We travelled to many places together. Our first trip abroad was to Taipei, and it was also his first time on a plane. As we descended into Taoyuan Airport, he marvelled at the thought of crossing a thousand miles in just over an hour. “It feels like that bird in Pokémon,” he said, “the one that carries Ash and teleports him instantly.”
He loved dogs, and after being with me, he started to love cats too. Wherever we went, we sought out adorable animals, filling our photos with cats and dogs as often as we did with landscapes. Music also followed us on our travels—discovering a song by chance always felt like a rare and serendipitous connection.
Once, while wandering through Nanluoguxiang in Beijing, we were drawn into a café displaying a poster of A Clockwork Orange. Inside, surrounded by its collection of film memorabilia, we heard a song that was hauntingly beautiful and melancholic. Just before leaving, I worked up the courage to ask the shop owner what it was (this was back when Siri couldn’t identify songs). It was Lana Del Rey’s Summertime Sadness—a song, we later learned, inspired by the summer-night suicide of a friend. We’d somehow missed her music until that moment, despite how famous she already was.
But the trip I miss most was a few years ago, to Taichung. We hadn’t planned much in advance. After descending from the mountains of Qingjing, we visited Puli to meet a friend of his from Beijing. His friend drove us around in an old car, music playing as we cruised through the town. The voice coming through the speakers was magnetic—light and breezy, with a hint of languor. We were entranced. His friend told us it was Cat Power’s album, one he loved dearly. We fell in love with it too, especially Manhattan and Cherokee.
For me, that lazy winter afternoon, with its soft sunlight, the warmth of a small and welcoming town, the easy companionship of a hospitable friend, and the music we shared—all of it became more vivid and enduring than any scenery. At the time, our friend hadn’t yet decided on his future. Now, he’s married with a child. The one who loved film even more than we did plans to let his child play with cameras and camcorders as soon as they’re strong enough to hold them.
As time passes, those memories seem to drift further away, as if I’m now looking at them from above, through the detachment of a bird’s-eye view. And as life grows longer, the stretches of travel in my mind seem to grow shorter, compressed into brief, shining fragments.
But whether a trip is long or short doesn’t really matter. What matters is that it’s rich enough to linger, even if it’s just a single day. Like Before Sunrise. For me, the most romantic scene in any film I’ve ever seen is in that record shop, where Jesse and Céline listen to Kath Bloom’s Come Here. They sit close, sharing a pair of headphones, pretending to focus on the music while their thoughts circle each other. The lyrics draw a red thread between them, and they both seem to feel it tugging at their hearts.
Back then, we were young, careful with our money, and didn’t spend much on souvenirs. The best memories were kept in our minds, or in the photos we took with care and affection. Each journey, each place, left behind a unique scent, a sound, a colour. Reading Murakami’s What Do You Mean, Laos? last year, I stumbled across this line:
"But in that scenery, there was a smell, a sound, a tactile sensation. There was a special light, a unique wind blowing through it. A voice still lingers in my ears. I still remember the tremor in my heart at the time. It’s the kind of thing that photos can’t capture. Those landscapes will remain three-dimensional in my memory, vivid not just now but well into the future."
So today, let’s relive those most romantic two minutes with Kath Bloom’s Come Here.
Céline: “I like to feel his eyes on me when I look away.”
