At last, it is time to leave. I came first to a hotel near the airport to spend the night.
I said goodbye to neighbours and family. It is strange: unease stirs in me. I had thought, or perhaps simply assumed, that since youth I possessed the ability to keep my composure even if Mount Tai collapsed before me. Yet in the year I turned forty-four, I feel I have changed.
Perhaps, compared with youth, I have come to believe more in fate and in signs from heaven and earth. Put plainly, perhaps I have simply grown superstitious.
But this superstition is in fact closer to a humility learned in the presence of fate.
When young, I also believed fiercely in the resolve behind “my fate is mine, not heaven’s,” and “though ten million oppose me, I will still go.”
Yet as I moved from youth into middle age, after walking into the same kind of wall many times, I began to look at things with an added layer of reverence.
Even if human effort determines what can be done, resolve and perseverance are only the foundation.
The right time, the right place, and harmony among people are what determine whether one can finally catch the rising wind.
At first, my hotel room number felt deeply inauspicious: 414, which in Mandarin sounds like “die once.”
Then I reconsidered. At forty-four, 414 can just as easily sound like “give it a try.” Perhaps it can also offer a change in vantage point.
The world around us is shaped by the mind. Superstition is one thing; revelation from heaven is another.
Do everything within one’s power, then heed the will of heaven. Once I have given it my all, after all, a human life comes only once.
There is no save file and no physical restart. Our fear of failure gradually makes us forget the possibility of creation.
I told only a very small circle of friends that I was leaving for Japan.
As a result, just as I was about to depart, a thought suddenly flashed through my mind: had I really become so marginal that there were hardly any people to whom I could say, “Hey! I’m setting off on an adventure now. Won’t you wish me well?”
“What sort of adventure does a middle-aged person need? Life must usually be far too comfortable.” The thought of hearing this was what kept me from sharing the news or making an announcement.
Reproach, in truth, never stops simply because one’s age or identity changes.
More than twenty years ago, when I resolved without hesitation to go to Germany alone, I endured plenty of criticism and gossip as well.
“Unfilial!” “Irresponsible!” “Your family has money, so you can indulge yourself!” And so on and so on.
To live in an environment where people cannot sincerely wish for good things to happen to someone else
is truly frightening.
And some imprints on the heart cannot be easily erased.
Just as I grumbled to my study-abroad agent: the day before departure, I suddenly sprang up and packed even a scouring sponge and cleaning cloth into my luggage.
Of course I know these two things cost almost nothing and are easy to obtain; I never intended to bring them back to Germany either.
But this has nothing to do with money or convenience. It is purely the PTSD left by my experience studying in Shanghai.
Imagine: after travelling a long and weary way from somewhere far away, you enter a special place arranged for that particular period. You think you can finally breathe because you have somewhere to stay, only to discover that the space left for you is coated in dust and the floor covered with dirt and stray hair. At such a moment, can you truly lie down calmly on the bed and catch your breath first?
No. This humble consort simply cannot do it～～
So, within a dozen-odd minutes of moving into the Shanghai student dormitory, the first thing I truly did was rush to a shop by the campus back gate to buy a broom and dustpan, pretending I was a student arriving at Hogwarts.
Even if the agent repeatedly assured me that nothing like that would happen in Japan,
but who knows? Life comes with no guarantee card, right?
Such “traumatic experiences” and fears, engraved upon the heart, cannot be easily erased.
On the day of departure, I saw my own fear more clearly than ever.
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