On the Road

It is a nonchalant autumn day, with flurries of cold rain. I sit in the train and see the assistants in the shops lining the route are almost all languidly talking, reading the papers, and drinking tea—especially drinking tea, because there is really a nip in the air today. There are some, too, just draped over the counter, looking at the weather. In sum the teeming streets of the foreign concession have suddenly taken on a relaxed and casual air. The towering commercial palaces all seem to have been transformed into small country huts, and the staff of assistants who normally are busy making money for the boss and buttering up the customers have actually become aware of the pleasures of affluence, and pass the time in idle badinage, just like the retired scholars of old. There are very few pedestrians in the streets, and even the foreign devils on the tram, on their way to the bank, are smoking their pipes and reading the adverts in their newspapers for something to do, with no sign of their usual irritability. That probably attests to the effectiveness of their raincoats!

At North Station I change to a bus going to the western country district. The autumn countryside has a special quality in the rain. You can't actually see the thin drizzle falling, you can only see the little raindrops turning up on the window panes, and the faint footprints of rain that skitter attractively across the surface of the river. Then there are the powdery raindrops that puff in through the broken pane and come to rest on my face. I feel like shivering, but the baptism of rainwater makes me wonderfully refreshed. Having long been caught up in the toils of mundane life, and habitually peering out on life through bleary eyes, it is rare for me to experience such freshness and clear-headedness. Looking again at the scenery, it has neither the delicate sheen of spring, which makes one feel it must soon pass, nor the dieback of winter, which suggests the end of the world is nigh; it is just quiet and patient. The fine haze of rain, now lifting, now closing, covers the land and enhances its beauty. I cannot help reciting to myself the line of the Song poet Jiang Baishi, my fellow countryman: how true it is that "One of best things in life is the rain that heralds autumn."

I suddenly recall her beetling her brows this morning and saying, "Look at this weather, all wet and windy, and you've got to go such a long way. It's really too bad!" I have a little laugh to myself: it wouldn't occur to her that I am looking out of the bus window enjoying some nice scenery, would it? I guess she thinks I am feeling as miserable as sin, like a condemned man riding in his tumbrel, when in fact I am enthusing over this spectacle of autumn grasses turning yellow, autumn leaves still on the trees. One should be grateful for all sympathy, even misdirected sympathy, so I let her go on pitying me as weary and stained from battling against the elements. Besides, if something disagreeable happens to me, and my displeasure unintentionally shows itself on my face, I can always blame it on the strain of my journey. In that way she doesn't have to keep probing until I tell her the truth, which will just add to her worries for nothing.

Actually I am very fond of taking to the road. At present my daily travel time is almost always over two hours. This has been going on for quite a few months, but I am not in the least fed up with it. Every day when I board the tram it is like starting a honeymoon journey. The people on the tram and the people on the street are mostly unacquainted with each other, so they don't put on false faces. There is no comparison with lecture halls, banquets, and government offices, where everyone is so intent on going through the prescribed motions. In parks, playhouses, amusement parks, and restaurants the visitors brim over with jollity, at least they pretend to, while in cemeteries, law courts, hospitals and druggists, the patrons all have deeply furrowed brows. Monotony prevails in both respects, and leaves us with a depressing sense of staleness. In contrast, people in the street and on buses and trams display a whole kaleidoscope of visages. You only need to sit on a tram and keep your eyes peeled for thirty minutes to discover on the faces of the people you see practically all the expressions of joy and sorrow in the human repertory, as well as every mood. You sit quietly in your getting on with your appraisal, and the other passengers are good enough to let you infer from their appearance and behavior their life story and their present state of mind. The pedestrians outside enter your field of vision one after another, and you are quite free to observe them impudently, for they will not know you are doing so. What is more, they pass by in a steady stream, which means you can compare one with another. These ranks of ordinary people are a lot more interesting, I'm sure, than any carnival procession. Indeed the continuously renewed passage of pedestrians may be described as God's own carnival, and as such is of course far superior to the garish entertainments of our festivals.

Another thing is that our mental state while travelling is best adapted to detached observation, most receptive to external stimuli. We normally have some business in hand, either proper or improper, so our attention is inevitably concentrated on one object. It is only while travelling, particularly in the course of a long, familiar journey, that our mind is untrammeled, not preoccupied, and therefore occupied with everything. This is about the only opportunity we have in the midst of our rushing and scurrying to get a good eyeful of life in its true colors. Whichever way you look at it, then, travelling is our best chance to get to know life. The tram, bus, boat and pavement are as it were admission tickets to the grand exhibition of life. Sad to say, many people look on them as waste paper, and take their life's journey in vain.

An old saying of ours refers to "reading ten thousand books, travelling ten thousand miles." Of course, the bit about ten thousand miles means seeing famous mountains and majestic rivers and visiting great cities, but I prefer to put another interpretation on it. You can notch up you ten thousand miles by travelling the same stretch of road ten thousand times, and as long as you really use your eyes, I guarantee you will equally count as someone who has seen the world. The adage says "The scholar can know the affairs of the world without leaving his gate." Unfortunately the halls of learning of the scholars of old are closed to us, so we had better hit the road, and look about us!

Once we have a clear-sighted view of life, the accidence of reputation and fortune will be unable to disturb our inner serenity, and our souls will thereby gain eternal freedom, for many are the roads that lead to freedom, not just the one ordained by Mr. Bertrand Russell. The people we have to fear are those who ponder questions with their fact to a wall, not giving the road outside a glance: there is really nothing you can do with them, for they condemn themselves by their own inertia. Reading books is an indirect way of understanding life, taking the road is a direct way of understanding life. Truth is lot when committed to words, which is why I feel that the ten thousand books can be put aside unread, but the ten thousand miles require you to get up and go.

To understand nature there is no alternative to getting out and about, but I think that planned travel does not give you as close as feel for nature as ordinary walking about. The tourist is always intent on where he is going, and so is under pressure, which is surely not the right frame of mind if you are to receive the beauties of nature in your own good time. Furthermore, a scene is a living thing: it can by no means be reduced to a valley, a stream, a cave, or a cliff. Yet what tourists mostly see is indeed these dead scenes of nationwide fame, famous sights which everyone automatically praises, for some unknown reason. The tourists, stuck in the same groove, become new prisoners to a tradition of unchallengeable antiquity. Is it worth the trouble? You might well ask. They ought to realize that only the fine views that we ourselves discover have close attachments for us, can reach into our souls, and these fine sights are mostly come upon by accident, they cannot be had on demand. So it is that vistas of fields and cottages we might glimpse from the train window on a business trip can imprint themselves deeply on our heart, whereas the beauty spots we apply for sick leave to visit, at our own expense, only float like mist or smoke in our store of memories.

I took a trip to Hangzhou this spring and autumn, and every day I either sat in a rowing boat following the directions of the boatman, or was driven round the hills, respectfully obeying the orders of the drivers. A slim little guidebook insidiously exerted supreme authority. When I had gone the round of all the famous sights and got back on the train for home, I felt relieved of a heavy burden. And when I resumed my quotidian mechanical existence, looking freely to left and right, no longer in fear of the boatman's, driver's or travelling companions' remonstrances, on longer obliged to see things that had to be seen, I was so happy I could have cried. The West Lake scenery had naturally dissolved, leaving not a rack behind. The trouble is, it dissolved too slowly. At first it still formed the backdrop to several nightmares of mine. Whenever I dreamed of our selfless driver leading us over the rugged rocks of Jewel Mountain or along the slippery stone path to Dragon Well, no matter how I pleaded with him he would always force me to go and see the roseate clouds of Roseate Cloud Cavern and the dragon's horn of Dragon Well. Thank the Lord, the West Lake no longer appears in my dreams.

As I said, many of the fine scenes that have meant most to me in my life have been got through the windows of the bus that goes to the western country district. I sit in the bus, being bumped up and down and jolted right and left, reading an interminable 18th-century novel. Sometimes I close the book and glance casually out at the weather, and suddenly get this impression of emerald green, fragrant flowers all over the place, and a cloudless sky of indescribable blue. Shocked awake to the coming of spring, my soul truly takes leave of my body and flies up to cloud nine. When next I look again, the good scenery is far behind us, and what is left of the journey is the mucky streets of Zhabei. The next day I pass the same spot again, and everything is as before, yet I can't help feeling that something is missing, something has changed. Thereupon that day's scene remains forever in my mind. Sweet things when looked on too long will cloy; genuinely fine scenes should fleet past like that, and never return. The worst thing about marriage is that you are together night and day; this turns all good things into bad things through overfamiliarity.

At other times, on madly hot summer days, in snowbound winter, I also come across unforeseen sights of unspeakable fascination: they are water to the dry fields of my heart. Soulmates are not hard to find: did not Lu You write "There are no places where a tower does not catch the light of the moon? To those who make themselves susceptible, taking the road is without doubt a short cut to understanding nature.