CHAPTER 116

2025-12-25

In a lifetime, besides the endless pleasures of eating, drinking, and sleeping, there is one more thing: building a campfire. If one could make a living from it and turn it into a lifelong career, that would not be a bad thing at all—and now it seems my younger son may be the one to realize this dream.

On Tuesday, because of car repair arrangements, my younger son needed me to act as his driver. At nine in the morning, I dropped him off at a country park, a half-hour drive away.

It was overcast but dry. The peak season had passed, parking at the park was free, and there were few visitors—perfect conditions for lighting a fire to while away the time. The picnic campsite had a large fire pit, with roofed picnic shelters on both sides, fitted with long wooden tables and benches—very convenient and comfortable.

During the summer, I had lit a campfire at the same spot and was given leftover firewood by visitors. I had kept it in the car trunk ever since. To be ready to split wood and make fire at any time, I had prepared a small axe. That morning, I brought matches, a lighter, wax blocks, and wood shavings.

After dropping my son off at the park office, I drove straight to the campsite. Only three private cars were in the parking lot, and a few idle visitors were walking alone for morning exercise or walking their dogs. When we crossed paths, we exchanged cheerful good mornings.

Using a handcart—normally used for buying groceries—I transported the firewood and tools to the fire pit. I wiped the rainwater off the benches with a cloth, sat down, and began splitting wood. Together with a few partially burned logs left behind by yesterday’s fire builders, the job was done in just over ten minutes. I set aside some thinner pieces, shaving them down to the thickness of thick chopsticks to help the fire catch. After months without practice, my wood-splitting and shaving skills were still intact—I felt quietly satisfied.

A small park maintenance vehicle approached, driven by a young, polite staff member. In fact, he was my son. The first time we built a campfire together was during the Easter holiday of 1999, when he was not yet seven. That year, for the first and only time, we rented a motorhome, twenty-seven feet long. At dinnertime, in the open space behind the vehicle at the campsite, we built a fire with tree branches. It barely burned for half an hour, using only what we had collected earlier from the lakeshore.

From then on, lighting a campfire became a must during every summer holiday. Later, I read books about fire pits and fire-making, while my son endlessly watched short videos on solo wilderness travel and survival. He even bought The Zombie Survival Guide—just in case of a zombie apocalypse. Once we both understood the principles of fire-making, every summer camping or overnight trip saw father and son working together to build fires, using wood left behind by others as well as what we bought ourselves. After dinner, the fire would burn until bedtime. The red glow of the flames remains vivid in my memory. My wife and Lun Lun, meanwhile, would stay inside the cabin, enjoying milk tea, soda, biscuits, and snacks.

In his early secondary school years, he even made small stoves himself, burning different fuels for backpacking trips, with quite good results (at least by my visual assessment when he tested it at home). The equipment is still kept to this day.

The joy and atmosphere of those annual trips and camping experiences were planted deep in his heart. That flame has continued to warm his inner world. He has the ability to observe and understand human nature and behavior, and he possesses knowledge gained from psychology, yet it is mountains, rivers, forests, and greenery that soothe his heart the most. While his mother was still alive, she knew of her son’s career choice and was delighted that he had found his direction and purpose, dedicating himself to the management of a “grand” park.

That day, the campfire I built—the glow and warmth of it—drew in two families, four adults and two children, as well as four middle-school students riding scooters and bicycles. We warmed ourselves together. I chatted happily with the two families, who even treated me to a bowl of hot egg noodle soup, several lettuce wraps with grilled lamb, and crispy grilled sausages—delicious indeed.

The firewood I brought was completely burned down to ash after four and a half hours. Only after evenly pouring a bucket of water provided by the park over the ashes, until all heat had dissipated, did I leave the site, fully satisfied.