Thoreau once said that a person can live truthfully only in a place where nobody knows him (“…if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land…”). To be able to live truthfully is a priceless gift from God, hidden beneath the rough wrappings of exile and wandering.

When I first moved into a neighborhood where I was the only foreigner, I discovered that when I was angry, I could shout out swear words without worrying that the neighbors would hear and label me a “shrew.” Nobody could understand the curse anyway.

When I was a child, I once wandered into a bookstore and saw a comic book with a beautiful woman on the cover. Its title was The Painted Skin. I thought it must be a fairy tale, something like The Seven Fairies. I bought it and eagerly began to read. But the further I read, the more frightened I became: the beautiful woman was actually a ghost with a blue face and fangs. The delicate skin she wore had been stripped from some dead person. Every day, when no one was around, she would paint the eyebrows and lips on that skin; when the makeup was done, she would shake it, throw it over herself, and instantly, the ghost and the skin became one—again appearing perfectly human.

When I grew older, I learned that it was a story from Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (Liaozhai Zhiyi)—all ghost stories. Knowing that made me less afraid of walking alone at night. But now I understand something deeper: how many people live just like that ghost—one skin by day, another by night; one face in front of others, another behind their backs.

If there truly exists a place where people can cast off all their masks and simply be their genuine selves—to love what they love, to reject what they hate—then even if that place is not heaven, it must be very close to it.

And where is that place? Thoreau gave the answer long ago, and I have proven it for you—it is in that distant land, far from homeland, where no one knows you.