Next Destination, Guangzhou

Struggling out of the train with a hiking backpack, two luggages and a guitar case, I realized that I have officially moved from Shenzhen to Guangzhou. Even I had prepared for the move, the abrupt resignation made everything hasty. It took less than a week since I started to look for housing in Guangzhou till I moved in. The milestone of life is not as decent as I hoped, but causing me certain amount of panic and stink of sweat.

Northeasterner In Shenzhen

2019-03 ~ 2022-03: I came to Shenzhen, but didn’t become a Shenzhener.

It is an intriguing period of time that I spent in Shenzhen. I reunited with some old friends, and knew some new friends. I met some interesting bosses, and experienced a short entrepreneurship. And above all that, I met Diao as the girl in a green dress on Duanwu Holiday.

Shangjuge

After hunting for new places in Guangzhou for two days, I felt more and more lucky to have rented the apartment in Shenzhen three years ago. It’s far from perfect, but its traits fit with my quirks nicely like two pieces in a puzzle.

A narrow area of the bedroom window face east. I like to be waked up by sun rise so I usually leave the curtains open for a little to let the light in. The birds also start to tweet at daybreak, and it’s more vivid as the world is still quiet. There is a kind of birds which sing in two stages. Each stage has a fixed and unique melody, and two stages match each other nicely. I never figure out what kind of birds it or they are, so we just call it the “Strange Song Bird”. We even doubt if it is someone’s hobby of whistling.

The second bedroom is quite small, where landlord’s kid used to live. I covered the bed with Tatami mats and paired with a small table and chair, converting it to a study. I imagined this would be a nice place to read while having some tea, but to be honest I haven’t done that very often. However it is still nice to know I have such a comfortable little space to stay in.

My planting gene of Chinese people was well activated by my grandma when I was little. I installed three pots shelves on the south balcony. The sunshine in Shenzhen is so powerful that only the crown of thorns can withstand. They bloom small red flowers all year around. While I kept killing the mints and kept buying new ones. The empty pots made me feel that I was purchasing herbs to consume instead of plants to keep.

Poor Man’s Property

Instead of “Danshari”, I’d rather follow the philosophy of “leaving no one behind” when packing for the move. My poor man’s property weighed about half a ton (500kg), adding up the boxes to ship and the luggages I brought to Guangzhou by myself. The little cargo cart can barely move after loaded with all my boxes.

As a renter I’ve always prepared for moving, so I saved some cardboard boxes. They turned out still short and I had to buy ten big ones. I wished I could save some of them for future, but none of them was damage free when they arrived. The curse of renting is that you have to plan for next moving just as you are unpacking for one moving.

My old plan was to gradually packing during a period of two months, and it was completed in two days. Gathering all my belongings and packing them into square boxes are exhausted work, not only physically but also mentally. It felt like a ball of tangled earphone wires in my head and I had to clear them out. However, it was a great feeling of “omnia vanitas” when the place was cleared out and empty of my stuff.

On the second day after I moved out, Shenzhen shut down subway and buses, and then followed a month of staying home and half shutting down. In retrospect, I escaped the virus all because of Diao’s urging.