The Lying-Flat Diary  ·  Five Volumes

Diogenes by the Sea

A Chinese essayist gave up his desk, his city and his commute, and moved alone to a half-empty town on the Yellow Sea. These are the diaries he wrote there.

Gui Xiaopang  ·  桂小胖

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— The Author —

A small life, chosen on purpose.

He writes under the name Diogenes by the Sea. Half a joke, half a promise — to live as plainly as the old Greek did, only nearer the tide.

For years he worked a nine-to-five in one of China's big cities. The work was steady, the life was not. So one autumn he handed in his resignation, bought a one-way ticket to the coast, and rented a cheap flat in a seaside town where the buildings outnumber the people.

He has lived there alone ever since. His days are deliberately small: a walk along the shore, an afternoon of writing, a slow dinner, a longer evening. He keeps no schedule and answers to no one. Between 2022 and today he has written close to a million words about that life — what it costs, what it gives back, and how it feels to stop wanting things you were never going to get.

The tide tables, the market prices, the wind direction, the exact number of days. He writes about ordinary weather and small expenditures with the attention most people reserve for great events. Critics call it honest. He calls it a way of staying sane.

— The Series —

Five volumes. Four years. One shoreline.

All five volumes of The Lying-Flat Diary side by side
Volume I — Living in a Ghost Town Volume II — Wandering Volume III — The Third Year by the Sea Volume IV — A Journey to Yunnan Volume V — Forty, Still Confused

The Lying-Flat Diary is not a how-to and not a manifesto. It is one man's dated record of a life lived slowly at the edge of the sea — the year he left the city, the months he spent wandering to see if anywhere else was better, the years he stayed put, the winter he fled south, and the year he turned forty and found himself more confused than ever.

Read together, the five volumes trace a single arc: leaving, wandering, staying, escaping, and finally making peace with a life that most people would call too small.

— The Volumes —

Read them in order.

Each book stands alone, but the five are one continuous story.

Living in a Ghost Town — book cover
VOLUME I

我在鬼城隐居

Living in a Ghost Town

2022 — 2024Rushan, Shandong

He came to Beijing in 2015 because the capital looked like a place where things happened. Seven years later he owned nothing, could not afford a flat, and was tired in a way that sleep did not fix. In the summer of 2022 he quit without a plan and went looking for the emptiest, cheapest place by the sea he could find.

He found it: a coastal district in Shandong that the internet had nicknamed a ghost town — whole blocks of new apartments standing empty, beaches with more gulls than people. This volume covers the first two years: the cold flat with no internet, the first bowl of rice eaten with a spoon for want of chopsticks, the long walks, and the slow discovery that having nothing to do is not the same as having nothing.

"An empty building, an empty calendar — and yet slowly, the emptier it got, the more real life became."

Wandering — book cover
VOLUME II

游荡

Wandering

2024 — 2025Yunnan · Tibet · Guangdong · Hainan

After two years by the sea, a doubt set in: was this the best place for him, or simply the first one he had tried? So he packed a bag and went looking. Beijing first, where the dry winter and the noise drove him out within weeks. Then four months on the road — Yunnan, Tibet, Guangdong, Hainan — travelling cheaply, slowly, and mostly alone.

He was not sightseeing so much as conducting an experiment: could any of these places be home? He watched the crowds, counted the costs, tested the climate, and kept writing every day. The answer he came back with was the one he least expected — nowhere was better than the empty town he had left.

"I went all that way to find out I already lived in the right place. That was the whole trip."

The Third Year by the Sea — book cover
VOLUME III

海边的第三年

The Third Year by the Sea

2025282 days, not one missed

The most disciplined book in the series, and the quietest. He returned to the coast in early spring and stayed. For 282 days he did not leave the town once and did not skip a single entry. What fills the pages is deliberately uneventful: the tide table, the humidity reading, seven steamed rolls for six yuan, the neighbour's apricot tree, a rainbow he happened to walk into.

Yet the accumulation is the point. Read day after day, the smallness becomes its own argument — that a life can be built out of weather, cheap food, long walks and a window with a view of the water, and that such a life can hold a person steady.

"I did not leave the town once. I did not skip a single day. That was the entire year."

A Journey to Yunnan — book cover
VOLUME IV

云南游记

A Journey to Yunnan

2025 — 2026Fourteen towns, fifty days

The coast is beautiful in summer and merciless in winter — no central heating, damp cold, a test of resolve. So when the temperature dropped he shouldered his pack and went south: Kunming, Dali, Lijiang, Mangshi, Ruili, Tengchong, Xishuangbanna and more, fourteen towns in fifty days.

This is not a checklist trip. He wanders without an itinerary, eats what is cheap and local, sits in courtyards, watches the border sunsets, and reports everything with the same flat honesty — including the things that disappointed him. The pleasure of the book is its pace: a winter spent being thoroughly unhurried.

"Fourteen cities in fifty days. I came home lighter than I left."

Forty, Still Confused — book cover
VOLUME V

四十不惑

Forty, Still Confused

2026 — ongoingThe fourth year by the sea

He came back from the south before the New Year and turned forty. The saying goes that at forty a man is no longer confused. He is forty, and more confused than ever — but the confusion no longer frightens him.

This volume is the most openly reflective: on money, on the absurdity of consumerism, on why the elderly love giving advice, on low desire as a strategy rather than a virtue, on whether any of this makes him happy. He also escapes the northern summer for Yunnan and Guizhou, then returns, as always, to the sea. It is the book of a man who has stopped defending his choices and started simply living them.

"They say at forty you are no longer confused. I am forty, and more confused than ever. The good news: I no longer mind."

— Follow the Diary —

New entries, most weeks.

The diary is still being written. Here is where it appears.

B
Bilibili

Video diaries from the coast.

Visit channel →

微
WeChat

Long-form essays, in Chinese.

公众号「海边的第欧根尼」

抖
Douyin

One-minute coastal sketches.

@海边的第欧根尼

头
Toutiao

Shorter notes and observations.

@海边的小胖胖