Whether I’m a highly sensitive person is something I have been debating with myself. I used to think I wasn’t that sensitive. I can go out, I can handle talking with strangers, I don’t like traffic jams but I can put up with them if I must. I know that I tend to keep my surroundings super clean and organized, and I prefer to stay alone at a quiet place, but this doesn’t mean I am “highly sensitive,” am I? Yet China made me look like the princess in the Princess and the Pea. No matter where I went, no matter which way I turned to, I just couldn’t get rid of the uncomfortable feeling of the pea.

The metaphoric pea in China, to me, was a combination of three things: polluted air, the unbearable high temperature that was sometimes accompanied by similarly intense humidity, and a constant, ever-existing background noise. For the hot days, maybe I should blame myself for choosing to visit in September. Had I decided to go back in October, most Chinese cities would have welcomed me with their cool autumn breeze. But the other two things are not something that I can evade regardless of the time I visit. When my flight was about to land in Hong Kong, I eagerly craned my neck, hoping to get a glimpse of the familiar mountains and sea that I hadn’t seen for so long. Yet what entered my vision was not the vivid green and blue shades I was hoping for. Instead, I realized I was looking at the usual sceneries, except, well, it seemed like a grayish, smoke-like filter had been applied to them, barring me from seeing their true colors. I had not been back to China for six years. In fact, I hadn’t been outside of the States at all for six years. Cocooning in my comfort zone for too long, I had forgotten that not every place has crispy air, and while pollution is ubiquitous, it is not fairly or evenly distributed. What I saw at the moment before my flight touched the ground was a thick and persistent layer of PM2.5 particles.

To some, an extra dose of PM 2.5 may seem like nothing. After all, the air quality of Hong Kong and most of the cities and towns in China isn’t so bad, since there are always places with worse air quality. But being such a “princess” I was, I felt I was experiencing a brain haze. I knew I was in excellent shape and my appetite and sleep were both very good, but for the first seven days of my return, I was extremely conscious that I was not in my best state or even good state. My spirit was low; I struggled to concentrate; my throat felt dry yet my mouth stayed open without my knowing; being active for four years, I didn’t want to exercise or walk, even if it was just a few steps. Surely, I thought, all of these might be due to I was still recovering from the long flight and the jet lag it induced? Possibly, but I knew there was more to it. The impact of jet lag faded away soon in three days. On the other hand, my brain haze stayed with me for at least another three weeks, before I was no longer aware of it, just like everybody else around me.

When I got sick later in my trip, I wondered how other Chinese people moved about. It seemed like they were doing fine. It seemed like I was the only one who was aware of the unpleasant air quality. I knew this must be wrong, but why wasn’t anybody else complaining about not being able to see a blue sky? And how did I grow up here? It seemed like I had been doing fine. Was the air ever so heavy? Was the sky ever so gray?

But when compared with the noise, the air pollution in China was not worth mentioning. I said “the” noise because it was indeed special, not your ordinary traffic noise. Of course there was still sound of traffic in China; there was plenty. But the traffic sound was only a very small component of the larger, mind-occupying Noise. There were many other components, noticeably the sound of people. Many, many people. People talking, people singing, people dancing and stomping, people coughing and spitting. People laughing loudly and bawling loudly. Together, as if in a waltz, their phones were also loud, playing at high volumes. Was that from Douyin or Kuaishou? Nonetheless, it must be short videos. Occasionally, people threw trash on the ground or failed to toss it into the trash can – swoosh! Unsurprisingly, every sound took place in the public: a sea of people making a sea of sound.

And human beings are certainly not the only living thing that generates sound. Depending on where I was, in the countryside or an urban metropolis, the Noise would also take in sounds made by other animals. When I was in my hometown where I was born, markets were abundant and so were the sound of animals in the markets. I heard chickens, ducks, geese, fish (swimming). If the market was big enough, it might also sell dogs, cats, and birds as pets, together with their woofs, meows, and chirps. But in big cities, dog barks were the only other sound I regularly heard coming from other living beings.

The Noise will not be much of an issue if one mostly stays indoors, but I went out a lot and thus was hit by its Great Power continuously. I was already struggling due to the poor air quality, now under the strong influence of the Noise, it was as if my brain circuits were broken, and I couldn’t even form a coherent thought. I had always taken the ability to focus for granted. In China, I learned that this was not an ability; it was a privilege.

In the West, people often believe that they are entitled to criticize the country they are from as a form of “healthy self-reflection,” encouraging their motherland to become better. But this is not what I’m doing here. I say everything above not because I am from China and I think I can or should criticize it. These are not criticism. They are my observations and feelings, justified only for me. I type them down to keep a record for myself, lest I forget.