Passion Makes the Long Years Bearable

Throughout the summer vacation, I spent essentially every day at the National Library of China. I would arrive at the new building shortly after eight in the morning to queue up; when the library opened at nine, I would rush into the reading room at once and claim a good seat near a power outlet. Most of the day's work would then unfold from there. Every day I carried my laptop to the library, where I did my writing and held my online consultations. Occasionally patients traveled a long distance to see me, and by this period they had already grown used to coming to the National Library to find me.

When there was no work to be done, I read inside the library. The books I read fell into two categories: one was brought from home, mostly specialized books that required systematic study; the other I picked at random from the open bookshelves in the National Library. Most often I took books from the medical and biology shelves, occasionally glancing at other sections. Books I bought myself could be annotated freely in the margins, while the library's books broadened my horizons; combining the two, I could read with both breadth and depth.

I was at the National Library about four to six days a week. When the weather was very hot, aside from Monday, when the library was closed, I practically soaked myself in the library every day. The central air conditioning was set to a comfortable temperature, and there was plenty of space to move about inside, far more comfortable than at home. After my wife's vacation began, she often came along to the National Library to enjoy the air conditioning. Influenced by their parents, my son gradually came to spend half a day playing games and half a day at the library each day.

We generally ate lunch at the National Library, which has three places to eat.

The first is the readers' restaurant (Pinnuo Coffee), on the first floor of the comprehensive building. The dining environment is excellent; it holds a number of open bookshelves filled with all kinds of books for readers to browse while waiting for their meals. The readers' restaurant is basically open all day, though the food inside is relatively expensive. Occasionally I would have something like wontons there—28 yuan a bowl, not a large portion, which is just right so that I don't overeat.

The second is the library's internal staff canteen. At some point, this canteen, originally open only to National Library employees, also opened to the public. It is on the third floor of the comprehensive building and is divided into a hotpot hall and a self-service staff dining hall. Prices in both halls are essentially fixed: the weekday buffet costs 48 yuan per person, while the hotpot hall is more affordable. In the hotpot hall, noodles are 10 yuan a bowl, and set meals (one bowl of rice with two dishes) are 15–22 yuan, balancing meat and vegetables with moderate portions. The hotpot hall is open to the public on weekday mornings; I generally eat there during those hours to save money. On Saturdays and Sundays only the self-service staff dining hall is open, at 28 yuan per person, all-you-can-eat.

The third is a small courtyard restaurant near the National Library Hotel, similar to a roadside fast-food shop, serving various fast foods. I have never eaten there. Judging by the look of it, the food seemed too greasy; my stomach and intestines are rather delicate, and eating at roadside stalls often gives me diarrhea. So I have not eaten there to this day.

Around five in the evening, I would set out from the National Library for home to have dinner. Usually I walked home through Zizhuyuan (Purple Bamboo Park), which adjoins the library, strolling around the park for a while. Crossing the park from the library and then arriving home took about forty to fifty minutes—just enough for some exercise.

My wife teases me that I have settled into a nine-to-five, plus a nine-to-five bedtime, lifestyle: besides regularly soaking myself in the library, I also regularly keep early hours. I fall asleep around nine at night and wake around five in the morning, getting a full eight hours' sleep.

Two or three times a week I would go to my vegetable plot. On Mondays, when the National Library is closed, I would do some work in the garden. At other times, I would occasionally set out from home around five-thirty in the morning to pick vegetables and do a little light work, rushing back home before eight to shower and then head to the library.

This simple, regularized life may seem too dull to many people, but to me it is as comfortable as life can possibly be. I set aside some time to play musical instruments, and sometimes take half a day to ride bicycles through the parks with my family. When the weather is fine, I even leave Beijing with my family for a day or two of travel.

I demand almost nothing from life: enough clothing to cover my body and enough food to fill my stomach, and I ask for no more. Born in the countryside, I still cannot bring myself to abandon farming. If one day the world fell into chaos, I could take a hoe to reclaim wasteland and grow grain and vegetables to feed myself and my family. So no matter how anxious others are about the problem of survival, I am not infected by it. At worst, I could open up land in a sparsely populated place, feed myself by my own labor; as a member of the living world, I would not starve to death.

Reading, writing, music, farming, planting flowers and grass, cycling, raising a cat—these are the things I love, and I practice every one of them. Passion makes the long years bearable; because I take joy in them, the days never feel too hard to endure.

Before long, in September, I will leave Beijing to attend college elsewhere. But this should affect me very little: for one thing, I will not be gone long—I will return in two or three years, and I will come back to Beijing during vacations. For another, life at school will be much like my current life, essentially cut off from the outside world. When a person need not care about the outside world, they live with great ease.

I spend less and less time on my phone, gradually averaging no more than half an hour a day. My son remains in a free-range state—though now, free-range is no longer a choice; he is a nineteen-year-old young man, bigger than I am, with a louder voice. I can only lead by example, subtly shaping him through what I do, and can no longer influence him through preaching. I also have enough patience to wait for him to grow on his own. One day he will find a way of living he loves. Perhaps by then an inner drive will be enough to make him happy—why should I meddle?

Because I live so freely and at ease, my hair is still thick and my countenance has not aged. That is enough.