Part I
I live with my parents in a small town, while my father’s parents live by the sea. My grandfather used to be a sailor, and in my childhood memories, the sea was always present—perhaps because I often dreamt of black waves and ships, golden light flickering onboard, and myself lying at the ship’s edge, watching those beams of light drifting and swimming in the water like countless spirit butterflies.
They would haul up net after net of fish, dragged from the dark seawater by green plastic nets. When the boat’s lights shone on them, the fish would twitch and shudder. They’d be tossed onto the deck in heaps, and seawater would pool beneath them. The side of the fish touching the water would frantically writhe, as if their fins had returned home.
By the next morning, the fish would have left silver streaks where they thrashed. I remember, in my dream, I would scoop up the seawater mixed with fish scales and pour it back into the sea. The scales floated up and down in the water like fish swimming. The people in my dreams and I would tell each other this story over and over again, as if the other had never heard it: as long as the ship sailed on the ocean, the seawater on board would never dry up.
I told this dream to my parents multiple times, but they adamantly denied it. They said my feet had never left the land.
“But the ocean is just a big puddle on the land,” I argued.
I tried hard to gather evidence, but they would only curl their lips into a childish smile, even more childlike than mine.
My parents’ deep belief in the magic of earth and soil had its reasons.
My grandfather had many roles—he was a sailor, but also a bamboo trader. He managed everything by himself, navigating both land and sea. I remember how he stacked bamboo poles by the entrance to the backyard. Past the bamboo pile, there was a small shed. Inside that dim little space were saws, fishing nets, leftover fish and rice.
The saws were always hanging upside down. Sometimes, there would be massive salted fish hanging as well, their skins marked by mesh patterns—black lines etched into their blood-silver surfaces like chains, glaringly out of place. These fish looked completely different from when they were in water. Back then, their interlaced black and silver scales resembled solemn armor. Even when imprisoned in red plastic tubs, they looked ready to leap. There was a threatening curve to their bodies, like dragons not yet transformed, coldly gazing upward.
Even the fish tossed into snakeskin bags and dumped in the kitchen would spring out suddenly, slapping the tiled floor loudly. It was as if, given the right moment, they could knock the whole house down and leap back to their homeland. I truly believed they could.
There were animals in that place, too—my grandfather’s cats. Sometimes I’d slide in over mossy ground into that sorcerer’s workshop of a shed and sit at a table still laid with leftover fish and rice. The cats would slink past underfoot, softly murmuring, as if trying to awaken the dead fish hanging above. None of the cats ever lived out their lives peacefully in our home. Some would disappear in a day or two; others were hit by trucks on the highway.
Except for one white old cat. Its fur was always perfectly clean, porcelain-white, never dirty. It was the first cat I ever remembered from my grandfather’s house. My father had many stories about it—how it once leapt unharmed from the top of a pear tree in the courtyard, how it played well with him (something I envied deeply), even shared dead mice with him.
I don’t know where it came from, or where it went. But it stayed at our home for at least 20 years, far longer than most cats live. When I was eleven, it gave birth to a litter of soft mewling kittens, each one as white as porcelain. That alone seemed proof that it defied the laws of nature.
Later, it vanished, and so did the kittens. As for this, all I can say is: if something is not meant to be in your life, it won’t be.
My sister and I used to walk on the bamboo poles, pretending we were crossing mountains. We loved imagining ourselves as characters in those red-covered primary school stories—like Zhu De’s Shoulder Pole: “The mountain was high, the path long and hard to walk, yet everyone fought to go.” Our grandmother often scolded us, warning we’d break our legs. But the earth was firm, the moss-covered bamboo as rough and solid as stone. No matter how much we climbed, they never moved.
We’d walk from one end to the other, lengthwise and crosswise, perfectly safe.
One year around New Year, I thought about crawling across again. I was poking my finger into the incense ash when the tip got burned by a still-smoldering ember. I was startled into reverence and never entertained the idea again.
My grandmother had a vegetable garden. Besides that, I remember her carving out a large section of the limited yard to grow corn, peas, loofah. I couldn’t tell whether they hung down or grew up from the soil. The earth there was salty, but the plants still flourished. Once I stepped into the field and the leaves seemed to wrap around me, pulling me inward as if to swallow me. I suddenly felt that the plants did not accept me—and from then on, I lost interest in exploring.
But in that small patch of earth, all sorts of plants I knew grew—taro, yams. One time I saw a little lotus leaf spreading open in a water vat by the kitchen. Grandma told me it was a lotus leaf. I didn’t find it strange, but to this day I’ve never seen it bloom.
In the cracks of my grandfather’s crumbling house, many flower pots had been discarded. Yet every single one of those flowers bloomed—vivid and deliberate, flourishing right on time with the seasons. There were always flowers blooming, spring, summer, fall, and winter. So I never once felt that my childhood was desolate.
Part II
My mother’s hometown had real open fields. Every year when we returned there to honor our ancestors, I’d get so carsick my head would spin. I’d think to myself: if I see more than two colors at once, I’ll definitely throw up.
But I never did.
All I could see were green plants—wheat, leafy greens, peas, chives—though honestly, I couldn’t name a single one. The sunlight was expansive; it was Qingming Festival sunshine, a kind of pale yellow-green. I often felt it was just like that spot in the Book of Songs where a valley lies quietly, grass trembling with dew, reborn in the east wind. It was the same soul-bearing green as “The kudzu grows thick.” When I visited my great-great-grandparents’ graves, those leaves brushed against my calves.
I remember when I was eleven, my mother sighed with emotion. I don’t remember what she was wearing, but she had on a beautiful sunhat woven from straw—a soft beige. I thought it was some kind of new retro fashion, because my mother had an uncanny sense of style, despite never having been formally trained in aesthetics. Later, she told me it was my grandmother’s hat. But I had never seen my grandmother wear anything like it—it had a striking white ribbon and was tied with a plant that still oozed a milky sap.
She said, “When you were little, you were just as tall as them.”
I snapped awake as if struck by something. I suddenly felt that the land was so stubborn—like a seasoned soldier, brave and proud, always picky with newcomers. I could almost picture myself walking carefully, trying not to be tripped or swallowed by the plants. My mother just stood watching, like it was some coronation ceremony. I felt as if I were walking among my people, those who I owed something to, the leaves reaching toward me like open palms. Bound by a silent, ancestral contract, there was nothing I could do but let them take what they willed.
I remember we burned many offerings for the deceased—houses, cars, and endless money. At that moment, I had the impulsive thought that dying might not be so bad—one could receive all these things without lifting a finger. I can’t quite remember whether I told my mom. She was the kind of extraordinary woman who never found anything I said odd or strange.
In the version of the memory I’ve kept in my mind, I did tell her. And she said she once had the same thought.
I dozed off on a little stool, and she gently patted the swirl of my hair. Then we came to a new understanding: living might be more interesting after all. She also told me that once a person dies, they’re completely free—no longer bound to linger around their homeland. “Maybe your great-grandmother has already caught the spring wind and gone somewhere else to see the flowers.”
At my great-grandmother’s funeral, there were two little black fish swimming in circles. I touched one gently, and suddenly I felt—maybe there’s no need to ride the wind. To turn into a fish might be wonderful enough.
Later, when I got too busy with school, only my mother went back to honor the ancestors. One time, when she returned, she pulled me aside with rare solemnity and told me, “One of your ancestors was named Huai Xuan.” Such a beautiful name, she said. I still sigh over it to this day.
The last memory is of that pale green-yellow sun. I held my mother’s hand. They were burning paper offerings in front of the tomb. Strangely, the willow tree beside the graves—companion to my ancestors—was always green, perhaps because of the soil. Soil that strictly chooses and tightly clings to each life that belongs to it. Or perhaps it was because we still held such vivid memories and longing for our ancestors.
In any case, all things have spirits. The land itself is a king, a country.
Blue smoke curled upward. My lively uncle shouted cheerfully, “Look, the smoke’s turning blue!”
It really was—blue smoke, with sunlight gilding its edges. Through the haze, I looked at the plants and the willow tree. Even now, as I look back on that memory, I feel like there’s something else it resembles. I think it’s A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains. Those etched peaks and flowing colors—somewhere between cold and warm—make Wang Ximeng’s painting seem neither heavenly nor earthly. It feels like the place I’ve wandered through in dreams, the silent language I hold on my tongue but never speak.
All I see—rivers, mountains, soil—is home.
Noraeverland 