Life in Hong Kong is really just too fast-paced. No matter how hard I rush, rush, rush, it seems I can never keep up with the speed of the clock hands. Little by little, the things I want to do pile up more and more, and many of them remain only at the “thinking about it” stage. But it turns out that when you summon the courage to step out of your comfort zone and enter an unfamiliar country, time suddenly starts to slow down.
It turns out there aren’t that many things you need to do in a single day. It turns out all I need to do is enjoy the moment. It turns out I can live a simple life.
Travel gives me a chance to live simply.
As a child, I memorized the poem: “Hoeing the field under midday sun, sweat drips onto the soil below. Who knows that every grain on the plate comes from hard toil and labor?” We all know farming is not an easy job, but without having personally experienced it, you don’t really know what it’s like. So this summer, I stepped into a simple life, headed to the farmlands of Taiwan, and went for a work-exchange stay. In the sweltering summer heat, with temperatures over thirty degrees Celsius, I naively turned my back on air conditioning and came to a countryside town that had almost nothing — Nanao.
Nanao is the southernmost township in Yilan County, Taiwan. It’s an indigenous mountainous area, mainly inhabited by the Atayal people. The downtown area is barely bigger than Victoria Park, and about eighty percent of the space is farmland.
There’s no air conditioning here, but fortunately there are electric fans.
There’s no shower cabin or bathtub, but at least there’s running water from the tap.
There are no skyscrapers or big chain stores, but thank goodness there are small shops full of warmth and human connection.
No TV, no entertainment, but there are tons of stars in the galaxy, insects, birds, mosquitoes, and friendly, kind people.
The clothes we wear are the simplest and most worn-out, and after working in the fields every day, they get dirty and smelly with sweat.
The food we eat is vegetables we grow ourselves, pesticide-free, and almost entirely vegetarian.
The place we live in is a simple little house — hot, a bit q (a texture or vibe), and full of mosquitoes.
We ride in trucks with no doors, or cars with doors but no air conditioning, or we just use bicycles or our own two feet.
When life is simplified down to just “living,” it becomes something enjoyable.
When we were children, happiness was simple.
When we grow up, simplicity is what brings happiness.
The countryside may seem to lack everything, but spiritually it’s easy to feel content because the closer you are to nature, the more at ease your heart becomes. Every day, whether walking down the road or being out in the fields, if you’re bold enough to greet passersby with a “Hello!” you’ll be rewarded with a simple, kind smile — or even a nice chat. The relationships between people may seem distant, yet they can also be so close. Distance depends on whether you’re willing to take that first step.
I love simplicity. I love feeling at ease.