As the Dingyou year gasped like an old man near the end of life, I felt, as usual, that I should write something. With time, my writing has become increasingly clumsy, to the point that I can no longer even come up with a decent title. So I will boldly borrow a line from Bei Dao for now. Why this title? I will explain later.
On the last day of the old year, Wuhu finally had a proper haze. In the morning, as I rode alone to school, I could not see the library hidden in the thick fog. There was a faint, almost imperceptible chemical smell in my nose, and only then did I realize winter had arrived. Unlike intermittent ice ages, winter comes every year, sometimes early and sometimes late, sometimes gentle and sometimes fierce. But in its reliability, in the fact that it always keeps its appointment, it deserves some praise.
The past year was empty for me, lacking any major goal. So I artificially set myself a few small goals of little real significance. They could add one or two byproducts to my monotonous college life, things I could brag about, and help me avoid the permanent loss of momentum caused by losing direction. Over the year, I passed Japanese Language Proficiency Test N3, passed the written part of the high school English teaching certificate exam, read dozens of books, remembered more than a dozen historical episodes, and took another step on the road to owning a dog. Compared with an increasingly hopeless legal career, these small and painless things added quite a bit of color to what should have been a dull life. They at least gave me something to point to during the routine year-end summary and say, “This year was quite full.”
My relationship with my family has become increasingly harmonious. That is another high-quality product I gained this past year. Watching my parents grow older day by day has not produced much resentment toward time in me. Whenever that thought appears, I tell myself that I too will grow old one day. In that sense, my parents and I are even; it is only a matter of sequence. That makes me feel better. Instead of obsessing over the aging of parents and relatives, it is better to use the present well: make more jokes each day, tease ourselves a little more, and let emotional connection be maintained that way. If possible, I will try to make something of myself in a way that fits my parents’ values. That would count as another responsibility fulfilled, at least as I see it.
After crossing a second year-end with Shanshan, my satisfaction with and trust in this relationship have deepened. If possible, we probably will not separate. That also brings another unavoidable problem: the weight of life on my shoulders has grown much heavier. In a society where economic distribution is not exactly fair, it is very hard for people like us to support a middle-class family with our own hands. I hope she understands this as early as possible. But no matter how hard life becomes, I will give it everything. This is not motivational soup or a solemn vow. It is simply because life should be lived this way, and no one can raise their hand and surrender.
According to the old heavenly-stems-and-earthly-branches calendar, after Dingyou comes Wuxu. Two sixty-year cycles have passed since the Hundred Days’ Reform. That was a painful historical story. An attempt to drive social change from within the system failed completely, followed by the execution of the Six Gentlemen, the reactionary backlash of court conservatives, and the fraudulence of Kang Youwei, once the spiritual leader of reform. One hundred and twenty years later, the ghost of the Qing still seems not to have fully left this ancient land. Some of the best and most beautiful things in our old tradition are dying day by day, while wave after wave of stale dregs, revived in the name of “rejuvenation,” have found new life.
The Guo Wengui revelations, the Yu Huan stabbing case after his mother was humiliated, the Hangzhou Greentown arson, the Ming Jingguo resistance case, the RYB kindergarten abuse scandal, Beijing’s expulsion of the low-end population, and the coal-to-gas heating campaign in North China: all these events that left public opinion stunned happened with unusual concentration in 2017. I do not know how later generations will judge our era, but I know that fairness and conscience among the Chinese people have not disappeared.
Baseness is the passport of the base,
Nobility the epitaph of the noble.
Look, in that gilded sky,
The bent shadows of the dead are drifting.
The Ice Age is over,
Why is there ice everywhere?
The Cape of Good Hope has been discovered,
Why do a thousand sails race across the Dead Sea?
I came into this world
Bringing only paper, rope, and a shadow,
So that before the judgment
I may read out the voices already condemned.
In 2017, all theoretical reflection bore the fruit of practice. From then on, my political consciousness fully awakened. Standing far away and watching coldly, or turning my face elsewhere and fleeing timidly, cannot change this unreasonable world. If I still hold any hope of creating a happy life for my future children, I must act and place myself inside it.
In the Constitution, our name is “citizen.” What kind of citizen? One who can express independent views without arrogance; obey politics without servility; participate actively in national policy; feel sympathy when seeing the weak, and anger when seeing evil. That is a real citizen.
If the ocean is destined to break its dikes,
Let all bitter waters pour into my heart;
If the land is destined to rise,
Let humanity choose again the peak of survival.
New turning points and shining stars
Are filling the unobstructed sky.
Those are five thousand years of pictographs,
Those are the eyes with which future people gaze.
That is why I borrowed this line as the title. In another Wuxu year, I will continue walking forward with hope, waiting eagerly for every new dawn.
The longing for sincere love, the tireless pursuit of truth, and an irrepressible compassion for human suffering: these three simple but powerful passions govern my life. This was my 2017. I place my best hopes in the new year, and sincerely wish happiness to everyone who has read this far, and everyone who has not.
Early morning, January 1, 2018