An elevated view

In Beijing, the closeness between Gezi and his hairdressers, fitness instructors, deliverymen, masseurs and staff of the restaurants that he frequents goes far beyond the supposedly normal level for a city.

"There exists an unusual trust between us. I treat them like family," he says.

He tends to adopt an anthropological perspective to study all the kind of people he meets, holding that everyone has their spot in the tremendous web of the world.

"Big figures occupy a bigger spot and minnows have their relatively small space, and all the spots are clearly outlined, so don't assume that one can have the whole world," Gezi says on a podcast.

"At most, you can tell the logic of how the world runs from your own point of view, and when I wrote the book, I opened the door of my space to see the world from my perspective," he says.

Originally, the book was to include his interviews, but at the end of 2021, inspired by the works of French essayist Michel Montaigne (1533-92), he decided to try this literary form, especially as his essays had already won many readers online.

In six months, he finished 34 essays about topics ranging from his childhood memories, his experience in hospital, his bookmarkers, his opinions about a supermarket and his kind, beloved maternal grandmother, to Beijing's hutong, the Ewenki people in the forests of Northeast China, whose fathers and grandfathers were the last generations of hunters, and the people who try to protect wild swans.

"At first, I wanted to only write about my hometown, but after some time, I realized that this topic was too simple for me, so I wanted to try something else," he says.

"Actually, my hometown has become a part of me, and when I travel, it's always there in my heart. It has shaped my view of the world and my way of thinking and making friends — everything about me — so there's no need to limit my topics to the village."

Many Chinese writers have written about rural areas, especially the older generation of writers, often more about the hardship and suffering of country life, which Gezi says he is not comfortable with.

"I often feel that the rural areas described by writers from other countries are enviable, such as those fantastic places by (Gabriel) Garcia Marquez (Colombian novelist) or Calvino. But in many Chinese literary works, the rural areas seem to be full of misery and suffering. I'm not happy with that, because I had a very happy childhood and the countryside in my memories is very interesting," he says.

"Our countryside has a very beautiful side, which has not been properly represented," he says.