Firecrackers crackle the old year away; the spring wind carries warmth into the New Year wine. In a thousand homes the morning sun shines bright, and the old peach-wood charms are replaced with new. — Wang Anshi, “New Year’s Day”
2023.1.16
Lately I’ve been waking early every morning, naturally, around six or seven — no alarm, no noise outside, right around sunrise, like a rooster crowing: active the moment the sun comes up. Sunset is about when I rest, too. I crawl into bed and play on my phone — after all, there’s no entertainment in a ghost town, it’s pitch-dark outside, and the living room is cold; I get into bed, turn on the electric blanket, and curl up.
There’s a market today — the last Xiaotan market before the New Year, since it only opens every fifth day, on the days ending in five or zero; on New Year’s Eve there certainly won’t be one. I’d meant to get up early and go, then come back and warm up in bed, but I pulled back the curtain and saw nobody on the road heading for the market — still too early, and the sellers probably weren’t all there yet — so I decided to go a bit later. I glanced at the thermometer in the living room: 6°C. Not only had the north window frozen over with ice and frost, the south window had too; but by eight the sun was climbing, and once its light fell on the balcony the ice on the south window quickly melted to water, and the indoor temperature crept up to 8 or 9°C.
I went to the market at nine. There were fewer people than last time, but still plenty of stalls, and anything you wanted was to be had. I noticed the meat stalls were unusually busy, packed with people, and there were a lot of pig’s heads, too (do you really have to have a pig’s head for New Year?). A pity I don’t eat meat — I only bought vegetables and fruit, as follows: apples, RMB 4 a jin, six of them, RMB 17; caramel sunflower seeds, RMB 13 a jin, RMB 13; potatoes, RMB 2.5 a jin, six, RMB 8.3; free-range eggs, RMB 8 a jin, fifteen, RMB 15; little fried dough twists, RMB 12 a jin, RMB 15; small cakes, RMB 10 a jin, five, RMB 7; sugar tangerines, RMB 4 a jin, RMB 13; napa cabbage, RMB 0.6 a jin, RMB 5. Outsiders are always saying the supermarket near their home is much cheaper than what I bought. I can’t be bothered with them. To me they’re just ignorant city people who think the only apple in the world is Red Fuji — and arrogant with it. If I have to give an explanation, it’s simply this: a supermarket is a supermarket and a market is a market; the supermarket buys in bulk, the market sells from individuals; the price mechanisms are different. If you insist on comparing, of course there’ll be a gap. So one shouldn’t always be measuring oneself against others.
When I got back with the shopping the sun was already high — warm, dazzling — and indoors it had reached 10°C. The balcony was flooded with sunlight. I dropped my things and sat out there to sun myself and rest. Going to market really is a happy business. “Caring about grain and vegetables” makes me feel like a poet; it isn’t “warm spring, blossoms opening,” but I do live in a house “facing the sea” — how lucky can a man be.
In the afternoon I walked down to the shore again. Here, as long as there’s sun and no wind, it’s comfortable even when the temperature outside is low. And in winter there are very few people — clean roads, a silent shore; I love empty places with hardly anyone about. On the way to the shore you pass a pond. A few days ago, when it was warm, the ice on it melted; today it has frozen again, like frosted glass. In winter it seems you rarely see a beautiful sunset or afterglow; even the clouds carry a bleak feeling, and the setting sun is cold and blurred, unable to turn gentle.
2023.1.17
Today I spent another whole day sunning myself at home. So comfortable, so pleasant — blissfully happy; there’s nothing happier than sitting in the sun. People are always suggesting I buy a lounge chair, that lying down in the sun and sleeping would be even nicer. But what I want to say is: don’t give me advice, give me money. I sit on an ordinary hard-backed chair with a thick cushion on it, my feet up on the railing, my head tipped back against the chair, eyes closed, taking in the sunlight — warm, my face going hot in the sun. I think sunbathing does a person a world of good, body and mind.
By three in the afternoon I decided to go out for a walk after all, and catch the sunset at the end of it. Because I post videos online about life here, people ask me about food — is there a restaurant, is there takeout — but I don’t eat out and I don’t order takeout, so I don’t really know how to answer. I decided to go shoot a set of photos of the restaurants and make a video. So I walked the nearby streets, taking photos. There are restaurants, but most aren’t open — either closed for the Spring Festival or simply out of business. All I can say to people who want takeout or to eat out is: try to cook for yourself.
Today’s sunset wasn’t much either — cloudy, blurred; I couldn’t get a striking photo. I just walked the beach for a long time and picked up some sea snails along the way. Those snails were probably left over from stores fishermen kept here in the past, not natural to the beach. As I’ve said before, the beach here is more like a tidal flat; you rarely find shells or sea snails. Oyster shells there are plenty of, but they’re all ugly. Only the spiral-shelled snails are really beautiful, and many are broken or partial — I picked up a few, put them in my pocket, and took them home.
In the evening I cooked for myself — I eat extremely simply. I cooked a pot of rice, one person’s portion; it’s a small rice cooker, and it’s done in twenty-eight minutes. While the rice cooked I got the dishes ready. Three eggs, fried. One bowl of vegetables: green peppers, sliced garlic, and cauliflower, stir-fried together. These days I cook almost only two dishes — stir-fried cauliflower, and stir-fried napa cabbage (and the cabbage leaves often go into the pot with noodles). I used to stir-fry eggplant and tomato, but both were too much trouble, so I stopped; tomatoes are simplest eaten raw. I’d also bought a lot of potatoes. Potatoes I don’t treat as a dish but as a staple — just roast them in the air fryer and eat them with a bit of pickles.
On the grass at the entrance to the Bihai Jiayuan compound I saw two beautiful hoopoes pecking at something on the withered lawn. I zoomed my camera to the maximum and shot two clips — what strange little birds, with their long beaks and a crest on the head. Lovely. Beside the hoopoes was a flock of little sparrows; I couldn’t tell what they were pecking at either. Still, they’ve got food in winter, so that sets my mind at ease. Finally, in the little river, I saw a water bird I couldn’t name. When it saw someone approach it dived under, but the water was shallow and clear, and you could see its shape moving below — a nimble water bird. A pity it dived under the bridge at the end and I couldn’t see it any more.
Today there’s also a major historical event to record: China’s population went into decline for the first time, falling by 850,000 last year.
2023.1.18
The weather today was warm and lovely too — another day sunning myself at home. I’ve lived in quite a few places; I used to think Beijing had the best weather, but now I think the peninsula’s is better. Only by constantly moving does a person learn where is best for him, where suits him most. And only by frequently changing places can you feel the climate of different regions — and you need to stay half a year to a year in a place.
When I got up I finished the two small cakes left from the batch I’d bought at the market two days before — that was my breakfast. Then I sat on the balcony in the sun, playing on my phone. At noon I roasted two potatoes in the air fryer. The potatoes were too big to cook through, so I cut them open, into quarters, and they needed thirty minutes. That was my lunch, with a can of dace in black beans — I ate a little of the fish and the beans.
After eating, of course, I should get some exercise, so I went out for a stroll. I headed toward Yinlong Bay. The Jiajiayue Supermarket there is still open, with a notice posted at the door: on New Year’s Eve it opens until three in the afternoon, closes only for New Year’s Day, and reopens on the second day. It’s not easy being a supermarket. At the market in front of Yinlong Bay there were still people with stalls. I walked on first, and on the way back I bought some sugar tangerines, RMB 4 a jin.
I walked all the way to the little park by the Baishatan River. Nobody there, very quiet, a lot of lawns, sunlight on the withered grass. Under a tree I picked up some fallen branches and waved them about in my hand, playing the way I did as a child. How simple childhood was — a broken stick could keep you busy all afternoon. And now? People are far too hard to satisfy, far too hard to make happy; we’ve lost the child’s sense of fun.
On Hongzehu Road two restaurants serving northeastern food were still open. One had bright red couplets pasted up and festive lanterns hanging, and the sight warmed me — here on this utterly bleak and deserted street. Passing a barber shop, I saw a customer getting his hair cut inside. Yes, people do need haircuts. Not like me: I’m the odd one out, I cut my own hair. The ghost town isn’t entirely without a trace of life.
Guess what I had for dinner? I didn’t want to cook rice and dishes, so — instant noodles. I bought a whole case of Nongshim Shin Ramyun, the kimchi flavour, just so I’d have instant noodles for the times I don’t want to cook. How easy instant noodles are — and they save money too. And I have cabbage of my own; I tore up a lot of napa cabbage and threw it in with the noodles, plus two eggs. Wow, it was delicious — better than any delicacy.
2023.1.19
I got up, ate a little snack, and set out for a walk into the hills. The hills are to the north, the opposite direction from the sea. The Jiaodong peninsula is in fact a hilly region, full of little ridges rising and falling, not flat plains the way north China is. Not far north of Silver Beach there are also many small hills; the best known is probably Duofu Mountain, which is a scenic area, and charges admission. There are many nameless hills too, like the one nearest me, called Feng Mountain. From the beach you can see a little hill with a pointed top, like a breast — but it isn’t Rushan. Rushan’s most famous peak, Mount Darushan (the origin of the county’s name), lies further west of Silver Beach, about eighteen kilometers away, and can’t be seen from Silver Beach at all. I’d always thought the little hill I saw from the beach was Feng Mountain; only today, walking that way, did I learn it isn’t Feng Mountain but Shibu Mountain. Feng Mountain is just a little mound of earth, a bit south of Shibu Mountain. The two hills stand very close, but Shibu Mountain is far taller, with steep slopes, and even in the wilderness it has a certain presence, while Feng Mountain looks like nothing so much as a burial mound — I’d mistaken them. Yet though the hill was there and seemed so close, walking to it took a long time; I walked a long while and only got near it, still a long way off. A country path stretched all the way to the foot of the hill, with harvested wheat fields along it, flat and level, waiting for the spring planting. Breathing the air of the open fields, smelling of soil and dry manure, picked me up and opened out my heart.
The weather lately has been unbelievably good — not like winter at all; or perhaps I simply don’t understand the peninsula’s climate. Climate is one of those things: if you don’t experience it yourself, if you only hear others talk about it or look up the historical weather, you’ll stay forever on paper. Theoretical knowledge you can learn from books, but real experience you have to go out and live — that’s what’s meant by the unity of knowing and doing. Still, tomorrow the temperature drops again, and it’ll snow over the Spring Festival. Of course, I like snow — especially snow at New Year. I never expected Weihai to have so much snow in winter, far more than Beijing. Among the places I’ve lived, apart from the northeast, Weihai has the most snow.
I went out to the shore a little after four in the afternoon; a twenty-minute walk, and I caught the sunset just in time. There was a bit of smog today, and the setting sun looked like an egg yolk; the waves were bigger than usual, and I could hear the surf before I even reached the shore. At sunset the seagulls fly out toward the sea rather than in toward land — their nests must be on the little islands. In the street trees along both sides of Changjiang Road there are lots of magpie nests, all very big, built of a tangle of dead twigs — another masterpiece of the birds. In the woods someone was singing, with a big speaker of his own, singing utterly lost in it.
In the evening I scrolled through my phone looking at the sunset and the sea I’d shot today. The sea — so beautiful, and under the setting sun even more so. Comparing with the photos and videos from before, I found again that every day’s sea and sunset are different: sometimes the tide is in, sometimes out; sometimes the waves are big, sometimes calm; sometimes the sun is yellow, sometimes red; the clouds at the horizon are endlessly changing; the weather each day is different — overcast, clear, rain, snow — and my own mood each day is different too. Every day I am a new me.
Before bed at night I eat an apple. Shandong apples are really good. Having eaten Shandong apples for so long, I’ve also worked out why Shandong apples taste good and the ones sold elsewhere don’t: the apples here are full of water, plump and juicy, whereas the ones you eat elsewhere aren’t so juicy — probably a lot evaporates in transit, or else they send the not-so-good apples out of the province.
2023.1.20
When I got up the warm sun was high again, better weather than yesterday: yesterday there was a touch of fog, today there’s none at all, the sky clear, blue as the sea, refreshing to the heart. Sitting on the sofa indoors was a bit cold, so I went out to sit on the balcony again — sunning myself, giving up, being the Diogenes of Weihai. At noon I ate fried eggs and stir-fried napa cabbage, and decided to take a shower after the meal. I hadn’t washed for a week; time to wash. Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, and I don’t want to be taking a shower on the Eve. After the shower I went back to the balcony to sit in the sun and let the daylight dry my hair.
If you don’t go out you don’t know the temperature outside; warm as spring on the balcony, but the moment you step out you feel a chill. Passing some shops, all shut, but festive couplets pasted at every door — pasted rather sloppily, stuck up with clear tape, but still better than none. On the road there were some old people, like me, strolling slowly toward the shore.
The tide was out, and a stretch of beach gradually appeared. Someone had written a lot of blessings in the sand: “May Mom have another baby brother,” “Get rich,” “Study hard,” “Love forever,” and so on. Seeing these, I wanted to write a few New Year’s wishes of my own: “New friends better than the old, a new year better than the last,” “May there be world peace.” I wrote some for my friends too: “Wishing So-and-so good health,” “Wishing So-and-so a partner soon,” “Wishing So-and-so an early retirement,” “Wishing So-and-so a fortune,” “Wishing So-and-so success at losing weight,” “Wishing So-and-so more books.” Then I photographed them and sent them, hoping they’ll all be happy. I wrote one for myself as well: “Wishing Erpang freedom and happiness” — and may it be so.
Once the sun had set it got colder, and the sky darkened fast. My nose was red with cold, so I headed back. Tomorrow I probably won’t go out; it’s so bleak out there, and walking about outside only makes a person sad. In the west there was one especially bright star — the morning star, surely — dazzling. In the middle there was a bright star too, but I don’t know its name. In the east there were many stars as well, all sorts of constellations, drifting quietly. But one star was moving fast across the sky — oh, it was a plane.
Some compounds had hung lanterns and decorations at the gate, and put up banners reading “So-and-so Property Management wishes its residents a happy holiday.” This is probably a compound with plenty of residents, and money; mine has nothing. Most compounds are extremely bleak — some buildings entirely empty, some with just one household in a whole block. In my building there are only two households. The streets are bleak too, of course; yet at the crossroads I saw three fires — three people burning paper money to honor their ancestors, stirring the heaps to burn the paper more completely. In the distance someone was setting off firecrackers and fireworks, and you could smell gunpowder and sulphur in the air — smells that made me sadder still.
A man was calling to a stray dog, but the little dog was timid and wouldn’t come near. So he kept chasing it, trying to coax it over; the two of them, one after the other, went into the compound. I don’t know what he wanted, but I hope he meant well. When I reached my own building, a stray cat shot out of the doorway and gave me a fright. Going upstairs I saw that the people on the third floor had put their garbage by the door; that stray cat had probably been rummaging in it for food. Poor stray cats and dogs.
2023.1.21
Another day of bright sunshine. I must have said countless times how good the sun is here — some people’s ears must be callused by now. But this is my everyday life. I once heard it said that girls all yearn for Jiangnan, probably because of its romance — its wind and flowers, its snow and moon. I yearned for Jiangnan too when I was small; but after I went north I stopped longing for the south, and the whole south holds no attraction for me. First, the south has no central heating. Second, the south doesn’t have so many clear days. I love clear days — clear days are my life. And the peninsula’s climate is even better than Beijing’s: so many clear days, and the sea as well. If only I could settle here for good.
Today is New Year’s Eve. I’d assumed the market wouldn’t be open; when I went out for a stroll a little after eleven I found there were still some stalls — I hadn’t expected that. These people come out to sell things even on New Year’s Eve; it can’t be easy. This afternoon they should be resting. The streets are as bleak as ever, empty and quiet, but the sunlight is so good, and walking these empty streets makes me feel utterly at ease. The shore isn’t empty, exactly — a few here and there, countable on the fingers of one hand. On the beach someone had tossed aside some firework boxes, set off last night; tonight people will probably go set off fireworks again — after all, fireworks aren’t banned here.
From the afternoon on, firecrackers went off one after another. My mother video-called me, and I didn’t pick up. She still thinks I’m in Beijing, and I keep pretending I’m still working. So I couldn’t take her call — otherwise she’d hear the firecrackers here. She’d ask me: why are they still setting off firecrackers where you are? How would I answer that? I made up an excuse — said I was at a friend’s place, with a lot of people. Luckily I’d talked with them on the phone yesterday, so I don’t have to report in every day. The firecrackers were one thing I hadn’t expected that could give me away.
At night the firecrackers and fireworks grew more and more dense — people setting them off on the beach in the distance, people setting them off in the compounds nearby. The fireworks really are beautiful; the firecrackers really are loud. But Lu Xun wrote: “Downstairs a man is on his deathbed, next door they have the gramophone on; in the house opposite they are playing with children. Upstairs two people are laughing wildly, and there is the sound of gambling. In the boat on the river a woman is wailing for her dead mother. Men cannot communicate their grief or joy — all I feel is that they are noisy.” Wrong for the occasion, I know, and not quite fair; but most of the young people who come to a ghost town for the New Year are running from something. I don’t even watch the Spring Festival Gala — I crawled into bed early, an outsider.
Four whole Spring Festivals without going home. After the New Year I’ll find a time to go back once. Honestly, I don’t miss home at all, and I don’t want to go back. It’s not that I feel anything bad toward my parents; I’m simply afraid of noisy occasions, and I loathe socializing — especially the people who keep asking why you’re not married, and the ones with no sense of limits who ask how much you earn. Rather than go through the motions with them, I’d rather be by myself. I don’t think I’m antisocial; I’m just a bit cynical. When I was very small, my teachers taught me to adapt to this society. And I still haven’t adapted to it. No one ever taught us to change this society — only to obey, to be docile, to live by the book, to be an honest man, to do things by the rules. Do these old ways of thinking, these old customs, have to be carried on forever? Population decline, I think, has already answered the question. Young people aren’t marrying, aren’t having children; before long there’ll be no concept of family at all — no need to go home, no need to celebrate the New Year.
A little grumbling, because the firecrackers outside were setting my nerves on edge. Still, I hope everyone in the world is healthy, happy, and free.
2023.1.22
At night the mind is a little muddled; in the morning it clears. I’ve thought about it: it isn’t other people celebrating the New Year I dislike, nor celebrating it myself — it’s the stiff, awkward, forced forms of celebrating together, sitting with nothing to say, all feigned warmth. In other words, I don’t dislike the holiday. If the New Year were spent in a relaxed, playful spirit I’d be happy to celebrate it; but if all its fussy formalities leave people anxious and fretful and stressed, then better not to celebrate at all. Take getting up early: young people like to sleep in — so let them sleep in. Why drag them out of bed to eat and go visiting? It only wears everyone out. If you like these forms, you can keep them yourself, but you can’t force others to like them too. Everyone had better be a bit more independent; you don’t meddle with me, I don’t meddle with you. If we can’t have maximum freedom, at least we can have basic respect.
All morning the guns went off outside. Shandong people must love firecrackers more than anyone. I went downstairs: the ground was covered with a layer of red firecracker paper, and there were firework boxes too. On the open ground outside the compound there was plenty of debris as well, which shows a lot of people were setting them off last night. I, though, crawled into bed early and didn’t go out at all. Walking toward the shore, I found quite a few people and quite a few cars on the road — more than usual; all going out to pay New Year’s calls, no doubt. Do Shandong people kowtow when they pay New Year’s calls? In the countryside you do, surely.
Today is the first day of the New Year. And what does the first day mean? Nothing to do with the New Year — everything to do with the sea: a spring tide, of course. Today’s low tide was at ten in the morning, only four centimeters high, and the high tide a little after four in the afternoon, at 376 centimeters — a so-called spring tide. Tomorrow will be a spring tide too; and the day after tomorrow, a king tide, even higher than a spring tide. The moment I got near the shore I saw a lot of people foraging the shallows, digging in the sand with their tools. I hadn’t expected them to come foraging on New Year’s Day. Isn’t foraging more fun than paying New Year’s calls? People who live by the sea ought to turn these three days of family activity into foraging the shallows together — endless fun, and the gifts of nature thrown in. How good would that be.
Another clear day, and warm; walking to the shore I even worked up a sweat on my back. At noon, though, the air was a bit smoggy — all those firecrackers and fireworks, after all. After my walk by the shore I came back and cooked: three fried eggs and a bowl of stir-fried napa cabbage, with rice — my New Year’s Day fare. I complained to a friend about being poor. Poor me. My friend said: it smells good and it’s healthy; as long as the nutrition’s complete, that’s what matters. A real comfort. And what did I eat for last night’s New Year’s Eve dinner? For a moment I couldn’t remember — and in the end I never did.
After eating I sat on the balcony in the sun again. By afternoon the air turned clear, no longer as blurred as in the morning, and the light was clean. Cracking sunflower seeds, eating sugar tangerines — how pleasant, how lovely. This is how the New Year should be spent: at leisure, not rushing about paying calls. Idle until four in the afternoon, then out to the shore again to watch the rising tide and the sunset. There were thick clouds at the horizon, and the setting sun was often hidden behind them, out of sight; I could only listen to the surf of the spring tide. The water came right up to the very edge of the shore, at my feet, and sometimes a wave rushed further and threatened to soak my shoes, and I stepped back quickly to dodge it. The waves rolled on without pause, tireless, day and night. Coming back from the shore it was already dark, the road quiet, and in the distance a new round of crackling firecrackers had started up. Let the New Year be over soon. In the two buildings at the compound gate there were some shops on the ground floor — all shut, but with couplets pasted up, giving a little sense of ceremony; and though there was no one inside, the lights were on. Suddenly I remembered a custom from my hometown: on the nights of New Year’s Eve, the first day, and the second day, the lights indoors are kept on all night. And I had clean forgotten it — last night I didn’t turn a light on. If I hadn’t gone out and seen other people’s lights burning, I wouldn’t have remembered, and tonight I won’t be turning any on either. Let old habits be past; let people today practice a new way of living; don’t cling to the past.
2023.1.23
Today, tomorrow, and the day after will be the three coldest days at Rushan Silver Beach, with lows down to thirteen below zero. The north wind really is bitter, and it has started to snow. But the snow in Rushan is always very fine — like powder, like dandruff. “Sprinkling salt in the air” is about as good a comparison as you can make; to say it’s like willow catkins would be a stretch. And the wind here is strong besides, so you never see snowflakes drifting gently down — they all whirl about in the wind, and once they land the wind drives them scurrying across the ground, stopping only where something blocks them, piling up little by little into small patches of white.
Going out I found the buses were running again — you can take one into town. The supermarket is open too, so I can buy vegetables. The second day of the New Year, still a spring tide, and more people than ever out foraging the shallows, digging for razor clams. I don’t know how to dig, and I have no tools or gear; all I can do is play with the little crabs on the surface. I went to the shore at noon, and again toward evening. I walked sixteen thousand steps in the day. A pity the wind was howling and the black clouds churning, so no sunset to be seen. Cold enough to numb my face — and yet on the tennis court by the shore a man and a woman were practicing tennis. Admirable.
The New Year too I spend alone — walking by myself, standing solitary, a single body and a single shadow. To many people this may look a little pitiful, even sad; but I like this state enormously, undisturbed, quiet and free of striving. I have no wish to join any group, to take part in their collective rituals. A person who fears loneliness, who seeks security in a group and leans on others, will become unfree, bound by the group — that’s unavoidable. Only by coming and going alone, depending on no one, is a person truly free.
It’s not that there are no young people in the ghost town, and no social life; if you need company you’ll find friends. Most of the young people who come here don’t want to socialize, but there are exceptions — they like socializing, like making friends, have their little circles, and often get together. You can invite people, and people will invite you; there are always some who can’t bear to be alone, and they run into one another and strike sparks, or trouble. Whether you like socializing or not, I hope you’ll be happy, free, and joyful.
2023.1.24
Wow — what deep snow! When I woke and pulled back the curtain, the ground of the compound outside was covered in a thick layer of white, a vast expanse of white, truly a world dressed in silver. This is the heaviest snow of the winter. The snow has stopped, the sky has cleared, the sun is rising, but the snow on the ground shows it fell for a long time last night. I’m going to the shore to see the snow! Get dressed, quick, and out — I can’t miss a chance like this. Usually when I wake I lounge in bed for ages; but snow gets me up and out in a flash.
I was the first one out of the stairwell, and left the first footprint below. But some of the old people in the compound were up even earlier than me, walking their dogs. A little dog barked at me, and I said, “Hello there, little dog!” It just kept barking — an ungrateful little dog. On the way to the shore there were only a few footprints and tire tracks; everyone was still in bed. I walked happily along the quiet street, treading the white, clean snow. The snow on the ground was like the fine sand on the beach, soft and loose, crunching underfoot, sticking to my shoes so that kicking wouldn’t shake it off.
There was no one at the shore either — only me. The whole beach was mine; all the snow on the whole beach was mine. I went carefully down the slope, leaving a line of footprints. The wind at the shore was strong, and the snow on the ground was blown up like wisps of white smoke, rolling and running along the ground, brushing quickly past your feet, tumbling headlong, all the way into the sea. The snow on the beach was like snow in a desert; there wasn’t much to wonder at in that, but the sea was right there — snow on this side, sea on that side. Isn’t a scene like that romantic enough?
And this winter of mine at Silver Beach — cold and lonely, no good food, no good drink, nothing to do, not a relative or friend to my name — but to see snow like this, sea like this, and countless sunsets and the endless rise and fall of the tide: I think this life is worth it.
Today is the coldest day at Rushan Silver Beach — worth a note. The temperature was -13 to -8°C, a force 5 to 6 northwest wind, clear, with snow on the ground. At noon I made lunch for myself in the kitchen: chopped garlic, chopped green peppers, tore up napa cabbage and washed it, fried eggs, stir-fried cabbage — the north wind blowing hard outside the window, rattling the branches, and every so often I’d glance at the drifted snow outside and then calmly turn my spatula in the pan. Before long the rice was done and the dish was cooked. Ten below outside, ten above inside, and I ate the food I’d cooked with my own hands. This simple happiness comes of my having thrown away the big-city life of Beijing, kept away from crowds, refused to socialize, and come to live in a seaside ghost town all but empty in winter. Maybe this happiness is brief, gone in a flash — but isn’t a human life like a dream, like dew, like lightning?
2023.1.25
Weihai (the city proper) is the snow nest — everyone knows that by now. The snow there is much heavier than in Rushan, and the railings by the sea are thick with ice, like the North in A Song of Ice and Fire. And it has to be admitted that Weihai’s sea is far more beautiful than Rushan’s, whether you mean the untouched sea or the man-made facilities around it. These past few days of snow, I’ve seen countless pictures of Weihai’s snow on video sites, and sometimes I envy that snow, and that sea, and the people there. But then I think again: the root of unhappiness is the habit of comparing yourself with others — when someone is better off than you, you feel sad. So don’t compare; don’t go comparing. And if you must compare, look at the whole picture: is Weihai’s rent as cheap as Rushan’s? Are there as few people in Weihai as in Rushan (quieter)? If you choose the “better” life, you’ll pay the corresponding price. And if Weihai is better than Rushan, then Beijing is better than Weihai — and on and on it goes, endlessly, and the worries go on endlessly too. All the same, there’s nothing wrong with wanting a “good” life; but a “good” life can’t keep a person under pressure all the time — you can’t go on carrying a load forever, you’ll break down. Life has to be in balance.
Morning in the sun, afternoon lying in, evening a stroll by the shore — a happy day, no different from the days before. There was still a lot of leftover snow on the roads, and it was still thick on the steps and the curbs. The tide was coming in at the shore, and you could clearly see the sheets of ice along the coast, pushed back and forth, forward and back, by the water, forming a barrier stretching along the shore — like a dike made of broken ice, except that the ice and the yellow sand were mixed together, and it looked a bit murky. Cold as it was today, the raw wind made me feel bracing, because I knew the coldest day was already past; the temperature would soon rise, and spring would soon be here. The very thought of spring coming filled me with joy. The new moon curved like a hook, bright stars in the sky. The cold winter is about to pass, and the ghost town too will be made new, and become a spring town.