Video Recording: A Daughter's Return to the Motherland
Photo /Video Storytelling of Spring's Journey to Ecovillages in China
Dear friends
Last Friday (Feb 14), a group of us gathered on zoom where I shared photo/video storytelling of my recent 75-day trip in China with a focus on the emerging culture of ecovillage. I am sharing the video recording of the zoom event at the end of this post.
Some of the background of the journey
When China’s industrialization accelerated some forty years ago, much of its indigenous wisdom and traditional cultural heritage was pushed underground. Practices such as Chinese medicine were labeled “unscientific,” and ancestral ways of knowing—especially those carried through embodied, oral, and feminine lineages—were largely erased from public life.
In the past five years, however, a quiet resurgence has been taking place. Across China, people have begun reclaiming cultural roots and re-engaging ancient wisdom through contemporary forms.
For the past two decades, my own work has been devoted to reimagining the I Ching, an ancient Chinese oracle, through an integration of Taoist teachings and modern Western philosophy, infused with embodied play and artistic sensibility. In 2019, I published The Resonance Code. In 2020, during the pandemic, I was invited to teach this work in China via Zoom.
This journey marked the first time I met, in person, the Chinese community that has grown around The Resonance Code since then. After five years of being woven into one another’s lives through screens, we finally stood together on the same land.
This journey marked the first time I met, in person, the Chinese community that has grown around The Resonance Code since then. After five years of being woven into one another’s lives through screens, we finally stood together on the same land.
I also returned to the village where my father was born and met many relatives on his side of the family for the first time. Many of them live near the bottom of the social hierarchy, having built the infrastructure of modern development with their own hands. I visited our ancestral graves and offered the laminated cover of my book to my grandparents. My grandmother belonged to one of the last generations of women with bound feet. She never learned to read or write.
Standing there, I am embracing the full arc of inheritance—what was silenced, what endured, and what is now asking to be carried forward in new form.
Video Recording of the Storytelling
There are three segments of the storytelling, interspersed with people’s questions and discussions.
First segment: 0 - 45 min, Qixi Village of Guangdong Province, 广东旗溪村
Second segment: 45 min - 95 min, Liangzhu Village of Zhejiang Province, 浙江良渚文化村
Third segment: 95 min - the end, Xichong Village of Sichuan Province, my father’s ancestral village, 四川西充县