Posts Tagged ‘Evening’
Of European Evenings
Being Casted Into A Strange City
I remember the first evening when we arrived at Düsseldorf International Airport. My mom and I, we journeyed across the night sky halfway across the globe and landed in a foreign world. Everything was new to us, including the people, the language on the billboards, the streets filled with cars coming and going, and the trains offering an environment so perfect as if only existing in a dream. Cool breezes blew that night, and my mind was as conscious and clear as it could ever be, and yet it was difficult to make sense of anything. My feelings that night included the sense of wonder, the sense of amazement, and yet a sense of loneliness as if like getting thrown into a different dimension with a new world, where home is further than the stars, further than the galaxies.
That was amazing, and that was what 国外 (outside of country [China]) started to mean to me, a land filled with strange things to learn, filled with possibilities, like fantasy, like adventure. I learned to attribute the sense of lonely adventure to Europe, to its trains, to its cities, to the castles along the Rhine river, to the night in Paris. If I ever plan a trip to Europe in the future, it will be for such feelings.
But now I’m not too sure anymore.
Out of curiosity, I searched up the terms “Europe Train” on youtube, and the videos were authentic, but the sense of wonder and adventure were no longer there. Years of living at the top of the world got me used to any sense of wonder that might come from technology and modern civilization. I realized that it was no longer possible for me to experience what a countryperson would feel if he enters a metropolis for the first time and is bedazzled and overwhelmed by the orderly streets, magnificent lights, and automated machines running perfect systems. Instead, I would now often notice the inefficient things, like an occasional subway breakdown, or a patch of dead grass beside the streetwalk. It’s kind of sad.
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