Three Hundred Unsent Letters

In the winter of 2012, I was working as a migratory bird observer in Qinghai Lake and met a woman who collected the sounds of ice cracking. She said that her father was a border guard and recorded the sound of ice cracking on the lake every winter until he disappeared in a snowstorm ten years ago. We spent seven years sorting through those tapes and found that the last recording contained a stranger calling for help. Her father was the only survivor of China's surveying and mapping team that crossed the Hoh Xil no-man's land. On the day when I decided to find out the truth, there was a loud noise from the lake that had not been seen in ten years.