Beijing, Beijing

Beijing has been a sweet spot to me; a place wonderful enough not to be real, mere a dream of my life.

I still vividly remember everything I experienced when I travelled to Beijing for the first time as a twenty year old young lad, Beijing then was so big for me, like an ocean I needed to explore and explore I did. What I found was that Beijing was the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the Summer Palace and the Great Wall. Beijing was too Northern to me and Beijing food was not delicious enough either.  Why? I guess I was too young, I knew little about life in Beijing, little about my own life. The best thing came out of my first trip to Beijing was the fact that it opened my eyes wide; the outside could be so wonderful, “even” better than Nanjing City where I went to my university.

Beijing has never been important to me though, because it is far away from wherever my real world was or has been. When distant, things become vague, out of focus. For many times, I had thoughts of getting to know Beijing better, I waited and waited, with opportunities came by and I seized them a couple of times and spent a few months each time and lived life to the full while I was there in Beijing, so much so I started to love Beijing and became very proud of the ancient and glorious city.

Yet I still wonder and I am never sure enough to know why Beijing is not important to me.

What is important in life; what is important to me and what is important in my life are completely different questions, I know that. I am just not sure I have good answers to each of the questions. I never lived in Beijing for long, I did not have my family live there and I did not have lots of friends there, those may contribute to the lack of importance of Beijing to me; Yeah?

I have lost count of how many times all together I have travelled to Beijing, but I can clearly recall 3 of them – the very memorable ones to me, two of which I stayed in Beijing for more than 3 months, experienced life in Beijing and got to many locals as well as travellers to Beijing. Without a sense of belonging, I learnt right there to appreciate the differences in life between living in a place new and so used to. I enjoyed all my trips and staying in Beijing to a very good extend, because I had nothing bad there, apart from a few colds in the winter - quite harsh to a Southerner.

Beijing to me has always been a place to be happy, to enjoy life and to recuperate from the stresses and burdens of mind I carry every day. Beijing is my sweet spot of my life, yet not important, because she is far away from my reality and I am a stranger to her, like she is so mysterious to me.

Beijing is always Beijing with or without me, not because I am too insignificant, my life is just insignificant is never my fault either. I feel I may have been too ambitious: I was taught to be ambitious yet modest, contradictory to me so that I lost my sense of life direction quite early my life and have failed to steer it back to the right track. But when things go bad, I turn to Beijing, my sweet spot for a short stay and lick my bleeding wounds.

Older as I get, I cannot help loving Beijing more.