Throughout Chinese history, there have always been people who preferred
to spend their lives in the mountains, getting by on less, sleeping
under thatch, wearing old clothes, working the higher slopes, not
talking much, writing even less-maybe a few poems, a recipe or two.
Out of touch with the times but not with the seasons, they cultivated
roots of the spirit, trading flatland dust for mountain mist. Distant
and insignificant, they were the most respected men and women in
the world's oldest society.
No explanation has ever