White Couplets for Spring Festival

When Lao Li received the notice, he was munching on half a cold bun. The notice was simple, two words: "Paste couplets." He didn't pay much attention to it, after all, subway stations put up Spring Festival couplets every year before the Spring Festival, it was a routine. He put down the bun, picked up his toolbox, inside lay a brand new bucket of paste and a brush. Lao Li was a veteran employee of Shenzhen Metro, he could paste couplets with his eyes closed.

But when he arrived at the warehouse and saw the pile of snow-white paper rolls, he was stunned. What kind of Spring Festival couplets were these? These were clearly rolls of white paper! He opened one roll, it was covered in dense black Song typeface, it read like an obituary, or a tasteless instruction manual. He rubbed his eyes, confirming that he wasn't mistaken, these weren't red paper with black characters, but white paper with black characters, and they were pre-printed. He found the warehouse manager, who pushed up his glasses and said in a mechanical tone: "According to the higher-ups, this year's Spring Festival couplets will all use this."

Lao Li felt it was ridiculous, but years of workplace experience told him that asking more was useless. He carried a stack of white paper and headed for the subway station he was responsible for. People came and went on the platform, the hurried footsteps, the joy of returning home for the New Year, all seemed particularly jarring in the face of these white couplets. He hesitated for a moment, but still started pasting them up.

The white couplets pasted on the red pillars looked especially glaring. Passengers began to whisper, some took out their phones to take pictures, and others pointed and talked. Lao Li pretended not to hear, he was just a couplet paster, he was only responsible for pasting these white papers in the designated locations. A fashionable young girl walked up to him and asked, "Mister, why are the couplets white this year? Where I'm from, we only use white when someone in the family dies."

Lao Li smiled, he didn't know how to answer, he could only say, "It's what they asked for." The girl curled her lips, her eyes filled with confusion and a hint of fear. Lao Li watched her hurrying away, feeling a tightness in his chest. He thought of his parents far away in his hometown, they were getting old and were looking forward to him coming home for the New Year. He didn't know how to explain to them why the couplets in Shenzhen were white.

Over the next few days, white Spring Festival couplets were posted at various subway stations in Shenzhen, forming a strange spectacle. Some people posted photos online, which sparked heated discussions. Some said it was performance art, some said it was a desecration of traditional culture, and some said it was a metaphor for reality. All kinds of speculation and commentary filled the internet, but no one knew why.

It wasn't until the evening of Lunar New Year's Eve, while video chatting with his parents at home, that Lao Li learned from his parents that they had also pasted white Spring Festival couplets back home this year. His parents' tone was very calm, like they were talking about what they ate today. Lao Li was puzzled, and asked why, his parents simply said: "The town said, from now on it'll be like this, the New Year needs a new style."

Lao Li suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. He put down his phone and walked to the window. Outside, the city lights flickered like will-o'-the-wisps, those white couplets were like talismans, shrouding the entire city. He didn't know where things went wrong, but he knew that the world seemed to have become a little different.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, Lao Li went to his subway station for his shift as usual. He found that the white couplets had been torn down and replaced with brand new red couplets. He asked the station manager what happened, the station manager yawned and said, "The higher-ups said, it was a mistake, we pasted the wrong ones, and now we've corrected it." Lao Li looked at the station manager and suddenly felt a deep sense of powerlessness.

He walked up to the wall where the couplets were pasted, bent down, and picked up a torn-down white couplet. He looked at the words on it, dense and meaningless, like this absurd world. He wanted to tear it up, but then he put it down. He folded it up and put it in his pocket. Maybe, this was the only evidence he had of being in this city. He knew that after this New Year, everything would return to normal, as if nothing had happened. But Lao Li knew that some things had already quietly changed. And he, like a grain of sand thrown into a gear, would slowly, slowly be ground down.