Dear Jiaqian

Jia Qian is a writer I have been following on Weibo for five years. She is a Chinese living in Iceland.

When she was twenty-eight, after experiencing the loss of her child, divorce, and the darkest stage of her life, she set foot on Iceland alone and lived there.

At the beginning, I paid attention to her because I yearned for life in Iceland. I always felt that Iceland was a pure land with a small population, which was very suitable for a person to live alone. In her vlog, I saw the volcanoes, polar day, polar night, snow, wind, etc. that I wanted to see in Iceland.

Until she released a vlog on April 2, 2021, it was the first time she talked about her life before coming to Iceland, and I got to know her a little better. Because I don't have the same experience, I can't empathize with her. Her experience just makes me feel sorry for her. In her vlog, she shows us a sunny, positive and hard-working side.

I feel that her life is very far away from me and beyond my reach. I don’t have her experience, her courage, and her talent. I can only work hard towards it. Her direction is moving forward...

She said: If you say it now in a calm way, since you have chosen the sea and chosen to stay away from home, you must be braver. It sounds very pale and weak, so What sustains me is never being brave for the sake of being brave, but the simple two-word "experience", experiencing the extreme day, experiencing the extreme night, experiencing the wind, experiencing the snow, experiencing the sunshine, experiencing loneliness, and experiencing tears. We embrace the world and our own lives, not because everything is perfect, but to experience the wonderful things.