Introduction to Responses to the Land: Nature, Ecology, and Materialism & Peach Blossum - T'ao Ch'ien

          Nature over every decade of human life has been a key part of our species survival but are we surviving with it, or surviving on it? In the first generations of human life, we lived with nature, taking what we needed but also giving back what we could. Then as the industrial revolution age came about, things changed. Roads and large buildings/factories were being built right in the middle of nature destroying it. As us humans destroyed nature it started destroying us spiritually. We need nature to give us peace of mind and also to survive physically. A general motors spokesperson says “The average American family still needs the lifestyle they want to have.”(pg. 341) By that he is saying that unless our actions start to change to preserve the environment, our lifestyles will have to change or we will be destroyed. Global warming will burn up our cities fumed by the poison we put into the air. I believe he is correct and that we are not looking enough to the future and thinking about how drastically life will be changed.

            In the story The Peach Blossom Spring by T’ao Ch’ien a fisherman rowed up stream stumbling upon a grove of peach trees in bloom. It was beautiful so he rowed along seeing how far the grove went when he finally came to the foot of the mountain where a spring was; the spring that supplied the stream he was rowing on. He noticed a hole in the foot of the mountain that light was streaming through and decided to explore it.  The hole at first narrow, opened up into a broad level plain where well-built houses were surrounded by rich fields and pretty ponds. Dogs barked, plants grew, and men and women were coming going about their days dressed liked ordinary people doing ordinary things; they were carefree and happy. The story goes on to talk about how welcomed the fisherman was and about all the stories shared exchanged between the fisherman and the people living in the side of the mountain. The fisherman came to find out that this group of people used to live in China with him but fled from Chinese rulers many years ago and lost all contact with the outside world once they found refuge in their cave. After their stories and conversing about life nowadays, the fisherman left after getting severe warning not to tell anyone about their cave home. He recovered his boat and carefully marked the route back home where he reported what he had found. The Chinese magistrate sent a man with the fisherman to find this so called city in the hole. No matter how hard the fisherman tried, it could not be found again. . . The point of this story I think is that nature is special and needs to be cherished. The people in the cave warned the fisherman not to tell outsiders in fear their home would’ve been destroyed which it would have been if found. The fisherman should’ve cherished the nature he discovered like the people who lived there did.