When you have a four-year-old daughter and a six-month-old son at home, plus a seven-year-old British Shorthair cat, the resolve needed for a family trip is probably equivalent to launching an uncertain war of annihilation — and you might very well be the one annihilated. Besides, I've always had a tremendous fear of flying. It's not that I'm afraid of death — what terrifies me is the kind of total, unavoidable exposure that comes with dying in a plane crash (as detective novels say, the dead can keep no secrets), and the miserable condition of becoming a subject of discussion in that exposed state. And not fearing death only goes so far as not fearing my own death — having the whole family on the same plane, just imagining the possibility of a total wipe makes it unbearable.
But I took the whole family on a plane anyway. One important reason was my obsession with snow mountains. I don't know if it was 2022 or 2023, but I swore I would see a snow mountain that year. And the snow mountain I meant to see was no ordinary snow mountain. This obsession had been spiraling in my mind for years, already edited into a rousing trailer in my head: crystal-clear air, a wide straight road, wind making the leaves rustle loudly, absolutely no children screaming; there must be speed — in the long foreplay it would seem like no speed at all because of the vast open space, but at the moment of seeing the snow, there must be a violent hard brake, stopping just barely in front of the snow mountain I want to see; after that epic stop, the film reaches its climax — a snow mountain, whole and enormous like an ice cream bar. No one would expect it, but I'd pull out a prepared bamboo stick, skewer the snow mountain and bring it to my lips, and "click" — a photo taken. It must go "click," so the photographer's phone has to be on ring mode. I'd thought through all of it, every detail meticulously refined.
In pursuit of this obsession, the first snow mountain that came to mind was Siguniangshan — Four Sisters Mountain. Getting close to four mountains in one go was appealing, partly because of that anonymous poet's verse: "On the desolate hilltop stand four sisters / All the wind blows only toward them / All the days shatter only for them." But during the trailer's production, I read too much coldness into the name. They weren't like an ice-cream-bar snow mountain — they were like a river-like snow mountain, the concept of snow mountain sliding down from the summit along the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau's great slope toward the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, flowing to your feet — a surging, actively devouring kind of snow mountain. And of course, you might be curious about the Himalayas — that's an abstract mountain, completely incapable of having ice cream's mouthfeel. Actually, I hadn't thought too much about it. A snow mountain as sweet as ice cream could only be Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. The town at its foot is a town where sweet things happen, and setting out from there to visit a snow mountain would surely yield an ice-cream-bar snow mountain. Plus there's that song "South of the Colorful Clouds" that also mentions Jade Dragon Snow Mountain. So the ice-cream-bar snow mountain could only be Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.
After landing, I bought two packs of Yunnan cigarettes — actually I bought them when I left, but looking back it feels more fitting to have bought them upon arrival. I bought two packs of Yunnan cigarettes: one called "Cordyceps," which felt very healthy, and I can't remember the name of the other one, but it was a Yunnan specialty anyway. I said at the time: technically I don't smoke anymore, but coming to Yunnan I simply had to buy some. I simultaneously swore to keep the cigarette wrappers forever. But now, no matter how I ransack my brain, I can't figure out where those wrappers went — and besides, I later found out the corner shop in Xi'an carried those same cigarettes too, so my purchase didn't make much sense. This is probably like the prayer wheels we bought for our daughter and son at the old town — all prayer wheels are the same everywhere, turning the same sutras wherever they are.
Walking out of the airport, someone came to pick us up — a dark-skinned young man who drove us to the hotel my wife had advertised, the one where you can see Jade Dragon Snow Mountain from the window. The road was insanely, insanely long. On the way I was made nauseous by the cigarette smell in the car — I had no idea secondhand smoke could be so awful. I thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I smoked one myself, but I didn't — after all, there were two children in the car, I wouldn't get permission, and besides, the two packs in my pocket were still fictional at that point, not due to actually arrive until we left this place some ten-odd days later. But the feeling in the car was just like that: the road was insanely long, the cigarette smell was overwhelming, and I couldn't understand how it could be so strong. After enduring about an hour of this, we arrived. After getting out, there was a three-wheeled cart shuttle for luggage, and our party followed it with full suspicion, surveying the sparsely populated off-season town with full suspicion.
I clearly remember the feeling at the time. My ears were buzzing — from the low pressure on the plane to altitude sickness on the ground. Everything my eyes saw was so excessively clear it felt like a dream. That's what happens when you come from a city that's grey and hazy all year round (Xi'an) to a place like that. And of course there was hunger — because of the altitude sickness, my organs seemed to float suspended inside my belly, so hunger didn't feel like real hunger either. That surreal feeling was like eating a piece of paper covered in drawings of food.
For the ten or so days that followed, I felt the same way. Nothing felt right. I tried cocktails and Chinese baijiu, and finally pulled out the fictional two packs of Yunnan cigarettes from my pocket and relapsed ferociously, declaring the end of the great smoking-cessation enterprise that had begun on such-and-such day, hour, minute, and second in 2019. Because of the smoking, I told many stories about the Yuxi Cigarette Factory and Chu Shijian during those days — the images of Yuxi cigarettes, train cars, and Chu oranges lingered in my mind.
We didn't go to Jade Dragon Snow Mountain until a few days later. I figured it wasn't going anywhere, and its snow wouldn't melt easily, so there was no rush. When we went, I deliberately didn't bring my son — that was all in the trailer. But the trip was still full of children's noise. Xiaoyuan insisted on having Lixiang switch from Faye Wong's "Obsession" and "Easily Hurt Woman" to a song about "on the other side of the mountain, on the other side of the sea." Because of this song, we spent a long time debating what exactly a "Gargamel" is, since none of us had actually watched The Smurfs. I figured, let them be noisy — was I really going to say that because the trailer didn't have children screaming, no one's allowed to scream now?
The views along the road were fairly expansive, but the road was really a bit narrow — like walking on the ridges between spring wheat fields, terraced ones, where you could easily tumble off. After passing the horse ranch, we saw a huge arc leading toward the snow mountain, so the kind of wild charge I'd envisioned was also impossible.
I did hear some rustling — though it wasn't from leaves, but from the highland lakes along the road.
We went twice — or perhaps only once, but in my memory it's twice. Each time I tried my best to follow the trailer's script (while maintaining a semblance of sanity in front of my family). I even specifically bought a grilled sausage at the scenic area to extract the bamboo stick from it so I could skewer the ice-cream-bar snow mountain. But in the end, I didn't see the snow mountain at all — never saw it from up close. The main reason was that I very stubbornly refused to read any travel guides. I thought that would ruin the ice cream's flavor. And in that atmosphere of altitude sickness and smoking relapse, even reading words on paper gave me a floating sensation — all colors and temperatures blazed with the intensity of an ascending dream.
Because I didn't read the guides, the first time we went the scenic area was already closed. The second time, the cable car was shut down. The third time, because I couldn't charge straight at the ice-cream snow mountain like in the trailer, I lost control of my emotions and tore the cable car ticket to shreds, fleeing in disgrace under the astonished gaze of my entire family — this is what I imagined happening, which is why I never dared go a third time.
Later we left Yunnan. I finally saw Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in a travel guide, and it didn't quite look like the ice-cream-bar snow mountain I'd imagined, so not having seen it didn't seem like such a big deal after all.
On the way back from the snow mountain, we passed some highland lakes. Beautiful as eyes, the wind sweeping across the surface stirred vast waves of tenderness that nearly knocked you off your feet. Standing by the lake, I thought of many ways to possess it: I thought about jumping in and swimming, and how the wind-whipped giant waves would toss me into the air, and when I fell back down I'd smack the surface with a loud slap; I also thought about suddenly, when the kids weren't looking, lying face-down at the lake's edge and trying to gulp down all that dark-blue, sparkling water; I even thought about peeing in the lake, so no one else would ever want to swim or drink from it. But in the end, I didn't do any of it.
Before we went, I had secretly switched all the phones to ring mode. We took many photos — click, click — but I didn't hear the click.
That was my 2025 trip to Yunnan. I think that place, that trip — it was all very, very good. I write all this simply because it was good.