The Ideal Life Is Right Before My Eyes; Everything I Do Is What I Love

In 1998, I came to Beijing for the first time to attend university, carrying a worn-out denim bag stuffed with a change of clothes. Standing on Beijing's streets, I was completely disoriented, unable to tell east from west, and marveled at the city's grand buildings. A country boy who had barely traveled far from home, standing on the curb and taking in everything the city had to offer, I felt a keen sense of my own smallness.

By 1999, I had lost interest in my major and, because my family was too poor, I dropped out in the second semester of my freshman year. I rented a single-story room in Shucun, Shangdi, Beijing, for 50 yuan a month. The room was about five or six square meters; the bed was built from bricks and planks, and my belongings were tucked underneath. I scavenged more bricks and boards outside and built a makeshift bookshelf where I kept my books.

I also bought two cheap potted green plants at the morning market: a small one on top of the bookshelf and a larger one by the door. My cooking stove sat at the entrance and was carried inside on rainy days. Several other tenants like me lived in that courtyard, while the landlord's family occupied the main room. Once I had settled this makeshift home, I was filled with a sense of well-being. I was easily content: a place sheltering me from wind and rain was enough to make me happy.

Today Shucun is full of high-rises; the old single-story houses are gone. I still remember that Shucun had a large farmers' market where vegetables and fruit were cheap--a heap of leafy greens for one yuan. Buying some eggs and noodles and adding a fried egg to my vegetable noodle soup made for a lavish meal. Many literary youths lived in Shucun, and at the time I counted myself one. I made a living doing odd jobs, and when no work was available I went to the National Library to read, teaching myself all kinds of knowledge, including medicine.

It did not take long to cycle from Shucun to the National Library. Beijing then still had many second-hand bikes for sale, and I picked up a used bicycle in fairly good condition; it became my main means of transport.

The work I did most was writing. I produced manuscripts for publishers, newspapers, magazines, advertising agencies, book-editing companies, and private clients who needed copy. I remember spending a few hours writing a piece of advertising copy for one agency; the boss was so pleased that he paid me 1,500 yuan on the spot. That sum covered thirty months of my rent, and to me at the time it was a fortune. With income like that I could afford to stay on in Beijing, a city famously hard to live in. To be fair, when our generation first drifted to Beijing, the pressure was far lighter than it is for today's drifters. Rent was cheap, and living costs were low.

For most of my days after leaving university, I was content with my present circumstances. Whether I lived in a rural courtyard where maggots from the public latrine could crawl to my door on rainy days, or later in a high-rise apartment, I was satisfied. I moved many times--from Shucun to Wuta Temple opposite the National Library, then to Zhongguanyuan at Peking University, then to Shahe in Changping, and back to the National Library area. Only when I finally bought a small apartment not far from the National Library did I settle down and stop moving.

Wherever I lived, I kept some green plants. In the twenty-five years I have been in Beijing, I have raised many plants, some of which have been with me for over a decade. Houseplants not only purify the air but also now and then make me feel as if I were living deep in an old mountain forest. Whether in a few-square-meter shack or, later, in an apartment building, once I closed the door and sat at my desk surrounded by pots of green, reading or writing, I felt as though I had returned home, to lush fields, and my heart was always content and happy.

Not long ago a young person asked me what books to read so as to become peaceful and happy. I told him that books are not required for peace and happiness: my mother was illiterate, yet she was a very peaceful and happy person. Compared with knowledge, temperament may matter more for a lifetime's happiness. Happiness is hard to define; what counts as a happy life? A thousand people will give a thousand answers. But those who are content with what they have are more likely to be happy--that much is beyond doubt.

Whether a person lives happily has little to do with material wealth, but a great deal to do with whether he has a sense of happiness. Happiness looks abstract and idealistic, yet it is in fact something very real; it is an important part of one's character. A person who has felt happy since childhood will live happily whether poor or rich, and that happiness accompanies him almost every moment. Seeing a bee gather nectar on the road, he is curious and watches closely how the bee does it, forgetting everything around him--and that alone can make him happy.

I now know that such a temperament is shaped both by genes and by upbringing. I inherited my mother's cheerful, accepting disposition, and her words and example influenced me deeply. She always readily saw the optimistic side of things, and so she was happy all her life. Although my maternal grandparents were poor and had many children, and my mother grew up with irregular meals (I too lived through a spell of that), it never made her feel that life was bitter or hard.

My mother almost never lamented to me about how hard life was, even though ours was the poorest family in the village. My parents were both bright, capable and hard-working; their earning ability ranked among the best in the village, but they spent every cent on their children's education, so our house was dilapidated and we had few appliances.

My father was not as optimistic and open-minded as my mother, but he was confident; his strong sense of precaution, however, made him easily displeased. As a child, he would chide me in the middle of my inexplicable cheerfulness, accusing me of lacking vigilance. Providence is wonderful: I inherited both my mother's optimism and acceptance and my father's sense of caution, and the two seemingly contradictory qualities are blended remarkably well in me. This is perhaps how biological evolution works--offspring take the best from each parent, producing genes that outdo both. Only through such generation-by-generation refinement can life keep evolving.

Optimistic acceptance and prudent vigilance can reinforce each other. Only by being aware of risks and knowing how to avoid them can one better remain optimistic and at peace. Life's surprises are everywhere; to get through it with relative safety, a moderate sense of caution is indispensable. There is a Chinese idiom: preparedness prevents trouble. It puts this point perfectly.

The ancient Roman thinker Tacitus is someone whose attitude to life I greatly admire. He kept himself both cheerful and clear-headed, enjoying the present while neither welcoming nor fearing disasters that might come. He said he had prepared himself so thoroughly that even if he lost everything he would still be his cheerful self. Outer things may not long remain ours, but that inner, contented self is never lost. In China, too, there is such a great figure, named Su Dongpo.

Before my mother died, knowing her time was near, she was of course sad but not devastated. She urged the family to prepare her coffin and burial clothes, and even discussed with my eldest aunt, smiling, whether the burial clothes looked nice. She faced death with almost serene composure. When she could not fight the Reaper, she accepted death.

After my mother died, I sank into profound grief for more than three years, but time gradually wore it away. Now, when I think of her, I no longer feel sorry for her. Death is not so terrible, nor so painful; it is the destiny of everyone. The logic is simple, but accepting it lightly and naturally is hard. Today, my own attitude toward death is much like my mother's.

When one is more enlightened about life and death, happiness rises considerably, because we no longer suffer from the fear of dying. When we have plenty of happiness, almost every present moment feels like a happy one. We feel happy living in a high-rise, and happy living in a thatched hut; happy at a feast, and happy biting into a steamed bun.

Many people tell themselves to live in the present, but a self-sufficient, whole person need not be told, because every moment of his life is naturally a happy one. Happiness has nothing to do with learning or age; it depends not on reasoning or experience but on a spiritual force born within the heart, or internalized there. Only by taking lightly life and death, gain and loss, wealth and poverty, can one possess this force.

Happiness is an inner spiritual power with which most human beings are born, but unfortunately many people lose it for one reason or another. When raising the next generation, what I care about most is letting that child's capacity for happiness develop fully. We must not bind it with all kinds of conventional prejudices, and then it can grow. If we tell our descendants exactly how life must be lived to be correct, we will surely castrate their happiness. A natural, rich, varied life is what keeps a person vital and filled with happiness. So if you love him, give him plenty of room and let him keep his happiness.

For there is no gift more precious than this.