2023-07-18

Origin

I came back to Xi’an to take care of some business. That evening, I met up with my college buddies, Shaocong and Yahui, and we had the spicy Sichuan peppercorn chicken I’d been dreaming about. Afterwards, on a whim, we slipped back into our old university.

Due to the pandemic, I hadn’t been back in a long time, so I was like a country bumpkin who’d never set foot on campus, constantly repeating “Holy shit” in awe.

Even though I had an alumni card ready, I pretended to be a nonchalant student and confidently walked past the security guard through the Southeast Gate, smoothly turning onto the steps beside the road and into the courtyard of Zhongying College—undergrads are evenly distributed across the eight colleges on campus. Each college consists of several dorm buildings with its own access system, clubs, library, study rooms, bubble tea shop, and student union. Zhongying is in a prime location: to the south is the most vibrant Southeast Gate; to the east is the famous Kangqiao cafeteria (Photo 5), renowned across Asia; to the north is the hot spring bath (genuine spring water); and best of all, there’s no nightly power outage, so you can study or game all night.

A Mysterious Senior Student Knocked on Our Dorm Door?!

Seeing the dorm building door wide open and the dorm mother not around, a clever idea struck me—I decided to go upstairs and see what Room 0235 looked like now.

I walked up the familiar stairs to the second floor, right in front of Room 0235 facing the staircase. I carefully confirmed there was someone inside, steeled myself, stepped forward, and knocked. Fear, yes. And another feeling I’ve painfully become intimately familiar with over the years: a mix of pride and sheer helpless absurdity. It had been so long. Since we left, Room 0235 had already sent off another batch of graduates.

The screech of a chair moving came from inside. My heart was pounding, I could barely breathe, my mind went blank—I just stood there, waiting for the door’s judgment. Only a few seconds passed, but it felt like years. The door opened.

A boy in military training camouflage stood at the entrance, looking utterly puzzled at the sight of me. I quickly explained that I used to live here and wanted to take a look inside. He opened the door a bit wider to let me in, then turned and sat back down—right where I used to sit.

I took a photo, full of emotion, beaming with a smile, yet awkwardly not knowing what to say. Maybe I should have acted like a wise old alumnus and offered some arrogant words of encouragement or gifted something to these kids under twenty, but my mind was empty and my hands were empty. So I just told the guy who opened the door, “Buddy, I used to live in that spot.” He gave me an awkward smile too, with a hint of curiosity in his eyes. I smiled back at him, then turned and left.

Other Visits to Old Haunts

Maybe I was too overwhelmed. By the time I came to my senses, I was already a few hundred meters away from the dorm.

To calm myself down, we took a long walk around the campus. Here are some observations:

• It’s summer vacation for sure, but because the Class of 2022 didn’t have military training last year, this summer’s short semester has been replaced with military training!

• Walking past my old lab, I remembered that during my senior year, the lab moved to that building. Since I was off on an internship and didn’t plan to pursue graduate studies, they didn’t give me a new access card—basically kicking me out of the lab. 😡

• Walking along Wutong West Road toward the North Gate, I said to Yahui, “See that building marked ‘Ser’? If you blew that up, all the universities in the northwest would lose their internet!” Yahui: “๑ᵒᯅᵒ๑”

• Went into the Hall of Distinguished Alumni in the Science Building and found a photo of the elder who changed China—the birth and death years had been updated. 😭

• Exiting the Science Building, I stood before the statue of the “Goddess of No Failure.” I thought maybe it was because I never prayed to her back then that I got banned from a final exam and had to take a make-up exam, resulting in a big fat zero on my transcript. Well, actually, it was because I hated that teacher and skipped class—that was the punishment. 🖕🏿

• The “Goddess of No Failure” is actually a statue of a woman with her arms raised high, but because she looks completely naked, everyone calls her the “Goddess of No Failure” (no clothes = no failure, a pun in Chinese) to pray for passing exams. (Photo 6)

• Passing through the library to the Four Great Inventions Square, I suddenly noticed a classmate sitting on the steps, focused on his laptop (Photo 7). Yahui said, “Looks like Chen Shen.” I looked closer—it really was. Chen Shen back then, when we were too drunk to get back to the dorm and were lying around opposite the school gate, would proudly pull out his laptop and pretend to work. (Photo 8)

• When we got back to the Southeast Gate, we found it already locked. We almost considered climbing the wall, but realizing we weren’t as agile as in the old days, we obediently took a detour to the South Gate.

• Shaocong proudly pointed to the Foreign Languages Building in the southwest corner of campus and said that a few years ago, his girlfriend came to take IELTS there and posted on social media that she wanted to find a boyfriend from this university.

Afterword

Two days ago, Pruderior told me he read my Gcores posts and found them interesting.

“But, I noticed they’re all about the past, not things happening right now.”

Looks like even this current entry fits that description. I’ve always believed that ongoing events are not yet settled, and as my current self, I can’t evaluate my own present state. On one hand, I don’t know how to evaluate it—I haven’t had time to think carefully, and hasty judgments could convey incomplete or misleading information to others. On the other hand, I’m afraid of being proven wrong and then criticized by others over the long haul.

Recollections and evaluations of the past don’t have those problems. Locked in time’s cage, others’ opinions have no room to interfere. So I do tend to wait until things are completely over, then combine new experiences and insights to evaluate what happened to me in the past.

But maybe that’s too lonely. Like the last photo—it’s from the first semester of my freshman year, during those frantic 24 hours of reviewing for the “Ideological and Moral Cultivation” exam in our dorm, featuring Chen Shen, Alvin (and my toes??). Every time I look at this photo, I smile knowingly. That warm moment is forever gone. Sure, it lives in our memories, but it’s truly frozen in time. I don’t think of myself as someone trapped in the past, so perhaps I shouldn’t act like one either.

Maybe immature thoughts about current events can also be interesting, fresh, and inspiring.

Maybe I’ll post some of those. 🖖

• 🧩A Slice of Life