Jason | Hanhan

2023.04.16

On the morning of Chinese New Year's Day this year, Hanhan transferred 10,000 yuan to me with a message: 'For Huahua.'

A year ago, when Hanhan took over the restaurant, I said to him, 'Nothing else, but can you keep the share that used to belong to Huahua?' He said, 'Okay.' At that time, business had been sluggish for a long time due to the pandemic. After a hard month, the store didn't lose money, but there wasn't much left over. Since then, the shop has had nothing to do with me, so this request was somewhat of an imposition.

Huahua has been gone for more than four years. Every Spring Festival, we transfer her share to her family. It's not much, just a way to remember her, especially as memories gradually fade.

She once worked very hard to keep this restaurant going, sacrificing part of her life, until her illness became serious. Once, when she had a falling out with He Chen, she took the initiative to make up because she was afraid that this impulsive guy would quit the next day.

Her passing became a spiritual bond for the rest of us: in this process, we came together, naturally revealed our emotions, and got to know each other better. Sometimes I think that if Huahua hadn't fallen ill and passed away, we would still have been friends with unspoken understanding, but we would probably have gradually drifted apart as our lives changed.

That year, He Chen left Dali and went to work at a restaurant in Sanya by the sea. Hanhan took over his responsibilities for the daily operations of the shop. A year later, He Chen came back, and we had already opened a new restaurant. He started managing the trivial matters of the new shop. When I stepped out of the store, he left for Chengdu. Xiao Liu came and went, and now seems to have grown into adulthood. That's about it.

Eleven years ago, I moved to Dali and opened several restaurants. I've been enthusiastic and also bored, succeeded and failed. I haven't saved much money, nor have I found the meaning of life—maybe there isn't one to begin with. I've had some experiences that felt wonderful. Some I know happened but can't recreate those feelings; some stay in my memory forever.

Like He Chen and Xiao Liu, Hanhan doesn't express himself much. For many years, he single-handedly supported the Old Town Midnight Diner. Last year, after he and his partners started running it independently, he moved back to Huguo Road, next to the original first Midnight Diner. I occasionally look at the customer reviews on Dianping, and he's doing well.

We occasionally keep in touch, mostly when he rides his motorcycle to some deep mountain, camps by a river, goes fishing, and tells me it might be a nice route. The first time we went to the Gaoligong Mountains was also because he told us about it many years ago.