As Happiness Is the Romanticization of Ephemerality

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It was afternoon I walked and cycled on the lanes around East Lake. ‘Green lanes’ square-shaped signs showed. Trees and greens were everywhere as well as people cycling around the lake.

Breezing around the lanes, I saw happy faces as well as saddened, serious ones.

I wasn’t alone; I was with my friend.

There was a teen-age girl standing before the rock-made railing gazing at the surface of the lake, apparently saddened by her personal affairs. There was an unspeakable strength of saying nothing at all around her that could be seen by all passing her by. Had not life silenced people’s ability to express their feelings, they might still be willing to dream.Consciously saying nothing when one was obviously overwhelmed by something is a learned behavior. Learned helplessness, they, psychologists, called. Who had taught them that skill of not expressing their feelings? Mom usually says nothing while her eyes are apparently filled with untold uneasiness as though she have gone through a lot. Idling around the room then sitting on the armchair, mostly she was simply sitting, motionless, silent.

“Find something enjoyable to do, that may do you good.”

She will not listen.

Riding bicycles going towards wherever I was aimlessly was what I thought living. “I love to see you smile.” Zon said while sitting astride a bike looking at me, smiling.

I returned that smile and proceeded going into the deep forest in Jiangxia’s green lanes.

“How could a place be beautiful like this.” Zon meant the serenity of the forest we are in. “So serene that it seemed like a miracle.”

A miracle; It truly was, to me and Zon. So tender was to breeze around the trails in the forest on which we rode our cycles as free a experience as no one could ever have that I thought chancing our ability to understand very originality of living is a way to learn what is really worth having.

While resuming to go into the forest deeper, we expect no thing though still feeling fulfilled. Happiness to me seemed to be be that easy to obtain when we just noticed that there was a loquat tree beside the lane on the hillside and picked up some produce it bore to taste then that we didn’t realize it was such precious a thing to be cherished.

Before night people riding bicycles on a bridge over East Lake.

The loquat fruits we picked weren’t much tasty but they were everywhere; other tourists were idling picking those too. No one had said anything; they were eating, searching there for the next source of matured loquat fruit which could be much easier picked. Some seemingly delicious produce those trees bore were on the boughs too affluent to ignore and too high to be picked, about which we feel pitied.

So ephemeral was our trying to remember those sparkling bits in our lives in which we found our consolation when feeling hurt that we didn’t realize just that suddenly a moment we no longer knew what that very happiness was felt like.

Cool winds before night at that time in the forest of Jiangxia flowing through us made us aware again about our very nature of originality.

It had occurred to me that the less we expected about what we might be encountering around next corner of the mountainside, the more meaningful experience we might gain.

On the way home, seeing our shadows first, riding on the bikes, we felt thankful that we were on the right side of the lane at the right time as profound a feeling as a person could never imagine to experience.

And if in another portion of my heart I could still feel that part of me at that time, That smiling face of mine could still be felt there as much real as I could ever be.

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Where Winter Does Not Hold – Extraordinary Times in Tiny Places

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There have been stores open over nights; not anymore, at least for now. Walking on a lightless road near a river park in Qianjiang, a city in Hubei province, I rely on the flashlight from my phone lest I fell into some hidden pit holes. Darkness. People walking on the riverside were silent; only footsteps and hiss of cloth frictions could be heard. Not a single pedestrian opened flashlight except me.

Stone-made railings around the river bank had just gone through an installation of decorative lightenings conducted by the city beautification bureau to beautify the park’s night view several months ago. Being sealed off for nearly two months, the city has cut off unnecessary lightening schemes in response to the reduction of the economic activities.

A restaurant serving crayfish dishes in the city of Qianjiang

Backstreets are darkened. The impact of the halt of “unessential” business to private sectors remains to be seen. In certain main streets, businesses reopened are grocery stores, barber shops, some mainly-for-taking-out restaurants. If not because of the pandemic, known for the localized cuisine of crayfish, crowded in spring and summer time, restaurants in Qianjiang might already be busy to provide visitors coming from nearby cities the most sought-after dish—Yóumèndàxiā, or Beer-braised Crayfish—while winds breezing through the crowds sitting around dining tables. Now, restaurants serving crayfish are only half filled by customers who wear face masks when talking and strip the masks down while eating then put on again. Hustling no more. Parking lots before the restaurant porches were not fully filled. Dining tables seen from outside remain loosely filled; some who do eat inside seem vigilant.

People walking in an alley in the city of Qianjiang after social-distancing restriction loosened.

On the streets, people still wear masks to keep physical distances lest the virus be spread. Children whose gleeful laughter is heard in parks and neighborhoods seem the least affected. Sealing off of the entire Hubei province impacted the supply of fresh food for some and of sanitizing necessities for hospital workers. Unless the state of emergency is lifted entirely, schools and off-school supplement courses won’t be restored soon. For public school teachers adopting strategies to teach students remotely are doing what they would normally do, most teachers working in the private sector are losing opportunities to earn a basic living. The school I work had told us to help students remain engaged by remote teaching via telephones but with the wages delayed severely and sometimes reduced dramatically—though it would be reasonable to see the wages reduced since teachers can no longer teach children in person now—it has never been so hard a time to cope with for me to go through this unprepared breakdown. Under this new reality that private sectors in China are not bailed out and that there were no policies to regard workers affected by pandemic-related redundancy, no thing now may be seen as safe.

Quiet streets depicted at night offer a rare opportunity to see the impact that challenging events could have on certain places long overlooked.

No unemployment benefits would be available for those whose companies didn’t cover their social insurance bills since most employers, in private sector, violate labour laws by not signing labour contacts with their employees though in theory they were required to do so. Such cases are not rare in private owned companies. The fact that most people working as part-time workers without knowing that or don’t have social insurances covered by their company is concerning and could shake the pillar of future economic growth. People not working right now are mostly using their savings to buy necessities. If the current economic downturn continues, people might go to find a new way to regard their relationships between working and living. “I might not want to work that hard any more since life is so vulnerable that I want to protect my heath first.”A interviewee said to the New York Times.

“I’ve heard that there might be a recurrence of the virus outbreak.” A senior citizen talked with another while moving her body doing exercises and maintaining physical distance with others.

“America is ravaged by the virus now. Such a horrible thing.” Another uttered lamentably with a flat, low voice.

A woman chasing a taxi in an alley in the city of Qianjiang

Most pedestrians passing me by were watching their phones without feeling the need to rise their heads up looking around lest they collide with the electric poles or be tripped by bricks. Once I took my meal out from my grandma’s apartment so hastily that I forgot taking my mask, then walking on the street without wearing one, so strange felt I that I used my collar to cover my face while walking back home. Only being home had I felt relieved.

“It occurred to me that so hot was to wear a mask now.”

“Anyway, No matter how hot the weather is, you get to wear your masks.”

While strolling in an alley, a woman seemed in her thirties chased a fast passing taxi, shouted out “Stop taxi, taxi.” But the driver drove away without stop as if deafened.

Hotels signs in the narrow alley shone vividly as usual as if the good old days come back again; Receptionists inside the hotel lobby seemed idled, sitting behind the reception desk, motionless.

A self-serviced sexual commodities store remained open; ‘open all day’, its shop sign showed. Around corner of a convenience store, a men sitting astride a motor-cycle was smoking cigarette and watching his phone screen concentratedly. Hearing their laughter first, I saw three pedestrians in a row walk forward toward the another end of the way. Then came the road lamps whose light companioned my way home.

The Alienation of the Unfamiliar: Hubeians and Their Life Experiences – On Stigmatization of the Other

“What Henanese are experiencing in China is basically what Jews in Western society had or have experienced.”a fact that Henanese people have experienced profound xenophobic remarks towards them indicates an acute situation facing the people of Henan, a province in central China.

Romy, in his twenties, was going to Beijing to attend a week-long internal training convened by an English teachers association. Conveners came from all over the nation. But regarding to high hotel costs that Romy could hardly afford—though part of those expenses could be reimbursed by the company he worked; for the purpose of minimizing his expenditure while staying in Beijing, he had proposed a message to find a roommate for a two beds business room in a meeting attenders’ chatting group. Jon, a trainee attending the meeting and from Anhui province, responded to Romy.

“Are you hungry?” Jon said to him as they met in the first time before the hotel porch. That was winter but Romy felt Beijing is hardly colder than Hubei, a province in central China and known for its affluent hydroelectric resources. Winter in Hubei is harder to endure owing to its high-humid weather condition making people feel frozen.” Romy said, citing that Hubei doesn’t have a centralized heating system for all in provincial-scale, which northern provinces have.

They went to a dumpling restaurant. “Have some dumplings.”said Jon, insisting Romy to eat some. “I’ve eaten before you arrive so I just accompany you lest you be alone.” He replied.

Their days together went by peacefully enough initially that Romy says that he could not expect more until one thing happened later ruined those all. When they got off of the conference; both of them felt tired and went straight back to the room. Jon was talking in the mobile phone with his mother. “It may be impolite to hear other people talking in phone; but given that you are in such an encapsulated room with such a vocal conversation near you, hardly can you not notice about what they were talking about.” Romy recounts. He then heard Jon’s mother asked “where does your roommate come from?”. Hearing her son—Jon—uttered “from Hubei” to her, she replied with a high pitch saying that Hubeians are very jīng—a Chinese adjective mainly used for derogatory purpose to belittle someone’s traits as discreditable, synonymous with lurking. To say someone is very jīng in China is equivalent to saying the N-word before a person of African-descent, or presenting the swastika symbol before a person of Jew-descent. “I wanted to protest but found that there was no chance of doing so because you are basically a non-participant in their family-talking.” Jon evoked that occurrence, adding that “you cannot go straight saying that how dare you say that to rebuke him for his mother’s use of the word jīng to describe a group of people she dislikes.”

Scapegoating a group of people for the very crisis is irresponsible but that is what most people will do.

Romy

Years after that, Romy says that he still feels hurt by that incident. “I find that now hardly can I myself not doubt one’s intention of making remarks about another.” He recounted saying.

Now, with the onset pandemic haunting the world, which is first broke out in the city of Wuhan, Hubei, the stereotypes and bigotry assaults relating to the link between the virus and the province towards Hubeians only seemed to increase. Hotels are limiting and redefining in what a manner could Hubeians be admitted; some hotels outside of Hubei refused to admit Hubeians altogether. A bus carrying Hubeian workers back to work was refused to enter the border of Shanghai. A transportation official said to them “our leader gave us remarks that no cars with Hubei plates could be allowed entering Shanghai.” Thus the true massage uttered from those officials is actually that you the Hubeians are potential virus-carrier. Some migrant-workers form Hubei had no choice but slept on the bus altogether according to a report published on People’s Daily.

“Hubei is not ruined by the virus but by the bigotry bias linking Hubei with the virus, which is baseless as we have undergone a profoundly stringent lockdown for almost two months.” Romy said. “The ruin of Hubei will also be the ruin of the entire nation. Scapegoating a group of people for the very crisis is irresponsible but that is what most people will do. Today’s Hubei, Somewhere else tomorrow.”He said.

“Luckily I am not working outside and not planing to work outside either.”Romy said, adding that the word uttered from his roommate’s mother still makes him feel a bit seething. Reciting that, he said “Though I still feel about that, I know I need to realize that is what made them feel good about; you know, you can not have unrealistically high expectations towards others. That’s what it is all about.”

He smiled reminiscently. “I still feel graceful towards Jon despite of his mother’s remarks; he insisted me to eat some dumplings.”

“I think life is just such that regardless of the challenges you face, we got to learn to let things go and to reconcile with others and finally ourselves.” Romy added, smiled.

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• Jīng, or jīngmíng, （精）: a derogatory adjective whose use is seen by most people as stereotypical and xenophobic; and whose rough equivalent in English may be the word lurking or trickery.
• A report regarding discrimination facing Hubeians first appeared on Guangming Daily, People’s Daily then reposted it on its website as the title of ‘Don’t Let Hubeians Get Stuck on the Way Back to Work, Again.”—《别再让湖北人困在复工囧途》光明日报，March, 24th, 2020

The Tepee in Our Heart of Hearts

Hearing fireworks booming was in the midnight; Moy, in his early-twenties, had thought that sound might be a false alarm of the lifting of the quarantine measures since the city where he resided was hit by the Coronavirus and locked down indefinitely since.

But this time the initial unsealing of quarantine measures put to this city seemed true; people were celebrating outside, he could hear that. Laying on the bed seeing outside the hollowing, bottomless-dark sky, rarely had he felt so exposed to his vulnerability that though clock is ticking to two, he was still tiredly sobering.

“People always have good hopes,” he thought, “that is a good thing.” During the lockdown, no one was allowed to go outside unless shopping for necessities once within days.

He was home alone and still is. “How’ve you been recently.”the message he received from an acquaintance, Jed, showed; he remembered the last time they conversed and met was almost two years ago in a hot summer. Details relating to what they talked about got blurred in his memory. “Protect yourself while I am not with you.”Jed said while smiling back to him and departing from the train station for home. That was two years ago. He wasn’t sure if not because of the pandemic, whether will they have any contact or not at all. But he knew that Jed’s intention of sending the message was purely out of humanitarian consideration, a sort of regards-exchanging usually happening between normal coworkers.

“I got to measure it out.”thought Moy, managing his words lest he be to overstate while replying.

“It’s fine here. How’s it going?”replied Moy.

Then there was a silence so long he felt trapped, in an otherworldly abyss, and thought Jed might actually not care much about whether he replies to him or not.

“It is fine; not receiving reply from a rather less contacted person is okay and this won’t matter much.” he remembered consoling himself saying.

“It was not his negligence towards me that hurt; instead, it is about my care of politeness. Do not expect anything about anyone except about oneself.” Moy stopped writing.

“I’d love to be your friend.”Moy’d remembered Jed once said to him. Moy thanked him for saying so and thought that would be fine to have a thoughtful friend.

Jed was thoughtful.

He remembered he had once misspoke a French word—plaire—he remembered; hearing Moy mouth slipped Jed didn’t interfere.

“You should pronounce this in this way.” “You need pronounce this like me.”

Coworker here try hard to let them be seen smarter over others and thus assert those so-called correct-pronouncing-suggestions to Moy while he was teaching though there were helps easy to obtain from the internet and dictionaries if he wants and would ask for help if necessary, but he doesn’t want to waste energy to quarrel with them. “People there want respects so desperately that you doubt whether they were sick; what made them such needy for superiority may be their genuine lack of that.” Moy wrote.

Elo, a coworker, transferred from Wuhan to the school where Moy works. “I don’t like of staying in small cities, you know, traditions I cannot bear were terribly hard to get used to; if not of marriage, I wouldn’t, you know.” She said with a shrug while showing her contempt with the rising of her eyebrows.

One day a parent of Elo’s student comes to the school reception center protesting saying “What a horrible teacher of Elo, her accent is exhaustedly unheard-of, how come you the administrator of the school failed to notice her accent and what a standard are you adopting to Elo, who is definitely unqualified of teaching to my child. I want you to change a teacher for my child.”

Moy had just passed by, hearing that dissension, but instead of feeling pity for Elo, he felt a bit guiltily content. He remembered thinking if this is happening to him, they, Elo and others, might feel the same, too.

Such is the life. He thought.

“Am I beautiful?”asked Liz, another colleague of Moy, in the office; as she faced no body but a mirror before her, this question is open to all in the office.

Moy’s face seemed being physically shaken but kept the face muscle tight enough lest his facial emotion be recognized out.

“You are already enough, I mean, beautiful.” Said Elo while patting Liz’s shoulder.

“So happy to hear, wanting to kiss you.”Liz beamed.

“I was confused about whether I was working in a school or a marriage company; you know, everyday, seldom were there coworkers who around me were not conversing things about men or women and physical appearance. Though I know, to them, this might be pretty natural and marriage for them must have been a very urgent thing but I still feel unnecessary to talk that loud about the preferences of their future partners as if they were shopping people, you know, shopping people. I felt otherworldly in this place. I used to think this might be something I understood wrong and thus need to get accustomed to but…” Moy wrote in his dairy. “But they have their choices, that is what made them humane. Why should I wish them to change.”

“For once in a lifetime, just let it go.”he wrote.

“Just let it go.”

Jed had replied to Moy at night saying “Just got your message and wish you will be fine in the future.”

Thinking retrospectively, Moy smiled and still felt thankful that Jed is seemingly fine about current model in which they keep contact, too.

For once in a lifetime, just let this go. Moy thought, “And if this is what our interaction will be like, well, leave it be.”

Leave it be.

“So happy is receiving the message from you that hardly can I find words to say much; only to wish you have a good night.” Moy wrote and sent that to Jed.

Things seemed to go back to normal in this pandemic-ravaged city. Waking in the mornings, noons, he got stretches and tried to be as authentic a person as he could.

Sitting on the bed while feeling the glimmering of the mellow sunlight flowing on his face, shoulders, and hair, Moy felt consoling of the warmth he received from the light.

The outside world was going back to normal; people celebrating with fireworks; and the sun looking strong and powerful. It’s about time to take a good sleep, Moy thought, feeling exhausted while looking outside of the window; how silky the light. How fine, loving, and free.

Regarding Humanity in the Age of Irritation

He knew it would be a matter of time before the outbreak to be contained someday.

In Chinese Mahayana canon, one of pupils’ main goals was to escape the cycle of endless death and rebirth into Nirvana as final destination beside pursuing self-enlightenment. The pupils were taught that life is suffering but we can search for our salvation.

When city where I live in Hubei was sealed off, I thought this unprecedented quarantine policy implemented to the whole province might not last long then. Now I’ve got used to this, of being sealed off home. At least I have food to eat, I thought. And it’s nothing as long as my life still goes normally. To medical workers, some of whom have worked all day long but hardly had a chance to rest, this is the hard part to cope with. Awakening in the morning and checking news related to the outbreak, I’ve only found out things, from containing efforts to food supply, have gone down. “Does any one be afraid of dying?” I smiled, thinking and looking around, no one is here. No. People just don’t wanna die that hard. People toiling their whole life only wish to secure they wouldn’t be dying hard on the streets.

Infectious diseases as symbols of suffering serve as tools for some, who seek easy path to counter their fears about the diseases, in society to stigmatize and smear the weak and disadvantaged. People try desperately to sort out and simplify others’ personalities to pretend they are doing something to understand others as if people’s traits be less diverse and won’t be changed. AIDS at 1980s as an unknown disease served as tool to stigmatize gay people- gay disease, dehumanizing and labeling them as being punished by God for violating the natural law which only allowed sex to happen between men and women. As creative as people can imagine, Wuhan coronavirus serves as another tool of anti-Asian sentiment.

A video tape captured in New York subway circulating on the Internet showed a Asian being hit and chased for wearing mask when the new Coronavirus death toll in the mainland China increased. Some colored persons dragged his clothes, insulted him saying words like contagious, diseases etc, fearing him to spread the virus.

Well, people may say what they’ve said and acted irritatingly is what made them humane. ‘People fear about unknowns’ says someone, shrugging whose shoulders off. If things were happening only to limited groups, ones outside of the mess usually speak nothing.

In the later years of a Russian writer, a line written by him goes although I may be as famous as Shakespeare be, I don’t understand what I am doing this for? Look what I had done, what for?

Modern society values youth as the most powerful. It is not hard to find that some slogan appeared somewhere says 60 is the new 40. Aged people feel powerless due to their loss of physical strength or maybe of their physical attractiveness as if people may be less valued when not being sexy. But this is not all of their fault, our society’s uncontemplated obsession on physical appearance has taken a part. In that obsession, If a person is not being described as beautiful so he or she may be labeled as undesirable. But it is false. Since everyone will get aged, only time can tell what is really valued, things like generosity, kindness, pursuit of truth and the good are valuable things too. Time is the most efficient equalizer which works indiscriminately.

Ancient Greek philosophers had argued what we the people should be going to pursue. They say for the good and the truth.

On Lakes

Somedays were dreams, but some, you know, were not. Walking on the bank near the lake where I had walked many times before, I recalled so many memory fragments that belonged to me and some one whom I had befriended. The water of the lake, the lake of South, dotted with and surrounded by willow trees on its bank was and is shrinking. There the lake now has never happened of having the tide of the flood invaded its lower-bank again after a heavy rain, which had come to Wuhan in the year of twenty–sixteen, poured tons of water into the city and helped cause a catastrophe of flooding on the every inch of the city’s ground.

People in China had since friendly teased about that Wuhan as a coastal city had its main feature of sea view although the truth is that Wuhan is a inland city thus it does not own a perfect sea view. But at the same time, as this disastrous scene of flood got even worse, there was really no difference between whether to tag Wuhan as a coastal city or a inland one because it was simply a city on the verge of complete turmoil.

The city had since been turned into a sallow harbor which state had lasted nearly a month in that summer, a disastrous but enthusiastic period– we used to call it the raining season. You know, some people did feel the harm caused by the extreme weather but some did not. I could barely move down to the street to buy some food. Everything there and then was both dependent and independent. We were like being living in an island but had never felt to be so self-reliant and complete when I was picking up food from an icebox and cooking the food we’d bought online before. Food there were not expensive. Feeding ourselves at such an economical way at that time was a creative way of living, which our lifeworld had never been so colorful and fulfilling. Life is simple although it is full of challenges but that are the challenges we must deal with sooner or later. We loved it. Flooding waters had divided the city into smaller rivers. Every building that was standing higher than the depth of the flood was like an island. The winds that had been blowing heavily and constantly made us start to worry about the stability of the building we lived. I was worrying about whether the building would collapse by the force of floods and storms though it didn’t happen.

There is a picture I have shot gone to a sitting-on-the-bench girl who was facing on the surface of the lake. It was autumn, but the sky was so shiny and bluish that I had failed to realize that was autumn if I was not checking the calendar. The girl who sat on the bench might be full of an optimistic view since it was such a lovely day. The breeze was so tender it had made me heart-melting. I knew my heart was full of happiness when facing the lake I loved. Everything here and then on the bank of the lake I was facing had never been so familiar. The birch trees, stone benches, stone-made railings beside the bank, and mosquitos, they bite me as usual, had never been so enriching, vital and meaningful to me. Even the pain caused by the mosquitos’ biting could not shy me away from the land of wonder. I was thinking magically but that was the way I love.

Is the autumn here this year the new summer? Everything is unceasingly changing so to answer this question is just so meaningless maybe mostly because here the city I have been living for a long time has not rained much this year. And that is the real problem. This land is used to be called a hazy and misty land on the south of the river- the Yangtze. The axiom related to this issue of constant changing is something we have already known. But with a hope to preserve the moment we lived, we also want to do something even though we know that we can’t change the universal nature of changing. To live is to change. That is why we are always nostalgic. We don’t really own our time and our bodies since we cannot control it and it seems like that the only thing we owned is change. We still are, say, at this moment.

在香港的夜班巴士与武汉的夜巷

当地球得了痛症，冬天，成了巨大的冷库

“人生是一连串纵横捭阖的把戏，要研究，要时时刻刻的注意，一个人才能维持他优越的地位。”

坐在香港的夜班巴士上，冬天的香港不太冷，明穿一件黑色运动服，巴士开屯门，车上的人都睡了，他望着窗外，闪过几栋公屋，路边都是山景，有许多沿街广告牌。“申请破产，即日起停止追债。”一则破产的广告，看的出神。心里一阵剧痛。

天空好像是灰色的，天桥下的汽车，左边塞的满满的，右边却空空的。他走过天桥，准备叫车去

灰尘弥漫的夜晚，路上都是灰暗的拖车，像往生开来的车，巨大的声响似打战一样，比打仗还慌乱，生厌，灰夜里城市也不比战争残墟，没有同情可言。

明同贝达见面的时候，迟了些，看得出不愉快的神色，虽总会有理由来解释，但还是没出声，解释反而恶化，沉默。是什么样的人，只有自己知道，其余都不大相干。

贝达的眉毛有些粗，眼睛表达不满，声音粗但锋利，难以想象。问到明现在工作的怎么样，声如利刃。慌张，反而忍住。随口道“还好。”

“去吃些什么东西吧？”

“也可以，找个人多的地方。”

过马路时全部都是等待，路过的是装满灰尘的拖车。一辆一辆轰隆隆，没有尽头，仿佛整个城市在重生，所以需要大动干戈。似从死亡里堆出来的生命，人类文明也似沙滩上的蜃楼，幻灭如影，也没人太在意？或是因总可以再来？太阳有照射不到的角落。黑暗中，毁灭在进行中。或许最后总会有人记得，也许没人记得，后果也是暂时的，没有什么不是暂时的。无人的夜晚，只有货车在路上，明看到夜间开工的工地，好像一切都很赶，赶着完工，再赶着被毁灭？他站在路边，同初次见面的陌生人等红灯。

不吃了吧。

都脱口而出。

归途，空气中都是施工灰尘，不能呼吸，黄色的夜灯，照着马路上，像沙漠，夜的沙漠，滚滚而来的黄尘，武汉有时也像沙漠，黑暗的夜，一辆又一辆的车，明感觉像提前经历了一次，也许以前梦见过。

爱，在这寒冷黑暗的地方，没有一丝发芽的能力，许多年后想起，也不知道是不是曾真的爱过，或许人总该是孤独？

人们期望被更深入的了解，这个世界上，谁能真正了解谁？因此总是之在，愉快或不愉快过后，看着骑车离开的那个背影，连再见也不及说，说出来又仿佛太郑重，因此手也没抬起来。曾有人对明说，记得曾爱过你。再想起，总是在虚无缥缈间，这么大了，也不至太相信这些。生命中某个匆忙的夜晚，偶尔走过这荒流的人群，也许偶尔也疑心……是不是应该再看一次？

也许人生应该独自走，偶尔想起，也回过头来，微笑。距离隔的刚刚好，没太远也没有太近。

完

旧忆

去杭州的时候，只去了西湖，其他都寥寥。正好是周末，人潮汹涌。走上雷峰塔的时候， 我看到台阶上的电梯，不禁感叹。如同Rico看到黄鹤楼里的电梯时的感受。与时俱进？

俯瞰西湖。与在黄鹤楼时的感受一样，又想起在香港大佛寺上看到的纪念铭，买了串佛珠，店员同我用粤语讲多谢，不会粤语，也不适合讲英文，因此一阵沉默，突然自己也像默剧演员，只用眼神表达情感。

我也喜欢沉默不做声的微笑，就像你又从我身边走过，我也同你一起走。

在中国的夏天

“情愿过夏天，总比冷天穿太多强。”在北京的时候，有新闻媒体报道是最热的记录。“倒是赶上了记录。”溪对我说。总知道确实的热，但怕晒伤还是穿长袖长裤。路人倒没有惊奇。出故宫，有外客在景山公园问“是否需门票”“是”。溪不想上山。“你去，我在山下等你。”一脸期待。景山有粗旷的地方，差点摔下来，我拍了几张照片，和其他中国的山丘并不不同，安静干枯。虽然40多度，却没太热，与干燥有关。

出颐和园的地铁站时，有韩国旅行团从身边经过，溪搭在我的肩膀边走路，是干燥的热，只要喝水就能忍住，韩国人来中国旅行似乎都带宽檐帽，凉鞋。针叶林的花坛没有树荫，颐和园外有点像沙漠。“你会忘记我吗？”正是夕阳下山的时候，人来人往的石路上，“不会。”我答到。

溪喜欢看航拍中国的纪录片，总叫我也看，“真漂亮。”他喜欢看漂亮的酒店和名人的房子，也许是想安定下来，像海子的诗里写的一样。倒也是，喜欢看海子与顾城的诗，有德国早期浪漫主义的精神，但他们的精神世界都不太愉快，连浪漫派的德国诗人也是。看美国有作家写艺术家作为苦痛的榜样，不禁惘然若失，一笑。有次在电视听到“人民群众对美好生活的向往。”虽是在平常不过的话，但觉得也很平实。“我曾看过一个纪录片，是一位独身的老人，虽然坚强，可我看了很伤心，我不能一个人。”溪对我说。

路过使馆区，有家波斯餐馆，人来人往，各国旗帜飘扬，错以为在古代的长安。其实我也怕。看华盛顿邮报报道美国农村的孤寡老人，照片中神色暗淡，也不难想他们觉得“让美国再次伟大”是最后希望，虽然是最道地的民族精神，可人总需要一种依靠。

喜欢坐公交车，看车窗外行人来来往往，正在最美的年纪，歌曲在最美的片段，戴着墨镜，留下的眼泪也不太担心。“有多少恨就有多少爱。”宇喜欢唱五月天的温柔。大学寝室可以看到天主堂的十字架，上坡路，每次归途，都像登山，反倒很快乐。

大学在郊外，去市中心需1个小时，反倒像去另外的城市，每次归途，车上的人都睡眼朦胧。宇喜欢听张悬的《宝贝》。“我要窒息了，车上的人都不开窗。”虹林对我说，是冬天的时候，没人开窗，怕冷。末班车，下车的话，后果不可想象，荒山野岭，长路漫漫，不知归途。“我要下车了，不然我活不下去了。师傅，下车。”虹林不停的喘气，终于好了些，“实在是忍不住”她回过气来，“办法比困难多，”她说道。拦了面包车回程，车上寂然，拥挤，汗味，算最本真的生活，虽然冒险，却很快乐。有次在归程的末班车上听到《宝贝》是宇最喜欢的歌，起初以为是谁的手机响了不接，后来才知是汽车广播，但车上没有人做声，路过的街灯明明暗暗，像最粗糙的蒙太奇，却是最震撼的画面，我看着车窗上自己的倒影，以为青春可以永远都在，是最痛苦的梦想，因为不想失去它，所以这一刻永远都记得。

“喜欢年轻的时候还是年老的时候？”“这是什么问题，当然是年轻的时候。”我的祖母听到这问题，微笑着说。“老了就是精力不及从前了。”最喜欢夏天，是精神最好的时候。海明威记忆中的非洲，阳光明媚刺目，狮子在海岸徘徊。

自己的夜光

电影中，来自美国丹佛的邮递员去巴黎度假，已然五十有余，独有一条小狗相伴，“麻烦请问有餐馆推荐吗”当地人友善的推荐了家中餐馆，走过巴黎熙攘的公园，深夏的巴黎像梵高的向日癸，炽烈，清然，“我独身一人，却在这个时刻，突然觉得，我爱你，巴黎。“她反不像五十岁，像二十岁。最深爱的一刻。人老了，心为身缚，成了时间的俘虏。”我现在二十岁。“一位老人说，”身体是我的牢房。“

王摩诘有诗云“语笑且为乐，吾将达此生。”无人的时候，一个人看书，看到同感之处也不禁微笑，那么容易满足，有些不敢相信。重读红楼梦时，总被香菱的达观感动，为学诗而借书学习，算浪漫的人生，谁又能说中国人不懂浪漫，虽算最痛切的一种，浪漫给自己看。

“你是否觉得我们可以教人去爱？” 许久的沉默“不能”一位母亲回答。“也许我们只能让人习惯于某种联系，但不能教他去爱。爱就是爱，当然他永远都是我的儿子，但我不能教他去爱。”是美国公共广播的采访。听后总觉得很寂然，也似这拉长的沉默一般。

这世界总有阳光照不到的角落，许多个夜晚，夜光照进窗来，想，这世界上的误会这样多，实在是懒得去解释，也许不过意的事情立刻就该说出来，不然只是徒然伤情。

偶然看到“网络消失（Ghosting）”指觉得不合适但不说，只是沉默不做声，这当然是网络时代的新现象。或许觉得连说”我们不合适“的必要都没有？爱情当然没有那么容易，不过在礼仪缺乏的时代，许多不必要的自痛，也许可以免了，算是预防针。真正爱的人总不会不联系太容易失去联系，爱与不爱，也不是这么快，转瞬之间，总是早已有了底。也许生命里的相遇只是数学上两条直线的交点，再想起，也当然是最美最特别的点。

“喜欢看你微笑时候的样子”曾有人对我说。

Always Wishing You’re Here Roaming with Me

If she felt stressed, marketplaces, especially open air ones, she a coworker of mine told me, would be the ideal cure for what she described as undesirable loneliness. She likes to walk in the open air marketplaces that was sort of the ‘birth place’ of her childhood memory, and it had in some ways shaped her way of living in her early twenties. When people were around, life cures itself, strengthening our resilience.

At times when people talking and walking, she could finally feel relieved. It’s not a place for me, my place for relieving is remaining unclear. Skimming over the ocean, I stood up on the beach of Zhoushan where the pier is always busy for seafood trading and the boats moored in the harbor are waiting for a sailing to fish, I was fifteen, roaming along the beach where I had swam with a younger cousin. There bottled water sold then was charging for 10 renminbi- a special price fared for visitors only even though we had better buy some and without the water vendor, we wouldn’t have been able to survive the thirsty. To seek the light of life, I can’t feel much. Sometimes not much is too much. I can’t stop thinking about the sour of life. Without money and power, our daily routines could turn to a fast draining boat. I was speechless in the circumstance of continuing fighting for a way of being that I had always been speechless. There was A song line I’ve heard that goes “my mother said to me: “Don’t stop imaging. The day you do is the day you die.” I had been touched though I barely admit it. I’ve once stopped imaging the possibility of my life, fortunately, I regained the ability of reconstructing and reimagining the future I had envisioned fondly again, which is, to walk with somebody else along the beaches where the weather is tame. I have in no way no intention to hide my fear of the possibility that the future reunion between me and the person I met in Hankou and I walked with along the Donghu Lake of Wuhan might look hard to come true, for many complicated reasons. But looking forward, I still wanted to find you and to be surrounded by nothing but taming sunshine that we felt familiar.

It’s been like living in an island separated from the mainland by a gap too deep to cross when you and I have not contacted each other for years since 2019. And I still do recall and remember you fondly when your smiles, though forced ones, framed in the photos I took emerged again before my eyes. And tears of mine welled up for I knew every time when I thought of the letter L which is the initial letter of you surname in Chinese, I thought of you. You say your surname in English is Dragon because it is the English corresponding of the Chinese word Long. But there was a discrepancy between the meanings of the two. And I knew you certain knew this. It’s a compromise.

武汉夜雨中

春风吹过身边的时候，武汉下起了夜雨。

心里涌过一阵巨大的浪，还是熟悉的氛围，武汉当时有许多的建设项目，归途中经过某个工地也很寻常，有位韩国朋友见状总是不停摄像。

一路走来，独我一人，也许因为路边是农业大学的缘故，围栏里是作物。这是武汉吗，像空城，路边有个抗议的牌匾。

宇带我去一个商场吃饭,有露台，走到露台的入口，红色到蓝色的灯带洒在身上，以为到了太平山顶观光项目

路上车来车往，轰——轰——

“武汉就是车来车往的声音，震撼人心，我听到反倒觉得心安。”

宇微笑没有做声。夜雨停了，也算生命里清冽，平淡的瞬间，背着电脑和相机，走了那么久，也不太累。习惯了武汉的景象，安静中又有些吵闹，偶尔拥挤也不太孤独。

人海里，来来往往，似乎嫌太拥挤，不过也不太孤独，这么多人还活着。

在北京的旅店，夜静，听歌曲忧愁的暖光，迷迷糊糊的睡着了，好像梦见了以前的事，醒来也快乐了很久。

窗外胡同里是刺痛的冷光，灿烂的冬阳。

北国的冬季倒没下雪。快五月了，武汉还像冬天一样，今年倒是这么冷。

也许的意义

英文中把千载难逢叫做once in a blue moon，难得一见的蓝色月亮。有时为中文感到不甘，千载难逢的意境远胜于蓝月遗事，盎格鲁文化偏于随意。以前看蒙克的画，心里总是莫名的安静，虽然他的画作后期偏向夸张的表现主义（expressionism），黑白的版画，维多利亚时代的卧病在床式样的画作，当时颇为流行，有黛玉葬花之感，生了痨病，只能卧病在床，是当时的绝症，因此请熟练的画者前来临摹最后的姿样，是最好的写真练习材料，没有什么比生病更适合静止的事，仿佛早已死了。“生命在于运动。”每次初中体育课都看到的标题。“生命在于静止。”一阵大笑。蒙克曾写信给朋友说“大家不能理解我的画作，但我必须忠于我自己，喝醉后，我看到的酒杯，是扭曲的，我因此画的扭曲的酒杯，我无法背叛我自己的感觉。我必须画出我自己的感觉。”

我有段时间在武汉的街头穿行，从东湖到江夏，我喜欢哪种自由的感觉，带上相机，后来才发现，照相，是另一种生活，没有了它，我就没有了意义。看新闻英国退欧，进行到第三次决断投票，仍是失败，不禁觉得有时候世界是那么随意，什么都可能发生，不过也不一定要接受，那些不喜欢的事。

曾经总是说，想要有意义的生活，后来觉得，似乎没有什么意义，也许，应该像Socrates一样，问到：什么是意义呢？（What does the meaningful mean?)

爱

你一定记得，我写在纸上的那句“Je t’amie”，或不记得。夏日的晚风吹过耳边的时候，我站在匆忙的街衢上，等待着。寂然的湖边，飘拂的柳叶，湖面上夕阳温柔的倒影，生命也像无尽的等待，回眸中，一句“在看一次？这夕阳。” 这么久，好像也看不太厌。

夜幕下的远方，高速公路上的车灯照亮着公路，来来往往，黑暗里的灯光线，像火柴划过的印记，也许太黯淡，照不太亮沉寂的夜空。也似无名的爱温暖不了黑暗中里寂静的角落。

远方的楼梯，粉笔灰在墙上写着不知道的电话号码，红色防坠的铁丝网，把下午的阳光切割成碎片，留下斑驳的，灰色的阴影。楼下面是绿色的田地，不远处是，阳光照不到的角落。

从此无人的夜里，我睡不着也醒不来。