The "Land of Peach Blossoms" is a very important symbol in the cultural environment and history of China, that represents the ideal of the ancient Chinese literati to reside in seclusion in escape of reality. This "residence in seclusion" idea appeared first in the Eastern Jin Dynasty in Tao Yuan Ming’s The Tale of The Peach Blossom Colony 1. It is a place that exists neither in the past nor in the present, but in the hearts of the ancient Chinese literati’s as a place of spiritual refuge. It represents the ancient people’s criticism on reality and their detestation of the world. As modern society rapidly develops, materialism and consumerism gradually corrodes and takes over the world of spirituality, whereas the same concrete buildings and constructions keep replacing the natural green forests. With the human moral standards degraded and corroded by materialistic desires, I believe that this “Land of Peach Blossoms” exists just the same in the subconsciousness of those city-dwellers today who are still in touch with their conscience.
I have chosen this ancient ideal of a spiritual world, to mark the beginning of my series The Peach Blossom Colony. I have chosen to place the ancient literati dressed in plain clothes into an illusional and reconstructed setting based on modern reality, I have consciously obscured the time period, space, and cultural boundaries. In this setting the ancient literati figure is not only a simple cultural element, but a symbolic carrier of spirituality.
Yang Yongliang.
