Midnight Paper

Before watching a movie yesterday, I stumbled across a Swedish pocket edition of Lonely Planet: Beijing (2009 edition) in a second-hand bookstore. Here “Beijing” was the real Beijing.

Between the foreword and the table of contents was a bustling Wangfujing Snack Street, with a banner in the photo reading, “For your safety, please do not take unlicensed taxis.

Flipping through the pages, “Three Guizhou Men,” “Old Bookworm,” “The Bearded Artist Who Helped Design the Bird’s Nest”-this guide from over a decade ago felt more like an archaeological find or an elegy. My guilt for buying it for three yuan (and thus depriving it of one or more potential Swedish readers) gradually faded, as the ever-changing Beijing doesn’t wait for a publication to catch up before it moves on.

Not everything changes, of course. As the book concludes, “Beijing remains a challenge for all people with disabilities… Although most new buildings and some major attractions have become more ‘accessible,’ there is often little difference.”

We shouldn’t let a sense of nostalgia prevent us from acknowledging long-standing problems. After all, the road we’re on now is the same road we’ve traveled step by step in the past.

After settling in Sweden, I changed my default search engine back to Google and started looking for possible Google services.

The last time I used Google Docs was in college, when we shared materials for the Jessup Moot Court. Before the competition even started, the site was blocked. Fortunately, our college team had advanced and was traveling to Washington, D.C., for the final round.

After hearing that I was from China, a bus driver said: “Chinese people don’t like Google.” I corrected him: “It’s not the Chinese people, it’s the Chinese government.” He then repeated my words to himself.

On Monday, Google Translate announced it was shutting down operations in China, marking the end of a twelve-year farewell. It reminded me of the past. One team member later went to work for Google in Singapore.

“This marks the almost complete withdrawal of the US technology giant from the world’s second-largest economy…” I wonder if the driver I was talking to will start muttering again when the news comes on the radio.

On a rare clear Sunday afternoon, we walked along the lake trail we discovered last time and saw flocks of mallards resting on tree stumps in the water. Still wondering if we should bring some bread next time, the ducks fluttered and jumped to the shore, and it turned out that a young mother was handing out food on the shore. Her daughter watched from a stroller as her mother fed the ducks. The sunlight filtering through the mottled shadows of the trees made for perhaps the most serene scene in life.

We hurried past and saw that the girl’s neck was bent, and her mother helped her up from time to time, but soon her head was lowered again. But there was no sadness on the mother’s face, and she happily scattered the food in her hands. The ducks, waddling and reaching for food, seem to cure everything.

I am reminded of the brother and sister Shi Tiesheng once wrote about, also in a beautiful park on a sunny Sunday. The young girl was bullied because of her mental deficiency, and her big brother rode desperately to protect her, and then took her home without saying a word. The author said, almost in despair, “Being speechless is right. If God had given this little girl both the beautiful and the retarded, only being speechless and going home would be right.”

This statement may be impeccable from a realistic point of view, but If the disadvantaged groups are treated unfairly and they can only hold their breath and conclude that “there is no justice when it comes to fate,” then we may forever live in an unjust world.

The first time I saw Greta’s photo was on the company printer, which at least showed that her image in China is not always negative – it can still be used when needed.

During my college years, I interned at a foundation funded by the owner of a famous real estate company in China that focused on environmental and sustainability research. I was shocked when I talked to the director of the foundation, who told me that “global warming” is a lie made up by developed countries to oppress developing countries.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m in Sweden, but lately I’ve been getting articles about Europe starting to demonize Greta, but they’re not true and they’re very inflammatory. Compared to a decade or so ago, the cynicism towards those who are active in public affairs has not diminished, but has become more and more uncontrollable with the help of the Internet.

Recently, the PSG manager was widely criticized by French society for a joke he made in response to a reporter’s question about whether the team could choose a greener way to travel (with Mbappe laughing on the table next to him). Conversely, Chinese fans’ comments on the news were overwhelmingly directed at the questioner, with one comment saying the journalist was an “environmental girl” garnering nearly a thousand likes.

Europe’s geopolitical influence on climate and energy policy is a necessary rethink, not a wholesale rejection of past values. On the contrary, a society that rejects all morality and dissolves all values is more worrying.