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Chinese cave-dwelling hermit

The China Daily reports on a contemporary hermit who lives in a cave.

The caves that pock the mountains of Shanxi province’s Datong were inhabited for millennia until they were cleared out half a century ago – except for one person.

Zhang Dehua is Datong’s last cave dweller.

The 79-year-old was the only resident who didn’t move out of his grotto in Donggetuopu village when the government built a road and new houses for locals in 1952.

“I like my cave home,” Zhang says.

“It’s warm in winter and cool in summer. I don’t have a family. So, when everyone left, I stayed.”

Zhang Dehua, long a widower, was a farmer, whose family discovered the caves as a haven during the Japanese occupation of the 1930s. Zhang Dehua has few possessions, and is helped by a local taxi driver who discovered him and promotes free services to the area’s elderly. But the healthy Zhang Dehua, who now gets regular visitors and tourists dropping in to see his cave, remains content to stay where he is.

URL: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-09/13/content_15754609.htm

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Australian “Robinson Crusoe”

The Telegraph (UK) reports on Australian David Glasheen, who has lived alone on Restoration Island for nearly 20 years. He moved to the deserted island after losing his fortune in a stock market crash. But a recent court order threatens to evict him from the island because he was evidently permitted residence contingent on creating a business partnership to develop a resort.

From the article:

Mr. Glasheen, who is now in his late 60s, said he revels in the tranquility and privacy and has called himself as “the luckiest bloke in the world”. He lives off fish and crab and collects bananas, coconuts and native fruit, as well as growing his own vegetables and brewing beer. He has solar-powered internet access and still flutters on the stock market using an online trading account. …

“It is a fabulous place, I am a lucky bloke to be there,” he said. “I have learnt a huge amount. I started to value what is really important. Trust, honesty, respect – simple things. I have learnt that you can do things with very little. You soon learn in the bush to survive. If you don’t you die pretty quickly.”

URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/9497391/Australias-Robinson-Crusoe-may-be-forced-to-leave-his-island-paradise.html

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Bevilacqua’s hermit photos in NYT

An exhibition in Corona, Italy, titled “Into the Silence” by the Italian photographer Carlo Bevilacqua is highlighted by the New York Times.

The NYT article is titled “Hermits of the Third Millennium” and includes a slideshow of 20 photos of hermits (some of whom have been included before in Hermitary’s Features section). About the subjects, article writer James Estrin notes:

Mr. Bevilacqua’s subjects live by themselves, separate from others, by choice. Some have had religious visions and pursue study or prayer. Others are spiritually inclined, but not religious in the classical sense. Then, there are those who just don’t like being among other people in modern society. But all live a life of intentional simplicity and isolation.

Re the photographer:

After spending so much time with hermits, Mr. Bevilacqua believes that greater emphasis on accumulating material wealth, along with the growth of the digital and virtual worlds of video games and social media, has brought mankind further from a quiet pursuit of a simple, reflective life.

He says that this series is like a mirror to the viewer.

“I worked all day long for years to pay for my house, and these people live on nothing, nothing,” he said. “Maybe they are right, and I didn’t really choose. Even if you are not a hermit, you can choose your life.”

URL: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/hermits-of-the-third-millennium/

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Ricard on the hermit

“The Hermit” is a short blog entry by the celebrated Buddhist writer/photographer Matthieu Ricard, offering basic advice to all who recognize the need (occasional or otherwise) for solitude:

For someone who remains in the freshness of mindfulness of the present moment, time does not take on the heaviness of days spent in distraction, but the lightness of a life fully savored. If the hermit loses interest in certain ordinary concerns, it is not because his existence has become insipid but because he recognizes, among all possible human activities, which ones will truly contribute to the happiness of self and others.

URL: http://www.matthieuricard.org/en/index.php/archives/2012/07/

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ITAR-TASS on Old believers

An up-to-date video (1:46) and text report titled “Modern hermits: Russian Old believers restore settlement in West Siberia” on the present status of Russia’s Old believers. From the report:

3,500 kilometers from Moscow, the Altay Region lies in the magnificent Altay Mountains, the land where Russia, Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan come together. It’s a destination off the beaten track, where some explore the wilderness, and others search for a remedy or a new life.Russian Altay became the place where old belief meets natural spirituality. In abandoned village of Anamas Old Believers, or Russian ‘starovery’, restore a settlement, founded over a hundred years ago.Alexandr and Daria Popovy became the first to stay in the village of Anamas. They have five children. The oldest is 15, while the youngest is just several months old. They start their life from scratch: there are no facilities in an abandoned settlement; the closest school is 10 kilometers away. Popovy started their vegetable garden and mastered bee keeping. For centuries the Altay Mountains were home to hermits and shamans. But now there are only few families left.

URL: http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c32/472067.html