photography | Deyu Yang

The wake of a boat on deep blue water, looking back at a harbor entrance with a stone fort, a small lighthouse, and buildings glowing in the evening sun.

A domed cathedral of striped stone rising above a city of pale buildings, with hills behind and a grassy slope in the foreground.

An old-fashioned street lamp above coastal shrubs, overlooking a long breakwater, choppy blue sea, and hills across the bay.

A white church with an onion-domed bell tower on a green hilltop above a turquoise lake, with people strolling along a garden path below.

A restaurant with a round thatched roof on top of a grassy hill, with orange wooden benches under a clear blue sky.

回忆 · Memory

毕业考试、答辩结束后的第二天，在巴拉顿湖边的一个圆形茅草顶餐厅吃午饭，一向不善饮酒的我，主动点了一大杯扎啤。

The day after my final exams and thesis defense, I had lunch at this round, thatched-roof restaurant by Lake Balaton. Never much of a drinker, I ordered a large draft beer all on my own.

The photographer, seen from behind with a backpack, looking across the street at the Petőfi Sándor Library, a white two-story building with a red tiled roof.

回忆 · Memory

我很喜欢的一张自己的背影，在米什科尔茨，望着红瓦白墙的裴多菲·山多尔图书馆，那时是我决定不理发的第八个月。

A photo of myself from behind that I really like. In Miskolc, looking at the white-walled, red-roofed Petőfi Sándor Library, eight months after I had decided to stop cutting my hair.

A wide river at dusk under dark clouds and an orange afterglow, with a floating pier in the foreground and a lit arched bridge in the distance.

回忆 · Memory

初到匈牙利两年后第一次准备回国的前一晚，我在傍晚沿着多瑙河走到国会大厦边，那一刻我心中充满着对回到阔别两年的家的憧憬，同时竟也感受到了那么一丝要离开的不舍，到底是对什么的不舍呢？后来我意识到，我的整个19、20岁都留在了那里，我的妈妈和妹妹，没有见到过20岁的我。

The evening before my first trip home, two years after I arrived in Hungary, I walked along the Danube to the Parliament. I was full of longing for the home I had not seen in two years, yet, to my surprise, I also felt a faint reluctance to leave. Reluctance for what? Later I realized that my whole nineteenth and twentieth years had stayed there. My mother and my sister never saw me at twenty.

A quiet road running downhill past power lines toward a red-roofed town and a wide plain under a cloudy sky.

回忆 · Memory

那天我独自在佩奇走了很远很远的路，我想要走到远处山坡顶上的电视塔那里去，但我没有走到，我还要赶上晚上返回布达佩斯的火车，我只好不甘地往回走着，这是我在半路走出树木遮蔽的道路向远处眺望所看到的，那一刻我想着，在未来我还会有机会再次来到这里，走到那个电视塔下吗？

That day I walked a long, long way alone in Pécs, hoping to reach the TV tower on the distant hilltop. I never made it. I had an evening train back to Budapest to catch, so I turned back, reluctantly. Halfway down, the road came out from under the trees, and this is what I saw when I looked into the distance. In that moment I wondered: will I ever come back here and walk all the way to that TV tower?

Looking up past a yellow building with a metal sculpture on its balcony toward a stone bell tower, with a yellow forsythia bush in bloom in the foreground.

A cathedral with tall stone bell towers and a green copper roof, a bronze statue in front, framed by a leafy tree under an overcast sky.

Snow falling in the inner courtyard of an old apartment building with wrought-iron balconies, seen through a diamond-patterned window grille with a warm lamp reflected in the glass.

回忆 · Memory

我在布达佩斯最后也住得最久的住处窗外的雪。

Snow outside the window of my last, and longest, home in Budapest.