Essays
Nine essays on hometown, people who are gone, and time. Original in Chinese.
- 01 時間深處的刮鬍刀 The Razor in the Depths of Time — A father's shaving ritual, and a hometown found decades late. →
- 02 阿良 A-Liang — Twenty years of friendship, measured in cigarettes and silence. →
- 03 蘆葦 Reeds — A conversation with the world, stuck in traffic. →
- 04 小彩 Xiao-Cai — Happiness is someone quietly ready with a tissue. →
- 05 蘇北的蘋果 Apples of Northern Jiangsu — Every field keeps one tree, and every heart keeps one, too. →
- 06 遠方的形狀 The Shape of Distance — A friend's story of first love, a phone call, and a quiet goodbye years later. →
- 07 到錦溪慢下來 Slowing Down in Jinxi — My assistant from Suzhou, a season of heavy pressure at work, and her line that Jinxi "nourishes people." →
- 08 臨海 Linhai — A bowl of "wheat shrimp" noodles in Linhai, a local man's memories of veterans coming home from Taiwan, and a town's pride in its old wall. →
- 09 真姐 Sister Zhen — My first team leader, a question over dinner about love and blame, and the day she chose to set herself free. →