Jason | Wang Yang

Every time I go back to Shanghai, I take a flight that arrives late at night. This time is like sneaking into a city, which makes people feel psychedelic.

There was only one line of the airport bus still running, which was the night watch line until the last flight. The place to get off each time was fixed, on the Yan'an Road elevated road near Jing'an Temple. Although it was midnight, there were still many cars passing by, but it didn't feel noisy. Although it was also driven by a driver, it seemed like just a machine passing by. From the overpass across the huge intersection, there was a Lawson convenience store at the bottom, which was my entrance to the city.

Most of the time I come back is in winter, during the Chinese New Year. It is very cold at midnight in Shanghai in winter, so I need to go in to warm myself up, buy a cup of hot coffee, and calm myself down. I also have lighters and cigarettes. There are always people coming in and out of this store to buy food. Most of them are young people, who may be working nearby or hungry after playing. There is a platform in front of the store with two tables. There are usually a lot of messy food packaging on the tables. The clerks may not have time to clean up, and probably don’t care much about the mess. I will sit there, smoke a few cigarettes, drink a cup of coffee, and then I will enter Shanghai.

I talked to Xiao You about what Lawson convenience stores meant to me, but she didn't feel that strongly. She said that for her it was just a convenient place to buy things. I met her at an art exhibition held by a friend. At that time, I had run a late-night restaurant for half a year and returned to Shanghai to live temporarily. I hadn't decided whether to return to Dali.

After drinking coffee, there are usually shared bicycles outside the convenience store, so I ride one to the B&B I booked. When I come back, I stay near Xiangyang South Road, usually in one room, some are more exquisite, some are more crude, and the next door is a normal resident. I often book in the evening of the same day, and after a certain time, there will be a big discount. The landlord sent me the code of the door lock and the route map to get there, and I went there in the middle of the night, but I couldn't meet any neighbors. The room is hidden in a building somewhere in the alley, like a hole dug for animals.

I came back just to see Wang Yang, who had only two days before he left Shanghai to return to the U.S. Despite the hassles, I still wanted to see him, as it had been nine years since he left Dali.

The next day, at about 3 p.m., the air outside was hot. Wang Yang and Ruby came to my room, which was in the Clement Apartments. This was a very nice old French Concession apartment. Hua Hua came here six years ago and didn't want to go to Shanghai for medical treatment. I showed her a photo of a room in the Clement Apartments with a large hexagonal window. I said, "You can live here when you go," and she agreed.

Ruby and Wang Yang sat on the wooden floor in the room, and I sat on the balcony, which was paved with small mosaic tiles. Wang Yang became stronger, "Life in the United States is very monotonous. I don't socialize after get off work, so I work out, swim, and rarely run. It's boring, but it suits me very well, it's simple," "My son is six years old, and his mother and I take care of him one day each. Our homes are very close, only five minutes away," "It feels good to take care of a child. A little person who is completely dependent on you has grown up a little, and finally I have time to fall in love."

Although we have had conversations on WeChat from time to time over the past few years, we have never talked about personal matters. "I am a very private person and don't like to talk about these things, but when we meet, we can talk about it."

We chatted like we used to, even though many years had passed and our lives were different, being together was still like the first year we met. In the evening, we went to the nearby Xiao Tao Yuan for dinner. I ordered spicy pork noodles, Wang Yang had pork chop noodles, Ruby had tofu pudding and rice balls, and we had soup dumplings together. After dinner, we went to Yongkang Road for coffee. Rick's CoffeeLab was closed, but he was still there and gave us cold brew. Wang Yang talked about the "fish and chips shop" on Yongkang Road back then, pointing next door, "It was probably right around this location."

Wang Yang left Dali alone to study in the United States nine years ago. In Dali, he and Hong Hong opened a "Fish and Chips" restaurant. Because there were limited things they could do, a restaurant was the easiest. But he still spent a lot of time studying how to make the batter for fried fish and how to make his own white sauce. He was very serious and smart. He also made the tables and chairs in the restaurant himself. The business was pretty good.

I think Dali was an attempt for him to leave the life set in the city. He eventually felt that the community of acquaintances was small and close-knit, and he felt uncomfortable and cramped, and was not happy because of it. So he left, and did not return to Shanghai, but went to Arizona, USA to study computer science, and stayed there to work and live.

Actually, two years ago, we came to Dali at the same time and lived in "faraway places". I tried to open a late-night canteen as an experiment, and he watched the store start from scratch. We also met Yong together, ran and cycled together, climbed the mountain to the Highland Inn at night, stayed there overnight, chatted, and cooked.

Yong is of Vietnamese descent and was born in the United States. After graduating from college, he sold vegetables in the market. I think he majored in philosophy. He saved some money and traveled around the world. Probably like Wang Yang, it was also a transitional period. Because he met us, he lived in Dali for more than a month. It was a wonderful time. I would not want to leave either. Later, he left Dali and went to Vietnam. On the streets of Dalat, he met a Chinese girl who was asking for directions. It happened to be my friend Lao Jiang. He started dating and returned to Shanghai with her. We both went through a lot of torture. I didn't know this until I returned to Shanghai a few years later. Lao Jiang said that he went to study computer science again and worked in a company, and the pressure was not small. I called him, and it seemed that he was no longer the boy he used to be. However, a person will have different states at different stages, good or bad, free or bound, and I am no exception.

Wang Yang, Yong and I

Probably because of this wonderful time, after Wang Yang returned, he heard from me that Cheng Chang no longer wanted to run the daytime Hutong Coffee, so he decided to take over and open a store in Dali.

Time goes back three years. In 2011, on Weizhou Island, I walked into Dahai’s Inn after swimming and met a young man who greeted me warmly. It was Wang Yang. He later said that he saw the ASICS running shoes I left at the inn. He also runs, so he was very friendly. I set up a tent on the beach and lived there. Dahai’s Inn is in the woods nearby. I ate there, took a shower, and went back to the tent at night. The inn was Dahai’s first business after leaving Shanghai. It started from a piece of jungle wasteland and was built slowly. I resigned because of a cycling plan in Spain. After I came back, I didn’t want to work anymore, so I came to find him. I lived by the sea for a while, got up every day to swim in the sea, and ran around the island. As for the future, I didn’t have a plan, and I was not in a hurry. I felt that as long as I had freedom, everything would be fine.

From that day on, we would run around the island together, go swimming together, and swim far away. I was a better swimmer at that time. We would go at night, dive into the world of the sea, and push the water with our hands. It was all sparkling, a strange world. Later I learned that it was only during a certain period of the year, and it was related to some phytoplankton.

Until one day, when I was swimming, I encountered a group of beautiful jellyfish. When I was admiring the beauty, I felt electric shock and stinging. The whole jellyfish stuck to my chest. I endured the severe pain and swam 1.5 kilometers back to the shore and went to a nearby hospital for treatment. Later, I dared not swim out again, and only stayed near the beach. The ocean was still laughing at me from a distance.

Later, he left first because he was on vacation and the stay was short. I stayed for a full month, and one night after I returned to Shanghai, he sent me a message asking if I wanted to go jogging on the street together. I said yes. So we became friends.

People are often lonely most of the time. For a short period of time, we had friends, the kind that we could meet at any time, without the need for plans or content. Ruby is my good friend, so we became three people playing together.

Ruby, Honghong, Wangyang, I