Goodbye

On Sunday night, in a small alley near Lingzhi in Bao'an, Shenzhen, Liang Mouyin and I got out of the ride-hailing car together.

I looked at him, and he looked at me. Suddenly neither of us had anything to say.

It isn't hard to see why. We'd had plenty to say on the way, but at the place where we had to part, we needed to find one more line among all those words to end this time together. As if without that line, the two of us should still be standing there, and could stand there a little longer.

I said, "Time to say goodbye."

Liang Mouyin gave an awkward smile. I shook his hand and said, "Come find me in Chengdu next time. We'll hang out."

That's more or less how it went. Nothing special happened. What needed saying was said, and the hand that needed shaking was shaken. As a farewell, it was neither long nor short, and there seemed to be nothing wrong with it.

Only, in three days in Shenzhen, I went through five moments like this. Looking back, before each goodbye there was a stretch of time when I hadn't yet thought of goodbye.

On Saturday, both Liang Mouyin and Quanquan had things to do, so I planned to arrange my own daytime. In the morning I had dim sum with Liang Mouyin, then we wandered around Zhongshan Park, and then went our separate ways. I thought that was how the day would mostly go.

Then Brother Ruan saw the news that I'd come to Shenzhen.

I'd met him a few years ago on a hike in Chongqing. Later he traveled all over the country, passed through Chengdu, and we met once more. That was last year. Now he was in Huiyang, between jobs, and when he heard I was here, he was keen to show me around Shenzhen.

I hadn't planned to look him up on this trip. He drove from Huiyang to Yantian Road, I took the subway there from Zhongshan Park, and someone who wasn't on my itinerary became the person who kept me company that afternoon.

When we met, I found out he'd twisted his ankle, and badly. He limped as he walked. He took me to Yunhai Park, not far from Dameisha. In the afternoon, because of the weather and his foot, we didn't go anywhere else. We just talked in the car for a while. About everything.

If you asked me to repeat it now, I couldn't say exactly.

That's how a lot of time with people turns out. You don't necessarily remember what was said. You remember that the person came, with an injured foot, and drove a long way. Then the two of you didn't hurry on. You sat there and slowly finished saying things you hadn't needed to plan.

After that, he dropped me off at the subway station.

The first person I said goodbye to was Brother Ruan.

That night, I'd arranged to have crispy grass carp with Jiyu and Liang Mouyin. On the way to dinner, we invited one more friend at the last minute: Migo.

I'd met her in a Selected Works reading group. We joined around the same time, I read her article and liked it, and then we followed each other's Official Accounts. Strangely enough, I left that group the same day. Looking back now, that one in and one out still left me with someone I could invite to dinner.

My meeting with Brother Ruan was unplanned. My meeting with Migo was something I hadn't even thought of before coming to Shenzhen. With Liang Mouyin and Jiyu's okay, I invited her along.

She's from Hebei and has been in Shenzhen two or three years. She's lively and talkative. From meeting to goodbye, it was less than three hours. I could tell she wanted to talk with us about something. Whether she got anything she wanted out of that evening, I don't know.

Maybe she didn't want much, just to see people and talk. But that's still my guess. When someone sits down across from you and gives you a stretch of her time, what you can actually know is very limited.

The crispy grass carp really was good. The meat is crisp, and with the savory flavor from cooking, it was fun to eat.

It may seem out of place to go on about fish here. But that night we really were eating fish. When people get together, nobody is thinking about getting together the whole time. We ate and talked, and before we knew it the meal had run to ten thirty.

Once we left the table and got to the subway, the goodbyes suddenly came very close.

I said to Migo first: "Thanks for the gift. I wish you good health and happy days."

Then to Jiyu: "See you. I wish you smooth sailing at work."

That was the second and third goodbye, close together, within a single minute.

Thinking about it later, what I can say really is limited. Good health, happy days, smooth sailing at work: all things we've heard countless times. I wanted to word the wishes a little differently, but when it came time to speak, it was still these same few lines.

But I do wish for them. I hope one person has fewer days of feeling unwell and more days of joy. I hope another has an easier time at work and isn't always held up by something. Thinking that way, I feel that even though these words have been said countless times, each time they can count anew.

On Sunday, I went to Hong Kong with Quanquan and Liang Mouyin.

We walked the Avenue of Stars, rode the Star Ferry, passed through parks and a church, walked steep roads, and sat in a bumpy bus. There were so many places to go and so much road to cover that day. When you're on the move, you always feel the next stop is still ahead, so the day isn't over yet.

By the time we got back to Lingzhi in Bao'an, it was past eleven at night. We found a Shaxian snack shop and filled our stomachs.

Quanquan's car arrived.

We walked out, and she got in by herself and waved.

"Bye."

"See you."

Nothing more was said. Like most goodbyes in this world, the car came, so she had to get in, and that was all the time we had left to talk. If you stop to think about what else you should have said, the car has usually already left.

That was the fourth.

The fifth was that moment in the alley with Liang Mouyin.

When saying goodbye, I don't really like saying "bye-bye." I'd rather say "see you." Those two words comfort me a little, as if this parting has already arranged a later one, and the person in front of me, once gone, will come back someday.

Of course, two words can't guarantee that.

When I was younger, still a green student following trends, I liked saying "さようなら" when I left. Later I heard somewhere that it's what you say when you won't see each other for a long time, so I gradually stopped.

Looking back, that was a bit childish, as if changing a word could do something for the future of two people. But even now, I'm willing to keep that bit of childishness. Some things you know you can't decide, but when you speak, you still hope to lean a little toward what you wish for.

The night I said goodbye to Migo and Jiyu, Liang Mouyin and I walked out of the subway station together. I told him, "I take goodbyes seriously."

"Because I've realized some people I may never see again in this lifetime, so I say goodbye very earnestly."

That was heavy to say. We'd just finished a meal and just parted from friends. Everyone had somewhere to be, and nobody had any reason to believe this was the last time.

But what I care about is exactly that "no reason."

Does the last time you meet tell you in advance? Is that day any different from other days? Maybe it's the same as always: eat, chat, check the time, stand up and leave. When you say "let's meet again," you truly believe there'll be another time. Only later do you realize that meeting has stayed in your memory for a very long time, with nothing new added.

I've always remembered a line from Sword Snow Stride:

"The world's helplessness is people's helplessness: when you could say it, you didn't want to, and when you want to say it, you no longer can."

Later I added a line of my own: "Some things, when you could do them, you didn't dare, and when you dare, you no longer can."

I think these two lines have stayed with me because what they describe is so small and so easy to happen.

A sentence reaches your lips, you feel embarrassed, and you swallow it. Something you've wanted to do for a long time doesn't seem urgent, so you put it off.

At the time you don't feel you've lost anything. You just feel there's plenty of time later.

As for how long "later" is, none of us has ever looked closely.

Regret sometimes starts right there. That sentence could once be said just by opening your mouth. That thing could once be done just by taking a step forward. Later, it takes a long time to keep going back to that self who didn't speak and didn't move.

But that doesn't stop anyone from hesitating again. Even though I'd told Liang Mouyin I take goodbyes seriously, the next night, when it was really time to say goodbye to him, there was still a moment when I looked at him and he looked at me.

So there's still a gap between understanding something and being able to act on it with ease.

I'm willing to try to cross that gap. Thank the people who deserve thanks, and say the wishes I want to say. When I want to see someone, go see them while I can still set out. If my words come out clumsy and the scene gets awkward, that's all right.

The courage I can think of starts with small things like these.

That night, in the alley near Lingzhi, I finally opened my mouth and shook Liang Mouyin's hand.

"Come find me in Chengdu next time."

There's a day in that sentence I don't know yet.

I don't know whether it will come, or when, but I'm willing to wait for it.