竹坞无尘水槛清,
相思迢递隔重城。
秋阴不散霜飞晚,
留得枯荷听雨声。
李商隐, 唐代
Tidy hut, a pure river nearby,
Deep yearning, thousands cities between us.
Autumn stays cloudy, frost hasn't flown in yet,
Keep dead lotus leaves to hear the rain.
Li Shangyin, Tang dynasty
The valley is surrounded on three sides by mountains and crossed by a river that draws water from many streams.
Real estate companies are investing in this valley that has special feng shui.
The village was founded by a man buried in an immense tomb.
The inhabitants dismantled the huge construction to build their houses using the gravestones.
Stairs lead to a small monastery on the mountaintop. A masked bird sits on the palisade of gravestones.
Ghosts live in the bamboo forest.
Meals give rhythm to every passing day. The villagers eat at a fixed hours and nap afterwards.
Women wash the dishes in the stream. When a bowl is broken, the pieces of blue painted ceramic sink down to rest in the silt.
The villagers collect the pieces of crockery. When they build a house, they press the shreds into the fresh clay to strengthen the walls.
The streams flow down from the mountain, through the vertical density of the bamboo forest, where massive centuries-old tombs lay.
Plastic garbage snagged by branches and trapped in the river ripples like colorful Buddhist flags.
Endless rain pierces the grey air and fills the streams flowing into the lotus fields.
Bulldozers are flattening the mountain, the bamboo forest, the streams and tombs to build a sleek highway.
Villagers bring lotus seedlings nestled in rags to the murky fields.
Lotus flowers emerge clean from the murky water. The flowers are rebirth and their seeds are life.
A trumpet-led procession marches upstream, through the village, to the house of the dead and the bamboo forest.
The house is decrepit, and the table empty now.
A nun lives in a small monastery on the mountaintop. She has a garden and a large water tank.
The water flows down the mountain in streams, through the bamboo forest, tombs and village to the lotus fields.
Features blur as faces melt away. Dissolved chemicals mix to create colorful smudges.
The plastic covers meant to protect the images have become a humid trap, causing the pictures’ slow decay.
