My 2022 was yet another year of staying on the road, and it’s hard to sum it up with a single word. As a shutter-loving beginner who’s still just getting started, I’ll let the photos do the talking.

January | Hainan

When the Sea Breeze Brushed My Face

I stole a few days of leisure from everyday life and headed for the southernmost edge of the country in the biting cold. I rented an EV and drifted eastward along the national highway, which let me see far more of Hainan beyond its luxury hotels.

There was the damp evening breeze by a little fishing harbor, tinged with the scent of the sea; vast green fields and mountain roads; the coffee-scented streets of Xinglong; and afternoons spent lying on surfboards, chatting and waiting for the waves.

What felt most special were the small towns I encountered along the way: the salt fields and barbershop of Yinggehai, the produce market at Lingmen Farm. Once bustling with people from all over who came for land reclamation, they’ve slowly been forgotten by time, like an old movie on yellowing film.

Most unforgettable of all was finding that one moment of a sky aflame with sunset after chasing sunrise and sunset across beach after beach.

The meaning of travel lies not in copying, but in discovering.

February | Jiuzhaigou

After Seeing This Water, No Other Water Will Do

Once, there was a round-trip airfare for 350 yuan right in front of me, and I took it. Few things in life are happier than that. Then the fuel surcharge went up.

I’ve never been to many famous marquee attractions, Jiuzhaigou included; I seem to have an instinctive resistance to them. Luckily, this time I was wrong to resist.

Even in a scenic area developed to the point of losing all wild charm, I was still deeply stunned by a beauty beyond words. These waters truly are one of a kind, fully deserving of their reputation.

Along the wooden boardwalk in Shuzheng Valley, even the withered yellow reeds could not diminish its beauty.

Nearby Luneng Town had dismally low occupancy at its luxury resort hotels at the time. Hilton’s guest manager wore a worried expression and clearly missed the big-spending Japanese and Korean corporations that used to come for annual meetings.

Around the Lantern Festival, nearby villages came to the town square to put on activities, and the atmosphere was far livelier than inside the hotels.

I hiked up a back-mountain trail to the country’s first Ritz-Carlton Reserve while it was still under construction; it finally opened this year. Together with the opening of the Chengdu-Lanzhou Railway, that’s one more reason to visit Jiuzhaigou in the off-season.

So should I also go see Huangshan, the mountain after which no other mountain compares?

March | Xiamen

Springtime, Swoon-Worthy Amoy

Amoy is Xiamen’s English name, derived from the Minnan pronunciation. There’s a special softness to the way it sounds, much like the city itself.

In recent years, Xiamen has built three especially distinctive routes through the city: the Mountain-to-Sea Health Trail, the elevated bikeway, and the seaside bikeway at Jimei Xinglin Bay. Crisscrossing the city, they hand all of Xiamen’s beauty to anyone willing to explore it.

When land finance is put to good use, those 100,000+ yuan home prices suddenly seem to make some sense.

Xiamen’s deep ties to Southeast Asia mean that nearly every luxury hotel opened here in recent years comes wrapped in some version of a Nanyang old-dream story, and most of them are done quite well.

Another Xiamen memory lives on my palate: the taste of coffee. On this tiny egret island, there are somehow more than 1000 coffee shops, the highest density in the country. Tucked away deep in the alleys are specialty cafés everywhere, and I couldn’t help but be delighted by every discovery.

Nearby Zhangzhou and Quanzhou have their own charm as well, and even farther afield, the famous Chaoshan region still bears the imprint of Minnan culture. It’s a land with real magic.

Given the chance, I’d gladly live in Xiamen for the long term.

April | Shanghai

The Big Lockdown!

So far, this is the city where I’ve lived the longest apart from my hometown. It’s hard to imagine that every day in April, 25 million people were all doing the same thing: scrambling to buy groceries.

What started with lighthearted jokes and coping rituals — café pop-ups at bus stops, queuing for red wine, cosplay while lining up for PCR tests — gradually gave way to spreading disappointment and all kinds of surreal news, becoming a turning point for many things.

Thankfully, she regained that dazzling glow.

It’s just that many years from now, when you pick up your phone, will you remember that distant early morning when you opened Dingdong Maicai?

May | Shunde

The Taste of Guangdong

Many years from now, I’m sure I’ll still remember that summer of 2019. Every day after working out and showering, I’d braise a big pot of tofu, beef, and eggs, then sit at the table with my roommate Xiang-ge and watch The Taste of Guangdong.

Xiang-ge was a true gourmand, and he opened the door for me to Cantonese cuisine. At last I could follow the clues in Shunde and visit one flavorful spot after another.

Late-night congee simmered to order at a street corner, pork rib rice beneath a village tree, bustling dim sum halls, and double-skin milk so sweet it turned cloying after a long run...

My understanding may still be shallow, but during these days in Guangdong, food still ranked first.

Beyond the food, Shunde also has a stunning art museum: the He Art Museum of the Midea family (yes, punctuate that carefully). This kind of support for art by the wealthy calls to mind the Medici family in Renaissance Florence.

I miss the food, and I miss those tiny beautiful moments in life.

June | Ili

Seeing the Colors of Different Lives

A year later, I returned to Ili. The same time, the same route, but a different story.

A road trip through Ili with a group of close friends felt like setting the little boat of friendship afloat. This time, though, I ventured solo into China’s far west, and at Sayram Lake I met a group of people who were ordinary, yet somehow quite different.

Zhaxi, who has already found some success with travel livestreaming, often gets vegetables and alcohol sent to him by fans. Xiaoyu, who had just started livestreaming, only had a dozen or so viewers per session, yet still stuck with it for three hours at a time. Dashixiong and Baolin, who do travel photography, drove around in a small truck customized with an almost girlish aesthetic, wandering here and there while drumming up business.

From the neon lights of Zhaosu to the Milky Way over Xiata, and then to the misty, dreamlike pastoral life of Qiaxi, our days traveling together let me feel each person’s sincerity and love for life. There was also a clever little companion named Dele.

After that, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse, followed by three months of chaos. Since they relied on the greater Northwest to make a living, last year must have been difficult for all of them. Thankfully, this year offers plenty to look forward to.

BTW, returning to Ili only confirmed that Xiata is still my favorite place.

July | Jingdezhen

Strangers on This Earth

Jingdezhen has a place called Fuliang County, and Fuliang County has a village called Hanxi. Art lives in Hanxi.

I went to Hanxi Village for the Earth Art Festival, but the blazing sun cut my outdoor visit short. Just as I was about to leave, I met an elderly man at the village entrance. When I asked where he was from, it turned out he was a fellow native of Zhejiang.

So we sat under the eaves and talked. More than 60 years ago, the construction of the Xin’an River hydropower station displaced hundreds of thousands of people, scattering them far from home. His group came to this unfamiliar place, which at the time had only a few shacks, and started over from scratch.

Before us, tea plantations stretched across the hills. The hardship and bitterness of those 60 years, and the courage and resilience required to endure them, are almost beyond our imagination.

When he left home, he was still a strong young man; when he met a visitor from his hometown again, he was already in his eighties or nineties. When I asked whether he still remembered the Xin’an River, he seemed a little lost.

Here or there—where is home, really? For strangers on this earth, perhaps wherever the heart is at peace is where the body can belong.

Back in Jingdezhen, the lights were just coming on. Taoxichuan was full of life, and the whole city seemed filled with stories about ceramics. Thirty kilometers away, my elderly fellow townsman had finished dinner and was getting ready for bed, just as he had every day for the past 60 years.

August | Yangzhou

A Hot Afternoon in Sweltering Yangzhou

For work, I made a circuit through northern Jiangsu. Huai’an soft-pocket eel, Yancheng lotus-root-starch dumplings—but the best of all was Yangzhou morning tea.

I stayed in a small courtyard tucked deep inside Dongguan Street. It’s one of the most impressive old streets of its kind anywhere in the country, and Pishi Street also gets the artsy vibe just right.

Among places like Sanchun and Siyuan, disappointment wasn’t uncommon, so thankfully Garden Teahouse upheld the dignity that Yangzhou morning tea ought to have. The coarse, fluffy buns and silky shredded dried tofu instantly brought Yangzhou rushing back.

Speaking of being transported back, wandering through Yangzhou’s alleys, I kept encountering fragments from the writings of Republican-era literati. Take Yu Dafu, for example: “After settling into a newly opened Green Poplar Grand Hotel, more than half of my beautiful dream of Yangzhou had already faded.”

The hotel may have fallen into disrepair and shut down, but the Grand Canal Museum is brand-new and truly first-rate—absolutely not to be missed.

This summer, stylish night markets were thriving all over the country. The lamplight and reflections at Slender West Lake were part of that Yangzhou dream too.

That was when I fell for Yangzhou. If anyone asks me where to go on vacation, I’d tell them to head to Yangzhou in grand style.

September | Beijing

The Moon Fills the Western Pavilion

September is usually when Beijing, that irresistible heartbreaker, is at its most alluring—but this September, the heartbreaker had changed. The tail end of August wasn’t Leo season; it was scorching heat spilling straight into September.

After reading Ye Guangqin’s Haozi Daye Qi Wan Le, I became fascinated by the ridge beasts perched on glazed roof tiles.

On Mid-Autumn night, at my favorite corner tower, I vied for the best shot among a crowd armed with long lenses and heavy gear. At times like that, I always reassure myself that technique matters more than equipment.

Who sends brocade letters through the clouds? When the wild geese return, the moon fills the western pavilion.

Eating at bistros, biking and running along Chang’an Avenue at night, and longboarding after dark—I unlocked the full white-collar Beijing lifestyle in one go.

Even better was reuniting with old friends. You may know people everywhere, but how many true kindred spirits do you really find?

October | Hangzhou

Citywalk, Blessings, and Wishes Come True

In October, Hangzhou is filled with an almost sugary sweetness. I took two good friends for a stroll through the osmanthus fragrance of Manjuelong and had a cup of osmanthus latte.

Whether it was lucky or unfortunate, we chose the last hot day of 2022 for our citywalk. Beneath dark, towering trees, we watched a less-crowded sunrise over West Lake, then ate a bowl of time-honored, 10-yuan pian’erchuan noodles on Gushan Road in the early morning.

We passed Lingyin Temple without going in, choosing instead Yongfu Temple, whose name carries a more auspicious meaning, and prayed that our friends, families, and loved ones would always be blessed.

I stamped a seal personally carved by a renowned Xiling master, and carried Yongfu’s blessings with me wherever I go.

I ambitiously thought I could retrace old memories by hiking the hills circling West Lake near your alma mater, only to nearly keel over after crossing just one little XX hill. Time really does catch up with you. At this point, it’s much more realistic to sit by West Lake, watch the sunset, and chat away.

Some good friends went to Yongfu, Faxi, and Fajing to burn incense and pray for blessings. Amazingly, by December, two of them had their wishes fulfilled in work, homebuying, and romance (huge congratulations). Honestly, I have no idea which temple’s bodhisattva was that powerful.

November | Shaxi

In Search of Peace

What is peace? Peace is every painterly morning in Shaxi.

Small bridges, flowing water, old roads, and a group of young people. Every day was simple and beautiful.

But where exactly is peace, and is the peace here any deeper than the peace elsewhere?

To go where the wind blows: escaping the mundane world is a kind of practice, but so is staying within it.

December | Diqing

Long Live Hiking, Long Live Freedom

At the tail end of hiking season, I once again got to know Yunnan and Diqing with my own two feet. Every time I walked on solid ground and breathed in the sharp morning air, it felt like I was holding on to something real.

Even though I wasn’t walking fast, every step was filled with joy.

The process of hiking feels like a conversation between people and nature.

7 years ago in Nepal, I made a wish to climb Island Peak, and Haba was meant to be the first step. Now, after all this time, I’ve finally made it to her foot, and I can still only sigh in admiration at Haba.

Diqing is breathtaking beyond words: golden grasslands, snow mountains, and a sky full of stars. I want to come back again and again—twice, ten times, a hundred times.

And yet, what should be remembered most this month are the brave students at that school, and the brave people on that road. From far away, I offered a small gesture of support. Long live the people, long live freedom.

What will 2023 be like?