LOVE ACROSS THE SEA (2022)
Qingtian, a county in Lishui City, Zhejiang Province, is located in the middle and lower reaches of the Oujiang River basin, adjacent to Wenzhou. Before 1948, Qingtian was under the jurisdiction of Lishui. During the 1920s to 1930s, many Qingtian people followed the Silk Road to Europe, marking the first wave of emigration from the Zhejiang region (recorded in "History of Qingtian Overseas Chinese"). Subsequently, from 1948 to 1963, Qingtian was planned as a jurisdiction of Wenzhou. After that, Qingtian once again belonged to Lishui, and the second wave of emigration emerged in the 1980s.
Unlike most Chinese counties, Qingtian has a population of 580,000, of which 380,000 are overseas Chinese (both foreign and non-foreign). The overseas Chinese from this "mountain city" formed the first wave of Chinese immigration history in Europe. Historical records show that Qingtian people, a hundred years ago, brought local stone carvings to Europe via the Silk Road and sold them to the West. Since then, Qingtian people, marked by Wenzhou, have taken Wenzhou people abroad. In a hundred years, Wenzhou people and Qingtian people have become the largest Chinese ethnic group in Europe. After the reform and opening up, China's rapid economic development has allowed more and more Chinese people to see the possibilities of this ancient country, and overseas Chinese have also brought business and cultural exchanges back to their homeland. In this turbulent forty years, every corner of this small county has been closely connected with the world. An interesting piece of data is that Qingtian County ranks 74th in Zhejiang's GDP, but its per capita foreign exchange deposits rank first in the country.
If the Silk Road was the Chinese people's pioneering in the Eurasian continent, then the Belt and Road Initiative is the path for today's Chinese people to bring Chinese culture and economy to the world. In this era, almost every overseas Chinese closely links their careers and lives with China. However, every generation of Chinese people has their imagination of the world and nostalgia for home, leaving and returning, reunion and separation, hometown and foreign land, what is the relationship between their life choices and the times? Has the pandemic stopped their steps and emotions? How can a small hometown accommodate the gathering of world cultures here? Can young people inherit their parents' way of production or explore more possibilities?
