The beauty of the sky is the sun, moon, and stars; The beauty of the mountains is wild fruits and forests; The beauty of a country lies in its people.

- Mongolian proverb

Like every ordinary person in this world, I have asked countless times about the blue sky and white clouds, mountains and rivers, countless times about my parents, relatives and friends, and countless times about myself, who am I? Where am I from? Where am I going?

The blue sky is far and deep, the white clouds are fluttering, the mountains are silent for a long time, the river is silent, the fathers want to stop talking, and relatives and friends are flickering.

With these questions and full of curiosity, in late April 2018, my sister and brother drove thousands of miles from the foot of the Tianshan Mountains and the shore of the Bohai Sea to Qinghai and Gansu respectively, facing the warm and bright spring breeze, and starting our long-planned journey to find our roots.

Standing on the top of the Qilian Mountains on the border of Qinghai and Gansu provinces, we first saw the Yellow River, the rolling mother river, and then the mountainous Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu Province, which was the hometown of my grandfather and father. Looking to the west, there is Xunhua Salar Autonomous County, Haidong City, Qinghai Province, which is my grandmother's hometown; Looking to the north, over the towering Lazhi Mountain, there is Ledu District in Haidong City, Qinghai Province, which is the hometown of my grandfather and grandmother.

Standing on the land where our ancestors once lived, looking around, everything is so strange and so kind; Looking back on the past, we seem to see our ancestors working hard in the fields, driving mules and horses on the high slopes of the loess, fleeing in the deep mountains and old mountains, praying sincerely in the high temples, teaching poetry and books in the poor mountains and remote mountain villages, and gaining a new life under the leadership of the revolutionary vanguard......

When it comes to the complicated history of our family, we must calm the excitement in our hearts, and with great reverence for our ancestors, we must gently turn over the dusty history, starting from the distant years, from the distant Central Asia.

Central Asia, or Central Asia, roughly encompasses the northeastern regions of present-day China, including Xinjiang, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Iran.

This is a region of wealth and barrenness, old and new, war and peace, hustle and bustle, love and hate, which will inevitably be written in the history of China, and it is also an important content that cannot be missed in the history of Asia and the world.

The terrain of this area of about 6 million square kilometers is complex and diverse. It has the majestic Pamir Plateau, the vast Kazakh steppe and the Turan Plain, the world-famous Tianshan Mountains, the Kunlun Mountains, the Hindu Kush Mountains, the Alai Mountains, more than 1,800 kilometers of the Tarim River, 2,400 kilometers of the Amu Darya, 3,000 kilometers of the Syr Darya, 1,400 kilometers of the Ili River, and many inland rivers such as the Zeravshan River, the Karatezhan River, the Talas River, the Chu River, the Aral Sea, the Lake Eidarkul, the Balkhash Lake, the Issyk-Kul Lake, the Caspian Sea, etc., the Karakum Desert, The Kizilkum Desert, with the Ferghana Basin, has a string of oases embedded in the middle of the desert.

Its climate is a typical continental climate of temperate desert and steppe, with scarce rain and extremely dry; Plenty of sunlight and high evaporation; The temperature changes drastically. In many places, there can be a difference of 20-30°C between the maximum temperature during the day and the minimum temperature at night.

It has such historical cities as Urgench, Samarkand, Bukhara, Fergana, Tashkent, Andijan, Mare, Kashgar, Khujand, Kokand, Khiva, Talas, etc.

Historically, the Tocharians, the Aryans, the Eastern Iranians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Huns, the Yueshi, the Wusun, the Han, the Qiang, the Badas, the Turks, the Oghus, the Tibetans, the Arabs, the Uighurs, the Khitans, the Saras, the Mongols, the Turkmens, the Uyghurs, the Tajiks, the Uzbeks, the Kazakhs, the Kyrgyz, the Pashtuns, the Hazaras, the Manchurians, the Dungans, the Russians have either rushed by, or staged a wonderful epic drama. Or is painting a magnificent picture of today.

It once belonged in whole or in part to the mighty Persian Empire, Macedonian Empire, Seleucid Empire, Xiongnu Empire, Han Empire, Sassanid Empire, Turkic Empire, Tang Empire, Arab Empire, Samanid Empire, Mongol Empire, Safavid Empire, Qing Empire, Russian Empire, Persian Kingdom, Iranian Kingdom and the Soviet Union.

It was founded the Khamju, Sogdian, Bactria and Usun, Bactria Empire, Kushan Empire, Qarakhanid Dynasty, Ghazni Dynasty, Seljuk Empire, Gur Dynasty, Khorezm Empire, Chagatai Khanate, Ilkhanate, Eastern Chagatai Khanate, Timur Empire, Turkmen Kingdom, Black Sheep Dynasty, Aries Dynasty, Kazakh Khanate, Uzbek Khanate, Yarkand Khanate, Warat Khanate, Bukhara Khanate, Khiva Khanate, Kokand Khanate, Kingdom of Afghanistan and many other countries today.

Ancient Greek civilization, Persian civilization, ancient Indian civilization, Chinese civilization, Arab civilization and European civilization met here unexpectedly; Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Manichaeism, Buddhism, Taoism, Shamanism, Islam, and Orthodox Christianity flourished here. At first, they confronted each other, trying to suppress and neutralize each other, but later they influenced each other and merged with each other.

Most of the string music and many folk dances in China today come from Central Asian peoples; Fruits such as grapes and pomegranates, which have long been popular, also originated in Central Asia; Many vegetables such as potatoes, alfalfa, melons, eggplants, tomatoes, cabbage, etc., come from Central Asia; There are also wine, horses, spices, clothing, and countless other supplies; Since the Han and Tang dynasties, metallurgical iron-making, knife-making, weapons technology and so on are numerous. China's silk, porcelain, textile technology, embroidery, wooden machinery and other crafts, as well as countless advanced and practical technologies such as papermaking, printing, gunpowder, and astronomy, were also transmitted to the West through Central Asia and to the world.

It was on this land that my ancestors were born, raised, lived, multiplied, and then moved from place to place, eventually reaching the far east......

Don't ask me where I'm from,

My hometown is far away.

Why wander, wander far away, wander.

For the birds that fly in the sky,

For the sake of the creek that flows lightly in the mountains,

For the sake of the wide grasslands,

Wandering far away, wandering.

And also, and also,

For the olive tree in the dream, the olive tree,

Don't ask me where I'm from,

My hometown is far away......