“In winter it often snowed in the city of Chang’an. This was true goose-feather snow, flakes as big as a squirrel’s tail, giving off the fragrance of jasmine. The longer it snowed, the stronger the scent. Those loose, damp flakes came drifting softly down from the sky, onto the city walls, onto the delicate towers and pavilions, onto the gazebos that stood everywhere, and into the crisscrossing canals and channels, where they became porous sheets of floating ice. However long it snowed, only a thin layer ever lay on the ground. Where people walked they left footprints brimming with water — like so many little ponds. The snow seemed to float on the water. White fog spread through the whole vast sky and earth… In all the city of Chang’an, apart from the walls, everything was small and exquisite — fine buildings and interwoven waterways. Some say the reason Chang’an exists is to wait for the winter snow…” — Wang Xiaobo, Wanshou Temple
2023.7.16 — A Change in the Weather
Yesterday I went out for a long stroll in the evening and didn’t get back until late, and then there was a lot to do, so it was the small hours before I got to sleep. Lying down, I noticed a happy change: the bed was no longer sticky but quite dry, and very comfortable. In other words, it isn’t damp anymore. Not like the past month, when the bed was always sticky and unpleasant to sleep in. “Clear and crisp, the breath of autumn” — it feels as though autumn has come. I like dry weather, I like clear days, I don’t like rain; I like the north. On that count, Weihai is a little more humid than inland Beijing.
Waking at six I felt very cool too, even a bit cold. Standing at the window looking at the clear sky — blue sky, white clouds, birds calling briskly, a faint cool breeze stroking my skin — put me straight back in the countryside of my childhood, on the rooftop terrace where I’d wake on summer mornings.
Today I went to Chaoxi Lake in the west, which I hadn’t visited in ages, hoping to see a beautiful sunset and evening glow — no such luck. But there were plenty of people there, unlike winter, when there wasn’t a soul. In summer Silver Beach really is a fine place for a holiday. Sometimes I think a holiday ought to be by the sea; only the seaside counts as a holiday, nowhere else does. I envy the children who get to come to the sea for their holidays.
Cold showers really are lovely. I’m less and less afraid of them, and the water even seems to be getting warmer. I don’t know whether the water has actually got warmer or I’ve simply grown better at bearing cold. First, tanned skin not only blocks the sun, it also withstands the cold. Second, sweating often is actually good for the skin: it sheds heat quickly, and the sweat pores, being used all the time, make the skin healthier and less sensitive to cold.
The things I check most often every day here are: the weather forecast, the lunar dates on the perpetual calendar, the tide table, and the times of sunrise and sunset.
2023.7.17 — Market Day
Today is market day again, though there isn’t much I need to buy — only some potatoes to top up. I’ve come to love potatoes; my diet needs only potatoes, napa cabbage and eggs, and nothing else — I don’t eat meat. Still, I had breakfast at the market: only on market days do I eat breakfast, on other days I don’t. As I’ve said, a person doesn’t have to eat three meals a day. Going to market is mostly to be among people and feel the everyday bustle; and as I’ve also said, the market is my only social activity here.
I went out in the evening as usual, but there was no beautiful evening glow; the sky was too clear, and with no clouds there is no glow. I think I’ve said that by the sea the wind is stronger, and it often blows the clouds away, so a fine evening glow is hard to come by. In nine months here I’ve seen it only a handful of times — fewer than in an inland city, where the wind is gentler and the glow forms more readily.
Now that the cicada nymphs have been caught out, some people have taken to gluing cicadas in the little grove. They carry long fishing rods with a lump of green sticky gum tied to the tip, and catch the cicadas with that gum. The ones they catch go into a mineral-water bottle tied at the waist.
There are still a lot of people at the shore; unlike other months, there are a great many small children now, splashing about in the water under their parents’ eye. They have happy childhoods. The sea lettuce still hasn’t come, and probably won’t. This really is an unusual year.
The rental market is said to be booming too. In the first summer holiday since the pandemic restrictions lifted, rents here are certainly much cheaper than in big cities like Qingdao and Weihai, and there aren’t as many people either; for anyone who likes quiet and cheap, this is a very good choice.
2023.7.18 — My First Sunrise
It’s been nearly nine months since I came to Rushan Silver Beach, but not until this morning did I go to see the sunrise for the first time. Watching a sunset is no trouble, but with a sunrise the problem is getting up in the morning — especially on a winter morning. Luckily it’s summer now, so the mornings aren’t cold anymore, and the sun doesn’t come up as early as it did around the summer solstice. Today’s sunrise was at 4:47, and the morning temperature was 20 degrees.
But I woke at three, needing to pee; I got up to relieve myself and happened to glance out of the window, and found the small-hours sky full of bright stars. I meant to go back to sleep and get up at four. But then I thought, since I’m awake I may as well get up — if I fall asleep again I won’t want to. So I got up and lay a while, dressed, ate a piece of bread, got my phone and my action camera together, and went out at four.
When I first reached the shore there was hardly anyone, but people came along one after another — some elderly, some young women with children, and a young couple; and along the bank a lot of cars were parked, all of them campers who had pitched their tents on the ground.
In fact at this time of year you can’t see a beautiful sunrise over the sea; the sun is still off to the north and rises from the land. If you want a fine sunrise you have to wait until after the autumn equinox, or even deep winter. But then Silver Beach is in the off-season, very cold, and there are no tourists left. In winter the sunrise is late, not until seven, but then it’s so cold that although I struggled to get up several times, I never managed it.
Though it was a big clear day, the clouds in the east were thick, and there was no beautiful dawn glow to be seen — only scraps of color at the edges of the thick cloud, nothing special. So I could only feel the cool of the wind at the shore, the surge of the waves, and the sweetness of that couple taking selfies by the sea. The sky grew brighter, the people more numerous, the seawater clearer, the world sharper; and when I’d looked my fill I went back for another spell of sleep.
Back home, looking through the photos I’d taken that morning, it suddenly struck me that the sea at dawn is more bewitching than the sea at dusk. The shore at dawn is quieter, with fewer people; the seawater is a kind of indigo, unspeakably deep, passing from night into day, growing clearer and brighter and full of life. The sea at dusk passes from day into night, turning from dim yellow to pitch black, as if hurrying you off to bed. The sea at dawn is a youth; the sea at dusk is an old man. That was my feeling at my first sunrise; from now on I must go to the shore for the sunrise often, and remember the charm of the sea in the early morning.
2023.7.19 — Sunset and Evening Glow
Today I didn’t go to the shore; I just watched the sunset and evening glow from the edge of the fields for two hours. Lately I’ve been obsessed with shooting time-lapse, and especially with filming sunsets (better still with clouds); I love watching the clouds drift and the light and shadow shift. I noted down the times.
There is no cinema at Rushan Silver Beach. It’s the summer blockbuster season now, but here you can’t see the latest films. Nor am I as crazy about films as I used to be — because I feel my own life is an interesting film, and I don’t need to lose myself in invented stories anymore; I am the story. Rushan Silver Beach has no bookshop, no exhibition hall, no café, no big shopping mall. Here there is only nature and quiet, and nature and quiet are what I like best. At night I fall asleep to the chirr of insects and the croaking of frogs.
2023.7.20 — The Dawn Glow
These past two days I’ve woken before dawn, around four in the morning; the morning air is still a bit cold, and bare-chested as I am I can feel the chill, and I’m sleepy too, so I don’t want to go to the shore for the sunrise (ten minutes by bike, twenty on foot). So I set the camera on the windowsill and shot time-lapse of the sky instead (it can only catch the northern sky — the sunrise is east by north and blocked by the buildings; I’ve also got the time-lapse settings figured out: at two-second intervals, an hour of shooting gives a one-minute film), and got about fifteen seconds of orange sky, which satisfied me well enough. I think I’m especially suited, and skilled, at finding and making beauty under hard conditions.
A big news story: the Laixi–Rongcheng high-speed railway has been reported for cutting corners on construction. The line runs through Rushan and has a station there, Rushan South; the people here have been longing for it to open, which would make getting to Silver Beach much easier. But with this story breaking, opening on time looks rather difficult.
2023.7.21 — Another Sunrise
Watching the sunrise is a happy thing, but getting up is a hard one. I’d set the alarm for four, and only then did I wake. Waking, I felt a bit cold — bare-chested again — so I got up to check the weather: thick clouds in the east, drifting along. I guessed there would be no beautiful dawn glow. But since I was up, I stuck with it and went to the shore to look. The shore in the early morning is of course very quiet, rather like the daytime in winter, when there are few people about either. There was some dampness in the wind, and after a while my skin grew slightly sticky — though not really damp; and once you ride inland your skin stops being sticky soon enough. At the viewing platform there were some young people who had come especially for the sunrise — by young I mean in their early twenties — but the heavens were uncooperative, and at this season at Silver Beach you truly can’t see the sun rise from the sea, which left them somewhat disappointed. I was disappointed too. All I could do was look at the thick clouds and listen to the waves.
In the evening it clouded over again, black clouds churning, about to rain; at the shore the wind felt damp and my skin was sticky again. The tide was coming in, the waves pushing right up to the edge; despite the big waves there were plenty of small children in the water, all in swimming rings, swimming far out, while their parents or grandparents kept watch from the shore and, seeing them far out, ordered them back. I rode home from the night market, threading carefully through the crowd for fear of hitting someone; the night market had reached its fullest. A woman and a vendor were shouting at each other, a crowd of onlookers gathered round, and I gathered it was something about the woman scanning to pay and not paying enough.
2023.7.22 — Market Day
Today is overcast with rain on and off, but that doesn’t stop people going to market. The fifth of the lunar month, market day again. A market, after all, is just the countryside’s vegetable market. It’s hard to imagine that I’d come to love going to market, love wandering the vegetable market. A year ago I didn’t even know what a country market was like, let alone cooking for myself. Now the market is my only social activity, and I’ve settled into country life. By contrast, the social activities of the city — eating, chatting, drinking, clubbing, going to the mall, seeing a film — only feel alien to me.
Let me say something about egg prices; since I don’t eat meat I eat a lot of eggs, so I know the price well. In winter, I remember, eggs were RMB 7.5 a jin, sometimes even RMB 8.3 a jin, but come summer they’re RMB 6 a jin across the board, and the cheapest stall is RMB 5.8 a jin. They all say they’re free-range eggs from the hills, and they’re plainly bigger than the supermarket’s. Napa cabbage, on the other hand, is cheapest in winter — I remember it at its cheapest being RMB 0.6 a jin, whereas in summer it’s RMB 2 a jin.
I’d thought the sea lettuce was gone, but going to the shore in the evening I saw quite a lot of it, and in some places even the surf washing ashore was green, which astonished me. Walking into the water, the sea lettuce winds itself round your feet and shoes; take up a handful and it’s sparse seaweed, velvety, pale green, and it shrinks when you squeeze it. Washed up on shore, the sea lettuce is like discarded rubbish, making the once-clean beach look quite unsightly.
The whole day was cloudy, but by seven or eight in the evening the clouds had dispersed, the sky cleared, and the moon came out. The moon of the fifth was still like a bent hook, hanging in the western sky, sinking slowly, very bright. The sea breeze was damp and sticky, and a lot of mist stuck to my glasses, blurring my sight in the night. July is the rainy season at Silver Beach, the dampest time of year; how I wish it would pass quickly.
2023.7.23 — Sea Lettuce
To see whether the sea lettuce I’d seen last night was a full-scale invasion, I rode to the shore first thing to look. Only a little had stayed on the bank, forming a long pale-green band. Going into the sea, the water really was mixed with plenty of pale-green filaments, like a very clear laver-and-egg-drop soup; reach in and a little of it sticks to your hand. Not much of it, but there it is. On the bank and in the water alike, it fouls the coastal environment and kills off marine life too — small fish get tangled in it, cannot escape, and suffocate.
By a little after seven the sun was already fierce, but there was a hazy fog and you couldn’t make out the buildings in the distance; the sea surface glittered with silver, a bit hard on the eyes, and the photos and video came out gray and drab, not pretty. There weren’t many people at the shore — some arriving, some leaving; and some children had brought swimming rings to swim, but after testing the water their parents wouldn’t let them go in, afraid they’d catch cold, and besides the water had sea lettuce in it, so you’d come out covered in the stuff — really not fit for swimming. Two beauties in bikinis were posing for photo after photo in a spot with few people; I couldn’t see them clearly.
It’s been fairly hot lately, and the hotter it gets the less I want to cook — especially on overcast, rainy days, when it’s so close and humid that my skin is clammy, and after a meal I break out in a stinking sweat and have to take a cold shower. To keep eating simple I cook only once a day, making a bit extra: at noon I eat only half, and heat up the rest in the evening. This daily round really is a bit monotonous — a foretaste of old age, I suppose.
When you take a cold shower, if your mind feels cold first and gives in, then your body will feel cold too and crumble. If you don’t shiver or shake, if you stand firm and don’t gasp open-mouthed and let the heat out, and if you console yourself inwardly — “not cold, not cold” — then the cold water on your body isn’t so very cold. This is the trick of “spiritual victory,” and it works rather well. Offered for your consideration.
2023.7.24 — An Uneventful Day
It rained in the morning and was quite cool. But it soon stopped and the sky cleared, and the whole day was blue sky and white clouds, and somewhat hot. Yet by evening the horizon was churning with black clouds that blotted out the sun, and there was no sunset to be seen. Overhead, though, there were no clouds and the moon was clearly visible. My skin was clammy and thoroughly uncomfortable. This kind of weather has gone on a long time through June and July, and I dislike it very much. The rainy season at Silver Beach is no fun.
There are more and more people here, quite unlike winter. The people on the same floor of the next unit have come too — an elderly couple with a child. They’ve cleaned the flat and hung clothes on the drying rack; clearly they’re here for the summer holiday as well. On the way to the shore, elderly people stroll in groups, and on the little square by the sea they gather to sing, chat and dance. The beach too is strewn with people and pitched with many tents; children play in the water under adult supervision, and some grown-ups wade far out, enjoying the quiet, wide sea in the distance.
For dinner I had what was left from noon: half a pot of rice, half a bowl of vegetables (hot-and-sour shredded potato), mixed together and heated up, and that was that. Of course with a salted duck egg. Since coming here I’ve eaten salted duck eggs often — to vary the taste and add protein. At the market the salted duck eggs are sold alongside the eggs: the good big ones are RMB 10 for five, the slightly smaller RMB 10 for six, and the cracked ones RMB 10 for eight or ten. I usually buy the good big ones, and the owner will generally say, take six — it’s like getting one extra.
2023.7.25 — July Has the Worst Weather
July’s weather really is very bad. Not only is it the hottest time, it rains often, and when it rains it’s terribly damp. The dampness by the sea is not like the dampness in the south. Here the dampness comes from the humidity of the sea wind; when the wind blows on you it leaves your skin clammy and thoroughly uncomfortable. The bedsheet is damp too, and with no sun out there’s no way to hang it outside to dry. Even after a shower, once the sticky sweat is washed off, lying in bed you’re still sticky — so much so that the sheet has gone yellow and changed color, and looks very dirty. Luckily I sleep alone.
By day I hardly go out at all; only in the evening, around five or six. My route has settled into a fixed one: first to the fields to look at the plants, then from Taihu Road down to the shore, along the coast, walking in the water, past Menghuan Wangguo, on to the park beyond, and then back — passing the Yinlong Bay night market, where I stroll about and watch the goings-on — and finally home by Dongtinghu Road. The whole thing takes about two hours, 12,000 steps. It’s like being let out for exercise every day: I get to stretch my legs, look at the fields and the sea, and watch the everyday bustle of the world.
The abandoned houses out in the fields are overgrown with weeds inside and out, too deep to push into easily; unlike winter, when the grass and trees had all withered and I would walk into the broken houses to feel that desolation and decay. Old people were gluing cicadas again — their eyesight is remarkable — and on the ground lay some dead cicadas and thin cicada wings scattered about; unlucky cicadas. The sea lettuce in the sea was much less than a few days ago, which is very good news for swimmers, but some still piled up on the bank, like the ice shove in winter; still filthy.
The Yinlong Bay night market was wonderfully lively; even at eight or nine in the evening there were still plenty of people, and unlike winter, when there were few stalls and they packed up early, now is the busiest time of the year. The barbecue stalls do the best business: Harbin grilled cold noodles, Shenyang chicken racks, Chongqing hot-and-sour noodles, Yanbian rice cakes, Xinjiang naan and baked samsa, Zibo pig’s head meat, Taiyuan noodles, Xi’an cold noodles — and I won’t go on listing the vegetables, fruit and cakes. I’d love to eat too, but I held back — back to the leftovers! Be content with little and happy in the Way; don’t let desire rule you.
2023.7.26 — Nine Months at Rushan Silver Beach
From October 26 last year, when I came to Rushan Silver Beach, to today, July 26, is exactly nine months. As for my life here, I’ve written a diary every day, so I won’t sum it up again. I want to talk about what comes next. When I quit, my thought was to rest for a year and then look for work — the equivalent of a gap year — but now I want to work less and less, and only want to drift on like this. I still haven’t found a way to earn money, but my savings are enough to keep me free for many years yet, so I’m not all that anxious. Only a little bored. So I think that once I’ve been here a full year I’ll move somewhere else and try another kind of life. I want to go to the Greater Khingan Mountains. But it’s still just a plan; moving somewhere takes a lot of preparation. There are three months left; I’ll think it over and make my decision. A person has to be a bit braver — don’t muck in with the ways of the world, follow your own heart; it’s all right to be a bit self-centered. To hell with responsibility.
The weather today was bad again — rain, cloud, overcast; only for a moment in the evening was half the sky clear. And because the weather is bad, the color of the sea isn’t pretty either. People often say the sea at Rushan Silver Beach isn’t pretty and the water isn’t clean. In fact it really does have to do with the weather. The sea in winter is beautiful, and the water is clear. Winter is often clear, and under blue sky and white clouds the sea is blue too; and the north wind that often blows in winter pushes the water out to the deep, so there’s no stirred-up sand. Summer is rainy, and the south wind pushes the water toward the shore, which easily lifts the sand and muddies the water — and tourists all come in summer, so the water they see isn’t blue. If they came in winter they’d see clear water. But they won’t come in winter; Silver Beach is a ghost town in winter.
2023.7.27 — Market Day
Noting a few prices: young ginger RMB 7, old ginger RMB 13, eggplant RMB 1.5, loofah RMB 2.5, youtiao RMB 8, peaches RMB 10 for three jin, bananas RMB 2, sweet potatoes RMB 2 small / RMB 3 large, cucumbers RMB 2, napa cabbage RMB 2, tomatoes RMB 3, mussels RMB 10 for four jin, scallops RMB 20 for three jin, apples RMB 5 or 6, Laiyang pears RMB 4, century eggs RMB 10 for six, steamed buns RMB 5 for six, eggs RMB 6.2 or 6.5, cauliflower RMB 4, broccoli RMB 5, carrots RMB 2.5, corn RMB 5 for three or RMB 10 for seven, durian RMB 24, dragon fruit RMB 5 for three or RMB 10 for seven, watermelon RMB 1.5, avocados RMB 10 for five, green peppers RMB 2.5, potatoes RMB 1.5. Egg prices have gone up, I don’t know why; they used to be 5.8 or 6. Prices differ from stall to stall, and for the same thing the price goes with the size.
It rained hard in the night; how long for, I don’t know, because I was asleep. A shower, I’d guess. It rained hard in the early morning too. I got up and watched the rain a while, worried that today’s market would be rained off. But as I’ve concluded, the weather by the sea is changeable. By eight the rain had eased, and then stopped, and the market-goers came in an endless stream. I got up and went to market too, though it drizzled on and off while I was there — luckily only for a moment each time. You duck under a vendor’s awning and the rain passes. By mid-morning it was clear again, an azure sky overhead and white clouds racing at the horizon. Right through to evening the sky overhead stayed blue; only the white clouds at the horizon turned into thick black ones — it’s been like this lately, and a sunset or an evening glow is not to be had.
A south wind blew in the night, and standing at the window it was wonderfully cool; a few frogs were croaking, not a whole chorus as before — have they fallen behind, never having found a mate? The moon of the tenth was in the south by west; there were many thin clouds in the sky, passing beneath the moon without covering it, so you could see the clouds drifting and a halo forming around the moon. Where there were no clouds there were many bright stars — “The Milky Way with stars so bright sinks down into the sea in sleep” — and the long-absent Big Dipper was visible again.
2023.7.28 — Caught in the Rain
People were still gluing cicadas. As everyone knows, the larvae of the cicada live three to five years underground, and there is a kind of cicada called the seventeen-year cicada that spends seventeen years below ground; but once they crawl up out of the earth and turn into cicadas, they live only a month or two, and then they die. I’m not trying to popularize the cicada’s life cycle; I mean to say that although the land looks quite unremarkable, and in winter even turns into a desolate place, a great many creatures live beneath it — just as beneath the sand of the sea there are many creatures too, such as crabs, clams, razor clams, snails. Sometimes as you walk on the beach the sand looks so barren that it’s hard to imagine the teeming life below it; there may be more of these creatures than there are people on earth, and a person is only one species among the millions on this planet.
The tide had gone out and the beach lay vast; standing there and looking around, all around were churning black clouds, and the sky and earth were so big — I was the center of the world, and yet that center was utterly insignificant. Today’s sea wind wasn’t sticky, probably because it hasn’t been hot these past two days, and it felt lovely on the skin. The beach was covered with crab holes and the sand balls the crabs roll, thick as can be; this crab, as I’ve said before, is called the sand bubbler. They’re very wary — the moment a person comes near they duck into their holes and hide, tiny things. I put one shoe on the ground and sat on it — so as not to dirty or damp my trousers sitting on the sand. I sat on the beach quietly, looking around. The crabs around me, seeing that I was motionless, came out of their holes one after another, raising their pincers, and started rolling sand balls, busy as could be.
I walked to the little park in the west, meaning to cut back through the night market, when the black clouds at the horizon grew thicker and blacker, pressing down on the sea. People were still flying kites, kites strung with many little colored lights, drifting and twinkling, very pretty. Then a sudden rain came down, and not a light one; though we all knew it wouldn’t last long, no one wanted to be soaked for nothing, and there happened to be a canvas shelter nearby, so everyone crowded under it to get out of the rain. Beside me it filled up with old people and children, speaking all kinds of local dialects, waiting for the rain to stop.
2023.7.29 — Typhoon Doksuri
From today on, for a week or ten days, the daily low will be the highest of the year, reaching 25, 26, 27. Though the daily high is no longer the year’s highest — only 30, 31, 32 — the lows are the year’s highest. If you reckon by the lows, this stretch is the hottest time of the year. Doksuri’s effect on the Shandong coast isn’t great, but it will bring heavy rain, and they say another typhoon, Khanun, is on the way. Let’s hope the rainy season passes quickly!
In the evening I cycled to the shore; the sea wind was a little damp, still cloudy, and the beach in front of Damuzhi Plaza was a swarming crowd with no room to set foot, a hubbub of voices, noisy, and the sand had been left very dirty. I don’t like such a scene, and plenty of others don’t either; it breaks the quiet of this place. But for those in business, the more tourists the better — they earn more. For the stray dogs here, too, more people is a good thing, since they can scavenge more food at the market; I even saw an old man who’d brought a lot of ham sausages to feed a pack of seven or eight stray dogs, one of which had a lame leg — very pitiful.
The evening breeze was very cool; bare-chested, I went out to fetch water. Here you can go out without clothes on, unlike in a big city, where you have to be a properly dressed man. Cycling by the shore you can go shirtless too, chest bare, free and easy. Indoors, though, it’s a bit hot: the wind doesn’t get in, or only blows about outside the window, and I can only stand by the window and feel the cool. At night I have to shut the door properly and plug in the mosquito repellent, or there’ll be a great many mosquitoes; though it’s hotter than outside, I can bear it without air conditioning or a fan.
2023.7.30 — Ice-Cold Cola, a Perkier Backside
Summer days are far too long, and staying at home easily gets boring, so I went out early in the afternoon. On the way to the shore the sun came out now and then, and it scorched a little on the body. And so I remembered the ice-cold cola I hadn’t drunk in ages. In Beijing I used to drink ice-cold cola often in summer, sometimes two or three cans a day; but since coming here I haven’t had an ice-cold cola once. Thoreau said, “Water is my only drink.” Sugary drinks I won’t touch. Only by lying flat do you learn what a healthy life is.
Perhaps because I went out too early, there weren’t as many people at the shore as there are at six or seven, and the beach was quieter, wider and more open; today the wind was strong and the waves big and turbid. Black clouds were still churning in the sky, but now and then sunlight pierced through the gaps, making a distinct Tyndall effect and casting a beam of light onto the wet sand — quite magnificent. The beams of light turned counterclockwise as the black clouds moved.
Back at the compound I found a notice from the property management pasted on the wall by the gate, to the effect that electricity use in the compound had soared recently and everyone was asked to save power. That hadn’t occurred to me, and it was a reminder. Still, as I see it, there are very few people here. Which shows how few there must be every winter — or in summers of past years. Back home my skin was sticky again, and I took a cold shower. I discovered by accident that showering in cold water often makes your skin firmer, and makes your backside perkier — no longer sagging.
2023.7.31 — The Last Day of July; the Bright Moon Rises over the Sea
Today is the fourteenth of the lunar month; in the evening the tide was going out at the shore and there were many people foraging the shallows. For some reason a lot of things had washed up. People had dug many clams out of the sand, and the surface was still strewn with clam shells — great big ones, some half open with the flesh showing inside, some quite empty, nothing left but shell. And plenty of sea corn, plump, dead or alive I couldn’t tell. There were dead big crabs, and broken limbs and shells. Tiny hermit crabs were moving about. And some mussels, and seaweed. Floats and ropes out on the water.
At a quarter past seven I saw the red moon. “Over the sea grows the moon bright; we gaze on it far, far apart. Lovers complain of long, long night; they rise and long for the dear heart. Candle blown out, fuller is light; my coat put on, I’m moist with dew. As I can’t hand you moonbeams white, I go to bed to dream of you.” This was the first time I’d seen “the bright moon rising over the sea.” At first the moon was red, but soon the night deepened and the moon turned into a plate of white jade. Still, the red moon is the loveliest, the most mysterious. The moon cast a patch of pale yellow on the blue sea, glittering. The flat, wet beach left by the ebb tide reflected the bright moonlight too. I was so stirred, so excited, so content. Beyond words. I only want to say that if I were to die now I would not be afraid.
Without a doubt, July is the hottest month at Rushan Silver Beach, and the most crowded month, and the rainiest month; I don’t know whether I like it or not — every month has its own character, and I can’t play favorites. Hot as it is, you can wear the fewest clothes and go into the sea, the freest of all. Crowded as it is, there are more things to observe. Only the rain I truly don’t like. In Beijing it rarely rained, and I used to say I missed the rain of the south; looking at it now, that was sheer affectation. Having lived through July at Rushan Silver Beach, I know the place better. I can say with pride: I came, I saw, I know.