Seven years in Peking

Seven years ago, I left home for Beijing to study. After graduation four years later, I was suddenly tossed in society. Now what have become of me? I’m still not a Beijinger and never will I be. I have a decent job; I pay taxes and I contribute to its GDP, but I wouldn’t be granted a hukou. I can’t go back to my hometown either, because each time I return to that small city, I feel myself no longer belong there. I’ve alienated my family and been assimilated by Beijing. How pathetic!

During the past three years, I have been in several different jobs and got to know some people. I can see myself in ten years: finding a Mr. right, getting married, having a kid, settling into a mundane life, just like any normal person would do, or what social convention requires them to do. Such a life is like a game – getting through a certain pass at a certain age, till game over. But it’s not an easy mission to complete in this overpopulated and overpolluted city. I’m not confident.

Doing a job I’ve no interest in makes me unhappy. I’m repeating every day, which is what I’m most afraid of. I want to make breakthroughs, but it’s not something that can be achieved by changing a job. To me, the freshness of a new job doesn’t go beyond two weeks. I’m thinking of quitting and preparing to study abroad. That is a way full of challenges and unpredictabilities. But I'm wavering because I’m too familiar with everything around me and a bit reluctant to give them up. Maybe it’s time to pack up and move on.

Summer

The sultry weather of summer lulls me to dopiness again. I can hardly move on. Inertia has overcome momentum. Half of 2007 has passed and maybe I’ll idle the rest of the year away if I screw my last chance at Sony Pictures.

2004 seems so far away now. My first summer in Beijing – everything was novel and the season wasn’t so obnoxious to me. Last summer, I still had memories. Today, sadly, they are deteriorating like oils on an old painting.