Valley of the Beginning

• Main Author: Tang, Nicolette Jingyi
• Other Authors: Daniel Keith Jernigan
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Humanities::Literature::English
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/67051
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Valley of the Beginning follows the story of Zi, a young man approaching his final year at a city university, who is abruptly called away by a letter after he turns twenty-one. Summoned to the mountain village of his childhood and the ancestral home of his deceased parents, Zi embarks on a journey to uncover his lost past. After several inexplicable encounters, he meets a child of indistinct gender in a mysterious shrine and begins his education in the origin of his people. Along the way, he discovers the power of forgotten beliefs and the value of old stories buried underneath the ways of the new. The final part of this submission is an exegesis that explains the creative aims of the work of fiction. It critically analyses the stylistic choices made as well as evaluate the execution of these choices. A portion of the exegesis is also dedicated to a reflection on the challenges faced during the piece’s creation.