​About the Book Launch

​What is it like to radically change your life? Writer Alec Ash meets the Chinese who are doing just this, “reverse migrating” from the bustling cities to the countryside of southwest China in Dali, Yunnan province — and joins them himself in the quest to “lie flat” in “Dalifornia.” The Mountains Are High (Scribe, February 2024) is a reported memoir of a year living in a quiet mountain village in Dali in 2020, after leaving the honk and buzz of Beijing. Originally home to the Bai people, Dali has become a richly diverse community of internal migrants of all ages and backgrounds, disillusioned with China's high-pressure urban life (and authoritarian politics), instead seeking personal freedoms and alternative ways of being, be it in spirituality, environmentalism, psychedelic raves or just the simple life – hiding away from the state, and from modernity, where "the mountains are high, the emperor far away." It is into this community that Ash embeds himself, charting his first year of life in Dali among these fascinating neighbours, from hippies to dissidents, lucid dreamers to Buddhist monks. The book delves into the social trends of tangping (lying flat), how life priorities have shifted for so many Chinese post-Covid, and the many meanings of freedom.

​你有没有想过，彻底改变自己的生活？ 作家 Alec Ash 在2020年离开喧嚣的北京，来到云南大理的一座宁静山村，住了整整一年。他的新书《大理一年》（Scribe出版，2024年2月）记录了这段真实的"反向移民"之旅。 大理，这片本属白族的土地，如今聚集了来自五湖四海的"逃离者"：他们厌倦了内卷与高压，选择躺平、出走，在这里寻找另一种活法：修行、环保、迷幻派对，或只是简简单单地过日子。山高皇帝远，此处自有天地宽。

​ 书中作者深入这个多元社群，结识嬉皮士、异见者、清醒梦修行者与佛教僧侣，也探讨了"躺平"思潮、后疫情时代中国人生活观的转变，以及"自由"二字的千种含义。

​这次读书分享对谈将由播客《不合时宜》主播王磬主持。

​🎙️《不合时宜》主页

​About the Author

​Alec Ash is a writer and editor focused on China, where he lived from 2008–2022. He is a Senior Fellow at Asia Society in New York, where he edits China Books Review. He is the author of Wish Lanterns (Picador, 2016, a BBC Book of the Week) about the lives of young Chinese people, and The Mountains Are High (Scribe, 2024, a NPR Book of the Year), a memoir about city escapees moving to rural China. Born in England, Ash studied English literature at Oxford University. He has written for The New York Review of Books, The Atlantic and elsewhere, and was a stringer for The Economist and The Sunday Times of London. He was editor of the China Channel at Los Angeles Review of Books, contributing author to the book of reportage Chinese Characters, and co-editor of the anthology While We’re Here.

​Alec Ash 是一位专注于中国议题的作家与编辑，曾在中国生活长达十四年（2008–2022）。现为纽约亚洲协会高级研究员，并担任《中国书评》（China Books Review）编辑。 他著有Wish Lanterns（Picador，2016年，BBC每周选书），记录中国年轻一代的生命故事；以及The Mountains Are High（Scribe，2024年，NPR年度好书），讲述从城市出走、归隐中国乡村的人们。 Ash 生于英国，毕业于牛津大学英国文学专业。他的文章见于《纽约书评》《大西洋月刊》等知名媒体，曾为《经济学人》及《星期日泰晤士报》担任驻华记者。他还曾任《洛杉矶书评》"中国频道"主编，参与纪实文学合集《中国众生相》（Chinese Characters）的写作，并联合 主编文集《当我们还在这里》（While We're Here）。

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