That Ray of Light Is the Dream

He once thought his speech today would be titled Facing the Snow Mountain, Blossoms Never Fade. It was, in his own words, “a name too perfect to resist.”

If you stand on the rooftop of his hostel, you can look straight across at Jade Dragon Snow Mountain—face to face with its eternal white—and in Lijiang, flowers bloom all year round. “Blossoms never fade,” he said, “is not even an exaggeration.”

Beyond its poetic accuracy, the phrase carried a familiar echo: the drifting spirit of Haizi’s famous line—“to have a house facing the sea, with spring blossoms.”  That single image had long been a declaration of youth and freedom, a dream that had followed Xiao Peng through a decade of wandering with his backpack.

“Everything fit perfectly,” he told me. “It had the scenery, the dream, the idea of home. But I didn’t use it. I changed the title to What Is Love.”

He laughed a little as he said that, as if realizing how broad, how dangerously open the new title sounded. But then he explained why.

“It started last week,” he said.

That day, he had gone to Lijiang’s Sanyi Airport to pick up his parents, who were flying in to see him. He remembered standing by the arrivals gate when he saw his father walking out—and almost didn’t recognize him. “It had only been two months,” he said, “but his hair had turned so white.”

His mother, he noticed, was still as thin as ever. When he took her arm, her sleeve felt almost weightless, as if holding air. On the drive back, a deep sadness pressed on him. His mother said something simple—maybe without even thinking—“We’ve only come to cause you trouble.”

“I didn’t dare meet her eyes after that,” he told me quietly. “I was afraid she would see through my pretending to be strong.”

But his thoughts were soon interrupted by his phone. On WeChat, a small group chat had lit up—the one with just three people: him, An Nan, and Yang Jing.

“All three of us used to live in Beijing,” he said. “We were busy with our own lives, but every Friday night, no matter what, we met at this café in Sanlitun. It’s closed now. We talked about everything—work, love, things that didn’t matter at all. No taboos. We’d talk until it felt like our hearts were out in the open.”

When he and Yang Jing later left Beijing, the conversations moved to WeChat.

“That day,” he recalled, “it was An Nan who started it.”

An Nan had gone to a friend’s funeral that morning. On the way back, the girl who went with him suddenly said, ‘I want to stay with you till the end of life.’

“He said he was deeply moved,” Xiao Peng told me. “And then he began to wonder—what is love, really?”

Yang Jing, ever the rational one, replied: ‘At the start, all feelings are good—honest, passionate. But even if you label it love, fix it into a word, it still doesn’t mean anything definite.’

Xiao Peng said, “At that moment, I looked away from the screen to my parents beside me, and I typed: Love is companionship. Like my father and mother—how they stumbled through their youth, yet grew old together, still side by side.”

After that message, he stopped following the conversation. He just gazed out the window, watching the landscape slide by, blurred and unreachable. And somewhere between the clouds and the road, he found himself thinking seriously—what is love, after all?

He fell silent for a while when telling me this, then smiled slightly, as if speaking to himself again:

“I think love, first of all, is persistence.”“Everyone knows I love traveling,” he began again, his tone brightening as if sunlight had broken through the clouds of memory. “I’ve been on the road for more than ten years. But not everyone knows how rough that road really was.”

He leaned back a little, then continued, more softly:

“People only see the part that looks like spring snow—beautiful, clean, free. But they don’t see the times I was robbed, cheated, nearly killed. They don’t see the loneliness, or the moments when I doubted everything. Because what really wears you down isn’t the danger—it’s the uncertainty.”

He paused, searching for the right words. “You see, when you’re walking a road that no one can guide you through, you don’t know if it even leads anywhere. You don’t know whether crossing one mountain will only reveal another, taller one. Sometimes you start to wonder if, before you ever reach your dream, you’ll lose yourself completely.”

He smiled faintly. “A few years ago, when I told my friends about these doubts, they said to me, ‘You have to keep going. You’re carrying all of our dreams on your back.’”

He laughed softly, shaking his head. “I didn’t think of it that way. But they were right about one thing—if you love something, you have to keep at it. Persistence is the simplest, most direct way of saying you love.”

Eventually, Xiao Peng did what few could: he completed his dream of traveling around the world. And when that circle closed, he began to slow down.

“That’s when I thought—it’s time to build something,” he said. “Something that could hold everything I’d seen, everything I’d learned. That’s how Backpack Ten Years Youth Park began.”

He smiled as he spoke the name, the pride and exhaustion in his eyes intertwined like two threads of light.

“From the day we broke ground, December 1st last year, I started recording everything on Weibo,” he said. “Every small success, every disappointment, every change of weather. From Day 1 to Day 300 and beyond—I barely missed a single day. That’s another kind of persistence, I think.”

He took out his phone, scrolling as he spoke, reading from the old posts like diary entries:

Day 1: The firecrackers went off. My youth hostel officially starts construction. In the next year, I’ll put all my heart and energy into this project. I can’t promise it’ll be the best, but I promise it’ll be the most heartfelt. It’s in Shuhe Old Town. See you next year!

He looked up. “Today I can proudly say—I kept that promise.”

Then another:

Day 116: The 75-meter mural wall has been painted white. Soon, it’ll be ready for color. What it’ll look like in the end? I don’t know yet. Let’s just wait and see together.

He smiled. “Now that wall is one of the most beautiful sights in Shuhe.”

And then:

Day 145: I was sitting in the new courtyard, spacing out. At first I was thinking about practical things—window sizes, stair placement. Then suddenly I saw people walking back and forth in my mind, like a daydream.

He looked up, laughing quietly. “That daydream is now reality—bustling crowds in and out every day.”

He scrolled one last time:

Day 150: 150 days since the start—should’ve been a happy day. But my mood was low. I spent the morning covered in dust at the site, talking to contractors until my throat went dry. Then it rained and got cold. I thought: why am I doing this to myself? I could’ve been living an easy life. But once construction starts, there’s no turning back. You just have to walk the tightrope—don’t look down, only look forward.

He put the phone down. “That was one of my hardest days. But it also reminded me—love is stubborn. Love doesn’t always feel like joy. Sometimes it’s just not giving up.”

He smiled again, almost to himself. “Yes,” he said quietly, “I think love starts with persistence.”

“Love,” Xiao Peng said, “is also familiarity.”

He looked around the space—the hostel he had built from an empty lot into a living home—and smiled. “I know every inch of this place. Every room, every nail, every screw. I know exactly how deep the pool is, how far the projector stands from the wall, how bright the light bulbs are, and even how high the showerheads should be. I designed every bed and every piece of furniture with my own hands. I’ve lived every detail of this place.”

He ran his hand along the table beside him. “If that’s not love, then what is?”

He paused for a moment before continuing. “And love, I think, is also about trust—about placing yourself into something fully. I’ve poured everything I like into this youth park. I love movies, so I built a 400-inch screen. I love books, so I made a 24-hour library—when you can’t sleep at night, you can read until morning. I love National Geographic magazines, so I made a geography café, filled with nearly 500 of them, open for anyone to read. I love music, so I made sure every corner of this place carries a song.”

He leaned forward slightly, his tone softening. “And as a traveler, I gave each room its own theme—Amazon, Sahara, the Andes. Each one is a place that once made my soul tremble.”

He smiled again. “You see? I’ve entrusted my whole life to this place. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.”

Then he began to name the people who, as he said, “made this love real.”

“Yang Jia loves me,” he said with a laugh. “Ten years ago, we traveled to Vietnam together. This time, she came all the way from Beijing to paint my mural wall. But you know what’s funny? She spent several days working here—and never once stepped into the courtyard. Every morning she started painting at sunrise, and every night she left when she had no strength left. She gave everything, without even saying much.”

He smiled, shaking his head. “That’s love.”

“My university junior, Liu Nan, also loves me,” he went on. “He took leave from work, flew to Lijiang, and helped me build that sand table in the café. He spent hours discussing what color the rivers in Africa should be, and how to arrange the animals so the scene looked logical yet still full of tension—like the mantis stalking the cicada, unaware of the bird behind. He pushed every detail to perfection. I started to think maybe he’s a Virgo.”

He laughed. “San Pang, our ‘General,’ loves me too. He painted Che Guevara on that wall, and One Page of Yunnan, that beautiful piece full of local plants. He also helped me mosaic patterns out of broken porcelain—whatever I dreamed up, he made real.”

He looked around again, as if seeing them all standing there still. “And then there were the volunteers who worked here during our trial run. They must have loved me, or at least loved this place. Otherwise, why would they buy tickets just to come back?”

He started naming them. “Xue Jiao flew from Guiyang, Xiao Zheng and Yu Han from Chongqing. And then there’s Meng Sha, Long Bo, Ya Nan—where are you guys? Oh, and little painter Deng Huang—you’re here too. Thank you all for coming back today.”

He stopped for a moment, then said softly, “But really, I can’t say they loved me—it’s more that they loved what we built together. This park. This feeling.”

He straightened his back slightly, and his voice took on the warmth of pride.

“I also know that every one of my staff loves this place too,” he said. “They work here with low pay, heavy workloads, far from home—and still, they stay. Each of them has become a kind of multi-tool human being.”

He laughed, shaking his head fondly. “Take our manager, Xiao Cui. He’s not just running operations—he’s also the driver, the cycling team leader, the guy who hauls bricks, carries wood, repairs bikes, sells scrap metal. Whenever something goes wrong, you’ll find him there—this big Northeastern guy, tanned by the Lijiang sun.”

He continued, “Su Xi too—she’s our accountant, but she’s also an amazing cook and seamstress. She’s the life of every party, singing and dancing louder than anyone. And Wang Xiao Jian—he’s the serious one, tracking every detail of the hostel’s progress, refining every system, working the most night shifts. His dedication—everyone sees it.”

He started listing more names, one by one, his voice full of gratitude: “There’s Little Pig, always ready to help. Master Yue, who rarely speaks but never says no. Li Jian, with that raspy crow-like voice. Lao Pu, quiet but steady. Xiao Hong, who’s been trying to lose weight forever and still fails gloriously. Xiao Meng, who insists she’s a great beauty—and honestly, she is. And then Xiao Mei, Xiao Rui, Xiao Tong, Xiao Wei, Xiao Ming, Mao Mao… everyone who fought by my side. Look what we built together—it’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

He took a breath, smiled again, and added, “And love, above all, is trust. I need to thank my business partners—my cousin, my classmate, and the big sister who once helped me so much. When my funding nearly collapsed, they didn’t hesitate. They wired me the money without asking for control, without interfering. They let me dream recklessly, without compromise.”

He went quiet for a moment, then said softly, “And of course, none of it compares to the love from my parents. That kind of love… it nags, but still gives you freedom. It scolds, but never stops protecting. When life beats me down, home is still the safest place in the world.”“I once wrote a story in my book Backpacking for Ten Years,” Xiao Peng said quietly, his eyes softening with memory.“It was about the time I got lost in the mountains of France. A kind old lady helped me find my way. When I thanked her, she smiled and said just one thing to me: Love is a circle.”

He looked down at his hands, the same hands that had carried backpacks across continents and built a hostel brick by brick.“Since then, I’ve wanted to be a part of that circle — a passer of love, not just a receiver. I wanted to make sure others could feel the same warmth that once saved me.”

He paused. The lights in the youth park glowed softly around him.“I want every guest who walks into Backpack Ten Years to feel that love is warmth. No matter how strong the winds blow outside, or how hard the rain falls — as soon as you step through my door, you’ll see smiling faces, you’ll have a warm bed, you can take a long, hot shower. Stay long enough, and maybe you’ll forget there’s a world beyond these walls.”

He smiled faintly. “That’s the kind of home I want to build.”

Then, more firmly:“I want my staff to feel that love is protection — and support. Whatever trouble you face — in love, in work, in life — you’ll always have me here. I’ll be your umbrella. Don’t mind that I’m a decade older — I still want to walk with you, talk with you, be your friend, heart to heart.”

His voice dropped to a near whisper.“And for my parents, who came all the way to Lijiang to see me… I want them to feel that love is gratitude. I made them worry for years — for every white hair on their heads, I owe them a lifetime of care. I just want to spend time with them now — to talk about anything and nothing, as long as we’re together.”

Then his tone brightened, like sunlight cutting through clouds.“More than ten years ago,” he said, “when I was traveling in Europe, I learned that some youth hostels don’t allow people over 35 to stay. According to international standards, once you’re past 35, you’re no longer ‘youth.’”

He laughed softly, the sound warm and full.“Tonight is October 6, 2014 — 8 p.m. In just a few hours, I’ll turn 36. That’s why I chose tonight to open Backpack Ten Years Youth Park. From now on, I can stay wherever I want, whenever I want — because this is my home. And I,” he said, with a small, triumphant smile, “am its king.”

Finally, he looked straight ahead, his voice steady, carrying the clarity of someone who had truly lived his dream.

“To every young person still chasing theirs,” he said,“remember — a person can stay forever young,as long as they keep believing in dreams, and keep loving their dream deeply.”