Lu-Hai Liang

After nameless years of wandering, I have a new home, a new base. 

It’s been a while in coming, and what it came down to, ultimately, were somewhat arbitrary matters. It took time to settle on my new base. I didn’t want to be one of those living on precarious grounds, inhabiting grey legal zones, surviving on endless visa runs and goodwill that would surely run out? 

I wanted firmer ground. 

How does it feel? To start anew, again? Long-time readers will know this blog began as a way to chronicle my time in Beijing as a freelance journalist, with all of its attendant difficulties and triumphs. I was a young man then, full of pluck and bravado, but also filled with a deep, deep insecurity.

This was born by the decision to go abroad, to a place where I knew very few people. I didn’t have much money. And it could be incredibly lonely. It takes a measure of bravado to light out in this way, but for someone prone to overthinking, it’s also nerve-wracking.

Lately, my thoughts have been drifting to a night scene in Beijing, a memory. 

I was seeing this woman, and unlike too many dalliances in Beijing, this was a real relationship. But I was too young, too stupid, then, to realise what it actually was. She was six years older than me, in her early 30s, and her time in the city was nearing its end. Her teaching contract was finishing.

It was late at night and we were sprawled in bed and she started talking, just talking, about her situation (she’d moved to China from her native Canada and had also taught in other countries), and how she was due to move on. She’d be leaving soon and would have to start afresh.

It was one of those instances where you talk aloud and somewhere along the way it gains an unexpected charge. “It gets harder as you get older”, she said. And she wiped a tear away. 

I was reading something on my laptop (I was often reading the internet, like someone with obsessive compulsive disorder) so I was only half listening — did I mention I was young and dumb? — and I didn’t quite know how to react, to this sudden teary-eyed emotion, so I let the moment pass. But I heard it all.

I heard everything. 

*

In my hotel room, I am awake, still jet lagged. I feel tired, too tired to go walking, even though it’s the cooler night-time. I switch on to the Red Bull channel on the hotel TV, entrancing myself with images of ocean water, guys surfing, ripping slices in the waves; the golden light of California contrasting with the tropical dark outside my window, and the slouchy, elegant frames of skateboarders, simultaneously relaxed yet poised and ready. 

I used to love this stuff. When I was a kid there was a boom in extreme sports. Skateboarding, snowboarding, mountain biking. These were becoming increasingly trendy, on TV, and in video games. It hadn’t peaked yet so it was still sufficiently “underground”. I was skateboarding and mountain biking too. Sadly, there was no surf or snowy slopes to be had in Hastings, England. 

Skateboarding has evolved. And the TV showed a couple fellas I hadn’t heard of. One guy was Andy Anderson, a young dude, with a lovely, old school style. His thing was bringing 70’s freestyle skating, when the ollie hadn’t yet been invented, back into the modern vernacular, fusing it with more modern techniques. He also talked about being hated-on for always wearing a helmet, which is uncommon among street skaters, who are, actually, very style focused despite the lazy, schlubby appearance. He lived in a small apartment near Venice Beach and he was an earnest guy, outwardly chill, but possessed of an analytical, strategic mind. Almost like an engineer. 

The show switched to profiling another dude. He was older, born the same year as me actually, and, unlike Andy Anderson (who’s LA-based), a resident of San Diego. Wes Kremer is a shortish dude with blonde somewhat curly hair and an approach to life that I found inspiring. He’s all about being in the moment. Skating with his guys, having an open house, simplicity. He owned an old Volvo for years before it finally broke down and eats at the same burrito place he’s been going to forever. He’s not on social media. He only uses film cameras and is still regularly getting photos printed. He doesn’t browse content that has no end. He reads magazines and books that have a clear finish, miming them being shut up and closed when you’re done. Watching Kremer’s crew skate around the empty roads of San Diego, with the sunlight and nice temperatures, as the day reaches towards the perfection of a Californian evening, I thought to myself, “my god that looks like happiness”. 

It’s not even that complicated. They’re outside most of the time, doing something physical. Chilling with like-minded people. Cheering their pals when they nail a trick, being encouraged when they’re falling down, to try again, you’ll do it. They’re not worrying about tomorrow. At least, not while they’re 50-50 on a rail, or watching another skater trying to land a trick that they’re so close to landing. Just pure stoked when they finally do. 

Surfers watch the waves. They watch the water intently. The conditions change. They’re out in nature but not just out there. They have to be readers, interpreting the elements. They study the weather all the time. They’re immersed in nature because they know things about it most people do not. 

Watching these nature lovers, chasing waves, or pursuing air time, I thought, maybe I should abandon my plans to base myself in this city I am currently in, and do something else, go closer to nature. The thing about being freelance and remote is that I have the time and freedom to seriously consider it. 

And I have some healing to do. This year has been kinda rough on me, on a personal level. The shock of a sudden passing, grief, and loss: a journey unto itself.

I try to will myself into a slower state. Go slow, slow down.

I try to recall what it was like when I first moved to Beijing, how it took months to settle. How brutal that first winter was, when I discovered how dark and cold Beijing could get, and polluted. It was tougher then. I was younger and did not have the fortitude I have now.

I don’t blog as much these days because I have less need of it. I don’t have the need for as much introspection, and have realised the risks of it: how it can freeze action. Sometimes you just gotta do more, think less. But writing, as ever, remains a balm; helps me process, and come out a little more settled. And hopefully, you, reader, get something from this too. Because online, there’s too much curation, too much imagery that seems to suggest a constant happy life, and it is simply not true.