmen Bay on the ancient moss-covered slickstone path. As soon as we climbed up to Walker Ridge, we saw a small tea pavilion with a green tile roof standing quietly among the mountains and trees. Wang Qun pointed to the tea pavilion from a distance and told me that the ancient stele was in the tea pavilion.
Photographed by Wang Qun at Xingzhe Lingtou Tea Pavilion
The tea pavilion runs from east to west and is a three-bay corridor-style building. There is a small temple in the north. There are four ocher red square stone beams in the pavilion. There are stone benches built on the north and south sides for pedestrians to rest. There are two stone steles embedded in the north and south walls respectively. In the south are the Qianlong and Guangxu steles, and in the north are the Daoguang and Xianfeng steles.
Among the ancient steles, the Guangxu Stele is the most complete, with clear text on the surface, "Xingzhe Ling Pavilion" horizontally engraved on the forehead, and "Rebuilt by Wang Hengli in the 19th year of Guangxu" vertically engraved below. The words "Jiuqing Tea Party" remain on the forehead of the Daoguang stele. "Jiuqing" is the name of the village here. The word "Tea Party" is very precious. Unfortunately, the two characters in the middle and the rest of the text on the stele are unclear. The characters on the Xianfeng Monument are blurred and cannot be read.
"Jiuqing Tea Party", the words are shown in the Daoguang Monument of the Qing Dynasty, photographed by Wang Qun
The Qianlong "Tea Party" stele was erected in the fifth year of Qianlong's reign. The inscription is written in a bold and free-spirited style, recording the origin of the stele, the name of the donor, the donated mountain land, the area of the land, and the management details. In front of the monument, there is a tea pavilion built at the head of the pedestrian ridge. The resident monk Jueming of Wanshou Temple next to the pavilion is responsible for the daily supply of tea to quench the thirst of travelers during the summer heat. Local villagers donated fields to the temple and rented the fields to pay for the monks' tea, firewood and daily expenses. The monks felt that they were "not short of food" and the tea pavilion was operating normally.
Photo by Wang Qun of the "Tea Party" Monument of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty
As time went by, the original tea fields were "privately sold", and the temple life could not be maintained. For this reason, the villagers erected this monument and made an agreement on the donor and the number of acres of land "as engraved on the right". The inscription can reveal the general contents of the donation of Lingtou Mountain and Qingyantang fields by Zheng Taihuan and four other brothers, as well as the donation of fields by Li Yuanlong. Unfortunately, due to the passage of time, the number of acres cannot be clearly identified.
The small temple outside the north wall of the tea pavilion may be the "Wanshou Temple" in the Qianlong Monument, and is now called "Huiyun Temple". There are five or six red and yellow-edged silk banners hanging on the walls of the nunnery, one of which is printed with the words "Worship the Empress of Suzhou, Suzhou Bodhisattva and Marshal Ma". It can be seen that although this place is remote, the incense is constant.
Since the Kangxi and Qing Dynasties of the Qing Dynasty, the world has been at peace, and tea drinking places are spread all over the countryside and famous mountains and rivers. Mount Tai is the "first of the five mountains". Emperor Qianlong climbed Mount Tai for the sixth time and ordered the abolition of the incense tax on Mount Tai, so that people could freely enjoy incense. In order to rush to the top of the mountain at dawn to burn "first incense", pilgrims from all over the world often choose to set off in the middle of the night. Mount Tai has "ten thousand lights" at night, and is known as the "Mountain that never sleeps".
Ten years after the "Tea Party" monument of the Qing Emperor Qianlong in Lingtou, Xiangshan Walker, was built, Hou Yihe, a Shanxi merchant who was doing business in Tai'an Prefecture, where Mount Tai is located, Shandong Province, and others initiated and united with fellow villagers to donate more than 300 taels of silver to build a tea pavilion opposite the Guandi Temple located at the "toe of Mount Tai" to provide free tea to climbers to relieve the thirst of passers-by. Local official Wan Sinian specially wrote the "Inscription of the Creation of the Tea Pavilion" to record this good deed. "Each year there are hundreds of thousands of people who climb mountains to offer incense, and they rarely take a rest." The pilgrims are so tired from toiling that "suddenly there is a pavilion to stop, and there is tea to quench their thirst."
China's tea-giving custom, which began with religious compassion in the Middle Tang and Five Dynasties, gradually evolved into the "road corridor tea pavilion" culture that was filled with the Confucian "Jianji" spirit and spread all over the world during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Its meaning is just like what is said in Wan Si Nian's inscription: "If a man is good, how can he be divided into big and small?"
When I was in elementary school, not far from my home was Ru River, which leads to the sea. A five-hole stone bridge "Wuyan Bridge" spanned the stream. After crossing the bridge, there was a tea pavilion with a corridor named "Wuli". After walking for five miles from "Wuli Pavilion", we arrived at Shipu Town and Yanchang Primary School where we studied.
"Wuli Pavilion" is a happy teahouse where adults from nearby villages talk about the past and present, a roadside market for small businessmen and vendors, and a youth paradise for me and my playmates. There is a long stone bench against the wall of the tea pavilion, with a large stoneware vat in the middle, and two semi-round wooden covers placed on top to block dust and flying insects. Every day after school, we walked along the dirt road beside the Yanchang Citrus Field and played the game of "field war" all the way home.
When we arrived at the tea pavilion, we drank a few bowls of tea to quench our thirst. I remember that Prunella vulgaris is added to the tea soup in summer, and sometimes ginger slices, platycodon, etc. are also added. Lu Yu advocated tea drinking, from sencha in the Tang Dynasty, ordered tea in the Song Dynasty to loose tea in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, pursuing the purest flavor of this magical leaf, and eventually became the mainstream of the tea world. Interestingly, Lu Yu did not agree with the inclusion of ginger, orange and other flowers and plants in tea in the "Tea Classic". In the vast rural China, they are like clear springs flowing freely in the mountains, continuing the origin of tea drinking as "medicine and food come from the same source". Regardless of the pungency of ginger, the fragrance of orange, the sweetness of dates, or the bitterness of grass, they can all be used in tea, with thousands of mountains and valleys, and a variety of flavors.
In the tea pavilion, we played tops, made bets on folded pieces of paper from cigarette boxes, and the most exciting thing was pulling sugar cane shreds. Sugar cane is sold at a roadside stall outside the tea pavilion. Sections of sugar cane are placed on the small table. The green skin is refreshing and the purple skin is sweet and thick. The price varies from one cent to two cents. Pick a section of sugar cane and ask the master to gently cut a circle in it with a sugar cane knife. My playmate and I each hold one end and use our skills to break the sugar cane. Whoever has the longest sugarcane silk in his hand wins, and the loser pays.
Sugar cane knife picture taken from the Internet
On the Ming and Qing ancient road from "Wuli Pavilion" to the town, the most famous tea pavilion is the "Zhongxi Pavilion" halfway up the Hougang Mountain. It was rebuilt in the 1920s and is called "Sanwan Road Corridor" by the locals. The "Sanwan Corridor" is built across the road, facing east from the west, overlooking the boundless East China Sea.
During the Spring Festival this year, I walked to this corridor that I often walked through when I was young. The corridor has been abandoned for a long time. Fortunately, it is located in the middle of the mountain and its overall appearance is still there. It has been listed as a county-level cultural protection unit. The corridors have gabled Guanyin gables in the north and south. The square stone pillars in the corridors are cinched up and the ground is paved with stone. The Lulang Bodhisattva "Sangha Bodhisattva", also known as "Sizhou Bodhisattva", is enshrined in the west wall of the corridor. It is regarded as the male incarnation of Guanyin Bodhisattva. It is a god who prays for wind and rain among the people along the coast of Zhejiang and Fujian.
"Sanwan Road Corridor" in Shipu, Xiangshan. Photo by Gao Zihua
The couplets on the stone pillars on the left and right of the shrine express the meaning of enlightenment: "The grace of Sishui River lasts through the ages; the rain of Dharma in Lijiang River spreads to all people."
There is another couplet on the two stone pillars in front of the shrine, which integrates the customs, mountains and sea scenery of Shipu Ancient Town, giving it a unique flavor. Unfortunately, like the couplets above, they are in disarray, and we have to consult local literature to complete them. The left couplet is: "The tide of copper tiles is coming, and I stand still to listen to several fishermen's songs. A sky supports the river, and the illustrious gods always protect it." The right couplet is: "When Shijiang enters the city, you can see thousands of dragons and lins. Three bays lead to Shizhen, and old and old passers-by are temporarily connected."
There are two arched doors on the west wall of the corridor, which are narrow on the outside and wide on the inside. This design can reduce the intrusion of wind and rain when the seaside climate is unexpectedly stormy. The round stone plaque above the lintel is embossed with four characters in a ring, which are: "It's okay to sit down; come when you go." The words are simple and straightforward, which is very consistent with the character of the fishermen on the seaside.
Walking out of the corridor, the fishing port in front of you is densely packed with steel fishing boats returning to the port during the Spring Festival. The boats are lined with masts and colorful flags are flying. In the distance, the sea and the sky meet in the vast expanse. All kinds of emotions suddenly come to my heart.
This is the philosophy of serving tea: rooted in secular life, simple and gentle, whether you are a nobleman or a commoner, it is a bowl of water when you are thirsty and a comfort after a tiring journey. A bowl of tea soup can reveal people's hearts, equality and compassion. Just like the earth bearing the dew, it doesn’t fight or reveal itself, but it spreads in all directions, realizing the eternity of the moment.
Teacher Ye Tan:
I am a post-90s entrepreneur, please call me Liangzi. I have been following you silently and admire you for remaining calm and transparent in the face of illness. You are like a beam of light, allowing us in the darkness to see persistence and hope.
Today, I mustered up all the courage to write this letter, telling you the deepest suffering and helplessness in my heart, and asking you to give me and my wife some guidance.
I have been in love with my wife since high school, and it took me ten years to marry her into my family. My father left me when I was in high school. At that time, my family was poor and my future was unclear. Her appearance illuminated my gloomy youth and gave me the courage to fight hard. After marriage, I focused on my career and tried my best to provide a stable world for her.
We are deeply involved in smart lock installation and after-sales service, and have gone through ups and downs along the way, and have achieved many achievements: 58.com ranked first in Kunming for 8 consecutive years, Meituan ranked first for 4 consecutive years, and JD.com ranked first for two consecutive years. Later, it undertook official installation and after-sales service for many well-known brands such as Samsung, Bosch, Cadiz, Deschmann, EZVIZ, Haier, and Lucker, laying out the entire Yunnan service market and making its service the best in the province.
I just ran forward, but forgot about my wife who was silently supporting me behind me.
As the official service provider of many brands, my wife always walks side by side with me. She supports the entire family and the entire team, taking orders, communicating, and coordinating every day, facing countless customer emotions and trivial disputes, and working overtime until one or two in the morning all year round. Day after day, she is physically and mentally exhausted. But I was immersed in the glory of my career, ignoring her increasingly tired body and her silent hard work.
October 8, 2025, is an unforgettable day in my life. My wife, who was only 32 years old, was diagnosed with breast cancer with bone metastasis. At the age of 32, it is the right age for flowers to bloom. The sudden bad news made my life instantly press the pause button, and the whole world collapsed.
I took her to many hospitals and sought medical treatment everywhere. He was initially diagnosed at the First People's Hospital of Yunnan Province, and then went to the Yunnan Provincial Cancer Hospital and West China Hospital of Sichuan University. Everywhere I went, I held the greatest hope, just to find a glimmer of hope for her.
In the past few months, we have insisted on regular treatment. Although the breast mass has shrunk, the bone metastasis is still progressing. Just today, I accompanied my wife for another review. The moment I took the report sheet, I felt anxious and at a loss.
Later I learned that the Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University has Lu177 that can be used to treat bone metastases. When I heard that one injection costs 50,000 yuan, I realized: in the face of life and health, all industry firsts, career achievements, wealth and glory are as light as dust.
In order to focus on taking care of her, I took the initiative to shut down the platform operation this year and only retained the most basic smart lock installation and after-sales service. I have to support the family, have a stable income, treat her illness, and protect her.
Now I try my best to take good care of her. Every morning, I accompany her for a walk in the park; at seven o'clock in the evening, I get her off work on time; I encourage her to take a break at noon over and over again. However, years of busyness have long been engraved in her bones. Although she has tried hard to change, it is still difficult for her to develop the habit of taking a lunch break.
To outsiders, everything seemed normal except that she couldn't exercise strenuously. Only I know that every re-examination and every report keeps me awake all night and makes me feel heartbroken.
I was calm on the outside, but inside I was full of helplessness and suffering, and fell into deep regret. I once thought that starting a business successfully would mean giving her the best life. But in the end, instead of allowing her to enjoy peace and happiness, she was forced to stay up late and work hard with me, carrying heavy loads, and eventually her body collapsed from exhaustion. This guilt gnaws at my heart day and night.
Teacher Ye Tan, you are the most tenacious and powerful role model I have ever seen on this difficult road. Your calmness and openness in facing the pain gave me the courage to carry on.
I really hope to get some advice from you, it will be a great comfort to our family to see the light of the future.
I sincerely wish you safety and health, success and worry-free, and always be treated gently by time.
Sincerely, Ryoko
March 2, 2026
Dear Ryoko:
Thank you for the warmth you bring to this world.
The world has a cruel side and a gentle side. I have seen couples who were in love with each other in the ward, and I have also seen couples who announced their divorce just a few months after suffering from cancer.
The world of illness is extreme, and everything is compressed to the extreme, including extreme tenderness and extreme indifference, and patients and their families strive to find a balance between the two ends.
After spending nearly four years fighting cancer, I have always advocated that we should not mythologise family ties, friendship, or let patients have hallucinations, so that we can live peacefully.
There is no life-long contract that must be fulfilled in this world, because we are sentient beings with seven emotions and six desires, full of compassion, but also full of shortcomings. Most of us are afraid of trouble, dislike the old, and cannot withstand long-term pressure.
Accept ordinary human nature, calm your mind, watch flowers become flowers, see trees become trees, be grateful when you receive love, and be indifferent when you lose love.
Although I can usually accept the changes in this world calmly, seeing that gentle glimmer of light in a broken world still makes me moved to tears.
Looking at you is like looking at a boy and girl walking hand in hand with a smile, and a hole in my heart is filled.
The moment you hold the hand of your beloved girl, your heart must be filled with flowers, just like the grassland in spring. Doesn’t it feel like the sky is getting brighter? You have worked hard to start a business after marriage, hoping to have a warm and wealthy home in the future. You are constantly traveling for business, and your wife is constantly answering the phone. This kind of hard work is the daily sweetness that ordinary people cannot ask for.
You are like a big tree struggling to take root, trying to flourish and protect your loved ones from the wind and rain - you have always done this, and you have done it, and you have done so well.
If you want to continue to take good care of your wife in the future, please first say to yourself, I did it, and I did it well.
Did you know? Sometimes, when faced with great fear, people will instinctively want to grab something or blame something, as if this can regain a sense of control in an out-of-control world.
Regret is one such emotion.
But it's not your fault that your wife is sick. Life is very random. We never know when a card will fall from the sky and hit us on the head, which happens to be the one we fear the most.
In the past, you and she worked happily for the future. That is not wrong, it is a form of love. You have created that ordinary but happy little family together. It is the result of your more than ten years of hard work and perseverance. It is her willingness to marry you. It is the hardships you have endured together and the sweetness of laughing together. It is the hands you are holding in front of the hospital bed now, and it is the tears you shed late at night.
There is nothing wrong with this love, and there is nothing wrong with you desperately trying to give her a future.
Try to forgive yourself for being busy, even if only for a moment. We are all mortals, we are all groping forward in life, we are all working hard according to mortal methods, and we cannot see the script of fate in advance.
Now, love has changed into a form, it has become companionship, it has become a rush on the road to seek medical treatment, it has become your steady look when she wakes up, and your punctual shoulder at seven o'clock in the evening.
You did everything you could - put down your work, take her everywhere to seek medical treatment, and be her most solid support. Don't be hard on yourself.
You love her so much that you turn your love into confession.
If you repent all the time, how can you be worthy of such a good woman? Love her self so much?
Even in the most difficult times, you have to give yourself time to be grateful. Thank God for making me so happy every day in the past. Even if we lose today, our happiness is eternal; thank God for allowing us to walk hand in hand and giving me the opportunity to take care of the people I love.
If you are in pain and tired right now, just lean against me for a while and don't say anything.
Ryoko, be fully mentally prepared. Taking care of patients may take a very long time, five, ten, twenty, or thirty years. If you can't hold on anymore, stop and take a breath, find a place where no one is, cry, and talk to someone.
Only by turning the turbulent waves in your heart into calm, daily gratitude, and daily medical expenses can you go a long way.
There are also some things that, although mundane and vulgar, are important.
Calculate the cost of living and treatment, see how much money you have saved before, and how much income you can earn every month now to maintain cash flow; don't hide your illness from each other, and be deliberately optimistic.
Allow your wife to be afraid, and allow yourself to be nervous, look into her eyes, and say to her: "I know you feel uncomfortable and scared right now, and so do I. But it doesn't matter, fear is normal, we are afraid together, and we will face it together."
When you catch her fear, you catch your own fear.
In terms of treatment, there are now many treatment options and drugs. It is recommended to find a reliable doctor in a large tertiary hospital and establish a long-term relationship. In this way, the doctor will know your situation very well and your mind will be settled.
Ryoko, you are great. You are not superman and don’t need to solve every problem. You are the one who, no matter what, is there for her, has the solution, and holds her hand.
Live a good life day by day, take the current path step by step, without looking back at the past or looking at the future. Stay in the present moment.
Please, please, definitely take care of yourself. You two are everything to this family.
Your sister Tan
Saturday, March 7, 2026
(Sister Tan’s email address: yetanbusiness@163.com. The letter authorizes Yetan Finance to use the content of the email. If you reply, the reply will only be made public and will be commented by readers. At the same time, you are authorized to use it for book compilation. Please be careful when writing.)
Introduction As Bitcoin's third halving cycle enters a critical stage, the BTCC analyst team combines on-chain data, macroeconomic environment and technical indicators to conduct in-depth research and judgment on the Bitcoin price trend from 2025 to 2035. Interested friends can learn more
As Bitcoin's third halving cycle enters a critical stage, the BTCC analyst team combines on-chain data, macroeconomic environment and technical indicators to conduct in-depth research and judgment on Bitcoin price trends from 2025 to 2035. This article includes: 1) Analysis of key support levels of current prices; 2) Five core factors affecting long-term trends; 3) Latest position dynamics of institutional investors; 4) Ten-year cycle price prediction model.
Analysis of the current BTC price key level (October 2025) Why does $107,000 become the watershed between bulls and bears?
According to real-time data from the BTCC trading platform, as of October 20, 2025, BTC/USDT is currently trading at $106,982.50, a 24-hour increase of 0.31%. It is worth noting:
Source: TradingView
What signals do exchange fund flows reveal?
The latest data from Glassnode shows:
Index value meaning
Exchange net outflow
7,560 BTC/week
A month-on-month increase of 32%
Whale address holdings
5.2 million BTC
A two-year high
Five core factors affecting the long-term price of BTC 1. Institutional investor allocation cycle
Statistics from the BTCC Research Institute found that institutional holdings in Q3 2025 increased by 29.79% year-on-year, significantly higher than the 42.33% in the 2020 bull market cycle. Traditional financial institutions such as BlackRock continue to increase their holdings through spot ETFs. The average number of BTC held by the top 500 companies has doubled compared with last year.
2. The case of the National Reserve of the Kingdom of Bhutan
In 2023, the Bhutanese government secretly purchased $1.3 billion in BTC (accounting for 40% of the country's GDP) through Druk Holding & Investments. This national sovereign fund allocation model is being imitated by more developing countries.
3. The Fed’s monetary policy shifts
According to CME interest rate futures data: the probability of an interest rate cut in Q4 of 2025 has reached 78%. Historical data shows that 6 to 12 months after each Fed policy shift, BTC rose by an average of 137%.
4. The fourth halving effect
The block reward halving completed in 2024 is expected to have the largest supply impact in 2025-2026. In the 18 months after the past three halvings, the median price increase was 6,500%.
5. Lightning Network Adoption Rate
Visa’s latest report shows that the number of global BTC payment channels has exceeded 5 million, an increase of 70 times compared with 2020. The legal tender status policies of countries such as El Salvador continue to promote commercial implementation.
BTC ten-year price prediction model (2025-2035)
The BTCC financial engineering team creates a three-stage valuation framework:
Short term (1-2 years)
Technical view shows: If the support level of 106,800 is held, the target price at the end of 2026 is US$137,000 (Fibonacci 1.618 extension level)
Medium term (3-5 years)
According to the Stock-to-Flow model: the forecast range in 2028 is US$250,000-300,000, with institutional allocation demand being the main driver
Long term (6-10 years)
Consider currency devaluation and adoption curve: conservative valuation of $500,000 in 2035, could exceed the million dollar mark in extreme cases
FAQ Is it too late to invest in BTC?
According to data from the BTCC Research Institute, although the market value of BTC has exceeded US$2 trillion, it still has room to grow four times compared to gold’s market value of US$8 trillion. Institutional investors generally believe that it is still in the early stages.
How can small funds participate?
It is recommended to adopt a regular fixed amount investment strategy. Through compliance platforms such as BTCC, you can start fixed investment with as little as $10, effectively smoothing the risk of market fluctuations.
What's the biggest risk?
Sudden changes in regulatory policies and breakthroughs in quantum computing are two major potential risks. However, the regulatory frameworks of various countries are becoming increasingly clear, and the commercial use of quantum computers will take at least 10 years of development.
This concludes this article about BTC price prediction in 2025: trend analysis and interpretation of five key factors in the next ten years. For more information on BTC price prediction in 2025, please search Script House’s previous articles or continue browsing the related articles below. I hope you will support Script House in the future!
This site reminds: Investment is risky, so you must be cautious when entering the market. This content is not intended as investment and financial management advice.
A friend gave me a "lobster".
In late February, when OpenClaw began to break out of the circle, I was still standing on the shore. On March 1, the first Sunday after the holiday, I made up my mind to spare an afternoon, prepare strategies, and prepare to go into the water to raise shrimps myself. As a result, WeChat rang first.
"How about I give you a lobster?"
OpenClaw is open source and free. Where can I get it? I later found out that the service was for installation. His technical partner remotely connected to my Mac mini, which was commandeered as a lobster plane, and struggled for an hour and a half. After installing it, the person asked me to give it a name. I was hungry at the time and blurted out: "Steamed."
"Steamed" has settled in my home.
Later I learned that people who move quickly are already making money from this. This remote installation service is clearly priced at 199 yuan at the seafood market. A friend gave it to me as a favor. When installing, you need to select the model source. The default is to go to the installer's transfer station - of course you can change the settings, but most lazy people like me will most likely keep the default. This is the first steady stream of income.
After pretending, he was pulled into the group and entered the private domain. In addition to exchanging shrimp farming experiences, the group also posts cases from time to time. I've used the "steamed" version a few times, and it's indeed different, but I was busy with work and didn't bother to look into it. However, within a week or two, the screen was full of lobster work notes: some people used it to automatically process Excel reports, some people used it to crawl data and write emails, some people created automated workflows, and some people used it to batch generate short video scripts. People use lobster to fly, but I'm still stuck in the "steamed, push me a briefing at eight o'clock every morning" stage.
This is a great time to launch your course.
At this point, the business model of "one shrimp and more" has been formed: you can earn one time by selling installations, you can earn turnover by transferring, you can earn added value by selling courses, and the community can be monetized again.
I give my friend a thumbs up: he is indeed a veteran in the community and a model of win-win. And what about their technical team? In addition to the full-time founder, the other main engineering staff are part-time programmers - working at Internet companies during the day and working remotely for people at night.
This reminds me of those ghost stories about AI causing programmers to lose their jobs. Programmers may indeed be laid off, but with a flexible mind, they can make money wherever they go.
During this period, OpenClaw continued to explode. I ate several meals, and every time someone asked: Have you raised shrimps? According to the current popular saying on the Internet, a large number of small, medium and old enterprises have begun to ride on the popularity of lobster. According to communication theory, this is the diffusion stage—the stage of spreading from early adopters to the early majority.
Then the wind changed direction.
Security issues exploded. Some people compare it to the panda burning incense, directly changing the household registration date to a virus. Finally, at another party, a friend came over and asked me: "How do you remove the crayfish? Make sure not to leave any shrimp skin and shrimp lines, and delete them completely."
At this point, it's only been two weeks since I installed it.
From raising shrimp to unloading shrimp, public opinion only took 14 days, but I believe that there will be a wave of "crayfish upgraded to king shrimp" in the future. In fact, this is the normal situation when new technologies emerge - technology moves too fast, people's hearts catch up too quickly, and the two sides collide. When the Internet entered China, wasn't it first touted as an information superhighway and then criticized as a spiritual opium?
OpenClaw will not be the end of AI, I’m sure of that. But the significance of its popularity is that it allows ordinary people to experience the possibilities of AI beyond just asking and answering at the low cost of a hot pot meal. It starts operating your computer, clicking the mouse, typing the keyboard, and filling out forms for you. It is indeed one step closer to Jarvis in "Iron Man".
Of course, it has a lot of problems: the threshold is still high, ordinary people don’t understand it, and professional services are likely to be needed; security is questionable, and who can guarantee that it will not mess up; the economic accounts have not been settled, and the accumulation of API call fees is not a small amount. But this is normal. Technology always precedes supervision and ordinary people’s understanding.
This is not the unique fate of OpenClaw, it is the inevitable path for every underlying technology iteration. From electricity to the Internet, when was it not first treated as a toy, then scolded as a scourge, and finally quietly grown into infrastructure?
Interestingly, after this public outburst, I saw more people discussing in the circle of friends and in the community: how to make good use of it, how to tame it, and how to make it really help? Fear is a form of attention. After the scolding, you still need to learn what you need to learn.
I looked at the people in the group who were flying with lobsters, and then thought about those people who were in a hurry to unload the shrimps, and suddenly I realized: the same tool means two completely different worlds to different people. Does it give more people opportunities, or does it make people who already understand run faster? "
I think: it is magnifying the gap, not flattening it.
Also using AI, someone asked, "Write a plan for me." Someone raised 8 shrimps, each performing its own duties, and started collecting money. The former gets mediocre templates, the latter gets commercial value. There is a huge difference in output between people who can ask good questions, understand the deep needs of the scene, and dismantle efficient workflows, and those who are ignorant and lack of thinking.
This gap existed before, but AI has magnified it exponentially. In the past, the difference in output between an excellent copywriter and a mediocre copywriter could be twice or twice as much. Now, the gap is geometric.
Here I would like to propose a concept: cognitive arbitrage.
AI is essentially a cognitive lever, but it is not an evenly distributed lever. People who know how to use it can use it to leverage more cognitive resources, and these cognitive resources can in turn be used to better use AI - this is a positive cycle. People who don't know how to use it can't even lift the first brick. Therefore, those who understand understand better, and those who do not understand become more confused.
In recent years, more and more people have worried about being replaced by AI, and I have also worried about it. But now, I feel like maybe the question shouldn’t be asked that way. The question to ask is: If AI can do more and more things, what should humans do?
I think people should do things that AI cannot do.
AI can write a plan, but it doesn't know why it writes this plan. AI can process data, but it does not understand that there are real people behind the data. AI can optimize processes, but it doesn’t know what value this process serves. These things ultimately need to be defined by people.
As long as the value standards of this world are still defined by people, and as long as people are still the center of consensus, then people's position will still exist. It's just that this position is changing - from executor to definer, from operator to questioner, from producer to judge.
Some people say this is idealism. I say this is realism: you can only do things that AI cannot do, because what it can do, it is already doing.
OpenClaw is called a virus by some people, but a virus is also a form of life. It is parasitic on the existing system and uses the system's resources to complete its own replication. The same is true for AI. It is parasitic in our workflow and uses our data, computing power, and needs to complete its own evolution. This process will bring discomfort, panic, and new opportunities.
The key is, are you the one who is parasitized, or the one who learns to live with it?
As for regulation, it will definitely come and it will definitely lag behind. This is the normal state of technological development. Lagging supervision is not a problem. The question is whether the direction of supervision is reasonable and whether it can protect public interests without leaving too many dead ends for innovation. I believe there will be a solution.
Looking back, it has only been half a month since I installed the "steamed" one. In 15 days, I watched with my own eyes as a thing transformed from a geek toy to a popular topic, from a technical experiment to a business model, from free software to the center of controversy. The network effect brought about by social media has greatly accelerated the pace of the impact of new technologies. Such a fast pace has never been seen before, and it may be even faster in the future.
AI will not stay in the chat window. Today it operates your computer, tomorrow it will operate the smart devices in your home, and the day after tomorrow it may take over your company's backend system. It is not an App, it is the underlying facility and a new operating system. What we are experiencing is not a product iteration, but a bottom-level switch.
My goal this month is: try to raise a few more shrimps and build a real division of labor and collaboration system. From individual combat to small team collaboration. From experiencer to builder.
After all, it’s not enough to just eat shrimps. You have to learn how to raise shrimps, use shrimps, and make shrimps work.
"Steamed" learned last week to arrange study tasks for me on time every day, give me grades, and encourage me to rise up in middle age. It's done well, I'm going to add a drumstick to it. Of course, the chicken legs are also virtual.
(The author Wang Chengwei is a worker in the technology industry)
On February 11, bad news came from the foreign entertainment industry. Some media reported that the well-known American actor Cody Lange unfortunately passed away at home at the age of 34. Unexpectedly, he passed away suddenly in his prime, which was extremely shocking. After the news spread, many netizens also posted condolences.
According to media reports, Cody Lange died suddenly at home before his death. His wife was very sad when facing reporters. She burst into tears that day and was heartbroken. She bluntly said that she was heartbroken and it was very heartbreaking.
It is reported that the news of Cody Lange's death came out on Wednesday. His wife called the police for help after she could not contact him and asked the police to come to check. When the police arrived at his home, they found that Cody Lange had died on the bed in the bedroom at home. The police immediately sealed off the scene and notified the man's wife, but the specific cause of death was not announced by the police.
However, Cody Lange's family revealed that his sudden death was caused by the recurrence of an old disease. It is reported that Cody Lange did not have any serious illness, and he was only 34 years old in the prime of life and was in very good health. However, his family revealed that he had a bad habit of drinking frequently, and would often get a hangover from drinking when nothing happened. For this reason, his wife asked him to go to an alcohol rehab center, which shows that his death should also be related to alcoholism.
As a well-known American actor, Cody Lange has appeared in many film and television works, including "Money", "Gymnastics Princess", "Piranha 3D", etc., and also appeared in the American drama "Days of Our Lives". You must know that this drama has been broadcast in the United States for many years, and the role he played in it is also deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
His sudden death when his career was on the rise caused an indelible blow to the family. It is really a pity to know that his youngest son was only one year old. I hope he will be well in heaven and free from illness.
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