A Poet’s Journey in a Snack Shop
In Nanjing, I met a snack shop owner who has spent more than twenty years on a remarkable pursuit. Each year, beyond his daily business, he sets out to visit historic sites where China’s greatest poems were written.
From the cliffs of Red Cliffs to the heights of Yellow Crane Tower, he traces the verses back to their landscapes.
“These journeys give flavor to my cooking,” he laughed, “for behind every dish, I recall a distant line of poetry.”
The Improvised Poet of Everyday Life
On my last night in Nanjing, in a modest bar, I met a young woman full of stories.
Born in northern Jiangsu but living in Nanjing, she juggles three part-time jobs: mornings in a café, afternoons at a concert hall, nights behind a bar. Others call it exhausting, but she calls it “stealing leisure from busyness.”
That night, she mixed a “not-so-authentic” Margarita—substituting tequila for rum, dusted with glitter as a playful apology. “Life always comes with regrets,” she said, “but you can still make it sparkle.”
Between shifts, she strummed a guitar borrowed from the live singer, saying she had learned by watching each night.
She laughed: “This way of living is quite interesting.”
To be idle, to live with fun—sometimes, that is enough.
