June

 On a Monday afternoon in June, after class was over, I walked toward the train station. Passing the Green Brain building, I paused at the intersection. After half a year of construction, the crossroads were finally open, and pedestrians could move freely again. The traffic light turned green. de. de. de. de. — sharper than usual, louder than memory itself. The air carried an early winter chill, yet I chose, as always, to slip in through the side entrance of the underpass, just to draw a few more breaths of the outdoors.

The Melbourne train pulled away from the CBD, sliding through a black tunnel, the carriage glowing under fluorescent lights — bright, yet shadowed. Only when it burst above ground at Jolimont did sunlight suddenly pour in, and the world outside lit up between the trees.

In June, Melbourne is washed in green. Yet the great trees stand with their brown branches bare against the sky — a sight peculiar to winter in the southern hemisphere. The rains of winter keep shrubs and lawns alive with freshness, though by summer the grass will fade to yellow. The trees, however, seem to hold their own memory, their own rhythm.

The train rolled past Clifton Hill. On a tall tower, Pam the Bird, with its dark, vacant eyes, stared blankly over the city. Its body was shaped like a carrot, tail pointing upward, beak downward. Painted in bands of blue and white, with a wide yellow mouth that gleamed, it looked as if it were about to dive from the heights — yet clumsy enough to seem as though it had simply been shoved off by its companions.

As the train slowly pulled out of Richmond, rows of rooftops came into view. Little blocks of orange-red, blue, beige, blue-grey, and silver-grey blurred together; I felt as though I were alone in a quiet studio, a soft, flat brush gliding across a canvas of beige, one square after another taking shape. And in the distance, the horizon grew clearer, lifting a pale grey-blue haze into the sky.

Before me, another city — SH — surfaced on the horizon, rising out of the mist like a mirage. Towers emerged faintly, one after another. The most striking was a spire built of three pink spheres stacked high — the Oriental Pearl. Around it stood buildings of glass and steel, mostly rectangular: pale blue, deep blue, lavender, grey. Their rooftops varied in shape, some domed, while others tapered like pyramids.

In June, SH is heavy with damp heat. The plum rains fall in bursts, one after another, and the skin is never dry — always coated with a faint stickiness, as though summer itself were pressed close against the body. On rainy streets, plane trees stand on the sidewalks in green, and people hurry past beneath their umbrellas. What I remember most is a grapefruit-coloured umbrella, carrying a hint of coolness into the stifling season. Under its shade, the air felt lighter, almost sweet against the rain.

Between the towers, the wind funnels like through a canyon, yet the roar of air conditioners at every corner makes the streets suddenly rise in heat. Only when I step inside a building does another world appear: quiet, cooled, sealed away. Up on the seventeenth floor, I brew a cup of jasmine tea — the taste of spring lingering into summer. From the glass wall, the city below still moves, cars and people threading through the streets, yet all without sound. As if the mute button had been pressed, the scene played like a silent film. For a moment, I was bound to the city visually, yet cut off from it in sound — close, and impossibly far. And then the phone at my desk began to ring ding ling…

I came back to myself as the train entered Heidelberg, slipping through a tunnel. The view outside blurred, folding into memory, carrying me to another land — YB.

Here in June, the sky is light blue, with little cloud or rain, and a gentle breeze makes it the softest season of the year. The air is scented with flowers, night jasmine thickening at dusk. Mist drifts across the hilltops, in place of the straight horizons of the city. Bamboo grows in groves, its tall stalks bending slightly under their own height, graceful in posture. Between the slopes lie patches of farmland and small houses, black tiles and yellow mud walls set into the green, like a restrained ink painting.

The earth here is red at its base. The peanuts of the season come caked in that soil, boiled with salt until tender and savory, each shell breaking open with the taste of land itself. In June, the Tengtengcai is crisp and green, with a faint bitterness — the taste of nature’s own character. But what I remember most are the cherries of the season: tiny, orange-yellow fruits, far smaller than Melbourne’s glossy cherries. They must be laid gently in bamboo baskets, cushioned with leaves. So fragile they spoil within a day, yet for that very reason, they are children’s once-a-year delight. For a single week, they linger, vanishing on the tongue like the season itself.

And on campus, too, June was ripening. Girls competed in silence, waiting to see who would be the first to step into a skirt. The air seemed warm enough yet still held a lingering chill. Until one afternoon, when a single hem lifted on the playground — a signal that summer had arrived. Soon there were more skirts, and the wind itself grew softer, as if the season were answering back.

Station after station, the train carried on. I leaned against the window, watching the landscapes layer in my mind: the blurred blocks of an abstract painting, the vertical lines of a realist cityscape, the free strokes of an ink wash field. Passengers boarded and departed, like encounters along a lifetime’s journey; some stayed, others went, and I slowly learned to see them off. The view outside will one day fade, but the memory of June remains vivid — the bird’s gaze, the grapefruit-coloured umbrella, the fleeting cherries, and the journey goes on.

2025.09.02