Zheng Yan | Arriving by Boat

In the summer of 2023, I suddenly went to Dali. In the summer of 2024, I was giving tours at the Shanghai Museum's Egyptian exhibition, and to date I have completed 83 sessions.

I had been to Dali several times before. Although I am from Yunnan, my way of experiencing Dali was always as a tourist. This time, I went with Shao Yue, who said we must go see her old friend Jason. Jason's home is next to a large expanse of farmland. With a temporarily injured leg, he sat in his kitchen, drinking coffee while working. He runs a WeChat public account called "Cangshan Hiking Family," and together with a group of brand-new, newer, new Dali residents, and old Dali residents, he helps people who come to Dali experience local life. We rented a car and drove around. Every morning before heading out and every evening after returning, we would stop by Jason's kitchen, which also serves as his workspace, to chat for a while. In Dali, he lives at a Shanghai pace—summers are packed with tourists, and he is still processing orders late at night. When the rainy season arrives, mushrooms sprout overnight in the mountains, and nearby residents pick up baskets and head into the forest to gather them.

When I was very young, I went with my parents back to our hometown in western Yunnan, and I also went with my older nieces and nephews, though my memories are vague.

We went mushroom picking with Xiao Jing. The first time I picked one, I gently tapped its cap with my hand to let the spores fall onto the soil so new mushrooms could grow after the rain—perhaps not many Yunnanese know this. With A Tu, we went stargazing at Dali's West Lake. While waiting to see the Summer Triangle and the Milky Way, we had dinner on a small boat with a father and daughter, and a mother and son. The sky was overcast and rainy, and only around 10 p.m. did the clouds gradually part. To our surprise, we saw the moonrise. People only wait for sunrises; a moonrise is an extra gift from nature when stargazing.

For many years, my hometown—which used to recharge me after just a few days' visit—left me with more confusion and a sense of unfamiliarity. In the summer of 2023, it seemed to come back. Memory is something that easily fades. One evening, after a City Walk along the Bund with a guide, I rode a shared bike along the street toward People's Square to catch the metro. I realized I hadn't been to the Bund in maybe ten or twenty years. I remembered the year after college, when I was in my early twenties, walking on the streets of Shanghai and quietly telling myself not to be a person who just goes with the flow—ah, youth. There are now so many museums on both sides of the Huangpu River. The Dongyi Art Museum opened a new Modigliani exhibition today; I must take a day off to come see it. Every scene on the way back stirred my emotions. Shanghai is truly Shanghai—prosperity and everyday life seamlessly intertwined. Shao Yue said that Shanghai and Suzhou are both the kind of unique cities that have no equal. A group of people seemed to be drinking by the roadside. I looked closer and found it was at the entrance of what looked like a garage, or simply a parking lot, with a large screen hanging high above, filling the atmosphere with cinematic vibes. I heard that Julu Road used to be Jason's stomping ground. At a triangular intersection, a row of large wooden signs hung at the entrance of a gate instantly brought me back to the 1980s and 1990s. I could only remember a "Hope Project" donation site and various vertical plaques of institutions.

Back at the hotel, Shao Yue turned on a movie called "Arriving by Boat." She suddenly remembered that Jason had invested a little money in this film, and the director happened to be her fellow townsman. As it opened, a line of credits appeared: Co-Producer, and there it was—Jason's name. The story unfolded slowly, and in the final shot, the grandmother appeared carrying a basket of flowers, sitting in the boat that had taken her to her wedding. I suddenly sat upright. The director seemed like a kindred spirit of the ancient Egyptians. The ancient Egyptians, who lived in the desert, also traveled by boat along the banks of the Nile, and in the afterlife, they would reach the underworld river where a boat awaited to carry them across. My brother once told me that one's hometown is a drifting seed. I suddenly realized history is the same. Today's Egypt is mainly inhabited by Arabs, who are not the principal people that created ancient Egyptian culture. Chinese civilization has continued to this day, but how similar are we to our ancestors who created such a splendid civilization? Only by constantly looking back can we find the belonging of our souls in the past and in foreign lands.

The grandmother in "Arriving by Boat" sails on a light boat through shallow waters, crossing a land of abundance, perfectly mirroring the paradise of regeneration in ancient Egyptian mythology—the land of plenty without pain, aging, or death. Without death, there is no life. It's time to take a lesson in death education, to learn that the world contains other powerful others, and to understand that whether temples, tombs, gardens, or grottoes, all are ideal worlds in some sense. And the kind of life you want to lead is the strongest motivation for creating an ideal world. In Dali, there is a group of people who seem a little mystical, living in their own free-spirited way.

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Zheng Yan is Shao Yue's work partner; together they give museum tours in Shanghai and Suzhou. Shao Yue is someone I met thirteen years ago, before I came to Dali, by chance while hiking along the Lancang River. Over the years, we became good friends. Last summer vacation, Shao Yue and Zheng Yan came to Dali and stayed at my home. They rented a car and went off on their own adventures.

Although I am not particularly knowledgeable about museums, Honghong went to listen to Zheng Yan's tour and was full of praise: "Shao Yue's guide for the ancient Egyptian exhibition is really excellent. 368 yuan for 3 hours is absolutely worth it. I've been won over by this guide." "You attended? That was Zheng Yan."