Urban legends of success

As I walked to the nearby supermarket today, the streets were quietly resting under the relentless late summer rain. Rain dropping on my umbrella. Cars and buses silently passing by. The smell of dirt and the tickling sounds of the small canal, the water so clear that I could see its shadow on the rocks. Myriads of green shades surrounding this small neighbourhood, pastel purple of daisies, and the incredible vibrant orange of an unknown tree whose flowers smell like fresh laundry. On mornings with gentle sunshine and the room’s windows wide open, the wind carries with it a hint of those flowers to my study desk. For the first time in my life, I’m living in a place where even the air smells nice. It is a small city in the south of Japan called Beppu, facing the sea, at its back there are mountains. 

One week before Christmas 2024, I had a 12-hour flight from London to Hanoi. I didn’t bring much but a carry-on suitcase with some winter clothes, my devices, a notebook, and two gel pens. Because I’d already spent a month back home during Summer, I didn’t plan to have another break during Winter at all. However, the cold and gloomy weather of Britain did have a way to make people feel homesick. One week into the Winter break, after finishing all the deadlines for school and work, I had a quick catch-up with my dear friend at our favourite Italian restaurant on Store street to say goodbye and apologise for not staying to go on our New Year trip. I booked a two-way ticket from the remaining fews on the airline’s website, paying extra for an extra-legroom seat. The economy class that day was packed with people. However, it was quiet enough for me to do some writing when the night fell. I don’t remember what I wrote on that flight, but I can recall that I felt extremely tired. I never really got used to being on the plane, putting myself in a tiny seat, limiting my movements so as not to disturb the one next to me, and trying to sleep for hours while sitting. 

After 12 hours on the plane, I landed in Noi Bai International Airport. My family came to pick me up as they always did every time I returned home. Through the window of the car’s backseat, the familiar highway gradually emerged. There were more vehicles than usual on the road. I assumed it’s because the year was ending and another New Year slowly approached. People rushed to finish up what they hadn’t done. It’s always like that, the New Year represents a fresh start with new plans, new trips, new people, new things. That somehow goes hand in hand with us having to put a proper end to our old year. We avoid dragging the incomplete matters into our “fresh start”. But is it really possible to abandon all that belong to the past and reinvent a completely new beginning? I assume, not. As I reflected on all the trips and plans I took, I realised life is like a history-dependent evolution, in which the next step we take depends on our previous ones. The marks we’ve left on our journey follow us and in a way, influence the next thing that we do or come into our life. Life is not memoryless. We can’t erase the past year just because another New Year comes up. There may not even be any new plan. The plan may come from a small intention you set many years ago and now return, pushing you to do something with it.

And so, in a new year back home after booking a quick flight from London to Hanoi, I decided to take a gap year and go to Japan. And, it must be the Japan I read from a book when I was a 15-year-old girl. The Japan where I can slow down. Far away from distractions, where I can listen to the tiptoes of seasonal changes, from summer to autumn, from autumn to the winter cold. Where I smile at a tiny crab crossing the road, child birds yelling in the early morning asking for foods. Where I wait for the train to pass then run to catch the bus on time. Where the road to school goes uphill. Amidst large canopies of the mountain trees turning yellow and red as November reaches an end, the university I’m attending lies in the middle of a mountain. Where I live, there’s only one option to go shopping on foot – the supermarket I mentioned at the very start. I mostly buy foods there, but there is also a small area for clothing, bedding, kitchenware, and toiletries, etc. – everything fits into an area smaller than the Hobbs store in Canary Wharf or the Format on Ba Trieu street. Everything you need for your daily life fits perfectly into that one-floor supermarket. There is also a small cake shop right next door for when you want to treat yourself something special. But even inside the supermarket, there are cakes and snacks that appear on the shelf for a limited period of time, after which new ones will come. For example, during the Halloween season, there was a special chocolate cream cake, but they no longer sold it after that. Now is the season of mango cakes. Sometimes, there are pies. The supermarket has a small area for ready-made foods as well, usually quite busy during lunch time. I treat myself something from that corner every Saturday lunch – vegetable tenpura, sometimes sushi, but usually just seaweed onigiri. My joys have become much simpler since coming here. 

Five months. I keep reminding myself that I have five months only to live like this. From late summer to autumn, and then when winter arrives with snow in February, I will take a morning flight already booked back to Hanoi, back to the hustling and loudness of a big city. Having an ending preset is strangely calming. Certainty is perhaps the best cure for anxiety. Whether it is a definite end of a trip, the payment date of your salary, or the routine you know you will repeat once you wake up. Certainty of any kind is a remedy for the anxiety we inevitably experience, given a life filled with the uncertain and the unknown. Because life is always uncertain when it has the future tense, it’s hard to promise that I will continue living like this when I leave this small city. The surrounding has a significant impact on our feelings, thinking, health, routine, urges, etc. – everything. I may be able to live like this when I stay here. Yet, for my whole life living in big cities, this never truly happened no matter how much I tried to slow down. This is not to say that my life after this five-month trip will be exactly the same as before. The time living here will definitely bring into my life some changes – fundamental, superficial, trivial, or critical. As I now see clearly that without the titles – from the brand of clothes and cars, the social connections, the university’s reputation, the job’s status, attached to their identity, people can still live well and live happily. They are still, fine. Unlike the disastrous feeling we have when imagining our life not making this achievement or going through that milestone, a life without those may be just as good as a life with a lot of those. They are just good in different ways. 

Big cities are, for sure, where some of my dreams can prosper. However, many of the stories they tell – about wealth, fame, power, and success, lack the more holistic picture of a good life. Imagine ourselves at the age of 60s or 70s. The idea of time travelling may sound childish, but that kind of thought experiment does allow me to realise how fleeting all these human fights and competitions are. What would we truly want to go through in our life, if we could start at the age of 65 instead of 20? Maybe, just maybe, it would be simply being able to enjoy some ripe persimmon fruits when their season arrives, spreading a bright orange colour all over the streets of this peaceful town. 

I am not convincing anyone, including myself, to not try hard with whatever dreams, ambitions, or even greeds that one may have. One may want to try even harder when realising that at an age, we will lose the appetite for them completely. The more important thing this story’s been meaning to tell is, try not to mistake those big goals for what makes you a good person and what makes yours a good life. Chasing superficial values is one bad thing. Yet, chasing things which are considered inherently valuable (e.g., knowledge, connection, legacy) can also erase our very sense of personal identity, if the way we perceive them depends entirely on how our surrounding society sets their market values. It is important to decide by ourselves what makes us “us” and thus, what makes our life “our own life”. I believe that is the best way to live a fulfilling life. 

The world may tell us hundreds of stories of success, but they rarely tell us stories of good life. Indeed, what makes a life good is usually its successful stories. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. And it shouldn’t have to be that way. One should think for oneself, whether a good life is already a successful life. Or, in order for a life to be good, it must be successful like what the urban legends have been telling. Then, an even bigger question comes up – what is a good life? I leave it here for you and also for myself to ponder upon. 

BY LYNN NG.