August 4, 2023 The ten-day research trip has come to an end, hurried and busy. Ten days, for Xinjiang, may be a moment, a moment in the endless stream of time; a long journey of ten thousand kilometers. We have only glimpsed one-thousandth of Xinjiang, yet from this small glimpse, we’ve seen golden glimmers, glimpsed stars rising, glimpsed myriad landscapes. Sweeping across one-sixth of the country’s territory, we caught a glimpse of various common occurrences: the vastness of the northern and southern Xinjiang regions, the myriad history traversing thousands of years—part buried in sand, part growing in oases, and part scattered on the grasslands in the sky....

July 23, 2023 Heading West. At half-past eight in the evening, the scene in Hami is still that of the afternoon sun, casting slanted rays on the ground. Outside the train are deserts, slopes, blowing sand, scattered halophytes, and patches of green grapevines. I woke up from the sleeper bed at six in the afternoon, groggily looking out of the window at the changing scenery. Sun, heat, dryness were my expectations for Xinjiang....

July 10, 2023 On June 27th at noon, I arrived in Chongqing. I didn’t feel the rush of moisture from Chongqing as soon as I got off the plane—perhaps it’s quite different from the humid south in my impression. Instead, it was much more humid, but I found it quite comfortable, with a lingering moistness. We had the first meal cooked by Mom at Dream’s house: it could be said to be the first meal at a Chongqing household in terms of significance....

June 16, 2023 Yesterday I attended a band performance. The booming sound from the massive speakers shook my eardrums, my nerves, my soul fiercely. It was like alcohol, yet also like a drug, stimulating my brain. Melodies flowed into my mind, projecting various scenes. Above, melodies flowed, below were swaying figures. What I find interesting about rock music is this: the audience is diverse, people of all kinds standing under the stage, swaying together....

May 20, 2023 A Letter to Mengmeng: “My spring and the warm sunshine arrived too quickly, too hastily, catching me off guard. In the blink of an eye, it’s already early summer, soon to enter the peak of summer. Indeed, I still very much like summer. Summer can bring many wonderful things and also happiness. Mengmeng and I have been together for over a month now, but it feels like we’ve known each other for a very long time....