Lyu Yida, Fuyun, Altay
This year, Liqiu — the “Beginning of Autumn” in the traditional Chinese calendar, fell on the 14th of the intercalary June, a configuration that recurs only once every sixty years according to the sexagenary cycle. Such a “late Liqiu” often signals that high temperatures may persist longer than usual.
Yet in Fuyun, a small county in Altay, Xinjiang, the night was cool and clear.
“I’ll leave you here at the gate. Yuqi, would you let them in? We’re heading up to the rescue center once more,” said Muzi, then she stepped on it and roared off up the slope with Ma Chi. It was already half past eleven at night. Though Xinjiang time runs two hours behind the rest of China, the sky had long been pitched dark.
Home to 466 species of wildlife, including 74 under national protection, Altay shelters some of China’s most treasured fauna. Guarding them silently is a group of young conservationists. Since its founding in 2018, the Altay Nature Conservation Association (ANCA), run almost entirely by those born in the 1990s and 2000s, has dedicated itself to rescuing and rehabilitating injured wild animals. Their work extends to revegetating the Altay Mountains and the Ulungur River Basin, restoring critical habitat for over 100 species, and establishing a professional wildlife rescue center. Muzi directs the Wildlife Rescue Center, and Ma Chi is a seasoned member of their team. Nights like this — restless, purposeful — are woven into the very fabric of life here.
Yuqi is a new friend of mine, also from Jilin, my hometown. She recently graduated from the Kunming Institute of Zoology and chose to “station” herself in this rather “remote” place. Everyone here is, in some way, an idealist — and I had to ask about hers. In the shadow of the newly built “Beaver Canteen” dormitory, she spoke with gentle solemnity: “I feel wildlife literacy in China remains deeply underserved. While general education has greatly improved, when it comes to wild animals, people often have the heart to care — but not the knowledge to act. What I want is simple: to help everyone form a basic understanding of the real world we actually inhabit.” Her words left me humbled. Besides these friends, I seemed almost “unenlightened.” What exactly Yuqi meant by the “real world”, I only grasped dimly in that moment.
Over the days that followed, Muzi and the founder of ANCA, Wenwen, share stories at the wildlife rescue center. They meticulously care for beings beyond themselves, beyond humans. Merely hearing them speak evoked vivid images of the struggles they had weathered and the obstacles they still faced. Like many NGOs now in China, they operate with scarce platforms and resources, constrained at every turn.
Wenwen spoke of her dream to set an example for those groups operating on annual budgets as modest as 200,000 RMB, to light a path for those who strive to do good. I turned that number over in my head, tried to imagine how they could survive on so little, and found myself at a loss. Sometimes I wonder: What is it about this world that makes it worth such devotion?
Then I saw the ibex, sure-footed on near-vertical cliffs; the marmot, lazily sunbathing by the pasture path, rubbing its belly; the snow leopard that, though it didn’t make an appearance, left behind a few cute droppings and a playful cameo on the infrared camera; and oh, the cow that, after being accidentally bumped by our car and sending our license plate flying, picked itself up quickly and went back to grazing as if to calm its nerves. Vivid, vibrant — a real world, beyond human society.
Many young people in the 21st century live in a rapidly changing limbo where virtual and real boundaries blur. They are swept along by uncertainty, proclaiming online their intent to navigate life with cynicism and detachment. But in Fuyun, beneath the quiet flow of the Irtysh River, the young find a different kind of resolve. Take Zoe, whom I met earlier last year, when she had just joined the association, is only 26 now. When she spoke to me about her work over the past year, her face lit with a subtle happiness and fulfillment. “You know,” she told me, “The world is better than you think.”
Two days after the Liqiu, on the night of the full moon, we witnessed a routine event at the rescue center: the release of a recovered golden eagle. In the eagle’s transport box, a newborn mouse, still attached to its umbilical cord, had hitched a ride. I placed it in my palm — it squirmed, stretching its tiny claws, eyes unopened, mouth urgently nuzzling the wrinkles of my hand, searching for milk. I eventually left it on a pile of leaves in the yard. When I returned that evening, it was gone — likely taken by a snake, as Muzi had said, in under twenty minutes. It saddened me to think it died without ever tasting its mother’s milk, but then I thought: at least it breathed the fresh air from the “real world”, if only for a moment.
Walking back from the yard to the dorm, I looked up at the big, round moon. Astrology and mysticism often say wishes made on the full moon can come true. And so, facing the moon, my wish rose instantly to my lips:
May every being that ever existed, and every person who strives for life — whether their own, another’s, or that of any living creature — truly feel — if only for one fleeting moment — the profound happiness that life can bring.
