Out of The Blue 白日屯雷

In my childhood memories, there was something particularly curious about my relatives’ home: everyday objects—like the television, houseplants, wall paintings, doors and windows—were all marked with small round stickers. Though I would later learn this practice was rooted in a kind of mysterious belief, over time it quietly transformed into a paradox as light as a feather, embedded in daily life.

Many years after moving away, I began roving and exploring along rivers. One day, while passing through the Xinwu Highway, I came across a place where several tall, white deity statues stood—each over two or three meters high, shining and serene, but wrapped tightly in layers of transparent plastic. Around them were large stones covered with burlap cloth, and tall golden rocks standing like quiet sentinels. Somehow, all of this reminded me of the strange way objects were treated in my childhood home. 

It made me wonder—does that surreal, dreamlike feeling come from how we often ignore the small details in our surroundings? Perhaps these impressions were never gone at all, merely buried deep within the folds of memory, like a bolt of lightning suddenly appearing in a cloudless sky.