It's been so hot in Beijing these days, and there are rumors online that the El Nido effect is at work. I don't know what the El Nido effect is, but for a foreigner who has just arrived in Beijing, this "foreign word" can only make me obey. When I get home from get off work, I take off my glasses, take off my half-sleeves, and look for the air conditioner remote control, all in one go. When the air conditioner sent out cool breeze, I thought more than once: How did my parents spend such a long and extremely hot summer when they were young. My mother once told me that at that time it was not as hot as now, and the river water was clear at that time, and everyone would go to the water to escape the heat. When I was in school, the school was under the bridge. The teacher was still giving lectures on the stage, and the male classmates were already swimming underwater. Or maybe it was because there were no technological measures to avoid the heat at that time, so we had to adjust our body's functions to improve tolerance. As the saying goes, "A calm mind naturally cools down." I am also very subjective and idealistic: I can self-hypnotize even if there is no air conditioning, and the weather is not too hot. It's just that those who know the current affairs are wise, so I won't let go of the remote control for the time being.
What I am doing at this moment may be like the way my parents spent their summers when they were young. I want to write a novel, but the only one I have read from beginning to end is Yu Hua's "To Live". In front of the vast sea of books, I feel that the weather is not particularly important at this time. I don't know what the climate will be like when I finish writing this novel. I just hope that I can remember the fervent heart I felt when I started writing the novel when I negotiated with my wife for her 60% and 40% for the novel's manuscript fee. I also hope that I can always remember those distant afternoons when I wanted to describe my father's story.
July 11, 2023, the first day of the ambush—in Beijing
Purpose: Transformation of father-son relationship