When the Starry Sky Begins to Listen — A German Fairy Tale's Encounter with Chinese Readers

When I first opened Mingxin and the Star Weaver, I thought I would be reading a fairy tale from Germany.

But after finishing it, I felt that this description was no longer sufficient.

Germany is indeed rich in fairy tales.

Forests, light, trees, and song—they seem to naturally belong to that land. Since the Brothers Grimm, German literature has always been willing to believe: deep within the world lies an order, and if one is patient enough, they can slowly draw near to it.

Chinese literature, however, often sets out from a different place.

We ask less about who lives in the forest, and inquire more about how humans coexist with heaven and earth. How does one become their true self? And why does a person's heart stray from its original path?

Therefore, when I read about Mingxin leaving home carrying a bag of "Question Stones," I suddenly felt she wasn't walking into a German forest.

She was more like walking into the heart of every person.

Truly excellent literature always accomplishes a difficult task: it first remains loyal to its own soil, and only then steps out into the world.

Mingxin and the Star Weaver does not attempt to pander to the East, nor does it artificially fabricate exoticism. It retains the unique breath of a German fairy tale—that quiet, restrained rhythm carrying the moist scent of the forest. Yet precisely because it is so honest, it possesses a power that transcends culture.

In it, I saw a lot of China.

Not Chinese architecture.

Not Chinese clothing.

And certainly not deliberately inserted cultural symbols.

Rather, a way of thinking deeply familiar to the Chinese people.

Time in the Palm of the Hand

The Chinese are not afraid of stones.

In the parks of Beijing at dawn, you can always see the elderly strolling slowly. Some carry birdcages, some practice Tai Chi, and others do nothing at all but slowly rotate two meditation walnuts in the palm of their hands. The walnuts gently clink against each other, making the softest of sounds. To an onlooker, it might just seem like killing time.

But they know that time is not being killed.

Time is staying in their palms.

An ordinary walnut, through decades of fondling, will gradually develop a warm, jade-like luster; an ordinary stone, too, will gain an irreplaceable weight because someone has repeatedly held it in their hand.

So, when I saw Mingxin placing her "Question Stones" one by one into her backpack, I didn't feel it was just a fairy tale setting.

What came to mind was the long-held Chinese belief: the things truly worth treasuring are not necessarily expensive; they are treasured because they accompanied us along a stretch of road that cannot be replaced.

What Mingxin was collecting was not just stones.

She was collecting questions that hadn't yet grown up.

Silence Endures Longer Than Answers

Traditional Chinese painting values "leaving blank space" (Liubai).

Truly good blank space is not emptiness, but rather leaving a place for the viewer to enter the picture.

The ancient Chinese zither, the Guqin, is the same.

Teachers often say that what is truly important is not the sound made when a string is pressed, but what is left in the room after the sound ends.

Mingxin and the Star Weaver possesses this exact temperament.

It is in no rush to answer questions.

It even tells us time and time again: truly important questions inherently have no immediate answers.

And so, I increasingly feel that this book is not actually about the starry sky.

It is about the almost invisible distance between humans and the world.

My Favorite Page

If someone asked me which scene in the entire book is my favorite, I wouldn't choose the moment the sky splits open.

That is, of course, breathtaking.

Nor would I choose the grand metaphors concerning the Star Weavers.

What truly left an unforgettable impression on me is a distinctly quiet scene.

Weiyun, the girl whose palm could no longer directly touch the threads of light, didn't keep trying to grab them.

She merely placed her hand gently there, separated by the air.

Then, the silk threads began to vibrate.

When I first read this, I stopped.

For some reason, I suddenly thought of the Chinese tea ceremony.

In the Chinese tea ceremony, someone who truly understands tea doesn't rush to pour the water into the cup.

They wait first.

Wait for the teapot to wake up.

Wait for the tea leaves to wake up.

Wait for their own heart to slowly wake up as well.

Tea doesn't become more fragrant out of impatience.

Some things don't arrive faster just because you exert more force.

Often, we think we can only get closer to a beam of light by reaching out our hands.

Reading this, I suddenly realized that true closeness is not about grabbing.

It is learning to wait, so that the light willingly comes to your side.

I think this is also the gentlest sentence in the book.

Even though the author never directly wrote it down.

The German Forest and the Chinese Bamboo Grove

Later, I kept thinking about which Chinese works this reminded me of.

At first, I thought of the ancient philosopher Zhuangzi.

Not because the stories are similar.

But because both believe that a true question will outlive a beautiful answer.

Zhuangzi never told us how we ought to live.

He simply makes us doubt continually: Have we prematurely turned too many living things into static answers?

Mingxin and the Star Weaver does the same.

It cherishes the question, perhaps even more than the conclusion.

Later, I thought of the classic epic Dream of the Red Chamber.

Many people hearing this name for the first time might think it's just a novel about the rise and fall of a family.

It actually isn't.

The true greatness of Dream of the Red Chamber lies in its steadfast belief: a person's growth is not about gaining more, but about becoming increasingly capable of bearing weight.

Bearing the weight of your own choices.

Bearing your own love.

Bearing your own mistakes.

Bearing the things from which there is no turning back.

The same is true for Mingxin.

She doesn't become a hero just by asking a question.

What truly makes her grow is her later willingness to bear the consequences brought about by her questions.

Literature today sometimes finds it too easy to praise bravery.

Yet it rarely praises responsibility.

And responsibility is often far more difficult than bravery.

If Zhuangzi teaches us how to question freely, and Dream of the Red Chamber teaches us how to grow with weight, then Mingxin and the Star Weaver stands gently between the two.

Every question is like a silk thread.

Before you pull it, first think about who else it is connected to.

A Bridge, Not a Mirror

Many foreign friends ask me, if they could only read a few works of Chinese literature, what should they read.

I often suggest three.

Zhuangzi.

Dream of the Red Chamber.

And the gentle novella Border Town.

One teaches us to doubt.

One teaches us to bear responsibility.

One teaches us to be gentle.

After reading Mingxin and the Star Weaver, I suddenly realized that if one day I wanted to introduce a new German work to young Chinese readers, I might place it right beside these three.

Not because it looks like them.

But because it is willing to discuss the exact same questions with them.

Truly great literature never erases the differences between cultures.

It allows the differences to remain.

And then, it allows people from different countries to fall silent together before the same question.

I think this is the most precious thing about this book.

It doesn't write Germany as China.

Nor does it write China as Germany.

It just quietly builds a bridge.

At one end of the bridge is the forest.

At the other end is the bamboo grove.

And in the middle of the bridge, everyone is carrying their own bag of Question Stones, looking up at the exact same starry sky.

Lingering Charm

When Chinese people brew tea, the first steep is often not rushed to be drunk.

Some say it is to wash the tea.

But seasoned tea drinkers know that what matters more is waiting.

Waiting for the leaves to unfurl.

Waiting for the water temperature to be just right.

Waiting for one's own heart to slowly quiet down.

After you finish reading it, Mingxin and the Star Weaver is exactly this kind of book.

Its true flavor is not found on the last page.

Rather, it's in the days after you've closed the book.

You will suddenly remember a sentence, a gesture, a stone, a thread of silk left unpulled.

That is when you realize, this book is actually still continuing to weave.

Where the Void Remains, Fullness Can Arise

A Chinese poet and essayist, after reading the voices of the world

When I closed the final page, I felt no urge to speak a word of praise.

We Chinese do not like to judge a book too quickly.

A mountain must be walked to its end, water must be gazed at to its horizon, a person must come to stillness – only then do the words of a book slowly begin to grow within us.

So I poured myself a cup of tea.

I waited until the fragrance of the leaves had slowly unfolded. Only then did I realise that I had not read dozens of essays, but had witnessed a slow encounter.

The West likes to compare civilisation to a building.

We Chinese, however, see it more as a river.

A building can be designed.

A river merely follows its own current.

Once a building is complete, it ceases to change.

A river is different.

It gathers along the way, it divides, it transforms itself and the land through which it flows.

No single drop of water could still claim to be the same as when it set out.

And yet we all know: it is still the same river.

As I read these essays, it was precisely this river that came to mind.

A German story flowed through different peoples, languages and memories.

When it appeared before our eyes again, it was no longer the same.

Yet it had never departed from itself.

This is not a contradiction.

The Yijing – the Book of Changes – teaches us:

« When it reaches its end, it transforms;
transformed, it finds its passage;
having found its passage, it endures. »

Many European friends tell us: it is the crack that lets light into the world.

That is beautiful.

We Chinese, however, prefer to say:

A thing does not endure because it has no cracks.

But because it always keeps within itself the power to grow.

The bamboo pushes forth new nodes every year.

The tree adds a new ring to its trunk every year.

The river is never the same as it was yesterday.

Heaven and earth have never ceased to transform.

Transformation is therefore not a danger.

Stillness – that is the danger.

This, I think, is what impressed me most about this work.

It does not demand that the world remain faithful to it.

It allows the world to continue completing it.

This is not surrender.

This is greatness.

This is also a deep, silent confidence.

Laozi says:

« Great perfection seems imperfect;
yet its usefulness is never exhausted. »

What is truly perfect never closes itself so tightly that no space remains.

Precisely because it is not entirely filled, it can still welcome those who come after.

The more I read these essays from around the world, the more I understood that none of their authors had truly explained Liora and the Star Weaver.

They had simply continued to weave.

Each people added its own thread.

Different colour.

Different texture.

Different breath.

Yet when I stepped back to survey the whole fabric, I discovered that these differences had not weakened one another.

On the contrary, they had given the pattern a life it had not possessed before.

Chinese painting knows a technique we call 留白 – leaving blank, leaving space, leaving the void.

Beginners often do not understand it.

They think the empty spaces are parts the painter left unfinished.

Only later do they come to understand.

True landscapes of mountains and waters are never entirely filled in.

The clouds must be completed by the paper itself.

The wind must be completed by the one who looks.

The distance must be completed by the imagination.

A painting is not born only from what is painted.

It lives half from what is left in reserve.

Perhaps this is why we Chinese, when we encounter these essays, do not see only a story.

We see a 化 – a transformation.

The Chinese language has a word deeper than "change".

It is called "化" (hua).

The Zhongyong – the Doctrine of the Mean – says: "Thus one may assist the transforming and nourishing process of heaven and earth."

"化" is not overthrow.

Not replacement.

Not conquest.

It is a seed meeting spring.

It is a raindrop entering the earth.

No noise, no proclamation.

And yet, without anyone noticing, all things become a new self.

That is why what seems truly great about this project is not how many languages it encompasses.

But that it never made language the goal.

Language is only the bridge.

What truly reaches the other shore is the human heart.

When I read the Japanese essay, I saw "物哀" (mono no aware) – the poignant beauty of impermanence.

When I read the Arabic essay, I saw how the starry sky still covers the hearts of people today.

When I read the French essay, I heard how thoughts illuminate one another.

When I read the German essay, I felt how personality is forever in the process of becoming.

When I read the English essay, it seemed to me as if I were sitting on a long bench, patiently waiting for a sentence to ripen of its own accord.

They are all different from one another.

Precisely because they are different, no single voice can explain this work alone.

In the Lunyu – the Analects of Confucius – there is a very simple saying:

« The noble person is harmonious, but not uniform. »

In my youth, I thought this meant only that people should tolerate one another.

Later, as I grew older, I gradually understood.

What truly matters is not the "non-uniform".

It is the "harmonious".

Harmony is not identity.

It is when five flavours blend that a delicious dish appears.

It is when five notes accord that music is born.

Between heaven and earth, never has a single colour alone brought forth spring.

So I looked again at the Star Weaver.

And suddenly it seemed to me that what was essential about him was not the "weaving".

It was the "waiting".

He was willing to wait.

To wait for one star to find another.

To wait for one thread to meet another.

To wait for one people to see its own reflection in another.

We Chinese believe that the greatest power of heaven and earth is not in a hurry.

The four seasons have never rushed the flowers to bloom.

The sun has never commanded the river to flow to the sea.

What is truly deep knows how to wait.

What moved me most about these essays is therefore not what they say.

But that none of them hurried to say everything.

Every essay left a little of what it might have said in reserve.

Like the last lingering note of an old qin zither.

The sound has faded.

Yet the valley still echoes.

The words end, but the meaning is not exhausted.
The ink is spent, but the mountains and waters are not finished.
What truly reaches the reader's heart
is not always the written characters,
but the silence between the words.

We Chinese have another old saying:

« The greatest sound is barely audible.
The greatest form is without form. »

In my youth, I believed that a great work must be able to answer all questions.

The more I read, however, the more I came to understand.

Truly great works do not rush to answer.

They slowly transform the one who asks.

When the person changes, the answers change too.

Perhaps this is the common wisdom I have gathered from the whole world.

Germany teaches us: personality is perfected in perpetual becoming.

France teaches us: relationship is vaster than any definition.

England teaches us: dialogue itself is part of civilisation.

And the East would perhaps like to add one more word.

Things endure not because they are always right.

But because they are willing to complete one another.

As I read, I remembered a story from the Zhuangzi.

The Spirit of the Northern Sea questions the Spirit of the Yellow River.

When the Spirit of the Yellow River saw the sea for the first time, he understood that all he had once thought vast was merely a riverbed.

Zhuangzi does not mock the Spirit of the Yellow River.

He simply tells us:

True greatness does not humiliate what is small.

It only gently widens the gaze of the one who beholds it.

This, it seems to me, is what these essays have done for me.

They have not argued about who is closer to the truth.

They have only kept widening the horizon of what truth can be.

This is a profoundly Eastern wisdom.

For us Chinese, the "Way" (Dao) is never a single path.

It resembles rather the direction in which the river flows.

The rhythm in which spring awakens.

The order in which the moon waxes and wanes.

It cannot be manufactured.

It can only be experienced.

That is why it seems to me that what Liora and the Star Weaver truly weaves is not stars.

It is the "tendency" (势 – shi).

A single star is not yet a night sky.

A single thread is not yet a fabric.

A single people is not yet all of humanity.

Yet when they follow and reflect one another, a larger order naturally emerges.

This order does not come from command.

It does not come from uniformity.

It comes from all things being in their place and yet complementing one another.

The ancient Chinese called this state "和" – harmony.

Not the absence of differences.

But differences having finally found a way to breathe together.

Uniformity soon wearies.
Harmony is the source of inexhaustible life.

So I looked again at all these words from around the world.

They were like forty-nine streams.

None was willing to give up its source.

None tried to flood the bed of another.

They simply flowed, slowly and steadily, towards the same sea.

That moved me especially.

The world today likes to ask who influenced whom.

Who learned from whom.

Who changed whom.

But in the eyes of the Chinese, the spring breeze never says that it taught the flowers to bloom.

The sun does not claim to have created the colours of autumn.

What truly matters is never who completed whom.

But who is willing to become for the other the condition of growth.

These essays therefore reminded me less of a spread of cultures.

Than of a symbiosis of cultures.

Symbiosis does not mean one stands at the centre.

Nor that one stands at the edge.

But that each becomes, through the other, a more complete self.

That reminded me of another ancient saying:

« Heaven and earth arise with me,
and all things are one with me. »

This "one" does not mean there is only one voice.

Quite the opposite.

Precisely because all things have their own nature, heaven and earth can be heaven and earth.

If all mountains became one mountain, the world would lose its ranges.

If all rivers flowed into one river, the world would lose its waterways.

It is the same with civilisations.

Their true strength lies not in uniformity.

But in their ability to embrace diversity without losing their own centre.

This, perhaps, is what the East can offer the world.

True wisdom does not consist in making others more like oneself.

But in helping one another to become more fully oneself.

As I write this, I no longer wish to call these essays "the articles of different countries".

For when a river flows into the sea, one rarely asks from which mountain each drop of water came.

They have not lost their origin.

They have only gained a greater destination.

The ancient Chinese said:

« The sea receives a hundred rivers;
its greatness arises from its capacity to hold. »

Many understand this as tolerance.

But it seems to me it speaks of something else.

The sea is not great because it is stronger than the rivers.

But because it has never asked any river to give up its name.

The Yangtze remains the Yangtze.

The Yellow River remains the Yellow River.

They do not turn into each other when they enter the sea.

Yet together they complete the sea.

It should be the same with civilisations.

In recent years, much has been said about whether civilisations should compete or merge.

The Chinese answer may be quite different.

What truly matters is neither competition nor fusion.

It is mutual nourishment.

As the mountain nourishes the clouds.

The clouds nourish the rain.

The rain nourishes the trees.

The trees nourish the birds.

And the birds carry the seeds far away.

Between heaven and earth, no one has completed spring alone.

Then I understood: this project has not woven the journey of a book.

But a process of mutual nourishment between civilisations.

Germany offered thought.

France offered relationship.

England offered listening.

Japan offered the beauty of impermanence.

The Arab world offered the memory of the starry sky.

No culture has renounced itself.

And precisely for that reason, they could together complete a whole that no single culture could ever have completed alone.

We Chinese call this state "共生" – symbiosis.

Not that they resemble each other.

But that they complete each other.

Not that they convince each other.

But that they illuminate each other.

The flower does not demand that the spring wind become a flower.
The spring wind does not demand that the flower become wind.
They simply meet.
And so spring arrives.

The more I read the entire work, the less I thought about "translation".

Translation, after all, is a matter of language.

But what was happening here was a mutual recognition between civilisations.

True recognition does not mean I can understand you completely.

But that I finally understand: you can be different from me – and this difference does not diminish our common humanity.

The Daodejing contains a sentence I would like to take as my conclusion:

« All things act and weave together;
I contemplate their return. »

All things in the world grow in their own way.

No flower loses its season because another flower blooms.

No star loses its light because another star shines.

What truly inspires reverence is never uniformity.

But that in all their diversity, we can still see the same sky.

When I gently set the book down, stillness had returned.

The tea was cold.

The wind passed through the bamboo grove.

The bamboo leaves did not speak a word.

Yet they answered one another.

Then I felt: perhaps this is the image these essays from around the world have finally given me.

No one stands at the highest point.

No one speaks the last word.

Only many voices – under the same sky – each growing in its own way, each shining in its own way.

And the true Star Weaver – perhaps it is not the figure in the story.

But every civilisation.

It patiently keeps its own light.

Yet it is willing to place its light into another's night sky.

Thus the stars grow more numerous.

The sky grows deeper.

And the human world gains a farther horizon.