Translated by Hinh
It’s hard to explain what I feel about going home. I’ve been away for a year, and over the past year my memory has been gradually slipping; so many things slide past my eyes like grains in the sea. I seem to have grown tougher, and yet also more fragile. The only thing that doesn’t change is resilience. I no longer have an obsession with “family,” but I often realize that I’m drifting alone, with no real place that is mine. Every day can become a new self—but the price is always abandonment, or overwriting some part of the old. Is that a fair deal to you?
Like most people of this era, I have unenlightened parents. But that’s fine—we share a kind of universal pain. Mine is just a little more extreme. For example: my room can be used as a guest room whenever they like; at home, I’m not allowed to close the door. If I need to work, I do it at the dining table, because a child is not supposed to have secrets. I don’t know whether, after a year apart, anything has improved. A corner of my mind whispers: it’s been so long—maybe this time there will be a few good faces, not only moods and volatility. Of course, I’m not here to complain. This is my blog—an outlet I show to the world. What I want to say is: this expectation itself is wrong. Whether you expect kindness or cruelty, it’s still a form of prediction. And prediction implies hope—anticipation. I can’t find a more neutral word; “foresee” feels too ominous. In any case, this supposedly neutral act never needed to happen. A person should accept everything calmly, thinly—whatever happens or doesn’t happen. There is no particular reason. Only by training a peaceful mind can you resist many things.
But a peaceful mind also requires the confidence to resist. Too much anxiety becomes fear. “Let it happen” means knowing you can handle it. After all, we only get one life in this world—so what will anything become, really?
At this point, everything I’m writing starts to look like a self-help book, or some soothing pseudo-psychology. “Hometown” can be abstract, too. Do I resent my hometown? My hometown is—cheap milk tea shops selling knock-offs; the taste of milk green tea with extra ice and 70% sugar. The taste of a fruit tea called “Four Seasons Orchard.” The tenderness and naïveté of admitting I’m still not mature. Bullying and hardship; everyone’s happiness and unhappiness; making mistakes and solving a math problem correctly. I can almost see scenes I’ve forgotten begin to surface. I’m someone who often thinks about “starting over.” After one stretch of life, I immediately throw away the past. I lose interest in films and TV after three minutes—watch it, then drop it. If a game doesn’t go smoothly, I drop it. Each time I graduate, I immediately change my contact info. I don’t know what I’m trying to cut off, but clearly the cutting failed.
Speaking of hometown, I realize I haven’t forgotten as much as I thought. The memories were sealed, not erased. I found a perfect metaphor: in Linux, ls doesn’t show files that start with a dot, but the files are obviously still there. Fine—maybe that metaphor is a bit showy. In this flood of recollection, I try to find a sliver of sweetness—something that tastes sweet.
And then I think of food—fragrant, hot food. Before the pandemic I was in high school. For a long time, I got used to going alone to the snack street nearby for lunch and dinner. That was the only gap between noon and evening study. Honestly, it felt like someone had put poppy shells into the coarse rice noodles—the broth was almost too enticing. There was also “Five-Grain Fish Vermicelli,” something I’d eat when I felt like walking deeper into the snack street. The street was cramped; each shop had a tall step leading up to the second floor. Many students weren’t allowed to bring phones, and we benefited from Alipay’s then-new face-scan policy. I used to fall asleep at five in the morning and get up at seven for class. I don’t know how I survived each day, but the moments of eating were real. There was one shop—now swallowed by Mixue Ice Cream & Tea—that sold cheap but pre-made Yunnan rice noodles and potato noodles. I became their loyal customer: once a day, every day, ordering ahead on WeChat. I also watched them shut down because there weren’t enough customers.
That’s the only memory I can grab immediately. The rest requires a special way of calling it up. I don’t know how long I’ve been living across layered thoughts and lives. Some things I don’t want to mention; some things I can’t. Is that being deliberately mysterious? Maybe. I don’t feel like the pandemic stole four years from me—because usually I didn’t have anything that could be stolen. I basically don’t remember.
But my family also seems to be trying to keep a constant connection with me, for whatever reason. In their eyes I may be a piece of a unified whole, a continuation of bloodline. So I am always “one of them.” I’ve never said that the debt of being raised is fake; but my pessimism makes me wish I could have chosen whether to be born. This world is beautiful—I don’t regret coming here to participate in some creator’s work of art.
Why do I want to leave words behind? What do I want to write today?
Maybe for someone like me, whose ties to family aren’t tight, “hometown” means something different. My hometown is probably the “country.” Because when I hear the word “hometown,” my first thought is the Garlean Empire in Final Fantasy XIV. You can Google the details. In short: its theme music is… heavy. A distant hope coming through the radio. An advanced-technological, heated authoritarian state in a world full of magic and fantasy—so modern it feels out of place. Where there is an empire, there are soldiers; there are patriots. There are people who, in famine and cold, still believe in nation and homeland.
I’m too modern now. I’m skeptical of borders, boundaries, nationalism, and racism. And yet I’m still grateful there is a larger whole that includes me—something that lets me shout my belonging. If I graduate smoothly one day, my acknowledgements will probably be just a few words: thanks to whoever guided me, and thanks to the country. There isn’t much left to write.
Tomorrow, I go home. I don’t know what will be waiting for me.