A writer toured the country with 222 IOUs.
Liu Meisong.
Shenzhen-based writer Liu Meisong spent 100 days driving 28,510 kilometers to explore all corners of China. It was August three years ago when he embarked on the “Call for Integrity Journey,” which was anything but easy. He set off in high spirits, only to face a cold splash within the first night.
Liu Meisong said that on the day of departure, he had planned to drive from Shenzhen to Haikou, but couldn’t get across the ferry at the coastal port—the ferry ticket cost 452 yuan. He waited 15 hours for it, which was also the longest wait he endured.
This trip, dubbed “pretty silly” by his friends, was destined not to be pleasant. A literati had to borrow money daily from strangers—sometimes just five or ten yuan, other times hundreds or even thousands. The mildest reaction he got was a harsh glare; some bluntly told him, “Who do you think you are, asking me for money?” Eventually, as one misfortune followed another, Liu Meisong regretted his decision.
“On the road from Guangdong to Guangxi, there were 13 toll booths, and I couldn’t get through 10 of them. In the end, I had no choice but to open my trunk and say, ‘Help yourself, see if there’s anything worth 25 yuan.’ In the end, he took a water bottle worth over 200 yuan from my shopping box to cover the 25-yuan toll. That was the only time during the whole journey that I exchanged an item to get through a toll station,” Liu Meisong said.
Just as the scenery changed along the way, so did Liu Meisong’s mood—swinging between sorrow and joy. There was a time when he couldn’t find a hotel willing to let him stay on credit for over three hours. Just as he was preparing to sleep in his car, the hotel manager sent someone to find him and invited him to stay in a room, leaving an IOU for 588 yuan. Liu Meisong said that over 200 strangers were willing to lend him money along the way, which made it a relatively heartwarming journey.
When leaving Yunnan, Liu Meisong passed through a toll station called Xiangyun. He approached the station manager, who seemed to be in a bad mood and ignored him. So Liu sat in the manager’s office, waiting for a response. Before long, he heard a knock on the door—it was an ordinary employee at the toll station. This worker helped Liu collect small amounts of money, five or ten yuan at a time, from colleagues, gathering a total of 115 yuan. Liu Meisong believed it was the warmest bundle of cash he’d ever seen in his life.
Over the 100 days, he borrowed along the way and quickly called his wife back home to repay each debt immediately, down to the last cent. By the time he returned home, Liu Meisong was holding 222 IOUs—the largest being 5,742 yuan, the smallest 10 yuan—totaling nearly 50,000 yuan. Three years later, he wrote a book about the experience titled IOUs. At the book launch, 10 of the people who had lent him money were invited to attend, bringing a fulfilling conclusion to this integrity-seeking journey.
Some suspected that Liu Meisong was promoting his upcoming book and engaging in self-marketing.
Liu Meisong said, “I never intended to gain a single penny from this. Many media outlets wanted to follow me—I turned them down. Many offered support—I refused the money. Many wanted to give me a car—I said no. Because fame has nothing to do with me anymore. So why am I accepting interviews now? I want to spread the message of this book. I made it very clear to the publisher—if this book sells well, every penny will be donated to do good.”