Trapped in Heaven

The seas and forests of Indonesia have exerted a strong pull on me. I’m always planning to wander them soon. I have set many plans to travel there. One plan that makes me happy as soon as I think of it is to travel the Sumatran Islands and the forests of Java, one I came up with over a decade ago. I still haven’t been to any of these places, aside from some short trips to Bali. I’ve been busy working, making money, holding exhibitions, watching TV and raising my daughter, so I couldn’t leave. I use my repetitive daily life to replace the mountain climbing and ocean crossing that would satisfy my wanderlust. But I still make plans, a joy that no one can stop me from having, even though I’m still stuck in daily life. I often dream about the day that I can roam the Indonesian archipelago, crossing the sea to see the forests and lakes I’ve always yearned for. But I keep getting older. Youth becomes middle age, and the time beyond middle age grows faster and worse. Sometimes I think that maybe to the end of my days I’ll never be able to go and see the forests of Java and the Sumatran Islands.

These thoughts are often on my mind.

One day I’m walking along Houhai Park in Beijing. This is an area that has more or less completely preserved the old face of Beijing. In this city, the “present” is devouring the “past”, and Houhai is like an isolated island, maintaining our links with our predecessors, with the life of past millennia, showing us that time has an origin, that it has depth.

But Houhai is now filled with the hustle and bustle of the bars. It has become dubious and seductive. The city’s new elite are changing this place with chaos, deception and self-praise – one bar at a time. I’m thinking that many years ago these buildings may have been home to poets, warriors and simple common folk. I know that one of these was home to Yu Dafu who travelled the southern seas. A friend told me once in that bar’s bathroom: we’re pissing in Yu Dafu’s house.