Long road to self-discovery

Mundane joy

Zheng says he felt like he didn't have much time to think of what he really wanted over the past 30 years.

He was born in a poor family in a rural mountainous area in Heilongjiang province and was raised on a meager income from his grandparents after his mother died while giving birth to him. He was at the receiving end of campus bullying in his early school years because he came from a single-parent family.

"Those frustrations made me think about changing the situation," Zheng says.

He buried himself in studies since middle school and eventually was admitted to the Southwest University of Political Science and Law in Chongqing in 2005. When his classmates pursued careers in economically developed areas, including Shanghai, he chose to settle down in a civil servant's position in Ngari prefecture, Tibet autonomous region.

He says he wanted a slow-paced life where he could have more time to think and write poems. But that lasted just about a year. He quit and left for Chongqing where he did legal work and ran a bakery with his friends. He also volunteered for rescue work after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan province.

Zheng had already traveled on a motorcycle to different places. He once went off to the mountains of Xishuangbanna, Yunnan province, for meditation.

The latest journey has helped Zheng to find peace with himself.

"It sort of made me mature and appreciate the beauty of mundane life," he says. "It never occurred to me how much of an enjoyment it would be to be around my family."

Now, Zheng is back at the law firm in Quanzhou and plans to have a work-life balance.

"Our thinking has merged," says Qing, adding that she believes the journey was a necessary process for her husband. "Life can be half poetic and half mundane."