TL;DR: From the sea in Kennedy Town to the confluence of the Yangtze and Han in Wuhan, I’ve moved through solitude, rupture, and adaptation. Back by the ocean, I realize that water is free because it can forgo its shape—and I, too, will set out again in a river’s posture, still drawn toward the sea.
English version below — click here to jump: English Version.
失去形状的自由——在潮汐与江流之间
一年前的今天是我的二十四岁生日，当时我还住在香港的坚尼地城。住所在半山腰，但下山就能见到海。新海旁的海滨长廊，盛放了我在港时的几乎所有独处时光。在我还称得上初涉世界的时候，面对环境的异化，我曾不只一次陷入存在主义危机。是这一片海接纳了我，她深沉而内敛，允许我在无数个夜晚来到这里短暂避世。当本应自由的海浪却一次次地漫上石阶，浪花一下一下推来，声音并不激烈，却持续、耐心，像某种不问缘由的应答。而我也在解构水的过程中思考什么是我本该有的样子。
这一年里，我从香港迁到武汉。离开华南、前往华中，共同之处是依旧离家乡东北千万里。学业、工作、生活节奏都要主动做出改变。饮食、气候、生活方式、地域文化都需要重新适应。个人身份和社会体制的切换，也对自己的待人接物等诸多方面提出了新的要求。但当情绪的至暗时刻来临时，我却不再有触手可及的海。长江与汉水在此相汇交融，我只能滚滚向前。
这一年的转变是巨大的。辗转于不同的环境，接触了很多不同的领域，却依然能够奢侈且幸运地满足着自己对宇宙和科学的好奇心。幸得师长贵人信任扶持，家人朋友戮力相助。年纪不算虚度，烦忧不多不少，也算落得自由。身边的同辈们纷纷立业，我依然想要去闯更大的天地。只因世界的多样实在让人着迷，未知令人疲惫却也充满惊喜。再一次伫立在长江边，也许，水的自由恰恰源于它甘愿失去形状：所有伟大的河流都曾蜿蜒曲折，但从未忘记海的方向。
今天我有幸又回到海旁驻足，这位故人依旧献上欢活的海浪为我排忧。不要问我将要去哪里，氤氲的雾气里，对岸九龙半岛的千万灯火晕出让人沉静的暖光，浪花轻拍着暂时靠岸的船，发出大海潮汐的回响——她说：启程吧，以你江河的姿态。
The Freedom of Losing Shape: Between the Tide and the River
A year ago today was my twenty-fourth birthday. Back then, I was still living in Kennedy Town, Hong Kong. My place sat halfway up the slope; walk downhill, and the sea came into view. The promenade along New Praya Harbour witnessed nearly all my solitary hours in the city. When I was just beginning to find my way in the world, confronted with the alienation of my surroundings, I fell into more than one existential crisis. It was this stretch of sea that took me in—deep and reticent—allowing me, on countless nights, to come here and withdraw from the world for a while. When waves that ought to be free kept washing up the stone steps, each surge came again and again; the sound was not violent, yet it was steady and patient, like a reply that asked no reason. And as I tried to take water apart in my mind, I found myself asking what shape I, too, was meant to take.
Over the past year, I moved from Hong Kong to Wuhan. Leaving South China for the heartland, the constant was that I remained thousands of miles from my northeastern home. Study, work, the cadence of everyday life—all had to be recalibrated by choice. Food, climate, habits, and regional culture: everything demanded reacquaintance. The shift in personal identity and in the social world I moved within set new expectations for how I met others and carried myself. Yet when the darkest hours of emotion arrived, I no longer had a sea within arm’s reach. Here, the Yangtze and the Han converge and mingle; I could only be carried forward with them.
The transformation of this year has been immense. Passing through different environments, touching many different fields, I have still been fortunate—luxuriously so—to keep satisfying my curiosity about the cosmos and about science. I have been sustained by the trust and support of mentors and those who have looked after me, and by the steadfast help of family and friends. The year has not been squandered; my troubles have been neither too few nor too many, and in that balance I have, in a sense, won a measure of freedom. While my peers set themselves up in careers, I still want to venture into a wider world—because the world’s plurality is genuinely enthralling, and the unknown, though exhausting, is also full of surprise. Standing again by the Yangtze, it occurs to me that water’s freedom may lie precisely in its willingness to lose its shape: all great rivers have wound and turned, yet none has ever forgotten the direction of the sea.
Today I am lucky enough to return once more to the waterfront and pause. This old acquaintance still offers lively waves to ease my mind. Do not ask where I am going. In the mist, the countless lights across the Kowloon Peninsula bloom into a warm glow that quiets the heart; waves pat the boats moored for the moment, sounding the reverberation of the ocean’s tides—she says: set out, in the bearing of a river.
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