Volume 1 Chapter 3
From the seaside
In junior high school, I published an article called "The Sunset is Still Beautiful" in Jiangsu's "Youth Literature". Two months later, I received a letter from a student in Inner Mongolia. In the letter, he barely mentioned my article, but instead enthusiastically praised Shanghai, which was once known as the "Paris of the East". He especially raved about the sea in Shanghai and expressed his desire to see the sunset on its vast blue waters. I immediately thought of what it would be like to put a hard-boiled egg into coffee. At that time, I had read an article by Su Tong called "From the Grasslands", which filled me with longing and curiosity for the endless grasslands and the custom of urinating in beer bottles there. However, I couldn't understand why in Shanghai, a "civilized" city, there were so many "clearly written" rules, such as not allowing public urination, but some people just wouldn't change their ways and would relieve themselves wherever they pleased. In contrast, on the vast grasslands where it wouldn't flood with just a few drops of urine, people were surprisingly well-behaved. So I wrote back to him, asking him to send me some photos of the grasslands, and I also sent him two photos of Shanghai's sea in return. Several weeks later, I received the photos of the grasslands. The first one was indeed beautiful, but there was a man standing next to it, ruining the scenery. After reading the letter, the scenery was almost completely ruined - the man was the sender himself, who had thought I was a gentle and delicate girl. The second photo looked like a close-up of Chen Peisi's head at first glance, but upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a mountain. Later on, I never went to visit him, and he never wrote back to me either - I guess he was intimidated by Shanghai's sea.
What impressed me the most was that a few years ago, I touched a starfish in the almost transparent seawater in Qingdao and even buried myself in the sand. But to achieve these two things on the beach in Shanghai is like climbing to heaven. On the petrified beach that I am more familiar with, if you can manage to find a starfish, it's worth being the headline of the local newspaper. Either the sky is limited or the starfish is blind, and doing the second thing is even more ridiculous. The water on the petrified beach is gray, the mud is black, and the sand is very hard. If you really want to bury yourself, you'll probably need to use something like an iron shovel to dig for several hours, as long as you're not afraid of people thinking you're digging a grave.
Although the petrified sea is not worth mentioning, to be honest, I have a certain affection for Petrification. My two primary school classmates who studied in Petrification High School often boasted about how great it was, saying that after climbing to the highest point of their school, they could see the vast ocean. I remember last time they were trying to show off in front of me and Songjiang Second Middle School, they exaggerated about their alma mater, saying it was an ancient school with a thousand years of history. They even said that all schools are just old buildings, which made me think of what they called the "highest point". I asked them if they were joking about climbing the flagpole to see the sea, and they shook their heads, saying this time they were telling the truth, that every night they fell asleep listening to the sound of the waves. After all, hearing the sound of the waves is not the same as seeing the beauty of the sea itself. We can just listen to the sound of the waves and imagine it's a beautiful sea without actually looking at it. This logic is similar to liking a radio host's voice but not wanting to meet them in person. My friend said, "Come on, Han Han, be content with what you have. That patch of murky grey water already meets the condition of being vast and endless, why seek something blue? Besides, Petrification was originally just a place for oil workers to live, built by filling up the sea to construct an oil factory. What did you expect the sea to be like?"
But after going there several times, I gradually developed an appreciation for it. The sea has a kind of oppressive beauty, probably because I've read too much Kafka. If I weren't studying at Songjiang No. 2 Middle School in the future, I would choose to attend either Shihua University's Affiliated High School or East China Normal University's Affiliated High School. Since that's the case, it's necessary for me to introduce that place.
It was mentioned earlier that the petrified place is not as old as the fossil, and it's even young enough to not have a single famous person to boast about. Due to everything being new, there are no ancient relics for people to reminisce about. Several streets are named after coordinates, saving people the trouble of thinking up names like Diana Road or Polly Silk Road, such as Jing 7 Road, Wei 8 Road, who knows where they count from in the past.
Along a street that I don't know the number of, you can walk straight to the sea. The street is very spacious and can hold a large area of sunset glow. Two people walking together is warm and cozy, one person walking alone is desolate. Along the way, there is a big park with a landmark building that is a monkey mountain, where a group of people gather around to watch the monkeys. Some people who are stingy with their money will suddenly become generous when they see the monkeys huddled together, flinging all sorts of strange fruits and treasures at them. On the side of the monkey mountain, there are performances day and night, like women with two heads, that people go to watch. Actually, our gaze watching the monkeys is the same as the monkeys' gaze watching us. Who knows if the monkeys on top of the monkey mountain see the sea and write poetry in their own language, or maybe one of them is writing a text like "From the seaside".
The name of that park I've been calling Seaside Park for years, only to find out later it's actually called Coastal Park. Although both convey the same meaning, just like the English translation of "Shui Jing Chuan" is "A Story Born by the Water", and the English translation of "Journey to the West" is simply "Monkey". However, if we analyze using the language and grammar used by the ignorant, there's a subtle yet unbridgeable difference.
As you continue to follow the sound of the sea, you can see a dam-like structure. Climbing up the stairs, you'll find a vast expanse of grayish-blue sea that makes your chest feel suffocated whether it's sunny or cloudy. This sea is called Dingzi Dam, and rumor has it that it's a treacherous place. Many people who underestimate its power often think they can play in the waves here, only to end up with their families crying and rushing to retrieve their clothes. However, Dingzi Dam also gave birth to a hero named Zhang Xianjun. A few years ago, all middle school students in Shanghai were learning from Zhang Xianjun, not his swimming skills, but his spirit of sacrificing himself to save others.
The petrified seaside is a great place to fly a kite without worrying about being struck by lightning like Franklin or getting tangled in power lines. I once saw a kite-flying master who started with his hands raised and horse stance on the beach, looking like he was practicing qigong. When asked what he was doing, I was surprised to find out that he was flying a kite. Looking up at the kite, all I could see was a gray sky, and the kite had probably been blown away to outer space long ago.
So I invited a few friends to fly kites. Flying kites is an art, it's not easy to fly the kite as high as that old man did. However, running freely on the beach is also a kind of fun. This reminds me of the district men's 3000-meter long run competition in my third year of junior high school. It was my first time participating, but before the race, some veterans who had previously ranked around 20th or 30th described their opponents as fierce beasts, which made my hair stand on end. As a result, I won first place. Running on the beach doesn't make me tired at all.
In my nearly 20 years, the deepest friendship with the sea was a night spent on the beach. I heard that on December 31, 1999, many people set up tents to spend the night on the beach, and at that moment, I was passing by Chongqing South Road. When the people on the beach lit the bonfire, I was under a French plane tree on Hengshan Road. If there were two chances in a thousand years, the second time I would definitely choose to spend it on the beach.
That day was actually forced, not because of the three-hair complex. What's lacking on the stone-hard streets is a place to sit, all selling food, all stone-hard people can't eat that much day and night. The only place where you can chat with a small song is the Da Jiang Ji Fast Food Restaurant, which is thousands of kilometers away from the sea. That restaurant has a fragrance and is said to have a chicken flavor that can float all the way to the seaside. Many times I went there when business was so good that I could only gnaw on rice balls by the roadside. Recently, someone spread rumors that the chicken contained hormones and eating it would cause some kind of syndrome that would die very ugly. Without a place to sit down and look at the scenery through the floor-to-ceiling windows, I had to go straight to the seaside. That night, lying on a high ground by the sea, excluding the possibility of a tsunami, was absolutely safe. Next to that high ground, there is an even higher land that blocks the wind **at 2 o'clock, lying motionless under the stars. The sound of the waves is huge, and only then did I understand the difference between natural sounds and man-made sounds, such as the waves that can lull people to sleep, whooshing in waves, only to regret that I knew too few onomatopoeic words, wishing to create a few more to describe it. Similar to the sound of the waves is the sound of the wind. The sound of the wind is extremely annoying - at least it annoys me. In the dormitory at night, the sound of the wind is endless, and it's also one call and one response, making my spirit almost collapse. At first, sleeping by the sea, my first feeling was to return to the dormitory, and then gradually taste the flavor. When I opened my eyes, it was a vast expanse of blackness, majestic sea, and the joy of life. However, later on, I couldn't take it anymore. Normally, I wear very little clothing, even in severe winter, at most one shirt and one waterproof jacket, which is preparation for going to Tibet in the future. But that night, after 12 o'clock, my toes felt icy cold, numb, and cut off, probably without any sensation. The icing on the cake was a couple five meters away who were being affectionate, regardless of my whole body's coldness, not understanding the joy of sharing together, three people hugging each other would be much warmer. The strong contrast made me even colder, with only a few coins in my pocket, not enough to stay in a hotel, and no 24-hour tea houses or cafes to go to, so I had to retreat to the International Skating Center behind the dam. When I stood up, the couple was startled, originally unaware of me, no wonder love is blind. Sorry about that.
I'm still suffering from the overnight experience at the roller skating center, where comfort only exists in memories because memories can filter out some unnecessary or unwanted things. Now, people in Songjiang often plan to go see the sea and climb mountains. Natural scenery is what Shanghai lacks most. If city buildings are beautiful and worth admiring, I'd rather stare at a matchbox all day. Steel and concrete are the most inhumane. Don't even get me started on the sea having no human touch - it can swallow lives. Walking under high-rise buildings, aren't you guaranteed to not be crushed by falling billboards from the sky? When classmates planning to see the sea ask me which one is more worth seeing, I think those who love to watch will always love watching, while those who don't but follow the trend and brag about it can just stay home and appreciate the small things - that's the spirit of "seeing the big in the small".
