No Travel in October
As usual, every October there’s a travelogue—Kunming and Dali in 2010; Qionghai in Xichang in 2011; Meili Snow Mountain, Shangri-La, and Lijiang in 2012. For 2013 I planned to write A Record of Cycling Around Qinghai Lake—bike, tent, and sleeping bag were all ready. But the company wouldn’t give time off, so it got delayed. I’m not particularly regretful though. Money’s been tight lately—the prime lens and rMBP still aren’t sorted. Plus October’s Qinghai Lake is quite cold, not ideal for lakeside camping. Next spring or summer when the rapeseed flowers blanket the lakeshore, if I can go with friends, that would be great.
Although the long trip didn’t happen, my OCD mindset forced me to visit some Chengdu attractions to experience “crowds.” Here’s what happened that day: the night before, I’d arranged with a girl to go to Wenjiang’s food festival. But the next morning, my dad suddenly wanted the whole family to go there. What a coincidence—Chengdu is so big, yet everyone had to squeeze into that one spot. How many foodies does the Land of Abundance really have? The girl’s family didn’t know about it. If she and I went too and we all ran into each other, it would basically turn into a blind date setup. So I had to find an excuse not to go with my family, then discussed changing locations with her. But after thinking it over, we couldn’t find anywhere interesting. I really wanted to slap myself—can’t even find a place for a date, what a wimp!
In the end, I went out alone with my DSLR. No matter how alone I am, I won’t let myself look too lonely. Unless you’re a twin, I believe people are born lonely. But happy people find their own ways to entertain themselves—some find friends, some spend money on wine, some spend ten years honing a craft. Their common trait is “staying busy.”
I wanted to shoot some street photography, so I went to three places: Kuanzhai Alley, People’s Park, and Jinli. The entrance to Kuanzhai Alley was too crowded—I couldn’t get in. Then I went to People’s Park next door and managed to enter. Right inside the main gate was a small lake with dozens of small boats carrying tourists floating on it—yellow and green boats, tourists chatting and laughing. It was nearing noon and I was a bit hungry, so I bought a bowl of soybean flower and sat on the flower bed by the lake to eat, completely ignoring the passing pedestrians. I remember as a kid secretly flipping through my uncle’s photo album in the countryside. He was probably twenty then, standing cautiously in front of the Zhaojue Temple Zoo gate and some park amusement areas, taking many photos. The almost faded photos seemed to have those same yellow-and-green boats. A wave of time-travel nostalgia hit me. Decades from now, People’s Park will probably be the same—it’s nice that generations share the same memories. Later I went to Jinli. It was also packed. I protected my camera and moved forward with the crowd. Jinli is no different from most ancient streets in China. It’s a pity that real historical sites can’t be preserved in cities like this—very uninteresting.
After that, I worked three more days, then had another two-day weekend, and it was already the 7th. In Yibin, Brother Jin organized a class reunion and called the eight of us from Chengdu to Shizishan Chuanshi South Gate Food Plaza for a meal. Everyone drank about seven bottles of beer and three people got knocked out on the spot. We’ve been graduated for over a year, met up two or three times, and each time was more enjoyable than the last. But think about it—besides classmates and friends, who else can you drink so uninhibitedly with?