Youth
Sometimes a person remembers many things that never happened. It was 2006, and I had come to Xi'an. The autumn wind blew, and I felt it strip away everything material from my body, leaving me nothing …
Tag: #personal narrative
36 posts
Yao Beina: This World—I! Was! Here!
This is the last lyric of "Heart Fire." If you've heard it, you know: those three exclamation marks were sung by Yao Beina. It is a song brimming with emotion, yet she sang it with elegance, restraint…
At Dao Lang's Concert, Witnessing an Artist Become Himself
"Thank you / for letting me in this ordinary world / discover myself." The first song was "Lover." Before the first note, the moment the first drumbeat reached my ears, I broke down crying, as though …
A Fiction About Lu Yao (III): The Long March from Wang Weiguo to Lu Yao
In the preceding text, we used the phrase "Beijing zhiqing" as a modifier to refer to Lu Yao's two lovers. This was not out of any perverse taste on the author's part. I wrote it this way because Lu Y…
U-Turn to Hohhot
I heard this story from Alarm Clock.
California Dreamin'
Sometimes, without warning, you walk into a space wrapped in frosted glass — very bright frosted glass. You can see endless lines of rain outside, the sound rolling on and on, the light and sound both…
A Snow Mountain Like an Ice Cream Bar
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 uncerta…
The Car Crash of 2019: In a Dream, Intact and Whole
A few days after the Spring Festival of 2019 — around the time when the year felt like it was truly about to begin — I was in Hebi, Henan, when I seemed to crash into a wall "infinitely high above, in…
Bus Route 400: A String of Happy Bullets
In certain cities, on certain evenings, there comes a brief and exquisite interval — when the sky turns a blue that defies description, quiet and seemingly eternal, though in truth it is about to go d…
Let Me Gather All My Courage to Wish You a Happy New Year
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Life Is Elsewhere: The Flood Caused by a Silly Cat
Ever since we moved to Jiaoda Yicun, the place where we used to pay our mortgage every month to maintain the right to live became "the old home." Ma Xiaoyuan calls it "Xi'an," because she's known sinc…
That Big S
Having "big" or "small" in a name is common enough, but Big S always gives you a certain feeling: she is what remains of the S she is after you remove the small one, and Small S is what remains of the…
On Faye Wong
While driving Xiao Yuan and Xiao Yu on a lap around the city, I played Faye Wong's "Red Bean." To this day, Faye Wong and this city give me the same feeling: that sharp, youthful pain—so distant and e…
Live an Authentic Life
I wanted to write a few words because of a news story I saw. In short: a woman from the Xihaigu region, from a poor family, graduated from a 211 university in Beijing. You can imagine what a sensation…
Pickup Court Memories: The Reservoir Court
At thirty-five, I liked to go to the gym at night and shoot baskets alone in the dark. Every day I walked 1.5 kilometers in a straight line, arrived at the gym, took off my down jacket, put on my nois…
The Beheading Dream
I had a beheading dream—dreamt that my head had been severed, and not cleanly either. So I carefully aligned the jagged edges top to bottom, securing them loosely with a scarf. This was, of course, ra…
On Teacher Huang
It was in the course of growing up that I gradually came to understand the impact a good teacher can have on a student. This made me feel that teaching is truly a profession with a rare opportunity to…
Life, Everlasting
When a newborn arrives, there is so much paperwork. On form after form, we watched Yuanyuan's age go from two hours, to two days, to about seven days, when we finally brought her home. The neonatal wa…
Abstinence
I quit smoking on some day in April 2019. It was in a city in Hebei province, and I felt acutely that my throat had been severely damaged by over a decade of smoking. I resolved to quit, and I haven't…
Tales of the Western Capital: The Tooth Extraction
First came a big-eyed beauty poking around inside my mouth. Because of the mask and the close proximity, those eyes—which were merely somewhat large to begin with—became as vast as two lakes in which …
The Good Side of All Bad Things
When I was young — younger than now — I didn't believe in dialectics at all. The idea that fortune and misfortune are interdependent? Pure sophistry. And that story about the old man at the border who…
Beijing Tales: The Floor Cat of Line 4
Have you heard of the Floor Cat of Line 4? The Floor Cat of Line 4, rather than being a cat, is more like a kind of tiger—though of course cats are already a kind of tiger. People usually call tigers …
Beijing Tales: Watching The Wandering Earth with Mavis Fan
I spent the Spring Festival alone in Beijing. The Ziroom apartment complex had organized a gala, but I couldn't bring Duoqi Tsukuru along. So I cooked two dishes and celebrated by myself. The dishes w…
Thank You
On the way home I kept listening to Dao Lang's "Thank You." If there's one last thought before I die, I hope it would be: thank you.
Li Ao: No Need to See Me Off
Li Ao is dead. The news was truly shocking — one always assumed a fighter like him would never die. How could such a fighter, brimming with energy, joy, and darkness, possibly die?
Brother Cat
It was a bright day. My mother called me over to look, and from her arms poked out a small yellow tiger-striped head. A light that contained neither sun nor moon—a brightness like the clarity after wa…
The Nonexistent Lover
The high-speed train from Yunfu East to Guangzhou South takes just over forty minutes. For Zhao Xiaomao, aching to see her lover, those forty minutes stretched into eternity. She clutched her tiny clo…
A Chronicle of Tooth Extraction
A major event in my personal history. I am still in pain as I write this, though the degree of pain is hard to gauge. I can chat and laugh, but I can't say it's nothing — with things we must endure, i…
Youth Crisis
Reaching thirty one morning startled to find I am not this person nor am I any of the persons who woke in shock each day before to find they were not this person either I suspect I am not the person I…
Driving Around the City on Christmas Eve
On the road I saw several enormous cranes, cordoned off with red traffic cones, hanging lanterns on trees. The area enclosed by the cones seemed to exist outside this world, oblivious to the tides of …
The Designated Driver Adventure
On the way back from working overtime on Saturday—just now—a torrential rain came down over Beijing. Cold, icy rain slapped my face haphazardly. Summer's dust and smell rose into the air. Walking down…
Ways of Drawing Near to Mother
In the end, we must admit that one person's feelings never truly reach another. Even though we rely on that illusion to live. To sympathize with someone is to feel as they feel—but who can truly feel …
Goldbach's Conjecture
"I read the garbage you wrote," my brother said, blowing smoke rings with a look of contempt. "Overblown and poorly constructed." The real story goes like this. My brother tossed his cigarette butt on…
My Twin Brother
The night before my fourteenth birthday, it began to snow. First came the salt-grain kind that crunched underfoot, each step like trailing a string of shattered dreams. Then it grew lighter, larger. L…
Pickup Court Chronicles: The Donkey at People's Hospital
On the slope behind the back gate of Xunyang County People's Hospital, there was a basketball court. When school was locked up during holidays, I often went there to play. Back then, I was nobody's Ke…
The Non-Existent Lover
A spark slowly grew at the Toyota Center arena logo, first catching James Harden's big beard on fire. Three Rockets players ran over to help put it out. Just then, Xiaoli walked out of the bathroom, w…