Several months ago I listened to an audio book - Lisa See's "Dreams of Joy".
This is the second of her books I have listened to. The other was "Peony in Love". Honestly, I'm not a big fan of Asian culture. I've never felt inclined to study it or to visit there. However, I really enjoy these books. They, seemingly, weave culture into the stories - I assume it is a true picture of the culture but have no frame of reference.
I was really intrigued by their reverence for "lettered paper". At first I thought the characters were referring to fancy stationary. But, apparently, they meant paper that had been written on. The ancient tradition had people working as paper collectors who would collect any paper with writing on it. Those collections would then be burned with the belief that the words would be re-cycled through the eco-system to inspire other writers. Obviously, to a foreigner, it sounds silly. But, to me as an author it also sounds beautiful.
No comments:
Post a Comment