Lanzhou Travel Notes

The night has been very quiet. Even when the dogs bark and a young couple argue, drifting in through the window, it all sounds so vast and lonely. The daytime's muggy heat and the constant noise are gone. The night before last, the silence was the same. After watching American Dreams in China, sleep was the last thing on my mind; I suddenly wanted to go see Lanzhou's night view, to feel the mood of climbing a mountain alone in the middle of the night, the way I had years ago.

Walking down the main street, Nanguan's Muslim Street no longer had the bustle of midnight. The vendors, smiles stiff on their faces, dragged their tired bodies and began packing up to head home. So I found a small stall that hadn't closed yet, because I had made a decision.

Yongchang Road in the small hours was like the venue of a grand concert just ended, every street lined with the same tired slogans and Chinese-style white trash. Apparently, to gauge how hot a star is, you only need to count the trash left under the stage. A little further on was Zhangye Road; even though its nighttime lights had faded a touch, you could still see how bustling it must be during the day. You could still hear the second-generation rich tossing money around and bragging, see the cool indifference of self-styled losers of both sexes, and smell the roast meat from the corner and the milk-tea cup in a couple's hands. Looking at the long rows of benches on the street, I felt as if I were back five years ago, on a pedestrian street in another city, with three stubborn young people on the same kind of night, silently mourning the intractability of youth and the girls we had once chased.

But memories, once they started, would not stop. Apart from some hazy scenes of my younger brother's birth when I was three, the rest mostly came from school. In first grade I lost a 0.9-yuan mechanical pencil and searched the backyard for days. In second grade, two boys threw punches over a little girl. In third grade I only remember failing Chinese; the class had only eleven kids in it, and the grade below had only twenty-three, just slightly more. When I got to fourth grade, the school organized a movie; thinking about it now, it was probably a DVD or something. I don't remember the content, only a fragment of an off-road vehicle bursting out of the desert. Looking back, my elementary school teachers were truly all-rounders. They knew how to use the physics of leverage and the tension of a bent bamboo stick to generate action and reaction on a student's face and hands, and they understood inertia and its proportionality to mass: they were fond of using a 3-inch-diameter wooden stick from the corner of the classroom on students' backsides, held in both hands — leverage in action. Elementary school teachers were truly capable of anything; perhaps that was where my middle-school physics was first awakened.

But on reflection, the middle-school teachers were a step above. If elementary school applied simple physical principles, that was just teaching by example; middle-school teachers reached an internationally advanced level of precision guidance. Their command of the parabolic equation was so skilled, and the equipment required was only a small broken-off piece of chalk or a chalk-dust-covered eraser. In terms of swordsmanship, elementary-school teachers had a sword in hand and a sword in their heart; middle-school teachers could achieve a state where there was no sword in hand and no sword in heart either. To understand how this realm was attained, just look at the two classmates slapping each other and you'll get an inkling.

I can't forget the middle-school Chinese teacher's abandoning-the-textbook move, and the math teacher's well-meaning scheming. He actually thought of using the collision between a triangle ruler and the body to forge a link between geometry and the soul. And the guy who threw rocks at the girls' dorm — do you know who took the blame and the beating for you? Back in those days, a single character-riddle love poem could turn the whole class upside down; people could fall out over a bed assignment in the blink of an eye. The school cafeteria's steamed buns and noodles — do you still remember them? Anyone nostalgic for the bustle of a hundred people eating together? In those years we also had days of studying on an empty stomach and still being mischievous and naughty.

Now, meals keep getting more elaborate, yet I can't taste the flavor of those days. Experience keeps growing, yet I have no idea what I really want.

Legend has it that smearing toothpaste on the soles of someone's feet while they sleep can make them obey you. To answer the Party Central Committee's call that practice yields true knowledge, on a dark and windy night (three hundred characters omitted here), the facts proved that legends may not always be true.

In those days on the small town, instant noodles were still one yuan a pack of Fuman Duo; the snacks were mostly spicy strips and "Tang monk meat" (a cheap brand of dried tofu). The kite-making contest — I once spent over a week hand-making one, but it never flew very high. The weekly major clean-up had us all covered in dust. In those afternoon classes the teacher would still have us sing a few songs. Back then there were no "Zeng-ye" or "Spring-brother" idols. From time to time the whole grade would hold a meeting. Class monitor, do you remember how you once helped me buy a lock from outside the school?

You once said to me, meeting is a song. Back then we still carried the dreams of that time, the weak light of candles lighting the way forward. Now, scattered to the corners of the earth, all that remains is complaint and confusion.

From high school to college, for a student, is undoubtedly a critical step. Back then we were too young, too simple — young enough to see nothing but exam rankings, never thinking about the road ahead; simple enough to make solemn vows of "till death do us part" with the greatest of ease. The disappointment that came years later shattered the lies of our era. Fortunately some beautiful memories, like rain after a long drought, moisten each other's hearts, reminding us that we too once passed through this world.

Memories can't help but be tinged with regret. We were too rebellious, too naive, and we hurt so many of the people who cared for and protected us. And now, after so much change, with what shall we save you, my years of youth?

Not long ago, I was lucky enough to visit Mount Hua, on a cool night like this. The moment my first step hit this road, there was no courage left to turn back. I only remember walking forward the whole way, watching the footprints left behind me, silently counting the journey that remained. Only when you've struggled for something can you face those young people walking into the unknown with equanimity.

Isn't life itself a Mount Hua? We are somewhere on the way up, having just walked a stretch of predetermined path. What we will face, what we can gain — at that moment, we've actually already forgotten everything. The only thought in our hearts is the urge to keep moving forward. Because having chosen this road, we no longer have any reason to turn back. When we've watched the sunrise from the East Peak and can't help exclaiming, "It's only this much after all," the weariness and loss of body and mind leave no time to savor that persistence on the way down.

But some roads are destined to be walked alone, like the Zhongshan Bridge tonight. Leaning on the railing, watching the Yellow River water galloping like horses across the riverbed, you can already feel the bridge trembling. Walking on the bridge deck, you can hear the wind blowing through the steel rods; then you think of the butterfly effect, every step you take becomes heavy and cautious, every step carrying countless narrow survivals of struggle along this road. Halfway through, when you look back, you can even smell the rolling thunder that precedes the collapse of the bridge deck. You suddenly think of tomorrow's sunshine; you think of the distance. The road of life does not have to be full of ups and downs; conquering yourself is also a kind of progress.

In high school, a Hope Bookshop opened diagonally across from the school gate, so a certain student, on the charge of dereliction of studies, was exiled to another class. When the teacher asked for opinions on the matter, I recalled a line from Reader: do not let the previous stretch of road become an excuse for the next, whether right or wrong; once you've strayed from the original intention, it's a betrayal of yourself.

Tonight's road is destined to be long, and lonely. The former me has,不知不觉中, returned. The night makes so many people lonely, yet I find my own joy in it.

Twenty-three years ago today, I came into this world for the first time — no backlight, no jade, and not the slightest memory. I was born ordinary, and I will die ordinary. In this ordinary life, I only want to walk an ordinary road: no sky ladder, no Canglong Ridge, no naked sunrise. I only want to drip my sweat on the yellowing earth, bury seeds one by one. I only want to stand on the Gobi plain of Delingha, recite softly into the watery moonlight: "Tonight I am in Delingha, tonight I have only the beautiful empty Gobi." I only want to listen to the tides coming and going, face the sea, and see spring blossoms. Once, someone said, "I would become a stone bridge, enduring five hundred years of wind, five hundred years of sun, five hundred years of rain, only to have her pass over the bridge." But life is only a few short decades; those who cling to obsessions are happy, are lonely, but an obsessive love cannot hold out against a quiet, simple life.

I don't remember if, six years ago tonight, I was lying awake worrying about tomorrow's exam, but tonight is certainly not a good time for reminiscence. I hope you, each holding your own ticket, can reach the place your heart desires.