Seeking Spiritual Redemption Today Through the Lives of Women in Western China | World Literature Union Youth Forum (Episode 3)

Seeking Spiritual Redemption Today Through the Lives of Women in Western China | World Literature Union Youth Forum (Episode 3)

The third World Literature Union Youth Forum, jointly organized by the World Literature Union and the Xuemo Foundation, was held online on the evening of August 8, 2026. Under the theme “From Shanghai to Liangzhou: Narratives of Women’s Lives and Silent Voices Through the Eyes of Young Scholars Across Regions,” the forum featured Xu Songjian, a doctoral student at Shanghai International Studies University, and Liu Jingyuan, a master’s student at the same university. They engaged in an in-depth discussion with more than ten young scholars and doctoral students from China, Poland, Nepal, and elsewhere. The forum was coordinated by Xu Yujiao (Joy), secretary of the World Literature Union and an editor responsible for the international presentation of Xuemo’s works, and moderated by Lin Mianzhi, who hosts cultural and tourism activities for Lingnan Xuemo Academy and Wuwei Xuemo Academy. More than seventy readers watched the livestream, joining an exploration of the literary value and contemporary significance of Xuemo’s Desert Trilogy.

The Desert’s Double Metaphor: From the Struggle for Survival to a Spiritual Wasteland

Liu Jingyuan opened the forum with a presentation titled “Finding Oneself in the Desert: Redemption Through the Lives of Women in Desert Rites.” She argued that the “desert” in the novel is not simply a geographical space, but carries profound symbolic meaning. For the characters, the desert embodies the crushing weight of poverty, illness, obligations to the land, and family responsibilities, a struggle for survival in which they “cannot choose the circumstances of their birth or avoid loss.” For contemporary readers, however, the desert becomes a metaphor for spiritual predicament: in a rapidly changing society, young people face confusion amid too many choices, self-doubt under the pressure of competition, and estrangement in their relationships.

“The desert of the past tested people’s ability to survive; today’s ‘desert’ tests their inner strength,” Liu said. She saw Xuemo’s characters Lanlan and Ying’er as representing two different ways of living. Devastated by the death of her daughter, Lanlan nevertheless refuses to define herself as a victim. Through faith, she builds an independent spiritual framework and awakens to her own agency, moving from “depending on external judgments” to “affirming her own worth.” Ying’er, by contrast, represents a predicament shared by many ordinary women: she longs to be loved and acknowledged, yet loses herself by placing her entire sense of worth in other people’s judgments. “Real growth is not waiting for someone else to save you, but learning to find your own direction in the desert.” Drawing on Lanlan’s injunction to “keep walking in one direction,” Liu argued that redemption begins by confronting one’s inner life, shutting out external noise, and choosing to move forward of one’s own accord after seeing life as it is.

Asked why classics retain their vitality across different eras, Liu replied that although historical circumstances change, the fundamental questions people ask about suffering and growth remain the same. She located the value of Desert Rites in its refusal to reduce human beings to a simple “good person/bad person” binary and in its portrayal of the complexity and ambiguity of human nature. Through Lanlan’s resilience and Ying’er’s struggles, she said, readers can recognize their own spiritual predicaments and find the strength to move forward.

Desire and Human Nature at White Tiger Pass: A Symphony of Three Women’s Lives

Xu Songjian focused on White Tiger Pass, examining the paths taken by its three women characters, Lanlan, Ying’er, and Yue’er. He argued that the novel extends the concerns of Desert Rites, addressing “the suffering and anxiety of people at the margins of their time” and “the conflicts that arise in the face of desire.”

Xu paid particular attention to Lanlan’s spiritual practice in Vajravarahi Cave. He suggested that the practitioners, each harboring a private agenda, form a microcosm of society: “Wherever there are people, there are rivalries and intrigues,” and pure and impure currents naturally coexist. Lanlan’s determination to preserve inner calm amid the clamor, he said, belongs to the same spiritual tradition as Qu Yuan’s “Everyone is drunk; I alone am awake” and Tao Yuanming’s refusal to “bow for five pecks of rice.” Her choice embodies a scrupulous commitment to spiritual integrity and unwavering values under worldly pressure.

Turning to the controversial character Yue’er, Xu attributed her tragedy to an obsessive search for fulfillment outside herself. She clings to her beauty, treating it as a means of climbing the social ladder, and ultimately chooses self-immolation after illness destroys her looks. In Xu’s interpretation, this extreme act is not cowardice but an uncompromising attachment to beauty, an expression of the conviction that it is “better to be shattered jade than an intact tile.” Citing Ye Jiaying’s distinction between “seeking within” and “seeking outside,” he argued that Yue’er’s tragedy offers a warning: if self-worth rests entirely on external recognition, such as appearance or wealth, life can descend into emptiness when that support disappears. Only by building an inwardly sustained and self-sufficient spiritual world, he said, can a person attain true freedom.

For Xu, the most moving scene in White Tiger Pass is Yue’er waiting amid wind and sand for Mengzi to return. He read it alongside the image of Zhaodi waiting in the snow in Zhang Yimou’s film The Road Home, finding an intertextual resonance that conveys a pure feeling beyond physical intimacy. “Even knowing that she is terminally ill, Yue’er is willing to stand fast for love in the wind and sand. This ‘foolish devotion’ is not stupidity, but resistance to worldly calculation and the most wholehearted offering to genuine feeling,” Xu said.

Lingguan’s Departure: Individual Awakening Through a Realist Lens

During the question-and-answer session, Dr. Zhang Zhi of Guangzhou Institute of Science and Technology raised the controversial issue of Lingguan abandoning Ying’er and leaving alone. Rather than offering a simple moral judgment, Xu examined the choice in its historical and real-life contexts. He observed that, by the conventions of romantic storytelling, Lingguan should either elope with Ying’er or die with her for love. Xuemo’s treatment, however, carries greater realist force: “Life is not a fairy tale.”

Xu drew a parallel with the emotional life of Xiao Hong, a writer of China’s Republican era. Although she resisted arranged marriage throughout her life, she repeatedly experienced betrayal and abandonment in her relationships. Her tragedy, he said, was not an isolated case but reflected a predicament widely shared by women seeking independence within the old social order. Lingguan’s departure expresses an individual awakening: he refuses to remain bound by village conventions, while his departure also suggests an escape from the pressures of reality. Citing Xuemo’s observation that “when the heart becomes clear, the way opens,” Xu emphasized that personal choices are not absolutely right or wrong. What matters is whether one “understands one’s own heart.” If Lingguan can recognize his limitations and accept the responsibilities that come with them, that would show the deepest respect for life.

Tong Yuying, who holds a master’s degree from the University of Warsaw in Poland, posed a question from a cross-cultural perspective: “How does the ‘desert’ faced by young people today differ from that faced by the characters in the book?” Liu replied that the older generation’s “desert” was a struggle to survive material deprivation, whereas today’s young people confront spiritual emptiness beneath an appearance of prosperity. The former had to endure famine and poverty; the latter must endure anxiety and uncertainty. What remains unchanged is the essence of endurance: staying true to one’s original convictions. Whatever the era, she said, only by looking inward can people find a way through their own “desert.”

The Vitality of Classics: A Cultural Resonance That Reaches Beyond the Page

In her closing remarks, moderator Lin Mianzhi noted that Xuemo’s Desert Trilogy took twenty years to complete and had been hailed by publishers as “a substantial literary monument.” Rooted in the rural life of western China, the works also engage with questions shared across humanity: suffering, desire, redemption, and love. Lin located the value of classics precisely in this spiritual resonance across regions and eras.

As the forum’s theme suggested, the distance “from Shanghai to Liangzhou” is more than a geographical crossing. It opens a spiritual dialogue between a bustling metropolis and a countryside rich in history and experience. When young scholars at Shanghai International Studies University bring contemporary academic perspectives to women’s lives on the land of Liangzhou, and when scholars in Poland examine what human beings share across cultures, the “desert” in Xuemo’s writing ceases to belong only to one corner of western China. It becomes a spiritual image through which readers in different places can recognize their own circumstances. There, everyone may find a “desert” of their own and reflect on how to cross it.

The World Literature Union Youth Forum will continue to focus on contemporary readings of Chinese and international literary classics. The fourth session is scheduled for the following week.