Farewell, China - (Chapter Two) Written on December 9, 2025 in Thailand
This afternoon when I woke up, the curtains were not fully drawn, and the sunlight streamed in through the cracks. The room felt stuffy, and the air itself seemed stagnant. Rationally, this was just another ordinary day. But from the moment I opened my eyes, I knew something was different.
Her wife woke up and without saying much, first went to wash up, then quietly opened the wardrobe and pulled out the suitcase from the very back that hadn't been seen for a long time. The sound of the suitcase hitting the floor wasn't loud, but in her heart, it sounded like a hammer striking her chest.
In that moment, it felt as if a part of the person had been drained away. Even though they knew they should start organizing, tallying things, checking lists, and looking up routes, the entire person was like being pinned to the bedside, unable to muster the slightest energy. The only thought that kept surfacing in their mind was: is it, time to begin a new round of drifting again.
The road to New Zealand - can it be traveled? As for the miscellaneous items at home, which ones can be taken and which ones can only be decisively discarded? If they cannot be shipped out, it's as good as throwing them away. Should I have my wife depart with the most secure exit method, using a Hong Kong-Macau travel permit to travel abroad long-term? If she goes back, will she be blocked from leaving again? All these questions piled up, weighing heavily on my mind.
If it had been my past self, I might have seen this as a "new beginning," an opportunity to take a risk. But now, all I want to do is lie back in bed and pull the covers over my head, pretending nothing has happened. It's not that I don't know this is immature, but I can clearly feel that the drive to "charge forward regardless" has been worn down by life.
I see my wife sitting on the floor, neatly folding her clothes and packing them into the suitcase, and a recurring question crosses my mind: am I really that useless? Am I truly unable to provide her with a truly stable and secure home where she can feel at ease and stay for the long term?
In the past period, staying in Thailand, the days were not particularly exciting, but at least they were stable. The time to get up is about the same, the vegetable stalls I usually buy from are also fixed, and I know which small shops downstairs have good food and which roads are congested. The days are a bit repetitive, but simple and stable, with a sense of steadiness that is hard to come by. I had just settled my heart, and now I have to pack up again, putting everything I just got familiar with into my suitcase, and taking it to a place where no one knows what will happen.
Where to next? Can I still go back to Thailand? A year from now, where will we rent a house, in which city will we wake up? None of these questions can be answered.
The more realistic facts are those that cannot be avoided: Thailand's visas can allow one to stay indefinitely, but one's identity will always be an issue. Passports will eventually expire, and parents will eventually grow old. One cannot forever rely on the comfort of "taking it one day at a time." One day, when you look back, you'll realize that nothing has been resolved, and you've only been putting off the problems little by little. That's when you'll truly have nowhere left to go.
The situation is getting more troublesome. The policies are gradually tightening. My wife's visa-free entry, the Thai government is cracking down on Southeast Asian telecom fraud, so they can change it on a whim; you can enter today, but when you wake up tomorrow and check the Thai news, everything might have changed. "Will we be able to come to Thailand again in the future?" Honestly, no one can give a definite answer right now.
No matter how you look at it, Thailand is no longer just a "temporary stopover" for me. From Malaysia to Bangkok, coming here, that feeling of going from drifting to becoming a little more stable is something I've truly experienced. The house that used to be filled with laughter, the market where I used to buy groceries, the familiar little paths I've walked, and even the mountain view I see every day - they all remind me that this is the first place where we've truly "settled down" a little.
So whether others say I'm emotional or that I can't let go, I'm very clear about it in my heart; this is not affectation. People need to have a place they can recognize as their "temporary home", and since it's home, there will be attachment.
Sometimes, when standing from a more distant perspective, I can't help but bitterly smile: is it more sad to be a Chinese person, or more ironic to be a former member of the Communist Party? I haven't done anything outrageous, yet I have to live so anxiously, moving from one place to another, never knowing where I'll be forced to leave from next. The "stability" and "normal life" that others take for granted have become things that we have to gamble and rely on luck to obtain.
The road of being a refugee is essentially a high-stakes gamble. It may lead to obtaining a new identity, or it may only result in years of arduous struggle, ending up back in Southeast Asia, having to start over from the beginning. These possibilities all exist, and no one can say for certain which one will occur. This is why there is a persistent sense of heavy unease.
In the past few years, from China to Malaysia, then to Thailand, it has always been a back-and-forth between "almost getting into trouble" and "barely avoiding it." It seems that there is some kind of force that, at critical moments, prevents things from going to the worst-case scenario. Whether it's attributed to the protection of ancient deities and Buddhas, or just plain luck, the fact is that each time, we've managed to squeeze through the cracks. So even now, I habitually murmur to myself, "Please, this time as well, don't completely block the path."
The older you get, the harder it is to fool yourself with a few words of encouragement. In the past, I was only worried about enduring hardship myself, but now I worry more about my wife. Every time we move, it means she has to readjust to a completely unfamiliar environment and find her rhythm in life all over again. She could have lived a more stable life, but she keeps following me to another country time and time again.
I really dislike moving house, to be honest. From the moment you start packing, it means that the stable life you've maintained with some difficulty is now on a countdown. As soon as the boxes are sealed, it's a farewell to your current life, and also a psychological acknowledgment that you're about to go to an unknown place and face new visas, new languages, and new rules.
Sometimes, I can vividly recall my former self from many years ago. Back then, I was bold and outspoken, not worrying too much about the consequences, thinking that I could always start over. I had a lot of trust in human nature, believing that there were more good people than bad, and I didn't have as much fear for the future as I do now. At that time, I had a strong drive to move forward.
I'm now standing in a room in Thailand, looking at my open suitcase and the increasingly empty closet, and all I feel is hesitation. If I go, the life ahead is uncertain; if I stay, the reality I'll eventually be forced to face is inevitable. Reason and emotion are like two people arguing, and neither can convince the other.
This step, is it a bet on a potentially more stable future, or is it pushing us towards a longer period of drift? Right now, no one can give the answer.
Here is the translation: The only things you can do are: pack the things you need to bring bit by bit, suppress the emotions you can't bear to part with bit by bit, and then at some point, say to yourself:
Let's go. Even if there are still multiple overlapping emotions in the heart, we can only move forward.
