How It Is Like to Live on A Mountain Alone | presented in the Sir Kenneth Clark Style

Hello, hello. My name is Haijun. I'm recording this video probably at least a few thousand miles away from you. In fact, I'm living in my family country house in the remote mountainous area of Hunan province, southern China. Behind me is the ancient house first built by my great grandfather around 100 years ago and then renovated in 2019 by my family. At the moment, I'm living here together with my wife and with the company of my dog and two cats. The house is located halfway on the southern slope of this enormous mountain called Chuan Tianlin, translated into English as the mountain that breaks the sky. As you can see, we are surrounded by forests and clouds high up here, quite a bit secluded from anywhere we could call civilization. In this video, and perhaps in the next one, I'm going to show you how curiously life could go on here. Subjects such as where to get water, electricity, and the internet connection, what do we eat, how to commute to the outside world, and ultimately, what on earth am I doing here every day? I could imagine 100 years ago when my great grandfather, then still a young man, first came up with this idea of moving up to this location, he must have done a bit of feasibility study. And the primary question faced by any pioneer looking to relocate to a virgin land is always whether or not water is available. I'd imagine he'd spend a day or two searching around this area and finally found a source about 100 meters down this hill. The way to the water source is rusty today, but we could still find how meticulously my ancient relatives had worked on the steps on which they would tread multiple times a day. Under these oak trees, this is where my great grandfather discovered water source. Therefore, he had built two wells to hold water. The smaller one on upper stream was devised to hold drinking water, which he would scoop up with these wooden buckets and carry them all the way uphill back home. The slightly larger one is where all the washing took place. My great grandmother and other female members of the family would carry their laundry down and spend an hour or two doing all the washing here. The gigantic oak tree up there might have taken more than 100 years to grow into that size. That's, I believe, I'm looking at the same tree now as those ladies would 100 years ago. These black pipes over there are for water pumping. Developed by my father's generation and modern technology, my great grandfather could hardly have dreamed to be possible in his time. Thanks to the water pump, I no longer need the buckets to carry water. The pump worked so well until early this year when I started to realize how brutal and how environmentally unfriendly this idea was for water to be pumped all the way uphill. Could there be another water source somewhere higher than the house? Yes, there was. According to memories of the elders, another one long deserted should be dormant in the depth of the bamboo forest high up the mountain. So we summoned the excavator and did quite a bit of digging. Finally, the spring was rediscovered and the water unleashed fresh and sweet. Now I have running water 24-7 reaching the kitchen and bathrooms of my house merely by means of gravity. By the end of 1990s, when the China state grid was launching their nationwide plan of running power cable to every rural village, we still had about 10 households on this mountain. Through the years, all of our neighbors have moved away, leaving their ancestry homes fallen apart onto the ground to become worm's food, as Shakespeare would have put it. These are the remains of the house left by a very dear neighbor. I still remember vividly how we were kids playing under this roof. But now no more. There is just one family still holding up to their ancient home on this mountain. That's us. As a result, the China state grid had their cable running far from the civilization down the mountain all the way up until here, only to serve me. Although I do pay my electricity bills, well, call it $20 a month, I can't help but feel terribly sorry for the state grid, particularly when in summer and winter they have to send a handful of men cutting trees and bamboos along the cables just to make sure the route is clear so that I shall not be cut out of the civilization. Serving the people is their company motto indeed.