Some people are meant to be missed. Some love is for regret. At the sea they agreed to watch together, only one person arrived in the end.
In the spring when he was twenty-four years old, Su Wanning deliberately knocked over Lin Wan's coffee. She said I would regret not giving it a try.
In the winter when she was twenty-eight, she married a man she met on a blind date. She said, I chose security, just like you always do.
During these four years, they lived together, fell in love, quarreled, and were silent. When Lin Wan's mother came to Shanghai, Su Wanning wanted to put away all the traces and move to a friend's house, pretending to be just a "roommate". Her father urged her to get married, so Lin Wan could only remain silent, swallowing "I have a girlfriend" over and over again. I don't dare to come out as gay in the workplace, I don't dare to post photos in my circle of friends, and I go back to each other's homes during the Chinese New Year. Su Wanning said, "Let's go see the sea." Lin Wan said, "Okay." After four years of talking, it never came to fruition.
It's not that I don't love it. Lin Wan loves her, but she is more afraid - afraid of her parents' collapse, afraid of social rejection, afraid of losing her job, afraid that she is not "normal" enough. She swallowed fear into her stomach and swallowed it into silence; Su Wanning swallowed disappointment into her stomach and swallowed it into departure. On his thirtieth birthday, Lin Wan went to Lingang alone. The sea-like lake was still there, and she knelt down and placed a small, faded blue dolphin on the edge of the water - one they bought for ten yuan each when they first saw the sea. Su Wanning's one was taken away, but Lin Wan's was left behind.
Concept: Concept of the novel "I Have Seen the Sea" The core concept of this novel is: under the realistic gravity of East Asian society, lesbian love is not lost to "not enough love", but to "dare not to love". It's not that Lin Wan doesn't love Su Wanning, her fears - the fear of disappointing her parents, the fear of social judgment, the fear of the "abnormal" label - are stronger than her love. It's not that Su Wanning doesn't love Lin Wan. She left not because she was heartbroken, but because she couldn't afford to wait for a "future" that would never be fulfilled. Through a six-year time span, the novel presents a typical living dilemma of East Asian queer women: coming out means hurting your family, being silent means hurting yourself; choosing love may lose everything, choosing security may lose love. There is no right or wrong, only dilemmas. "Sea" is the core metaphor of the whole article - it symbolizes freedom, vastness, and unrestrained love. Lin Wan promised to accompany Su Wanning to see the sea every year, but never did it. In the end, Su Wanning went to the sea in Sanya by herself, and Lin Wan went to the sea-like lake in Lingang alone on her thirtieth birthday. They each arrived at different "sea", but they could no longer stand side by side by the same water. This is not a story about hate or betrayal, but a story about powerlessness. What it wants to say is: Some love is not deep enough, but born in a world that is not wide enough. Those "I love yous" that are swallowed back, the photos that are hidden, and the cohabitation life that is pretended not to exist are the most real daily life of East Asian lesbians. The ending of the novel is BE, but BE is not for cruelty, but for honesty - in the face of reality, not all love has a fairy tale ending. But those traces of love, the faded blue dolphin, the handmade photo album, and the phrase "May you no longer be afraid one day" still truly exist and become a tide that can never be erased in the rest of their lives.