In this, the last month of spring, with the dress of the season all complete, along with five or six young men who have assumed the cap, and six or seven boys, I would wash in the Yi, enjoy the breeze among the rain altars, and return home singing. — the Analects, “Xian Jin”
2023.4.15
Another market day — the twenty-fifth of the second lunar month, and fine sunshine. The moment I got up I carried the quilt out to the balcony and put the pillow on the windowsill to sun. More sun is good for anyone. It was Saturday too, so the market was especially crowded and lively. With the weather warm and the sun beating down, the vendors had all put up canopies against it. I bought potatoes (three jin for RMB 10, RMB 12.5), napa cabbage (two jin for RMB 1.5, RMB 3.3), small hot chilies (RMB 10 for 150 grams; I took RMB 5 worth), bananas (RMB 3 a jin, RMB 9), sunflower seeds (RMB 13 a jin, RMB 13) and youtiao (two sticks, RMB 10). The cabbage and potatoes were the heavy things; I carried them home.
Now that the weather’s warm, my bathing has dropped to once every five days — in step with the market. In winter it was once a week. You see how easily a person adapts. In Beijing I bathed every day. My first days in Rushan I meant to keep bathing every day too, but I found the idea impractical: here they don’t use gas, they use electricity, and you have to wait a long time for the water to heat. The place is old and shabby besides — no extractor fan, poor drainage; after a bath the floor is sopping wet and stays wet for ages. Bathe every day and you’d have to boil water every day, wash clothes every day — a waste of water, a waste of electricity, and above all a waste of time. I don’t want to live like that. Not bathing makes no difference to my daily life; I don’t need to see anyone, I have no social life, I don’t need to mind my appearance or my manners.
The cheap winter slippers I’d bought online had split at the sole, and the foam inside kept squeezing out; I’d push it back in, and it would come out again — maddening, but I didn’t want to buy new ones. After today’s bath the sandals no longer felt cold, so from now on I’ll wear sandals. Thinking about how I got through a winter without central heating, I feel quite impressive. Poverty has made me that tough. People are always saying you can’t last a winter here without heating, that you’d freeze to death. I look at their IP address and I know they’re northerners. To a southerner, winter here — indoors, anyway — isn’t as cold as the south, and going without heating is no problem at all. Southerners are cold-proof.
I went out for a ride. Along the way I saw the blossoms fading and the leaves coming out — a tree that had been all pink was now mostly green, with a little pink mixed into the tender green, an odd but pleasing mix. The shore by Damuzhi Plaza was crowded: weekend trippers with children, with little dogs, tents pitched; many young people, boys flying kites, high and small, girls posing for photos — long hair streaming, some with their midriffs bare — brimming with youth. I’m just an aloof onlooker. I don’t want to join anyone or any group, though the scene was warm and lovely.
Today I also learned a little rhyme for telling spring’s flowers apart: “Cherry is cleft, peach is peaked, crabapple adds a ring of petals; apricot is bare, plum is purple, pear leaves are toothed like a saw; forsythia is long, winter jasmine round — the two divide four petals to six.” It really works.
2023.4.16
Getting up in the morning I saw the ground outside was wet, with a few puddles — clearly it had rained a good deal in the night. But I hadn’t heard a thing, so it must have come down in the small hours. Just a thunderstorm: it rained while people slept and stopped before they woke. By morning it was clear again, the sunlight bright, the air fresh, birds singing, the plants lush — heart-lifting.
The days are so long I can’t sit still, so I went out on the bike — some exercise, and a look at the countryside into the bargain. Since coming here I’ve kept my eyes on the sea and overlooked the land, which is to say, looking inland, away from the sea. Once I walked out into the countryside, but not far; walking is slow, after all. The Jiaodong countryside has its own particular character.
Just outside I saw a lot of tour coaches parked by the sales office of a new development: two big property-viewing groups, one from Jiangsu and one from Hebei, with three or four coaches each. The people had already got off and were gathered in and around the sales office. Silver Beach property still has its selling points: by the sea, cheap — for the wealthy or the retired, an absolute giveaway.
I wasn’t buying a house; I rode straight out into the countryside, north, away from the sea, away from people. The country lanes are paved with concrete, not dirt, though they rise and dip — never steeply; that’s the nature of the Jiaodong hills. The fields had all been leveled and prepared; some were already sown with wheat, others still bare, and only a few farmers were at work. There was a smell of manure in the air, but faint, not enough to disgust you. The wind was light. I climbed a slope, reached the top, and started coasting down, not pedaling at all, gliding a long way in the breeze until I reached the bank of the Baishatan River. I turned east and came onto a stretch of dirt road, but was soon past it and back on concrete, heading south up a long, gentle rise, so I got off and pushed the bike. Whenever I get tired of riding I get off and push, rest a little, and look at the fields around me. There’s not much growing in them, but the open farmland is restful — not like the city, where tower blocks block the view on every side and everything is cramped and hemmed in. Up one slope, then down again — a long descent this time, and I coasted a very long way, gathering speed, the wind rushing past my ears. It’s a feeling of freedom. No wonder some young people like motorbikes rather than cars — on a motorbike you feel the wind. In Lhasa I met a young man who told me he’d come to Tibet first to scout it out, and would go home and buy a motorbike to ride across Tibet.
After rain, earthworms come up out of the ground in numbers — some become food for birds, some dry out in the sun and become food for ants. Centipedes were crawling on the road too, and I rode carefully, afraid of crushing them. Magpies flew past with twigs in their beaks; their nests are everywhere. The willows were still that tender green — delicate, restrained, not the wanton green of summer. Many trees were losing their blossoms, making way for leaves.
The temperature has risen for certain. Sleeping at night and napping in the afternoon I felt rather warm, even sweating at the neck. When I woke I went to the parcel pickup to collect a package, and when they asked me for the code I read out the digit 6 in the dialect way instead of the standard one, and couldn’t correct myself even after several tries. It surprised me. Here, with no social life and no one to talk to for long stretches, and buying less and less online, my Mandarin has gone backwards, reverting to the dialect underneath. I worked my mouth a few times — I can’t go on like this, shutting myself away!
2023.4.17
I went for a wander on the waste ground on the other side, outside the compound, and saw a row of trees with pink flowers. I call all such trees peach trees, and their blossoms peach blossoms. The petals had fallen all over the ground, and some were still falling; stirred by the wind they came down in a lovely flurry, as if this were the Peach Blossom Spring of legend. But when I identified it with the app, it came back as a “beauty plum,” also called a “cherry-plum.” Whether it’s a cherry, a plum or an apricot, I’m thoroughly muddled. Nearby there was another low tree, more like a shrub, whose flowers had only just opened — many still small round buds, and the flowers smaller than the beauty plum’s. The app says it’s a double-flowered dwarf flowering almond, and I honestly don’t know what to call it. And then some other low trees with leaves but no flowers, their leaves deep red like maple: red photinia. On the little hill the pine cones had all fallen from the low pines, which were putting out strings of new little cones. At the foot of the hill a woman was digging shepherd’s purse.
The pavilion in the compound has begun to gather a crowd of old people again, sitting and chatting about the international situation and domestic property prices. All winter it stood empty. The wind was a bit strong today, though — an easterly, force 6 — so toward evening they moved to the western corner of one of the buildings, set up a little table, and played cards there. The weather has truly warmed, and it makes you daydream about summer nights.
2023.4.18
I wake a little after five every morning now, not a bit sleepy. That’s just after the sun has risen, and I think this is the schedule that follows the way of heaven: wake when it’s light, sleep when it’s dark. Eat when hungry, drink when thirsty, and when full, think of lust. Put on more clothes when it’s cold, go bare-chested when it’s hot — live like an animal. Man is an animal to begin with. Overeating and overdrinking, endless going to work, ceaseless anxiety — all of it runs against human nature and animal nature. Laozi said, the Dao follows nature. Follow nature.
Someone online told me he’d once been stationed here — the coastal defence regiment — for twelve years, that he missed the place a great deal, and that he hoped I’d photograph the old barracks (the unit has since moved). I had nothing to do and wanted a bike ride anyway, so I said I’d go and take a look when I had time. Today the weather was excellent, the temperature up to 23 degrees, even a little hot, so I rode east. The barracks are opposite Xiaotaojia. Going in I saw a big pond, and beside it two tall trees with three egrets resting on the branches. My informant said they used to keep fish in the pond; the land all around the barracks belonged to the unit, and they grew vegetables and kept a pigsty — self-sufficient. A pity the low, farmhouse-like buildings stand abandoned now, no one living in them. The south gate was heaped with scrap, and scrap inside the gate too — it’s become a scrap yard, with a flock of geese kept in there, and a few sheep. The geese saw me and started honking — an ugly sound — which also roused a few vicious dogs; luckily they were all chained, but the barking frightened me a little. I took some photos and video at the gate and on the dirt road, didn’t go in to film the barracks, and left. Ten, twenty years ago, how desolate this must have been — and yet a group of young soldiers left their youth here; now it is a ruin.
I rode on east, to the east side of the Foreign Affairs University, then turned back. The university gate was quiet — it was midday, and not the weekend, so the students weren’t out and about. Everyone says there’s a night market by the gate that’s lively in the evening; I didn’t see it at this hour. Riding back I came to Haiyun Yangguang and got up on the seawall; it was just the peak of the rising tide, the waves high and booming, slapping the concrete embankment, sheets of white foam washing up the beach. The spring breeze was mild, and the green grass on the beach had come up, thin and sparse. The sun was a little dazzling, and there were only a few old people along the shore. I sat on the edge of the embankment watching the waves and listening to the surf — not having a job is so blissful.
I rode 20 kilometers today and didn’t feel tired — only my backside got sore from sitting so long, so I had to get off and walk a while to ease it. For one thing the weather was glorious, for another I’d set out well fed, and for a third this was my third ride and I knew the way. In good weather you should get out and about — look at the sea, look at the wildflowers, feel the wind; it helps you lose weight and lifts your spirits. Why wouldn’t you? Spring is truly beautiful, but only the idle can enjoy it. “Rivers and mountains, wind and moonlight have no constant owner; whoever has the leisure is their master.” Leisure — how rare it is!
2023.4.19
Rushan Silver Beach is often called a ghost town, but from my own experience — what I’ve observed these past six months — I’d have to say that in winter it really is one. In summer, though, it’s quite another story. After the New Year, from February on, the weather begins slowly to warm and the people here begin slowly to increase. By March and April the numbers swell fast. Many of the old people have come back and are busy in their ground-floor gardens. Some young people who quit their jobs have come to lie flat too; in the compounds and on the streets you often see new faces. The university to the east has started its term, and the students are back — at weekends especially they come to Damuzhi Plaza. More cars on the roads and more cars parked in the compounds. Naturally more people at the market. More tourists along the shore, instead of the whole beach empty as it was in winter. At the sales offices of the new developments, on weekends and holidays, there are always plenty of coaches from out of town, bringing in property-viewing groups. The restaurants, shops and short-let flats that closed for winter have opened again, welcoming new visitors and new residents. The sun beats down, the grass is green, the trees are green, the flowers are a blaze of every color, the birds are singing, the farmers are sowing, the wheat is a vivid green — the whole earth is bursting with life. Some say the sea has its seasons too, and the creatures in it change with them. I’d guess that by May — the start of summer — and on through the height of summer in June, July and August, there will be more people still, and this place can no longer be called a ghost town. And of course, come winter, the people will fall away again, and it will sink back into silence and become a ghost town once more — soundless, as if hibernating.
I wake a little after five, which means the whole morning is nearly seven hours long. Seven hours — absurdly long, like a whole day. Add the six hours of the afternoon and the day is like two days. Spring and summer days are far too long. Not like deep winter, when you can sleep till ten and the morning is only two hours. And the afternoon only four. Seen that way, for someone with nothing to do, winter is the easier season to get through. No wonder some people prefer winter to summer: winter lets you rest for a long stretch, while summer is nothing but a long stretch of labor.
I had my brunch and went out for a wander, reaching a patch of farmland I hadn’t been to before. A few farmers were leveling the ground — not a single young person, only aunties and uncles. The field’s edge was fenced with rope and wooden poles, with red floats tied to the fence. Those floats are picked up on the beach; at high tide you often see them floating there — they’re the markers fishermen use for their aquaculture. From the fields I walked around behind Yinlong Bay, then to the Hupan Renjia compound, and finally to the bank of the Baishatan River. Quite a few people were fishing from the bank, on both sides; some had caught a lot, crucian carp by the look of them. The waterweed in the river was greening; the water was clear and rippling. There were far fewer coots than in winter, but I saw a few scattered about, making their cooing calls. Where Chaoxi Lake meets the Baishatan River the water is shallow and the tideland is exposed on the bank, riddled with countless odd little holes that glinted white. I was curious and thought it was leftover water catching the sun, but when I looked up close I found they were all crab burrows, the crabs’ shells wet, and that was what reflected the light. Hearing someone approach, they scuttle sideways into their burrows and watch from the entrance. A crab’s color is no different from the mud’s; if they weren’t moving, or catching the light, you’d never spot them. I don’t know what kind of crab this is. One claw is much bigger than the other — as if evolved for life in a burrow, able to defend themselves with only one side — and the big claw is reddish. At the river mouth the tide was coming in and sea water was pouring into the channel; three men were fishing there, where the sea and the river met, and there were probably fish running. I sat down on the empty grass, leaning back, sunned myself a while and played with my phone. The trees around were all in flower; one with purple flowers in strings is the redbud, and the one that “adds a ring of petals” is the Xifu crabapple. One tree had no flowers but had put out small tender leaves of a very particular shape, like a fan — that’s the ginkgo.
It was clear all day, mild and bright, but toward evening fog came in. At first it was only in the distance, thin and ghostly, but it quickly thickened and spread; the buildings far off faded and vanished, and my own compound was steeped in it. The forecast showed a strong wind at sea, so the fog must have blown in off the water. Walking outside you felt a damp chill. Rushan certainly has far more wind and fog than Beijing, but the wind is clean and so is the fog — no need to worry about sandstorms and smog. And of course, compared with the rain-mists of the south, this fog is nothing much, and it’s rare besides; the north is still mostly dry.
2023.4.20
Today is the first of the lunar month, but since last month had no thirtieth day, the thirtieth’s market was moved to today and has fallen together with the first’s; so this market (the Xiaotan market) had few vendors and few customers. I bought green peppers (RMB 2 a jin — the vendor said three jin for RMB 5, but I didn’t need that much, so I just bought RMB 3 worth), apples (RMB 5 a jin, five of them, RMB 17) and cauliflower (RMB 3.5 a jin, RMB 6.5). The fridge still had plenty in it, so I didn’t buy much; I wandered about the market looking at things and went home.
At the market I heard a seafood vendor say the fishing moratorium was coming. I made a note of it and looked it up when I got back. For an inland person, the whole business of the closed season and the reopening means nothing at all. Once the moratorium starts, the seafood in the market is bound to change. The closed periods are these:
(i) In the Bohai Sea and Yellow Sea north of 35 degrees north latitude, from 12:00 on May 1 to 12:00 on September 1. [Weihai falls within this zone.]
(ii) In the Yellow Sea and East China Sea between 35 degrees and 26 degrees 30 minutes north latitude, from 12:00 on May 1 to 12:00 on September 16.
(iii) In the East China Sea and South China Sea from 26 degrees 30 minutes to 12 degrees north latitude, from 12:00 on May 1 to 12:00 on August 16.
But the moratorium doesn’t mean the sea is closed. During the closed season, for example, you can still fish with a rod, and you can still forage the shallows; it’s only the trawlers that aren’t allowed out, so the harbor gets much quieter. Nor is there no seafood to eat — just no fresh wild seafood. There’s still farmed seafood and frozen seafood (caught ahead of time and kept in cold storage), and the prices won’t rise much.
At noon the temperature reached 23 degrees — unprecedented. But in the afternoon a gale got up, a force 7 north wind, rattling the windows. The white flowers were all stripped from a magnolia, leaving only some newly grown tender leaves. The redbud and forsythia blossoms, though, are sturdy and didn’t blow off, though the branches swayed in the wind. The old people who play cards in the corner every evening didn’t dare linger in it a moment longer than they had to. So Weihai’s wind really is frequent and strong — the name is well earned. Compared with Beijing, though, there’s no sand or dust in this wind, and no dust accumulating at home.
2023.4.21
At night the wind was clearer still — whooshing, moaning, like a roller coaster, rising and falling, wave after wave without end, just like the waves of the sea. Nature’s energy is astonishing. Lying in bed listening to the howl, I wondered where the sound came from: perhaps the gaps around the windows, perhaps the wind through the branches, perhaps the fence of the ground-floor garden — anything that can vibrate. It blew all night without stopping, went on blowing in the morning, and blew all day; I didn’t dare go out. The forecast said a force 7 northeast wind, but that’s only the average — at its strongest it must have been 8 or 9.
In summer the days are so long — the middle of the day especially — and one drawback is that you’re forced to nap in the afternoon. After lunch it’s too hot to go out walking, and there’s nothing to do at home, and digesting food makes you drowsy, so you have to lie down. When you get up, another two hours of the afternoon are gone. Compared with winter, it’s as if you’d slept two extra hours in the morning. It suddenly struck me: when I was at university in Changchun, the locals said they had no habit of napping. Now I understand why. Changchun is at a high latitude, so the days are short — unlike people at low latitudes, whose days are so long they have to take a break in the middle. Such a simple truth, and it took me nearly twenty years to see it. Everything comes back to the sun; the sun decides people’s habits. (Note: in winter the days are relatively short at high latitudes; in summer they are relatively long. The napping habit has to do with both the length and the intensity of daylight — at high latitudes the sunlight is relatively weak.)
Recently I’ve found another way of cooking that’s both very simple and very tasty: when boiling noodles (dried noodles), stir a spoonful of Lao Gan Ma chili sauce into them — delicious. Before, I just added egg and napa cabbage and a pinch of salt, which came out rather bland. For a Hubei man there has to be something spicy. And the long-neglected jar of Lao Gan Ma has finally come into its own. I’m so easily satisfied.
2023.4.22
There’s another trick for making cooking and eating very simple: at midday, cook a bit more rice and stir-fry a bit more of the dish, so there’s some left over that you can just reheat in the evening for dinner. Two birds with one stone. Of course, this only suits someone with needs as simple as mine — people of stronger appetite wouldn’t settle for the same meal twice. Making cooking and eating simple also makes washing the bowls, pot and chopsticks simple. But health comes first: it doesn’t have to be good, but it has to be filling.
After eating I went out for a wander; it was midday, few people on the streets, and a few out foraging the shallows by the sea. Two days indoors, and the wind had dropped. The leaves on every kind of tree are fuller and greener, willow branches streaming in the wind. The flowers are fewer again — the cherry blossoms have all fallen, and now you can only tell one tree from another by its leaves. But the forsythia and redbud are still vivid, and the little yellow and purple flowers on the grass are everywhere, dots of color. The wheat has grown tall, up to the knee. Walking along the main street I thought about how this differs from the city. Beyond having more trees and flowers and crops and fewer people, the most immediate is that your sight reaches far — you can see a great distance at a glance, nothing in the way, which must be good for the eyes — and the sky is one continuous whole instead of being cut into pieces by towers. Not only is your view unobstructed and the sky unbroken, you can also feel clearly the wind from every direction: today it’s northeast. Open space — that’s the difference between the countryside and the city. And the benefits of open space are plain: it makes you broader, deeper, more far-reaching.
Since coming here I’ve hardly watched any films, and I no longer have much interest in them; I even think watching a film is a waste of time. Only looking at the real world is serious business — looking at mountains, looking at the sea, watching the weather, caring about grain. Books and music likewise are not serious business. The city dweller’s pastimes have become irrelevant in the countryside.
2023.4.23
Sleeping under a thick quilt at night is a bit warm now, and I work up a sticky sweat — uncomfortable. Quite unlike winter, when you had to have the electric blanket on all night and pile thick clothes on top of the quilt to keep warm. Sometimes I wonder whether I like winter better or summer better. When summer comes I miss winter; in winter I wish summer would hurry up. It’s not exactly that “an insect of the summer cannot be talked with about ice,” but human memory isn’t up to much either: in summer you forget winter’s bitter cold, in winter you forget summer’s fierce heat. Yet there are places where winter comes with heating, so it isn’t cold at all, and summer is only in the twenties, so it isn’t hot — places in the northeast, which I miss very much. Still, April in Rushan is on the whole not warm; the temperature rarely reaches 20, and on overcast, windy days you can even feel cold.
Today was overcast and a little cold, though the wind had dropped. Toward evening, when it was nearly dark, I went out to the shore. There were hardly any people about — empty and quiet. The tide was going out, exposing a clean stretch of fine sand, still soft underfoot. I lingered until it was fully dark, picked up two pretty shells, took a few nice photos, and headed home satisfied. Onshore there’s a little pine grove; I was desperate for a pee, so I ran into the trees. There was no one around anyway, and watering the pines was a good deed besides. Passing the Yinlong Bay night market, many stalls had already packed up and the rest were tidying their goods — some wrapping, some carrying; only a few barbecue stalls were holding on, with few customers left. In Yinlong Bay square very loud, thumping music was playing, and pairs of old people, arm on shoulder and hand on waist, were dancing — the bustle of a summer night already.
2023.4.24
The fifth of the lunar month: market day. Going to market is no longer simply about buying things for me — it’s a kind of social observation. Today I noticed something new, for instance. Before, I only watched the goods and the vendors, but I’ve found the shoppers are fascinating too. They haggle, chat, quarrel, jostle, nearly come to blows, threaten each other, take a little extra after the goods are weighed; an old man chats up a young woman vendor while his wife is visibly furious. All sorts of scenes — good fun.
The morning was fine, with some sun, but by afternoon it clouded over again, and going out in the evening it was still a bit cold, though it’s the end of April. I always go out at night to fetch water, to avoid running into more people. This isn’t social anxiety — it’s simply that I don’t want to deal with people or meet them. In the big city I wasn’t like this, but here in a “ghost town” I can’t help turning a bit ghostly myself, unwilling to come into contact with anyone. I’ve been here a full six months; I know the seaside well enough, and I’ve had about as much of the experience as I need. I feel the urge to move somewhere else.
2023.4.25
At noon I had hot-and-sour shredded potato, which doubled as breakfast. I’m very fond of this dish now. It’s simple to make, and the very hot dried red chilies and the sour vinegar in it jolt the nerves and the taste buds — almost addictive. One dish is enough, and there’s no need to serve the rice out of the cooker — I eat straight from the pot. Cooking it, and washing the pot afterwards, both leave me calm.
At midday I went for a walk by the sea. At that hour everyone else is at home eating or getting ready for a nap, so there are very few people on the roads or the shore. I like an empty road and an empty sea. It was ebb tide; I used to prefer the flood, for its surging waves, but now I find the ebb charming too — no big wind or surf, but as the water withdraws it exposes flat ground, the view opens wider, you can walk further out, and the sand it has washed over is cleaner, unlike the debris-strewn sand at the tideline. The sea is gentler as well.
Leaving the shore I went up on land; inland of the beach is a stretch of woods and grass. A few days ago I noticed that a great many pine cones had fallen from the pines — more even than in winter. Looking closer at the pines, I saw that they put out new cones in spring: very small cones, in strings, brown, at the tips of the needles, like other trees’ flowers — which is why all the old cones drop. Under the pines there are some shrubs, and on one branch I found a little bird’s nest woven of grass — no bird, no eggs. On the ground were many little yellow and white flowers: the yellow ones dandelions, the white ones rock jasmine, scattered over the green — utterly charming. There are some lilacs too, white or purple, and I leaned in to smell them — the fragrance was delicious. Past the little wood you reach the roadside, where the ornamental trees are plane trees, and they too have put out fresh, tender green leaves.
Today was mostly clear, and at night I could see the moon again after so long. The sixth of the month: the moon is still a crescent, bright with a touch of yellow, in the west and a little north, so I could only see it from the north-facing window. In winter you had to look from the south window. Not far from the moon, below it, was the dazzling Venus. Sky, sun, moon, sea — how much longer can I look at you?
2023.4.26
Diogenes loved to sit in the sun. I love to sit in the sun too. I am Diogenes. I wandered down to the shore, sat on the grass in the little wood, lay back, stretched my arms over my head, and closed my eyes, letting the sun shine down on me, merging with sky and earth. Sparrows were calling and frogs croaking; a breeze blew, the branches swayed and rustled; you could smell the green grass; crickets and ants went about their business in the undergrowth. If I could sit in the sun my whole life, in every season of the year, I’d take it. I don’t care about being tanned pitch-black — black is healthy. What could be more comfortable than sitting in the sun? What could be more important?
Having lived so long in the countryside, drifting like a cloud or a wild crane, I have no interest at all in what goes on in the big city — no wish to care about it, no wish to comment. It has nothing to do with me. In the end, “men cannot communicate their grief or joy”; at the very least you have to be in the same circumstances — you in the big city and I in the big city, you in the countryside and I in the countryside — before we can understand each other even a little. But Qi and Chu, which had nothing to do with each other, would find it very hard to understand each other. Country people, of course, care more about their own crops and the seafood the tides bring in. City people can’t tell one grain from another, and have no idea how rain or wind affects the crops and the catch.
2023.4.27
“Splendid weather. Almost no money.” This is why I love the north — you get sun every day. In the north, if I go a day without seeing the sun, I get depressed. I find it hard to imagine how people get through the plum-rain season in the south, a whole month without sun. In good weather you should go out; as usual I had my brunch and went out to wander. As a child, the moment the holidays began I’d head for the hills, wade in the rivers, go off to the wilds and the countryside — what a happy, carefree child I was. It’s a bit like that now: I’ve walked almost every lane and field around Silver Beach, and I can picture every road and every view with my eyes shut. Today I walked toward the Baishatan River, looked at the coots on the water and the crab burrows along the bank, and some new, unfamiliar long-billed gulls and herons. The sea was emerald green, slowly ebbing, but the south wind was strong, and standing at the water’s edge into it, my eyes soon filled with tears.
Windy as Weihai is, on a clear night the wind blows the sky utterly clean — so clean that the stars and moon are crystalline, and it makes me feel that even if I died now I’d have no regrets; this life has been worth it. The spring wind is still a little cold, though. The moon cast water-like moonlight on the ground; I watched the stars and moon from the balcony a while, stood in the cold wind a while, and then climbed into bed. As I’ve said, there’s no nightlife at Silver Beach. They say Weihai and the Yantai city center have no nightlife either — everything shuts early. Without nightlife I don’t feel lonely in the least: the stars and moon keep me company, and the trees and grass and wheat and reeds out in the fields, the frogs and crickets no doubt calling, the magpies and gulls all gone to their nests, and not far off the sea, which never stops moving.
2023.4.28
Last night the sky was clear for miles and the stars and moon brilliant, but today a thick fog lay everywhere, smoke-like over the grass and trees. The hills and sea in the distance were gone; Duofu Mountain and Gongjia Island had vanished; you could see only the nearby beach and water, and the visitors had become blurred dark shapes, the abandoned shacks in the waste ground barely visible. Walking in thick fog you feel the damp and a touch of cold, and your glasses gradually film over. On the beach I saw a big green-headed dragonfly, its wings so thin they were transparent — but they had picked up the mist and it couldn’t fly. I nudged it and let it climb onto my finger (the middle one), and held it up, studying this utterly beautiful creature — creation is truly marvelous. I held it aloft, it clung to my finger, and I carried it to the near shore and set it down in the grass.
At night the rain finally came, soft and steady, and in the silent ghost town I heard it perfectly, every drop, as pure as the sound of the waves, with none of the city’s human hubbub or traffic to spoil that pure, natural sound. The air turned damp and cool, and I climbed into bed early. Everyone else is on the May Day holiday; tonight is their night to revel, to drown in pleasure, but for me every day is a holiday and every day I’m happy. They drink late into the night — “when the glasses meet, it is the sound of broken dreams” — and I don’t envy them in the least. I want to stay quietly here, listening to the wind, listening to the rain, listening to my own inner voice.
2023.4.29
In the north, neither rain nor smog lasts long. Look — thick fog yesterday, and this morning brilliantly clear, a brightness before your eyes. The wind really was rather strong, though, which bears out the fact that Weihai has wind 365 days a year. “On the 29th, during the day, the peninsula will have a force 8–9 north wind, gusting 10–11, turning to a force 4–5 south wind, gusting 6.” And the north and south winds take turns, as if someone were slapping your left cheek and then your right. Today is the tenth, a market day, and with the May Day holiday on top of that it was even busier than last time. Fewer vendors selling napa cabbage, but more selling ordinary cabbage. Cherries and strawberries have come into season, but they’re too dear — I can’t afford them. The cream Fujis are gone, leaving only red Fujis. Laiyang pears are in — big ones. Lots of pineapple. When the gust comes, the vendors have to hang on tight to their sun canopies or they’d be blown away; the women haven’t the strength, so several people have to hold on together.
In spring the wind at the shore is very changeable. All day it raged about; by evening it had actually died, mild and bright. I walked down to the shore — plenty of visitors, quite different from winter. Especially around Damuzhi Plaza, which was really bustling. A pontoon bridge hundreds of meters long had been put out into the sea, pointing toward Gongjia Island (it can’t possibly reach the island, of course); it’s a paid attraction, and you have to put on an orange life jacket to go out on it. They say in summer there’ll be boats to take people to the island, or around it. Many young people — boys, girls, couples. And families, with children, old folk, pets. A stage had been set up on the beach, and a band was playing — Xu Wei’s “Stroll” and Wong Ka Kui’s “Glorious Years,” and other songs I didn’t know. The crowd moved me and frightened me at once; I watched from a distance a while and left. After the sun went down the colors at the horizon were wonderful — soft orange and pure blue — and they brought me a deep calm. The moon was bright and so were the stars. I know only Venus and the Big Dipper; following the Dipper’s bowl, I identified the star due north as Polaris.
2023.4.30
Today is April 30, the last day of April; tomorrow is May Day. It was also the liveliest day Rushan Silver Beach has seen in four years (in the words of the band’s singer). The sky was clear, the air fresh, the wind and waves calm — a superb day. I stayed in during the day and went down to the shore in the evening. Tonight there was a fireworks show (I’ve noticed that Rushan people say “west” as “ci” and “show” as “ciu”). At first I didn’t mean to go out — the beach is so crowded and noisy now, and I like quiet (whether I actually like quiet or would rather have a bit of liveliness, I honestly don’t know; people are contradictory creatures, perhaps). But sitting at home doing nothing is a waste of life; better to go and look at what’s outside, whatever it’s like — noisy or quiet, clamorous or harmonious, a person has to go out.
As yesterday, the beach was full of visitors — truly hard to believe. People who’ve been through the cold season here are a little staggered by the sight. Instead of the emptiness of winter, the beach seems to have come alive, covered in people. They stand at the water’s edge, some running, some standing still, some taking selfies, some photographing others. As an onlooker I feel each one is a portrait — where they come from, where they’re going, what story they carry — and my imagination runs on. I love a cold, empty beach, and I love a beach full of visitors; both give me material for imagining, and make me love this world the more.
The music continued today — the same band as yesterday, I think — and the singer said this was the biggest crowd he’d seen in four years. Yes: three years of the pandemic, and it’s over; people are finally liberated, free, able to come happily to the seaside. Silver Beach may not be a famous beach, but today it was packed — and not only with old people; plenty of young ones too, despite the running joke that Weihai has no young people. Where there are people there’s business: the barbecue stalls are all open — grilled oysters, grilled squid, big fish, beer, peanuts — and people sit around together, talking and laughing, enjoying this intoxicating night.
The fireworks came last and lasted fifteen minutes. They may be a bit of a cliché, in sound and in sight, but can’t people like clichés? People are ordinary, after all. I like watching them too. Why wouldn’t I? If you’re too refined for it, then don’t watch. In Beijing, in Shanghai, in the big cities, you’d want to watch and couldn’t. Here there’s the sea, the moon, music, and fireworks — the fireworks shoot up into the sky, burst open like a whole heaven of stars, so ordinary and so dazzling. People stand on the beach, heads tipped back, watching; who knows what they’re thinking, or perhaps nothing at all, but in that moment they’re happy — and a fleeting joy is still joy.
When the fireworks were over most people headed back, and I headed home too. There was a chill in the night air; walking west alone, I saw many stars in the western sky, but I only know Venus — the moon was directly overhead, so the western stars stood out, one here, a few there, all of them out of reach. Along the horizon by the coast there were points of light strung into a line, busier than in winter. More cars on the roads, forming a stream, and now you have to mind the traffic lights to cross, which you didn’t in winter. My compound is in the west, far from the core area, and it doesn’t have many residents; I went home, back into the silence.