I saw a message on WeChat Moments that American writer Peter Hessler asked a friend to sell his Honda SUV in Chengdu. “Just over 10,000 kilometers, very new.”
It’s really sad news.
When Hessler bought this car in Chengdu, he must have been thinking of living in China for a long time and going to very far places. Who would have thought that this car would soon reach the end of the road.
The cover of “River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze” is a photo of Hessler and a white car, which was the car he rented, traveling between the cities and countryside of China. The title has a double meaning, both in the sense of finding a road by driving, and also for (or helping) China find a way out.
Over the past decade, Hessler has been one of the most popular writers among Chinese people. After writing “River Town”, “China Road”, and “Oracle Bones”, he went to Egypt. At that time, I saw an interview online where he said he liked living in China, and if he had to choose one place, he hoped it would be Chengdu.
He really came, and before 2019, it wasn’t difficult to realize such a dream. Some of the beautiful things you can imagine would always happen. He flew to Chengdu with his wife and two daughters. On the plane, his daughters were reading the novel “1984”. Now it seems like a metaphor.
However, Hessler was very optimistic at the time. He sent his two daughters to public primary schools in Chengdu, where the children were educated together with Chinese children, including political and moral education classes. His daughters are also said to have studied “Zhu De’s Carrying Pole”.
Once, I met his wife, Leslie Chang, and asked her if she was worried about the consequences of the education. She said they were not worried at all.
Hessler often took his two daughters for runs along the Jinjiang River, while the air quality in Chengdu was often not up to standard. He wrote about his life in Fuling in “River Town”, where he insisted on running, and the air quality in Fuling at that time must have been even worse – he didn’t care much about PM2.5, in this sense, he was quite Sinicized.
That’s why he said that what he liked was not the future, but the present China, the life of living Chinese people today. In the articles he wrote for The New Yorker during the pandemic, he defended China’s epidemic prevention policies a bit – in the United States, he was also considered by some to be too “pro-China”.
However, it was such a naive person who eventually had to leave China. He taught writing at Sichuan University, and the courses were very popular, which also greatly improved the reputation and influence of the department. However, the university chose not to “renew his contract” and did not help him renew his work visa. Under the pressure of time, he eventually had to hastily return to the United States.
Perhaps it’s not entirely Sichuan University’s fault, but rather a turning point in the atmosphere of the times. Sino-US relations were tense, and China also closed the US consulate in Chengdu. It was normal for Sichuan University to feel uneasy about having an outstanding American non-fiction writer born in the United States in the classroom.
Now, thinking about it, the city of Chengdu was once very charming.
Consul General’s wife of the US Consulate, Zhuang Zuyi, and her band friends sang on the streets of Chengdu. People neither over-watched because of her identity, nor did they feel anything sensitive. She is a gourmet, and Chengdu claims to be the city of gastronomy. Many people didn’t even know who she was, but were moved by the music – they were singing children’s songs.
And on the stage of Sichuan University, students could also quietly listen to Hessler talk about his writing philosophy. Remember, in a certain sense, this is a height that this city could reach within a period of time: openness, inclusiveness, and more importantly, confidence.
But this beautiful thing is so easy to break, even silently. During the pandemic, I saw a heartbreaking scene: an American young man put up an advertisement stand in Tongzilin, seeking someone to adopt his dog. He had to return to the United States, and the dog could not be taken away. Perhaps, like Hessler, he originally had a long-term plan in Chengdu.
Perhaps in a few years, many people will forget that there was a naive American writer who once lived here, breathed the air mixed with PM2.5 and the aroma of hot pot, and walked through this city like an ordinary Chengdu person.
Hessler has been gone for a while, and his car has been waiting for him in the garage of a community in Chengdu. Now that it is publicly for sale, it means that his idea of exploring China by driving this car is officially over.
10,000 kilometers, it’s really new – just started the break-in period, and how many stories are waiting to be written.
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