To place this short collection of what reads like diary entries into perspective: Nan Kang Bai used to write a blog where he depicted small quotidian episodes of his life with his then boyfriend - who he refered to as 'husband' - a relationship that lasted for seven years. The blog entries are still available out there, and they are quite beautiful, in my opinion, his writing had a quiet honesty where dashes of soft poetics gave it a depth of emotion that cannot be explained, only felt, often barely perceived. It's something that touches on the soul, not on the brain. This collection was written post blog, and came in the aftermath of their break up. 'Husband' chose to - in a country and at a time where homosexuality was viewed with even worse eyes that it is nowadays - conform to 'societal norms and expectations' and leave his boyfriend to marry some girl - perhaps in the hopes of leading a 'normal' life without having to face prejudice? Nan Kang Bai apparently takes the break up well, accepts it in good stride, but what follows is a slow descent into a dreadful depression.
Now, if you've gone through a break up that, despite not being messy, has been extremely heartbreaking because you can't come to terms with it and your sentiments for that person do not change, no matter how much time passes (remember time is relative to every one, months can feel like centuries if in the depths of painful loss and despair) you will relate to these short entries. You will know what Nan Kang Bai suffered, and you will retrieve the memory of what it is to feel like that. Not only are these entries written in a very unpresumptuous manner, they are beautifully written with a raw, quiet storm of emotions that rests just short of being explosive - and this tells you so much about the kind of man he was, keeping it all to himself, swallowing the pain, never showing it other than on these entries, and even there, in a very controlled manner. The one entry that made me cry was the one where he confesses having broken down in front of the one friend he has who knows about this relationship, and even that is exposed in a way that to some will feel bland and almost emotionless, but is anything but that.
He promises 'husband' that he will wait until the age of 35 for him, and then, if nothing changes, move on with his life. But right at the start, he says he may not be strong enough to wait so long, paving the way to what will eventually come.
Two years after writing these short entries, Nan Kang Bai killed himself.
And left a testament for the still countless voices cut short of the promise of life, freedom and happiness because the world refuses to move on, refuses to admit, refuses to accept. There are many Nan Kang Bais and even more 'Husbands' out there, which only hammers the fact that, even though so many years have passed, nothing's really changed, after all.
It's a sad, beautiful read, even more when you put it in context.