It’s easy to remember what cheap snacks we ate as kids, but it’s hard to recapture that simple, easily satisfied childhood feeling—especially now, when we’re more and more dissatisfied and picky. On the surface, I’ve recalled many stories from those years, but in truth, I’m borrowing these scenes and people to try to capture my own fading emotional memories.

Back then, what exactly made me happy, and what made me sad?

Back then, how did we get so worked up, so excited, so restless over things that now seem a little ridiculous?

I think facing these questions is much harder than remembering the brands of shrimp chips or preserved plums we used to eat.

I want to thank Hello, Old Times. With every word I type, I can dig up a little bit of my musty old days, lay them out in the sun, and let them become dry and warm again.

I remember standing at the corner store with a little pocket money, agonizing over whether to buy peach or strawberry flavored preserved plums, that feeling of excitement mixed with pain.

I remember in first grade, running the 4× meter relay, and being so nervous and excited that I forgot to take the baton and just dashed off, making my homeroom teacher chase after me in high heels, baton in hand.

I remember in sixth grade, when we found out the citywide ×× Cup Olympiad was canceled, a girl who’d been just as anxious as I was for weeks hugged me on the playground and we cheered together.

I remember in eighth grade, when the handsome boy from the next class stopped me on the road and said, “I like you.” I kept a straight face and told him, “We’re still young, what matters is studying hard”—but as soon as I turned the corner, I couldn’t hold back my happiness, skipped along, then tripped on the steps, fell flat on my face, and twisted my ankle.

I remember in twelfth grade, feeling depressed from academic pressure and a secret crush (…), wandering up to the top floor of the administration building, finding graffiti all over the white walls, and, not having a pen, using my fingernail to scratch in the most hidden corner, “× likes ××, but no one knows.”

Later, during summer break in college, I went back to school and found that wall freshly painted, all those anonymous confessions flattened by time, turned into a blank slate.

Just like that, they disappeared.

In July 0, I officially graduated. If my story could be compressed into a script, I’ve probably said goodbye to Act One and stepped into Act Two, where I’ll be shaped by bosses and colleagues, fighting in the noisy workplace for houses, cars, and all the lively and cold things of the world. Even though I tell myself to hold on to my original dreams, who knows how it’ll turn out.

I don’t know if, when I reach Act Three, and “Mary Sue” for the last time in my little room, I’ll cry.

I hope I won’t.

There’s a saying I really like.

“Someday I’ll be a good mom, and give you all the respect and understanding I never received.”

I played the role of an all-powerful mother once, and gave Zoe Young everything I missed and hoped for, including a beautiful, hopeful ending. I don’t know if that counts as making up for something.

But this isn’t an autobiography. I’m not her, and neither of us are her.

But I wish all the readers of this book, all the dreamers with a Mary Sue complex, the best.

I wish you “everything better than you wish for.”

That is, everything turns out just a little better than you imagined.

Just a little is enough.

August Chang'an Press November 0 I never knew a book could change my life like this, but somehow it all feels natural.

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2012 Postscript Marian of the Shrine

Fastest updates for the latest chapters of Hello, Old Times!

When I wrote this title, I thought of the night of December 31, 8. I was wrapped in a white knit sweater, sneaking out of the Waseda international student dorm, walking along the little road in front of the gate all the way to the small Jizo shrine at the street corner.

In Japan, the custom is for families to visit a shrine together on January 1st to pray for blessings in the new year. Alone in a foreign country, I didn’t plan to line up and join the crowd. As a child, both material and spiritual things were scarce, and all my little hopes would be saved up and released on that one holiday. As I grew older, I lost interest and excitement for these kinds of celebrations.

Still, I remember in middle and high school, on the night before every New Year, I’d turn on my desk lamp and write a letter to myself for the coming year.

“Dear me in the new year, hope this finds you well.”

In the letter, I’d sum up the lessons of the past year, give my future self some advice, maybe even lay out a step-by-step plan… The moment I closed my diary, I’d feel so satisfied, as if the new year really would be different.

People need a sense of ritual. Ritual makes life feel dignified.

Honestly, in seventh grade, my diary’s “future plans” even included getting into Harvard—only after all these years can I laugh and share the ambitions of my younger self.

Only those who believe in themselves and in fate’s kindness have the energy to make plans.

So, the “one-two-three-four” plans I gradually gave up—was it because I stopped believing in myself, or stopped believing fate would be kind to me?

The lack of a strong New Year’s atmosphere in a foreign land suddenly made me interested, even though I didn’t really know where to go. Maybe I felt that even if I didn’t have any special hopes for 9, I should at least respect the 8 that was about to slip away.

Maybe I just wanted to stand on the street, watching the hundreds of days and nights I’d lived gather under the city lights, then vanish all at once into Tokyo’s traffic.

Just then, it started to snow.

I looked up at the reddish night sky. The most enchanting thing about snow is that when I tilt my head back to look up, I can’t help but try to trace where each flake first appeared—but my eyes can’t follow their long journey from the sky, only catch the moment they appear out of nowhere, right in front of me.

Out of nowhere, under the streetlights, my eyes are tricked, and in an instant, I’m covered in snow.

I always remember that second. There are so many seconds in life, like snow falling all over us, shaken off as we move forward—maybe just one flake survives, melts into a drop of water, and lands on the heart.

I remember the moment I looked up, searching for the snowflakes. I even heard a voice inside say, you’ll remember this moment—not for any reason, just that you will.

Unfortunately, Tokyo’s snow never gets heavy. No matter how poetic the scene, once I remember my American roommate saying, “It’s like God’s scratching his dandruff,” I can’t help but laugh. I wandered along the little road, drifting from one orange streetlight’s glow to another. Stray cats would sometimes jump onto someone’s garden wall, walk with me for a bit, then quietly disappear into the night.

That’s how I reached the little Jizo shrine at the corner.

These small Jizo shrines are everywhere in Japan—wooden altars with a stone Jizo statue wrapped in red cloth inside. Of course, that barely human-shaped stone hardly convinces me it was ever really carved.

I’ve never learned about Japanese myths or the rules for worshipping at these Jizo shrines. I’ve always been a typical Chinese person—better to believe in gods than not, but not really believing all that much.

Sincerity comes from wanting something.

Still, during my time studying abroad, whenever I passed by, I’d often stop and imagine what changes this little Jizo had witnessed in its thousand years of watching over this place. Maybe, centuries ago, a girl in a hurry stopped here too, resting under the tree by the altar? The tree she rested under somehow became a block of square buildings.

The Jizo shrine sits at the intersection of a small road and the main street. I stood there for a while, not knowing what to do, starting to feel guilty for lurking around like this—did I look like some shady troublemaker?

Suddenly, a gentle voice sounded behind me. I turned around. A girl dressed like an office worker, coming from the main street, greeted me, pointed at the shrine, and asked if I was a foreigner and if I wanted to write an “ema.” As she spoke, she walked over to a row of racks in front of the altar, already covered with wooden plaques tied with red ribbons.

Making a wish. Something I hadn’t done in years.

With her help, I bought a fifteen-centimeter-square wooden plaque, blank on one side for writing, the other painted with a traditional wave pattern.