Hangzhou

Throughout my three years of high school, it wasn’t as though I never thought about going back for a visit. But I would usually linger nearby for ages before slinking away again. (Alright, not really—I hardly went into the city to begin with.) Compared with the classmates who visited all the time, I appear to be somewhat lacking in gratitude. —Kidding, of course. Seeing my teachers again after all these years, I found that they still called me by name the moment we met. A graduate’s favorite pastime is searching the whole school for traces they left behind. Naturally, we found none. Or perhaps they were everywhere? ...

Sometimes I ask myself: What exactly did I come back to Hangzhou for? The last few days have been nonstop. Somehow, between all the buses and metro rides, I burned through the entire 50 yuan on my citizen card. (Realized this halfway through the sentence and immediately switched to another transit card. That was close—I nearly went into the red.) Every day, whether I’m meeting classmates or working as a teaching assistant, I seem to hit my exercise goal without even trying, haha. ...

Sunday today. In the afternoon I squeezed onto the metro for Hubin in77, where the phrase “a sea of people” suddenly took physical form before my eyes—there were SO! MANY! PEOPLE! Aaaaaah (Everything below was written at 23:59.) Nothing like the urgency of finishing a draft right before the deadline. Went to West Lake! Saw Hubin 88! Spent money and ate extremely well! Got the gift I’d been wanting! Wow, this is so perfunctory ( ...

I only arrived in Hangzhou yesterday (actually, the day before yesterday by now) and haven’t even had time to unpack. Today I met many of the brothers and sisters from the community at the sports court, and even managed to catch a moment of people helping each other. The two questions I heard most were “How tall are you now?” and “Where are your parents?” It feels so good. All the roads along the river may have been rebuilt, but the bonds between people remain as strong as ever. ...

Some of you may have wondered why I chose this name. There are quite a few reasons, actually. For one thing, our house has been rented out and I’m still crashing at a classmate’s place. For another, it foreshadows our plan to study abroad. More importantly, though, it comes from 1 Peter: we are travelers and sojourners on this earth. I hope I can keep this series going, even if I may not always post it on WeChat Moments. I’ll copy the earlier entries into a notebook and make a proper diary of it! ...

The original entry for today got deleted for touching on certain sensitive matters (as in, the Moments post itself was taken down). Since I didn’t keep a backup at all, I might as well use this space for a little reflection. First: I really don’t stop and think carefully before I speak. I am always telling myself, “Surely this is fine to say.” It isn’t. I once wrote down a rule that I still need to follow today: think three times before you speak. ...

I was going to make this a daily thing, but then I had way too much fun at Mr. Figo’s tonight. So here I am, catching the tail end of March 31 with a diary entry. I spent most of the day at home packing up everything I needed to take, and snapped a quick photo of our tenant’s kitty while I was at it. Then it was dinner at Figo’s in the evening. Had a wonderful time! ...

This morning, I rolled back into Hangzhou to the roar of an old green train. After a full day of running around, it suddenly occurred to me tonight that I might as well start a diary. Since our place back home has already been rented out, I had no choice but to crash at a classmate’s. I made noodles for lunch; they turned out alright. Went to play soccer in the afternoon, where I made the tragic discovery that not training properly in Jiangxi now means getting absolutely demolished by a bunch of kids. Then I spent the evening working on a piece about what exactly I’ve been doing for the past year and a half. It’ll probably go up on my mother’s WeChat account for posterity, so here, have a shameless plug while I’m at it: follow Grace Time (now renamed The Road of Grace Time)! Come dig up my dark past (jk ...