Affection for the Mountains

This book describes the moving story of Feng Jinlan, a young female teacher in the southwestern region of Shandong Province, China, in the 1980s, who devoted herself wholeheartedly to rural education with her heart set on the mountains. Under the harsh conditions of dark rooms and earth platforms, her life with the children was both poor and monotonous, yet rich and colorful. Over time, she forged deep bonds with the working people there. The work portrays their joy and happiness, pursuits and aspirations, and reenacts from one aspect the development of rural education in China at a certain stage. Additionally, through characters such as Zhou Changfa, the secretary of the Shiwu Village Party Branch, and Zhou Jianguo, a young farmer, the book showcases the honest, kind-hearted, diligent, and unsophisticated personality and spirit of the mountain villagers. It reflects the hardships of mountain people's lives and the tremendous changes brought about by reform and opening-up, praises the policies and guidelines since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and expresses the people's immense love for the party and the country. The characters in the book are realistic and full-bodied, with distinctive personalities, and the language is vivid and unsophisticated, with delicate and beautiful descriptions of psychology and the natural environment, featuring a strong regional flavor.