2016 was a muddled year. I stepped out of student life for the time being and into a strange in-between state: unemployed, drifting, and overshadowed by uncertainty about the future. It made me emotionally unstable—elated one moment, low the next. Student life ended so abruptly that I felt as if I had fallen into the crack between two worlds.

Leaving university behind

University was one of the bleakest periods of my life. Maybe that outcome had a lot to do with my own negative state of mind, but even so, I do not regret having felt that way. In June, I was finally able to say goodbye to it, and that was probably one of the happiest things to happen to me in years.

The irony is that the happiest stretch of my college years was the period when I was working on my graduation project. For once, I could escape the endless pointless classes, the meaningless meetings, and the people I did not want to see. I hid away in the lab and focused on finishing one thing well. I was the only student under my advisor who showed up at the lab every day, and I kept it up from beginning to end. Being fully immersed in something was a kind of joy I had not felt in a very long time. In the end, the project received a very good grade.

Thankfully, all of it is over. Saying goodbye to university felt like coming back to life.

A change in direction

I will skip the details, but I gave up on going to Germany and applied to schools in the United States instead. Within two months after graduation, I finished both the GRE and TOEFL, and then completed the applications. Overall, things went fairly smoothly.

Books, films, shows, and music

I spent much less time than usual keeping track of what I watched and read. Life did not leave me with much spare time for books or movies, so both the quantity and the focus of what I consumed became more scattered than before.

Film of the year

A Brighter Summer Day (1991)

This felt like exactly the right film for a year like this. I watched all four hours of it on a high-speed train from Shenzhen to Quanzhou. Looking at the film as a whole, the murder itself is not really the point. So much of the runtime is spent building that sense of youthful anxiety, along with the historical undercurrents behind it. The film is restrained in tone. Yi Yi, which I also watched this year, has a similarly long runtime, yet neither film feels boring. If anything, they feel too short.

Setoutsumi (2016)

This was the last film I watched this year. It screened during the Shanghai International Film Festival, but I did not consider seeing it then because I assumed a film built almost entirely on Japanese dialogue would probably include a lot of jokes I would miss. Later I saw that the response to it was very good, so I gave it a try. It exceeded my expectations. In just over an hour, with almost nothing but conversation, it managed to be consistently funny and engaging. The acting was excellent too. It made me nostalgic for all that time wasted during my student years.

TV of the year

Fleabag Season 1 (2016)

I have always had a soft spot for shows that are gloomy without becoming mournful, and this one felt fresh in the way it was told. True to the usual pace of British television, it moves fast and never drags.

Juhan Shuttai! (2016)

Compared with the previous show, this one is pure positive energy. Fortunately, it never feels fake and never forces sentimentality or packaged inspiration onto the viewer. It stays natural throughout. My favorite Japanese drama of the year.

The Trip (2015)

I no longer remember where this was recommended to me, but only a British series could go this wild with its ideas. It moves through countless parallel worlds, and the twist at the end is terrific. I am looking forward to a second season.

Animation of the year

The Eccentric Family (2013)

Like The Tatami Galaxy, this is adapted from a novel by the same author. It takes the old city of Kyoto as its setting and turns folkloric creatures and supernatural stories into something urban and modern. It is tremendously fun, and its way of thinking about life and death feels unexpectedly original.

The Tatami Galaxy (2010)

This was my favorite of the year. It also uses a parallel-world structure. The first few episodes can seem dull, but they are all laying the groundwork for the final payoff. Once it all comes together, the whole thing feels deeply satisfying.

Books of the year

Vagabond 1

I did not have time for many long, demanding books, so during school I read manga whenever I could. Vagabond is about a man growing up, and that theme resonated with me.

A University of Tokyo Dad Writes Japanese History for Me

I finished both volumes and came away with a much better understanding of Japanese history. The title makes it sound like something cheap and disposable, but it is actually a thoughtful and well-made introduction. It is not a full chronological history so much as a series of answers to specific questions.

Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China

This was the only truly substantial book I finished this year. Its perspective does lean toward the Kuomintang, of course, but for me its value lay in showing more clearly how international relations during World War II shaped the broader course of events. It also helped me better understand how the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, acting through the Nationalists and Communists, influenced both the war against Japan and the eventual outcome of the Chinese Civil War—something I had not paid enough attention to before.

Music

There was no single album worth setting down as the soundtrack of the year. I listened to all kinds of things. During the period when I was working on my graduation project, classical music became my background noise. Glenn Gould’s Bach was the record I kept returning to over and over. Fugue has a way of calming my restlessness.

Farewells

Parting is painful, but it is also unavoidable.

This year, I attended the funerals of two relatives and witnessed two deaths—very different kinds of death. Because of that, I found myself thinking often about life and death: how I might die in the end, and how I ought to live before that day comes. I quietly made some decisions for myself. What they were does not need to be said here.

I only hope that everyone reading this stays healthy, safe, and at peace.

Faraway places

I had two main trips this year: one to Thailand, and one graduation trip that took me to Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Quanzhou.

The Thailand trip had never been part of my plans. I was pulled into it at the last minute, so I had no control over the itinerary. We moved quickly through Bangkok and Pattaya in the most stereotypically tourist fashion possible. At the time, I suffered plenty from the Southeast Asian heat, but now, in the cold of January, I miss that weather intensely. To me, the South is like a summer that never ends, and that is exactly what I want.

Tropical countries have a special kind of looseness to them, an air of not taking everything so seriously. The roads are chaotic, yet the whole place feels charming and unpretentious. The contrast with Japan’s orderliness could not be clearer. I want to go back. I would return to Bangkok, and northern Thailand is also somewhere I want to see.

The second trip had originally been planned for the beginning of the year, but something came up and it fell through. After graduation, we finally made it happen. Once again, I headed south. During the planning process, we had more disagreements than ever before and could not settle on a destination for a long time. Eventually we fixed on Guangzhou, but then got stuck again over where to go next. In the end we compromised: after Guangzhou and Shenzhen, we would split up. But my return flight was canceled due to weather after I had already arrived at the airport. I immediately spoke with the friend traveling with me, and we decided to meet up with the other group in Quanzhou.

After all the detours and uncertainty, we still ended the graduation trip together as one group. Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Quanzhou—three cities whose names all contain animal imagery—ended up collected in one album of their own.