Weekly Review #04 - Vacation, Family Bonds and Sense of Belonging in Cities

Preface

This piece is a record and reflection of my life from July 11, 2022 to July 24, 2022. As for the reason for the delay - I was on vacation!!!

Vacation

Including my internship, I’ve been working for over a year now, but because projects have been ongoing, I’ve had hardly any complete holidays except for the Spring Festival, and I’ve accumulated quite a few compensatory days off. Coinciding with the successful completion of the second project, I applied to my leader for leave - 7 working days + 2 weekends, giving me a long-lost feeling of summer vacation.

My Family and I

Although the pandemic occasionally flares up, I ultimately decided to return to Hangzhou, to return home. Since leaving home in mid-2020, every visit back has felt hurried. The last time was during the National Day holiday, and I only stayed for about 3 days. Excluding gatherings with relatives, the time actually spent with family probably doesn’t even add up to a full day, just enough to briefly discuss my recent situation and thoughts before embarking on the return journey. This time, perhaps because quite a lot has happened to me in the past six months, I felt somewhat tired and just wanted to rest and adjust at home, while also wanting to spend more time with my family (mainly taking my sister out to play).

I haven’t really noticed my own growth that significantly, but at family dinner tables, I seem to have become the main force in leading toasts to various elders. When the younger generation gathers to play, it’s now me making the arrangements. Even my sister, who always seemed so little in my memory, will be entering junior high school after this summer vacation. It’s as if from some point on, time began to flow by more rapidly. In the midst of busy studies and work, there wasn’t much awareness of this, and it’s only when I return home to experience slowed-down time or occasionally recall bits and pieces deeply hidden in memory that I feel a twinge of sentiment.

My Sister and I

I have a sister who is 13 years younger than me, which often makes my classmates and friends envious. This age difference isn’t so great as to cause any arguments or conflicts, and as I’ve grown up, I’ve been able to take care of her more. During high school, because of living at school and preparing for the college entrance exam, I couldn’t really be there for her much, and after college, I was even more scattered about, only having somewhat complete time together during winter and summer breaks. After starting work, we’ve spent even less time together, with only daily casual chats in WeChat groups and occasional phone calls. I don’t know how she evaluates my role as a brother; I hope I’m doing an adequate job.

So this time when I came home, I took my sister to take some photos, stroll along the pedestrian street, do some handicrafts, visit the aquarium, and go to the One Way Street Bookstore to read together. Many of these things seem quite ordinary, but perhaps because I was too much of a homebody before and missed out, they were all quite novel experiences. Every time we finished an outing or playtime and walked home hand in hand, I could feel a kind of serene beauty in it.

This time I also brought my camera back, and tinkered with the newly bought DJI RS3 stabilizer (it’s really good to use!!!), taking many photos and videos, which also serves to leave some memory fragments for her childhood that’s drawing to a close.

My Teacher and I

Although it’s been nearly ten years since graduating from junior high school, every winter and summer vacation or during breaks like this, I would meet up with my junior high homeroom teacher, Brother Chun, for meals and chats. However, in the past, Ni and Zhan would always be there too, but now they’re all scattered overseas, and it might be quite difficult to gather together in the future. Perhaps because we meet quite frequently, even after so many years, it doesn’t feel like there have been many changes between us. We talk like friends about everything from studies and work to relationships and thoughts, often losing track of time for four or five hours, and often marveling that we’ve known each other for 13 years now.

Sense of Belonging in Cities

It’s interesting to note that after graduating from high school, I went to Wuhan for university, and subsequently did internships of considerable duration in cities like Shanghai and Xiamen. Not long after, I went to Hong Kong for graduate studies, and soon after finishing, I went to Beijing for an internship and work. I’ve lived in quite a few cities, but in terms of both environment and emotional connection to the people in these cities, it’s hard for me to claim that I belong to any particular place.

Hangzhou, where I’ve lived the longest, lacks my presence during the university years, and I have very few connections left with junior and senior high school classmates. Most of my closest friends have also left Hangzhou, mostly overseas. When I came back this time, I found that I couldn’t even think of anyone to go out for a meal or drinks with, so I had to give up on that idea. After graduation, I returned to Wuhan a few times due to my student entrepreneurship at the time. After graduation, I only kept in touch with a few mentors, roommates, and the original group of four that I often played with, but they’re all scattered in various places now, only able to meet once or twice when on business trips. Subsequently, due to the outbreak of the pandemic, I haven’t been back for more than two years. The year in Hong Kong was full of a sense of urgency, and apart from romantic relationships, I didn’t seem to have met many people, and the time spent together was brief, gradually losing touch after graduation. Ironically, in Beijing, because I originally had a few good friends, and also formed some good friendships with colleagues and work partners due to work projects.

I’ve always been quite a homebody, and I don’t really have a strong perception of a city’s climate or features. I also have pretty good adaptability to environments, so I’ve never considered the city as an important factor in my various decisions. However, after this trip back, many of my thoughts have changed.

When I was alone in Beijing, although it wasn’t particularly miserable, I always felt that every blade of grass and every tree lacked some kind of attachment, as if all these had nothing to do with me. But when I returned to Hangzhou, even just walking by the river, I could feel some familiarity. I would also visit the shops I used to frequent, or take a 30-minute bus ride to eat at Xinfeng Restaurant that I had been craving for a long time, or sit for several hours in the One Way Street Bookstore, reliving the leisurely times of spending entire afternoons in bookstores in the past.

This might be the warmth and sense of belonging that a city brings to people. As we grow older, we tend to care more about these things.

Learning, Input, and Output

This section will record some interesting things I’ve encountered and the progress of my work and studies.

Technical Learning

The first week was mainly spent on wrapping up some project work and preparing for new projects. There wasn’t much development work to do, but I bought some technical books, planning to delve into them properly after the vacation.

The technical books are mainly “Writing a Compiler in Go”, “Writing an Interpreter in Go”, “The Road to Go Language Proficiency”, and a book I’ve been planning to read for a long time but never got around to, “Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code”. I feel that reading these books after having some project experience will be more profound.

For non-technical books, I bought a set related to thinking, “The Pyramid Principle”, for cultivating some thinking methods. I’ll make some notes on all of these later.

Two days before the vacation, I participated in the technical sharing I mentioned before, mainly talking about some of my experiences and insights in learning blockchain. The overall feeling was good, and I’ll rearrange the lecture notes into a blog post later. I originally wanted to organize it right after the talk, but the vacation was about to start. Although I brought my laptop, I basically didn’t work or study, just purely relaxed.

Input

Books

In terms of books, I’m continuing to read “The Stolen Bicycle”. I should be able to finish it this week. Then I also plan to read several books that are more information-oriented:

• Working in Public, which talks about open-source software
• Tim Cook: The Genius Who Took Apple to the Next Level, although I’ve heard it’s mostly a compilation of reports and information, I’m very interested in Apple as a company but have always been unfamiliar with Tim, perhaps because Steve Jobs’ halo is too strong, so I want to learn more about him

Apart from these, I saw a book at One Way Street Bookstore that I had read several years ago, “Stoner”. I flipped through it and suddenly felt like revisiting it, feeling that I might gain new insights in terms of self-discovery.

TV Series

1. Normal People, I had watched more than half of it before, but for some reason put it aside. Normal People tells the story of a male and female protagonist from the same town and some stories about their surroundings. I don’t know if it’s because the male lead is an English major or has the same fragile and sensitive qualities, but I feel like I’ve seen a lot of myself in him
2. Extraordinary Attorney Woo, a Korean drama with a legal theme. I mainly watched it because I found the female lead’s character setting quite cute from a brief introduction
3. The Bear, a story about a chef returning to run a family restaurant. It’s not long, with a very good pace. I watched it on the high-speed train on the way back

Movies

1. Newness, which offers some reflections on emotions and social interactions in today’s society, mainly talking about hook-up culture. However, I felt the expression and twists were strange, not recommended
2. The Gray Man, an action movie that’s quite popular recently. It’s said to be Netflix’s highest-budget film. Watching it gave me a bit of a John Wick feel

Anime

1. Demon Slayer, I really liked the first season, but hadn’t followed up for a while. This time I caught up with the Mugen Train Arc and the Entertainment District Arc, really enjoyed them
2. Weathering with You, I’ve wanted to watch it for a long time. I’ve seen many edited and remade versions, but never the original. Finally watched it, very Makoto Shinkai style
3. Summer Time Rendering, still following it, the plot is getting more and more intense and unpredictable, very pleasantly surprised

Others

In the end, I chose a gray-green color for my hair. It took two bleaching sessions and one dyeing session. I think it looks quite good, although it’s a bit flamboyant, but very anime-like. Perhaps my delayed rebellious phase has finally arrived, and I can try more styles in the future.