To the Wonder

To the Wonder is an eight episode Chinese television drama released in 2024. Its Chinese title is My Altay, and it adapts material by writer Li Juan, especially her writings about life in Altay in Xinjiang. Director Teng Congcong brings the story to the screen as a coming of age drama centered on Li Wenxiu. The series follows Wenxiu, played by Zhou Yiran, a young Han Chinese woman who wants to write. After setbacks while living in the city, she returns to her mother Zhang Fengxia in Altay. Ma Yili plays Zhang, who keeps a small grocery shop and whose practical life contrasts with her daughter's literary aspirations. Back amid the grasslands and mountain landscapes of northern Xinjiang, Wenxiu encounters Batai, a Kazakh young man portrayed by Yu Shi. Their relationship is part of the series' account of Wenxiu's changing understanding of the place she calls home. To the Wonder also features Jiang Qiming in its principal cast. Rather than treating Altay as an interchangeable backdrop, the drama places Wenxiu's family and her contact with local Kazakh herders at the center of its narrative. The production was filmed in Altay, using the region's open pastureland and settlements as locations. Its attention to everyday work, travel on horseback, and the seasonal rhythm of pastoral life comes from the setting that informed Li Juan's source writing. The drama premiered on May 7, 2024, on China Central Television's CCTV 1, and it was made available through iQIYI. Its eight episodes were released over a short run, distinguishing it from a conventional long Chinese serial. The program arrived after Teng Congcong had established a film directing career with works including Send Me to the Clouds. Li Juan is known for prose rooted in her experiences in Xinjiang, and My Altay supplied the adaptation's literary foundation. The screen version retains Wenxiu's ambition to become a writer while giving her a clearly dramatized family story and romance with Batai. In doing so, To the Wonder connects an aspiring author's perspective with the specific communities and terrain of Altay, instead of presenting a generalized rural fable. At the 2024 Canneseries television festival, the series was selected for the festival's main competition, making it a notable international showcase for a Chinese drama. The show's English title should not be confused with Terrence Malick's 2012 film of the same name. To the Wonder is a distinct Chinese television adaptation.