1. December: Everything Opened Up
One evening in early December I saw a piece of news on my phone: Shandong Province would no longer check health codes or PCR test results. I stared at it for a few seconds before it sank in. Three years, and this thing was simply gone.
The next day at noon I deliberately went out and took a bus, just to verify whether last night’s announcement was really being carried out. Getting on, I asked the driver at the door whether you still had to scan a health code. He didn’t even lift his head. No need, he said. So I only scanned a transit code, and it was a great deal more convenient.
With a lot of things, if you don’t go try them for yourself and only go by what others say, all you end up with is a picture in your own head. Like that bus — if I hadn’t gone and ridden it, I wouldn’t know the look on the driver’s face, or how many people were on board that day. Whether the reopening was real or not, I had to ride a bus myself before I could count it as true.
Those few days it changed almost by the day. Today this was no longer checked, tomorrow that was no longer required, and in the end even PCR tests were unnecessary, masks were unnecessary, nothing was being controlled anymore. Before, going anywhere you had to hold up this code and that code for someone to look at; now you didn’t have to hold up anything.
Before the reopening, I had actually already made my peace with living like this for another two years. PCR tests had become daily routine, scanning codes to enter a building, filing a report to go out — back and forth, like a road that never came to an end. When you stay inside a thing that long, you stop asking when it will be over. So when everything suddenly opened up in early December, my first feeling wasn’t happiness. It was unreality.
The last three years I don’t intend to go into here. I only know that I had already learned a whole way of living: check the code before going out, look for the temperature-checker the moment you walk in, and before going anywhere, first ask what the rules were over there now. All those skills were useless overnight.
Rushan Silver Beach had few people to begin with, and the rules were loosely enforced. Once the sea wind blew, the codes and the certificates were far away from me. Over those three years I always felt the reopening was the right thing. But since it was right, then whatever came after the reopening, I could only bear it myself.
Before long, people at Silver Beach began testing positive too. Someone would say they’d caught it on a single trip to the supermarket; someone would say they had no idea where they’d caught it. The grocery delivery app on my phone shut down and stopped delivering, saying the delivery people were all sick. One of my packages sat in Qingdao for ten days. In those days I kept feeling a slight itch in my throat — the more I thought about it, the itchier it got.
I called home to ask how things were over there. My mother said they were all fine, just lying around at home, nobody going out. I said then just lie around, don’t go out, drink plenty of water. After I hung up I thought: for three years I’d been hoping for the reopening, and now that it was really here, the days still had to be lived one at a time; if you’re going to get sick you get sick, if you’re going to be afraid you’re afraid.
That month I actually went out a bit more than before. Once the grocery app shut down, vegetables had to be bought in person. There were fewer people on the street — not because they didn’t want to go out, but because they’d been laid up sick. I bought my vegetables and walked the whole way back, and on the road met only two people, both in masks, both steering well clear of me from a distance.
For a few days I seriously considered whether to take a trip while things were like this. I thought about it a long while, and in the end I still didn’t dare. People were falling sick everywhere, and I was out there alone; if I got sick on the road there wouldn’t be a single familiar face near me.
Late at night on December 18th I watched a match — the final. The two teams traded blows, one would take the lead and the other would pull level, and on it went into extra time, then a penalty shootout. By the time it was over it was almost light. I hadn’t been that worked up in a very long time. In those years I’d noticed that I had become a flat line — no great sorrows, no great joys, nothing could get me excited. That night I actually couldn’t sit still, and long after it ended I still couldn’t sleep. When I got up the next morning, outside was still that empty residential compound. Nothing had changed.
December 31st, the last day of the year. Smog, bad weather, and I still went out to the seaside. The beach was very empty, quiet, like a wasteland. I stood there a while and thought back over the year: in 2022 I had done only one thing — left Beijing and come to the seaside.
Three years, like a dream.
2. The First Winter by the Sea
December 1st, winter arrived all at once. Last month it was still eighteen degrees, and in a blink it dropped below zero. Indoors it turned cold too; the thermometer read eleven. I sealed the doors and windows, changed into thick clothes and thick trousers, boiled water to wash my face and soak my feet. The wind by the sea was as strong as ever, blowing hard enough to make you miserable, so I stood the hood of my coat up and covered my ears. That day I walked to the mouth of Tidal Lake, watched the gulls for a while, and walked back — fourteen kilometers round trip, and I didn’t feel tired at all.
On the morning of the 2nd I woke up frozen. I’d woken several times in the night too, all of it from the cold. Why was it cold? — the moment you turned over, wind leaked in from the corner of the quilt and the collar of your shirt; your feet went cold first, then your back. Unless you didn’t turn over, didn’t move, tucked the corner of the quilt in tight and rolled yourself up in it. But how is a sleeping person supposed to not move. I figured I’d need two quilts. When I got up to use the bathroom, I glanced at the thermometer: ten indoors.
I’d lived in Beijing for seven years; this was my first winter without central heating. I’d never known before that a house without heating was like this. The dry cold of the north and the damp cold of the south are not the same: the southern cold is wet — the quilt is damp, the mattress pad and the pillow are damp, and getting into bed takes a great deal of courage; the northern cold is mostly outdoors, the wind is strong and cuts at your face, but back inside, with the electric blanket on, the bed is still dry and warm. So here, cold as it was, I could still take it.
The coldest was December 17th — during the day it was minus five outside, felt like minus fifteen, and colder still at night. On the morning of the 18th I got up and looked at the thermometer in the living room: six degrees, the lowest I had ever seen. That day I put on every piece of clothing I owned, and I was still cold.
On the 23rd, getting up in the morning, I saw ice had formed on the north-facing window glass. The south-facing one too. The windows didn’t seal well and didn’t keep the wind out, so the cold crept in through those cracks. Once the sun came up, the ice slowly melted to water and ran down the glass.
My winter gear accumulated like this: hat, earmuffs, gloves, a down jacket, a padded coat, padded trousers, and a pair of especially thick cotton shoes — all of it for warmth. Sitting still in the living room, I’d feel the backs of my hands go cold first, and then slowly my hands would go numb; my feet, protected by socks and shoes, held up a little better. If I remembered to move around, or went to the balcony to sit in the sun, boiled water to soak my feet, or cooked and ate, my body would come back to life.
Sleeping at night was a nuisance. That first year I’d bought only one quilt, and it wasn’t enough. The foot end leaked wind and was especially cold, so I piled the clothes I’d taken off — down jacket, padded coat, trousers — on top of the quilt before I was a little warmer. The electric blanket stayed on all night. Later I added a hot-air heater, running it a while before bed to warm the room up.
There were good times too. The moment the sun came out, the room came alive. I’d carry the chair onto the balcony and sit, close my eyes, tip my head back, and let the sun fall on my face. Once it had warmed me through I’d get sleepy. Then I’d think: if I bought a place here and lived in it forever, that wouldn’t be so bad either. The thought came fast and went fast, but it showed up more than once that winter.
The worst was touching water. Rinsing rice, washing vegetables, washing dishes — my hands froze terribly, and after they froze I had to soak them in hot water: pour the hot water, then add a little cold, and put my hands in. Bathing was even more trouble; the appliances here were old, and boiling a pot of bathwater took an hour. So before going out I’d switch the power on first, and by the time I got back the water was hot.
People say that in a house nobody lives in over winter, the pipes freeze and burst. Mine didn’t burst. A house with someone in it always keeps a little warmth, a little human presence, and so the pipes didn’t freeze.
Eating became simple again. Bake three potatoes, eat them with pickles — that’s one meal; boil a bag of noodles, tear in a few leaves of cabbage and crack in two eggs — that’s another. Cabbage you buy by the head, potatoes by the bag, and both were cheap. I did the arithmetic for myself: hold out one more month to New Year’s, hold out one more month to Spring Festival, hold out one more month, and spring would be here. I used that arithmetic all winter. It worked very well.
That was also when I gave up meat. Not on purpose — it was that I saw meat at the market every day and never once had the urge to buy it. Vegetables were cheap; potatoes, cabbage and eggs were enough for me. Only after more than a month did I notice that I hadn’t touched meat in a long time, and I didn’t feel I was missing anything.
That winter I often asked myself one question: why did I come to this place to freeze. When I couldn’t answer, I’d think about the other thing — I didn’t have to go to work anymore, didn’t have to listen to people tell me what to do, didn’t have to get worked up and stressed over things at work. Freezing was the price. If you want freedom, you have to pay that price. Once I had that clear, the room could be six degrees and I’d still be all right inside.
Washing dishes was something I hadn’t understood before. In my Beijing years I almost never cooked — I ate in a cafeteria or ordered takeout — and it had never once crossed my mind who did the dishes. Here, after a meal the pot, the spatula, the bowls, the chopsticks were all greasy, and every piece had to be washed one by one, and after washing my hands were still cold. Washing and washing, I’d think of the person at home who cooked: three meals a day, washing dishes for decades.
Sitting in the sun was the one thing that winter that didn’t cost money. The moment the sun came out I’d carry the chair onto the balcony, close my eyes, tip my head back, and bask until my face burned. Once the wind banged at the windows and I sat on the balcony, the sun so bright I couldn’t open my eyes, thinking: sunlight is like medicine — it might cure a sickness I couldn’t put a name to.
Thoreau said that the more a man can let go of, the richer he is. That winter I had nothing: the room was ten degrees, two meals a day, I dressed like a dumpling, and going out once took ages to bundle up. And yet for the first time I felt that sentence was about me.
3. New Year Alone
Once the last month of the lunar year came around, I went to the market more often. Here the market runs once every five days, and afraid I wouldn’t be able to buy vegetables on New Year’s Eve, I’d stock up a little more each time. As it turned out, on New Year’s Eve the market still had stalls out — a few old farmers keeping watch over baskets of vegetables and a pile of pig heads. Coming out to sell in such cold weather: that isn’t easy.
Things at the market were cheap as if from another world: cabbage at RMB 0.6 a jin, potatoes RMB 2.5, apples RMB 4, mandarin oranges RMB 4, free-range eggs RMB 8 — and one big cabbage could feed me for a week. I’d buy enough for ten-odd days at once, and it took two trips to carry it all home.
Some out-of-towner told me the supermarket back where he’s from was much cheaper than this. I couldn’t be bothered to argue. A supermarket is a supermarket and a market is a market — the supermarket runs on volume, the market is one old farmer keeping watch over a basket of vegetables; they were never the same thing to begin with.
On the last market trip before the New Year, the pork stall was the most crowded, several people carrying whole pig heads home in their arms. I didn’t eat meat, so I only bought eggs, cabbage, potatoes and apples. The woman selling eggs said, the New Year’s coming, buy a bit more. I said one person can’t eat that much. That trip I bought a dozen-odd eggs, one cabbage, seven or eight potatoes, a few green peppers — enough to last ten days.
Around New Year’s Day I thought about something. Back in Beijing, when I called home, I always liked to say that life in a small place was different — the implication being, what is a small town’s life worth. Now that I myself live in a place as small as a place can be, I feel the opposite: no matter where you are, the days are real; there’s no higher and lower. You grind away in the city, I sit here by the sea — both are ways of living, just two different kinds.
On New Year’s Day itself I didn’t feel much. Holidays are left for people who work; to someone who doesn’t work, New Year’s Day is the same as any other day — it’s just one more dawn. I went to the seaside to watch the sunset as usual.
Before the New Year I bought two spring couplets and stuck them on the door, a little sloppily. Most of the buildings in the compound were dark; some had no one in the whole building, some had a single household in a whole building. In the building where I lived there were only two households.
Those days I often stood on the balcony watching the building across from mine. First one household put weather-stripping tape on its windows, sealing up all the cracks; two days later that family’s curtains were gone — they’d left. A day after that, two more households were gone. I knew they’d gone home for the New Year. In a stretch of buildings like this, how many lights would still be on by New Year’s Eve — I didn’t dare imagine.
On the twenty-ninth of the last lunar month, on the beach, I saw that people had written words in the sand. Some had written “get rich”, some “study hard”, others “may love last forever”. I crouched down and wrote too, a line for each of a few friends: wishing you good health, wishing you early retirement, wishing you an early fortune. Last of all I wrote a line for myself: wishing Erpang freedom and happiness. When I was done I took a photo and sent it to them.
That New Year’s Eve afternoon, my mother sent a video call, and I didn’t pick up. She still thought I was working in Beijing, and the past couple of New Year’s Eves I’d spent them alone in Beijing. Here the firecrackers had been going since the afternoon; the moment I picked up she’d ask: why are they still setting off firecrackers over there. I sent her a message back saying I was at a friend’s place, lots of people, not convenient to take the call.
That evening the firecrackers and fireworks got thicker. People set them off on the beach, people set them off in the compound. I didn’t even watch the Spring Festival Gala; I climbed into bed early and made myself an outsider. Wang Anshi wrote, “Amid the crackle of firecrackers a year is gone; the spring wind carries warmth into the Tusu wine.” Lying in bed that night listening to the bangs, I felt the festivity wasn’t meant for me, and all the same I didn’t feel sad about it either.
The first day of the New Year was a spring tide. At ten in the morning the water level was lowest, only four centimeters; by a little after four in the afternoon it had risen to its highest, three hundred seventy-six centimeters. I walked to the seaside, and the whole shore was full of people out foraging the shallows, digging at the sand with little shovels, digging for razor clams. On the first day of the New Year, instead of making the rounds of New Year calls, they’d come out to forage the shallows — I thought that was far more fun than paying calls.
That day my food was three fried eggs, a bowl of stir-fried cabbage, and a pot of rice. After eating I sat on the balcony in the sun, cracking sunflower seeds, eating mandarin oranges — even spending the New Year alone, I hadn’t shortchanged myself. Lazy until four in the afternoon, I went out again to watch the rising tide and the sunset. The clouds at the horizon were thick, the setting sun often hidden; all I heard was the spring tide slapping up onto the shore wave after wave, the water reaching right up to my feet — a slightly bigger wave and it would soak my shoes, so I hurried back a step.
I used to think the New Year had meaning — a holiday, a reunion, festivity. Only after coming here did I work it out clearly: I don’t hate the New Year; what I hate is sitting with a group of people saying the things you have to say whether you want to or not. If the New Year just meant each person going their own way, nobody forcing anybody, then I could have New Year every day.
Four Spring Festivals in a row I hadn’t gone home. It’s not that I didn’t miss home; it’s that I didn’t want to be asked. That year I was thirty-six or thirty-seven, still unmarried. Going back to the hometown for the New Year, the house full of people, one asking this and another asking that, me sitting there answering one after another — more tiring than going to work. So I didn’t go back. Once the New Year had passed and there were fewer people around, I’d find a time to go back and see them, and that would count as having done my duty.
4. For Six Months I Didn’t Tell My Family
About quitting my job, I didn’t tell my family at first. The idea came in July, I quit in September, I left Beijing in October, and it wasn’t until May Day of the following year that I told them: I’ve quit my job, and I’m not in Beijing anymore either.
For that first half year, on the phone I kept pretending I was still in Beijing. They’d ask whether Beijing was cold, and I’d say cold; whether work was busy, and I’d say busy. The New Year too I “spent in Beijing” — that’s what they thought. In fact, that whole half year, I’d been at Silver Beach the entire time, alone.
So that winter, what I feared most wasn’t spending the New Year alone. It was giving myself away.
Days alone weren’t hard. The hard part was that it got dark so early. Here by four or five o’clock it was fully dark. Outside there were barely any streetlights, the wind was strong, it was cold, and even going out you couldn’t stay long. So I’d be in bed by four or five, lying there on my phone until ten, and when I got bored — I’d been at it long enough — I’d sleep. The next morning I’d wake at five or six, wake and keep lying there playing, and not get up until eight or nine.
More than half the day was spent in bed. Not out of laziness — it was that sitting up out of bed was cold too, so I just lay there.
My mother called once to ask whether I’d tested positive. I said no. She said almost everyone back home had, and they were all lying at home. All I could say was, don’t be scared, drink plenty of water, don’t go out, it’ll pass. I couldn’t help much, and over the phone there was nothing else I could say. After I hung up I sat for a while. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go back and see them — it was that at that point I didn’t even dare say where I was.
In the daytime I didn’t go out much either. There was no movie theater here, no café, and once seven in the evening passed the street was dark. Someone once asked me, don’t you get bored staying alone. I don’t. I could study English, watch documentaries, take photos, write, cook. A person who gets bored when alone will only get more bored in a crowd.
Some people urged me: you ought to go back and take care of your parents. That kind of talk is the same as “you ought to marry”, “you ought to have a child”, “you shouldn’t have quit your job”. The people saying it may mean well, but my life is mine to live.
Alone at Silver Beach, I really didn’t feel lonely. I seem to be a person who has never known what loneliness is. To be alone is quiet, and free — nobody minds me, I sleep as late as I want, cook whatever I feel like eating, and don’t have to announce myself to anyone. I used to not dare think like that; it was that half year that taught me: being alone is also a way to live.
Back then I made myself a list: the minimum a person needs to get through life alone. One piece of clothing to cover you and keep you warm; one or two meals a day; a room that costs two or three thousand RMB a year in rent; and a pair of legs. Everything else you can do without. The list looks a bit extreme, but I really did live by it. If a person asks for a little less, he doesn’t have to earn a little more — worked out that way, life is livable.
That half year was like borrowed time. My Beijing identity hadn’t been canceled yet, and life at Silver Beach had already begun. Neither end counted.
5. The Sea in Winter
On December 14th, at the seaside, I saw patches of white spread across the beach in the distance, and I thought it had snowed. Only when I got close did I find it wasn’t snow. It was ice.
Later I saw a news item about Sayram Lake in Xinjiang reaching its ice-flood season, layer after layer of thin ice pushed up onto the shore and knocking together with a clatter. Only then did I understand that what I’d seen by the sea was the same thing: ice that formed on the seawater at high tide and was left behind on the low part of the beach when the tide went out. The ice was very thin, no bigger than a fingernail, one piece pressed over another, and from a distance it looked exactly like snow. Stepping on it there was none of the soft crunch of snow — it was the crisp crack of breaking ice, better to hear than the crunch.
On December 17th the tide went out very far and uncovered a wide stretch of beach — the farthest I’d ever seen it recede. The sand further out was cleaner and smoother than the sand nearer, like a patch of ground no one had touched. I walked all the way to the water’s edge, then followed the coast west, toward the setting sun. The whole beach had only me on it; I felt like a lord inspecting his own domain. A few stray flakes drifted onto my face, cold for a moment and gone.
That day I said to myself that dying here would be worth it.
Weihai is famous as a “snow pit” — over there it’s one heavy blizzard after another, while here it’s usually clear. The same day, two places completely different. Once I saw a forecast saying Weihai would have a blizzard tomorrow and Rushan light snow, and I looked forward to it; the next day there were only a few scattered flakes. Rushan sits further south, its sea faces south, Weihai’s sea faces north — the weather in the two places is simply that different.
One day I suddenly figured something out: why people from Shandong love steamed bread. Shandong grows wheat, and wheat likes long hours of sunlight — this region has plenty. Push the thought one layer further out — the sun shines, and only then does the wheat grow; the wheat grows, and only then do people have something to eat. A lot of what people fight over is, in the end, a fight over sunlight too: whether a house faces south or north, how big the difference in price — the difference is exactly that one window of sunlight. It sounds simple, but it was only that winter that I truly thought of it.
The third day of the last lunar month was a spring tide, and there was a new moon too. After the sun went down, the new moon slowly showed itself, curved like a hook, bright as snow. I stood a while by the tide-rising sea, watching the sunset, and the new moon as well.
The 22nd was the winter solstice, and it snowed the most proper snow of the winter. When I went downstairs, the snow on the ground hadn’t been stepped on yet — I was the first to leave footprints. By the time I reached the seaside the sky had cleared: blue overhead, white underfoot, the distant beach black. Sea on my left, snow on my right, my shadow stretched long by the sun, a line of footprints trailing behind me.
Snow by the sea never accumulates. The wind is too strong; clouds barely gather before they’re blown away. Dark clouds came and dropped a spell of snow, and once they passed and the sun came out again the snow stopped. I gave this kind of snow a name: sun snow.
On Christmas Eve, on the way back, not a single streetlight was lit — I don’t know whether they were broken or someone had forgotten to turn them on. I was swallowed up by the dark, with nothing but the sound of my own footsteps the whole way. There was usually hardly anyone on this road anyway, and that night it felt especially like a world with no one in it.
There were pitifully few people by the sea in winter. Minus ten-something degrees, and there were still people with their trouser legs rolled up digging for razor clams in the water; watching from the shore, I felt cold on their behalf. Another time, with the wind cutting at people’s faces, I saw a man and a woman playing tennis on the court, back and forth, neither willing to stop.
Once I cycled east, twenty kilometers round trip. I hadn’t eaten when I set out, only gnawed a piece of bread, and on the way back I was so hungry my vision went black and I nearly couldn’t make it. There was a small market at the roadside ahead, and I bought five cakes and ate them while pushing the bike, and only then recovered. That day I also saw a cat killed by a car on the road; I meant to move it into the grass, but when I got close I decided against it.
Seagulls, though, there were plenty. Some flew low against the water, some rested on the thin un-melted ice — I wondered whether their feet froze. Once I crouched on the embankment watching for a long time as they landed one by one and stood there at crooked angles.
On December 7th, at the seaside, I saw the sunset to my left and the moon to my right. The sun sinking in the west, the moon rising in the east, a stretch of sea between them. On the way back I bounced along the crosswalk, hopping from stripe to stripe, like a child on the way to school.
The dusk glow on the 19th was especially fine. The clouds neither thick nor thin, a gentle pink at the horizon — I stood by the sea watching a long time, until it got dark.
There were also days that had no shape to them. On the 10th, windy and overcast, I didn’t go out all day, stood on the balcony looking at the compound, wondering where the stray dogs and cats had gone to hide. Cats calling downstairs, dogs barking in the waste ground, a magpie nesting in a street tree so short you could reach it if you jumped. The moon rose on the fourth day of the lunar month and cast its own shadow on the glass of the empty apartment across the way. That day I thought of a Maugham novel.
In the last lunar month I walked north once. People said the mountain over that way was called Feng Mountain, and I walked for over an hour before I realized I’d been wrong — that wasn’t Feng Mountain, it was Shibu Mountain; Feng Mountain is just a little mound of earth south of it. Mountains look near and walk far. The wheat in the fields had already been harvested, a flat expanse waiting for spring. The wind over the fields smelled of soil and of dry manure, and it made my heart feel wide open.
6. The Fifth Day of the New Year: I Went to Tibet Alone
January 25th, the fourth of the lunar month. I was sitting on the balcony in the sun when I suddenly felt like going out. From October 26th, when I’d arrived at Silver Beach, three whole months, I hadn’t been anywhere — hadn’t even been into Rushan’s town center.
I opened my phone and scrolled for train tickets; there was a suitable departure the very next day. That was almost too much of a coincidence. I still couldn’t book right away — I had to first confirm whether the bus from Silver Beach to Weihai would run. I called the driver; he said it would. Only then did I book the tickets: Silver Beach to Weihai, RMB 30; Weihai to Taiyuan, bullet train, RMB 384.5; Taiyuan to Lhasa, hard seat, RMB 323.
I’ve always been a cautious person about things. The night I booked the tickets, I packed my bag twice: power bank, a few changes of underwear, a bit of food. The next day I’d be going to Weihai to catch the train, and afraid something would go wrong, I barely slept the night before.
On the morning of the 26th I woke at four thirty. After calling the driver at eight thirty to confirm, at nine thirty I put on my pack and went out to wait for the bus at the compound gate. There were surprisingly many people on the bus — I’d thought there’d be nobody on just the fifth day of the New Year, but only a few seats were left empty.
The closer we got to Weihai, the thicker the snow on the road and the taller and denser the buildings. I hadn’t been into a big city in ages, and to my surprise I felt a little afraid. Weihai’s snow was much heavier than Rushan’s, and the layer on the ground had been trampled dirty. I’d always felt Weihai was like the Northeast, not like Shandong.
With two hours still to go before departure, I’d meant to go see the winter ice on Weihai’s shore. But with a pack on my back and bags in hand it was just too awkward, so I went to Hanle Square nearby instead. Most of the shops hadn’t opened, and there were pitifully few people. I found a stall selling grilled cold noodles, ate a portion, and counted that as having been there.
We boarded at one thirty in the afternoon. On the stretch from Weihai to Yantai the snow scenery was so beautiful you didn’t want to speak: snow covering the slopes, the fields, the single-story houses, falling by the riverside, the pond, the seaside. The moment we left Yantai and entered the interior, the snow was gone.
The train ran west, the sun set west — the whole way they seemed to be chasing each other. After nine in the evening we reached Taiyuan. The moon over Taiyuan was much bigger than over Rushan. The station was very old, and deep in the night it was full of people waiting for trains, every face weary. My train was at 12:28, still more than two hours to wait, and sitting there my eyelids kept drooping.
During those two hours of waiting I went to see a friend in Taiyuan. She happened to be home for the New Year, so we sat nearby for a while and traded a few old memories. The night was cold, and the platform was full of people waiting for slow trains, every face weary. Before boarding I looked up — the Taiyuan moon was very round.
I got on at half past twelve. It was a train from Beijing to Lhasa, stopping briefly in Taiyuan. I’d bought a hard seat — I’d booked too late, and that was all that was left. The moment I stepped into the carriage I was appalled by those seats: I’d have to sit in one for thirty-six hours, through two nights. I went to find the conductor and asked whether there were still sleeper berths. There were. I immediately paid for an upper berth.
7. The Potala Palace, Yamdrok Lake, Puma Yumco
When daylight came the next day, outside the window was Ningxia. It was my first time seeing that kind of mountain: ridge after ridge of smooth curved slopes, like steamed buns, grey in color, here and there a streak of reddish brown — exactly like the mountains in cartoons. The landscape from Ningxia to Lanzhou was a fine sight the whole way, and yet it seems nobody ever mentions it.
At Lanzhou the sky was gray and hazy. My friend in Lanzhou said the dust in Lanzhou is always heavy. At Xining the conductor handed everyone headed for Lhasa a “passenger health registration card,” the gist of it being that you were declaring your body could handle the plateau. Some people call that a life-and-death waiver; I thought that was overstating it.
A little after four in the afternoon I saw Qinghai Lake — a pity it was backlit, I couldn’t get a good photo. At six thirty the snow mountains began to appear, a thin layer of snow lying on the black mass of the mountains, as if scattered there by accident. At night the train quietly crossed the Tanggula Pass, the highest point of the route, and began its descent.
There were many young people on the train headed for Lhasa, some traveling together, some alone like me. I exchanged a few words with a young woman in the lower berth across from me. People who travel alone tend not to say much, and when we reached the station the next day we each went our own way.
We reached Lhasa at noon on January 28th. I had no altitude sickness at all, felt the same as at sea level. Only the sun was harsh and the ultraviolet strong; coming from below-zero Weihai to Lhasa at ten-something degrees, in my heavy clothes I worked up a sweat. There was a bus from the station to where I was staying, but I waited and waited and it never came. I shared a car with the young woman I’d met on the train, RMB 20 each.
I stayed in a youth hostel, a five-man dorm, RMB 101 a night — I’d booked late, and only this was left. My roommates were all guys in their twenties, loud, smoking, treating swearing as cool. I’m a bit old for this, and shouldn’t have been staying in a place like this. But the beds here were the cheapest, so I stayed.
My roommates were all guys in their twenties. The moment I set down my luggage I went out, walked to the Potala Palace square. Just like Tiananmen Square, you had to pass through security to get in. On the square many people had stopped wearing masks, and some who wore them had them hanging under their chins.
A Tibetan woman came over selling beaded bracelets. I waved her off, and she wasn’t upset — she just stood there chatting with me. She said that for the past few months she’d been staying at home, with no income at all, but the rent still had to be paid and the children still had to be raised. I didn’t know what to say, so I just said, yeah, things are hard for everyone; I lost my job too, and came out here to clear my head.
My first night in the hostel, the guy in the next bunk patted me awake. Very seriously, he told me I mustn’t sleep with my head covered — it was too dry here, I’d have trouble breathing. I got a fright and quickly stuck my head out. That night my throat really did go dry as sandpaper, and I drank several bottles of water. The hostel’s humidifier was on the whole time.
The next day I went to the Potala Palace. Off-season, no ticket needed. I don’t understand Tibetan Buddhism, and looking at the murals, the Buddha statues, the ritual implements, I couldn’t see what made them special; I just stood up high and looked over the whole city, and let the wind blow on me.
In the afternoon I went to the Tibet Museum and Norbulingka. The museum was very small, just two permanent exhibitions, one on history and culture and one on folk customs; the section on Tibetan opera left the deepest impression. Next to it was Norbulingka, called the Summer Palace of Lhasa, though in fact much smaller, with several “podrang” inside — palaces — and in winter the garden was a little desolate.
With nothing to do in the evening, I went to see a movie. I’d seen one the night before, and this night I saw another. The movies were all about big truths, and I got a bit sleepy watching. We’ve heard enough truths already; I didn’t want to sit in a cinema hearing more.
On the third day I joined a day tour. A little minivan, fourteen tourists plus a driver. The driver first went to process the border permits, and we waited an hour.
From Lhasa to Yamdrok Lake the winding mountain road took over two hours. The road was narrow, full of turns, mountain on one side, ravine on the other, and the driver drove fast and steady. Most of the people in the car were young, and a few were already on oxygen. I sat in the back row watching out the window as the car climbed bit by bit, and inside I grew quieter and quieter.
Yamdrok Lake’s water was very blue, very deep, and very clear, with a thin sheet of ice along the edge. By the shore herders led Tibetan mastiffs and yaks, calling out to tourists to take photos. The two mastiffs were big and strong with thick coats, but listless — probably not fond of the job.
Further up was Puma Yumco, higher than Yamdrok. That lake was frozen solid, the ice still thick enough for people to walk on. Before we got out the police warned us to be careful, saying it had been warm these days and quite a lot of ice had melted, and someone had fallen in before. I stepped carefully onto the ice, and before long I was so cold I couldn’t stand it, my head started to ache, and I couldn’t catch my breath.
That was the only altitude sickness of the whole trip. The way back I felt unwell too, and it wasn’t until I got back to Lhasa that I recovered.
So it turns out not every road can be walked all the way forward.
8. Four or Five Days at Home
January 31st, the trip back. For a flight you’re supposed to get to the airport two hours early; I got there five hours early. While I waited at the airport there were fewer people than I’d expected. Picking a seat, I mulled it over a long while: flying from Lhasa to Wuhan, you’re going west to east, and the snow mountains are to the south, so I had to take a window seat on the south side.
Not long after the plane climbed, the snow mountains came into view. At first they were still far, then they were right under the wing, one after another, stretching away without end. Between some of the peaks a lake was tucked, the surface frozen and gleaming white. I pressed my head to the window and looked for a long time. Further on, the snow mountains turned into ordinary high mountains, and the high mountains turned into plains. Once the plains appeared, the trip was over.
We landed at Wuhan, took the subway, transferred to the high-speed rail, and in a little over an hour reached my hometown. The last time I’d been home was October 18, 2019 — three years and three months.
The moment I walked in, the first thing the family said, all together, was: how did you get black as a coal ball. I laughed and didn’t tell them I’d spent three months in the sun by the sea, and three more days in the sun in Lhasa. I rather like being this dark.
My parents had moved into a new house. The house had been bought in my name, but I’d never spent a single day in it. At the door of my own home I still had to have family come down to let me in. Just in that moment, I felt like a guest, not the master of this house.
He Zhizhang wrote, “A boy I left home; an old man I return.” By the time I went back, my hometown had changed beyond recognition: the old streets, the old houses, the old shops, all transformed, and walking the streets I couldn’t tell east from west. It hadn’t gone bad — it had simply stopped having anything to do with me.
Life at home was completely different from how I lived at Silver Beach. They still used a squat toilet; I urged them to install a sitting one, saying it’s hard to squat when you’re older, and they just said “we’re used to it.” They bathed in a big basin; I’m used to a shower, and they said showers waste water. I said showers actually use less, and they wouldn’t hear it. It’s not that one of us is right and the other wrong — it’s that each of us has grown used to his own way of living.
Meals too. Outside I ate vegetarian, two meals a day. Back home, I’d be woken at seven or eight for breakfast, the table all meat, my bowl piled full, as if only stuffing me to bursting would count as having done their duty by me. I was only staying a few days, so I put up with it.
One day I asked my mother who was left in the countryside. She said just three old people — two grandmothers and an uncle — not a single young person, and the fields had no one to farm them. The part of town where I’d lived as a child was long since not what it was; the old house in the county seat had been rented out, and the new house I’d only stayed in this once. Counted up that way, there was nowhere I could go back to.
One day I went to the riverbank. They’d built a park along the river, much prettier than when I was in high school. Back then in PE class a few of us classmates would run down to the riverbank to catch the breeze and say we were going to test into Beijing. In the end we all got ordinary scores, went to ordinary schools, and now live ordinary lives. Only the water of the Yangtze still flows east without stopping, and it couldn’t care less what’s on a person’s mind.
I saw two old classmates. They’d both married, with houses, cars and children. One worked as a trainer at a gym; the other had just come back from a year working away and said he wanted to bring his wife and child out with him. We sat there drinking tea, nobody brought up the past, we chatted all afternoon, and after we parted there wasn’t much left to say.
Su Shi wrote, “Life is like an inn on a journey; I too am a traveler passing through.” Those few days I think I finally understood: there is no place in this world that is waiting for me to come back.
Outside, almost nobody wore masks anymore — everyone had had it. I’d stayed alone at Silver Beach three months and never once caught it. Walking the crowded main street, I actually felt more nervous than I had by the sea. I just wanted to get back to Silver Beach as soon as I could.
9. The February Wind, Sharp as Scissors
February 5th, the trip back. First a bus to Anqing, then a transfer to Weihai. The south was overcast the whole way; only once we entered Shandong did the sun come out. On the train I watched the sun set and the full moon rise. That day was the Lantern Festival, a day for reunion, and I was on the road away from home.
By the time we reached Weihai it was already ten at night, so I had to book a guesthouse. The snack street next to it was still lively, all young people. I was too tired and bought nothing; back in the room I ordered takeout. The good thing about takeout is you don’t have to talk to anyone.
On the morning of the 6th I took a bus for a little over an hour and got back to Silver Beach.
The moment I stepped off the bus I could feel it — spring had come. When I’d left it had been desperately cold, and now that I was back it was warm. Nothing at home had broken: no leaks, no one had been in, and the vegetables left in the fridge were still fine. I rinsed some rice, cracked in two eggs, steamed them over the rice, and that was a meal. At home it had been rich food every day; back here, eating vegetarian, even my stomach let out a sigh of relief.
That evening I went out. A little after seven, there were hardly any people on the road, the moon had just risen with an orange tinge. A few storefronts had opened again, people eating hotpot inside, a layer of steam fogging the glass. I walked to the seaside; there was still un-melted snow on the beach, and snow along the curb hadn’t thawed either; the wooden boardwalk thumped hollowly underfoot, the lights on the embankment were faint, the waves beat in one after another. On the beach there was only me.
Back in the north, my heart let go. The air was dry and crisp, and it went into your lungs clean. The damp cold of the south I never got used to: those days at home it was overcast and raining the whole time, and sitting inside my hands and feet were ice-cold, dressed up like a bear. By the sea it’s different — as long as the sun is out the room is ten degrees, and after sitting a while I warm right up.
Why I like the north so much — the answer is simple: the north has more clear days.
In Beijing I didn’t pay attention to the weather; the indoor temperature was about the same all year round, and whether it was cold outside had little to do with me. Here, cold is something you can touch, and so is heat. In winter you bundle up until only your eyes are showing; in summer you go barefoot on the floor. Weather became a part of daily life.
Silver Beach is a place with four distinct seasons. December, January, February are winter; March, April, May are spring; June, July, August are summer; September, October, November are autumn. Neatly divided, not the least bit vague.
I just like places with four distinct seasons. You can feel the seasons moving, time moving. Winter wraps you up in cold, in spring you peel off one layer at a time, in summer you go barefoot in shorts, in autumn you watch the leaves fall one by one. The days aren’t flat — they rise and fall.
“Jade adorns a tall tree; ten thousand green silk strands hang down. Who cut these fine leaves, I wonder — the February wind, sharp as scissors.” I’d memorized this poem as a child, and back then I only thought it flowed nicely. Reading it again in February, I understood that what it describes is exactly this feeling of coming back.
That winter I’d spent alone. But spring, summer and autumn lay ahead, and they’d be spent alone too. And yet I don’t feel this is a loss — to see a year through from beginning to end is something I never once did in my seven years in Beijing.