Who said Dali is poetry and distance
In the hustle and bustle, there are troubles and problems
Eight years ago, when the housing prices in Chengdu skyrocketed, Mi Xiaomi sold the small jump in Chengdu and bought a yard in Dali.
Unexpectedly, the housing price in Chengdu has risen from 6,000 a flat to 20,000 a flat. As of July this year, Dali’s house prices have fallen for 15 consecutive months, from 0.2% to 6.6%, and the decline has just stopped recently.
Due to financial pressure, she had to work several jobs to support her life.
It used to be a fashionable way of life to escape from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to settle in Dali. Recently, because the epidemic has not affected much there, many people have gone to pursue poetry and distance.
However, the mentality of those who went to Dali a few years ago has already undergone earth-shaking changes.
01
Sell the house to Dali, lose 2 million
Mi Xiaomi, from Chengdu, lived in Dali for 6 years
When it comes to coming to Dali, it is really a forehead decision.
It took me less than 10 minutes to make this decision. Looking up at the gray sky in Chengdu, the balance in my heart naturally leans towards Dali on the Cangshan and Erhai seaside.
When I first came here, I moved three times and traveled all over the districts and villages in Dali Haixi and Haidong before I found a place I liked. It has been renovated for more than half a year. In the hot summer, I take the children to visit the furniture city. It is not necessary to mention the hard work.
Because I want to earn money to support my children, I live in part of the house and use part of it as a homestay to receive guests.
The business of the homestay was good a few years ago, but now it is not good. There are fewer and fewer people in the ancient city, the streets are full of shops with sales, and many shops and inns in the alleys are closed.
Seeing that the house in Chengdu has risen by at least 2 million, saying that I have no regrets is the last stubbornness of biting my posterior molars. If I didn’t toss and lie down at the time, I guess it would be easier now. However, there are so many ifs in life.
I heard that there were colleagues holding a group for heating, and several homestay owners cooperated to gather all the guests they received into one inn, and the other ones locked their doors to save water, electricity and labor costs. It sounds embarrassing and helpless.
Many friends around me couldn’t hold on and chose to leave. I’m still holding on, I don’t know how long it will last.
Some people on the Internet say that Dali’s expenses are not large, but if you pay attention to the quality of life, you can’t help spending money. Our family spends about 10,000 yuan a month, 3,700 yuan for children to go to school, 1,000 yuan for utilities, and 2,000 yuan for grocery shopping. Usually too busy, ask my aunt to clean up 600 yuan.
There are also some other messy expenses, such as gardening, which is one of them. I planted a large field of flowers at home. At first, I wanted to plant everything. I watered, dewormed, and fertilized every three days. A large field fell down in the rainy season, and I paid a lot of school fees for this.
The pressure of life comes one after another. I have to run a homestay, and I also want to be a blogger and sell local specialties online.
Taking pictures, being a model, and shooting videos are all done by one person. I am a relatively stupid type of person, thinking hard about writing copywriting, often working overtime until late at night.
To be honest, in addition to tourism-related industries, Dali does not have as many job options and opportunities as other big cities.
I was originally a relatively introverted person, but now I step out of my comfort zone, go to orchards all over Yunnan to find organic ecological ingredients, and cooperate with ancient jewelry designers to shoot. The homestay is also changing its business ideas, providing guests with 14-day and 28-day sojourn plans. Still experimenting with the elderly care business.
In order to keep my guests, I worked hard on my photography skills and learned how to take good-looking photos of them.
Once, a netizen who often followed me said in the comment area: “Now there are more photogenic photos.” I replied: “I can’t, life is forced.”
When I settled in Dali and bought a house, I thought that life would be stable, but these three years have been like standing on a swaying rope, in danger of falling at any time.
I don’t know where the river of life will push me to, let’s live by water and grass. In fact, no matter where you live, there are a steady stream of troubles and problems that need to be solved, and you can only face the difficulties.
02
My child’s education gives me a headache
Looking at the clouds in the daytime, from Shanghai, settled in Dali for 3 years
In 2019, at the age of 30, I left Shanghai with my 3-year-old child to go to kindergarten in Dali. People around said it was incredible, “Why did you go to Dali? Don’t do it from Shanghai? Become a Yunnanese?”
Shanghai is fast-paced, and I am often too busy to spend time with my children. So, I want to give the family 3 years to grow together. This is an adventure that belongs to our family.
Introduced by a friend, I learned about Dali’s innovative education model and found it very interesting. When I mentioned it to my wife, she initially disagreed.
Later, we went to Dali to take a look. We saw big trees, tree houses, swings, and children running freely in the sun. We were moved in a trance. This is what our ideal kindergarten looks like!
After moving to Dali, the pace of life really slowed down. But behind the comfortable life, there is also anxiety.
The more troublesome thing now is the education of the children. In June of this year, the child graduated from kindergarten, and the original three-year plan should have come to an end. But for us who are used to freedom in Dali, it is obviously difficult to return to the urban system.
Continue to stay in Dali. The educational resources here do not meet our requirements. There is no corresponding education system for junior and senior high schools, and there are very few schools to choose from.
There are three most common choices for parents around, either to go back to the city to receive regular education, or to connect to international schools in other cities, or to send their children to study abroad.
I temporarily found a school for my child in Dali as a transition.
Sometimes when I think about my career development, I feel a little lost. The early thirties were originally a period of career advancement, but I got used to it in Dali, and I became a little less “motivated”.
In order not to let myself idle, I have sold matsutake mushrooms, painted illustrations, made music, worked in inns, and set up street stalls in the community in Dali.
This spring, I forced myself to sit in front of the computer and wrote a novel of more than 100,000 words. Now, my main source of income is photography. I shoot when I have a job, and I stay at home with my wife and children when I don’t have a job.
As for the future, there is a high probability that we will venture to another city, but it has not yet been determined.
Once, I said to my wife, “If we don’t have kids, we should be pretty cool.” She replied, “If you don’t have kids, what do you need the money for, and there’s nowhere to spend it.”
03
If you are idle for a long time, you will get tired
Yanyu, a native of Northeast China, lived in Dali for 1 year
I am from Northeast China, born in the 90s.
After graduating from university, I first worked in a real estate company in Beijing. Every day, the company and the rental house were on the line. I didn’t know the neighbors, and I lived as an isolated island.
Once I worked overtime until late at night, and it was raining heavily, and my taxi was cancelled by the driver again. The wind was blowing in my face, and the cars on the road roared past, so I hurried into a convenience store to take shelter from the rain.
Inadvertently, I saw an essay written by a person living in Dali in the circle of friends, about how simple and happy life is, and I was very envious of it.
Since then, the idea of going to Dali has been planted in my heart.
In October last year, the entire real estate industry was in a bad situation. The company was laying off staff. After I got the compensation, I went directly to Dali to relax.
When I first came here, I could clearly feel the happiness brought by the shrinking physical space. I quickly regained the “social cow” attribute, and I became familiar with the people around me. We often climbed mountains, chatted, and drank tea together. I haven’t laughed as happily as a child for a long time.
One day I was wandering around the town and saw a family killing fish and cooking rice. I was so old and had never seen a scene of killing fish. I just stood there watching out of curiosity for a while. Have a meal. That might be the feeling of living nearby, giving one a sense of belonging.
However, without the restraint of the company, I became loose and swayed intermittently. No matter how beautiful the scenery is, the more you see it, the more you will get tired. The life of walking, daze, shopping and eating has been too long, and like a busy life, you will feel bored.
In order to support myself, I will find some part-time jobs, such as design, typesetting, etc. As long as I have a computer, mobile phone and the Internet, I can work, and it is easier to get started. But part-time work is often more urgent, so I have to stay up late, sometimes until two or three o’clock in the evening.
What’s more, these odd jobs are also unstable and have no guarantees, so I often have a feeling of “use it and throw it away”. That string is tense all the time, rarely really relaxed. I don’t know if Gap has been around for so long, if I can find a suitable job after I go back.
Fortunately, now I only need to support myself, the pressure is not too great, and I can’t imagine what it will be like to get married and have children in the future.
The most comfortable life in Dali may be people who have mines at home, or who are already financially free, who can enjoy life with peace of mind.
I also tried to find a job in Dali, but the income ceiling was clearly visible. The money I have accumulated in the past few years will always be exhausted, so I will definitely go to the first and second tier cities to work hard in the future, after all, I am still young.
Just as Kuan Kuan, a writer who settled in Dali, wrote: “People in Dali all know to varying degrees in their hearts, just put a period of life here, and how long they will stay in the future, who can say for sure.”
The trend of escaping from Beishangguang will blow up every once in a while. People are tired of the involution in front of them, and they rush to the distance impatiently. But the utopia in the distance is not as beautiful as imagined.
Even in the picturesque Dali, parenting worries, confusion about the future and economic pressure will never disappear out of thin air.
The legendary romance is nothing but a spice for daily life. After being temporarily healed by the beauty, you still have to face the chicken feathers of life. Maybe lying flat has nothing to do with the environment, but a choice in your heart.
Written and edited by Silence Xin
The picture comes from the interviewee, Husi Dali Garden, [email protected]米米米, released with authorization