At the foot of Mount Tai lies Tai’an. In Tai’an there is a road called Dongyue Road, and on Dongyue Road there is a restaurant called The Savour Society. It was run by a married couple — the husband in his fifties, the wife barely thirty. Both were from out of town. People would ask:

“Where are you from?”

“Henan.”

“Whereabouts in Henan?”

“Somewhere small. You wouldn’t know it.”

People were only making conversation — nobody pressed the point — so that was that.

The couple never went back for the holidays.

“How come you don’t go back for New Year?” someone asked.

“New Year’s good for business.”

One year, around the Dragon Boat Festival, regulars turned up for a meal and found the owner had been gone for days. His wife was keeping the place going. Someone asked:

“Where’s the boss?”

“His uncle died. He’s gone back for a few days.”

That same autumn, I was in Jinan on business. When I’d finished my work I still had time to spare, and since Mount Tai isn’t far from Jinan, I went to climb it. By the time I came down the mountain it was already evening, so I found a hotel in Tai’an and checked in for the night. I freshened up, then went out to find somewhere to eat. Street lamps flickered on along the road. A stranger in town, with no sense of the place, I walked past one restaurant after another, judging each by how full it was — the more people eating, the better the food was likely to be.

Further along, I came to a place called The Savour Society. There was a queue at the door. Through the window: seven or eight tables inside, every seat taken, the room alive with chatter. On each side of the entrance a bamboo board was set into the wall. Carved into the pair was a couplet:

From life’s own fire, this smoke, this heat —

A taste to make the weary heart complete.

And above the door, the sign:

Just plain good.

Partly I trusted the crowd, partly the couplet and sign amused me — so I joined the queue.

Inside, the walls were hung with Peking opera masks. I found a seat. A man in his fifties, in an apron, came over with a cloth to wipe the table down. His hair was going grey, but his face was fresh and ruddy. The apron and the cloth in his hand had both been washed so many times they’d faded to yellow — but they were spotless. The apron and cloth alone told me the kitchen would be just as clean. He finished wiping, asked what I’d like to eat — and the moment he opened his mouth, I caught it: a Henan accent. So I asked:

“You’re from Henan, aren’t you?”

The man nodded.

“Whereabouts?”

“Somewhere small. You wouldn’t know it.”

I was only asking to make conversation, nothing serious. All I said was:

“I’m from Henan myself, originally.”

He didn’t ask me where. Just said: “Well, look at that — a fellow Henanese!” And then: “So — what’ll it be, mate?”

I picked up the menu. “On my own, it’s hard to know what to order.”

“That’s the worst of it, eating alone away from home.” He asked: “Fancy a drink?”

“What have you got?”

“Spirits and beer, the lot.”

“What sorts of spirits?”

“Several kinds — nothing fancy, we’re a small place.” Then he added: “There’s also our own homebrew. We call it Ration Spirit.”

“If you’ve got your own, I’ll have some of that.” Then: “Ration Spirit — good name, that.”

“Well then, if you’re drinking spirits, how about I put together a cold platter for you first — bit of meat, bit of veg — something to go with the drink? You take your time over it, and when you’ve finished I’ll make you a bowl of hot noodle soup. A square meal, and nothing wasted. What do you say?”

I gave the table a slap. “Perfect. You’ve thought of everything.”

Just then, someone at the next table called out: “Boss! Another red-braised lamb!”

“Coming,” the man answered.

And that was how I knew he was the owner.

While I waited for the drink and the food, I leafed through the menu. On each page, alongside the name of the dish, a photograph, and the price, there were lines of poetry printed in the margins:

The men of now never knew that ancient moon — yet tonight’s moon once lit the world of old.

A blade like running water, salt white as snow — and those fingers, easing open a fresh orange.

You asked when I’d come home — I had no answer. Autumn rain swelled the mountain pools. When shall we sit by the western window, trimming the candle down, and talk of this very night?

Mountains still as the beginning of time; the day stretches out like a quiet year.

No knowing where the rain has fallen — only this coolness, already in the air.

…and so on. I’d never come across a menu like it. And it told me something: the owner of this restaurant was a man who’d read a book or two. Someone without that background wouldn’t have given these poems a second thought, much less had them printed on a restaurant menu. The name, the couplet by the door — none of it was accidental, I realised. He’d called the place The Savour Society — not The Savour House or The Savour Studio — and that one word, Society, was what set it apart. That kind of learning doesn’t come from nowhere. Even the sign above the door — Just plain good — crude at first glance, but the longer I turned it over, the more it came full circle: so plain it was clever. A phrase that said everything, and drew you in.

A slim woman in her early thirties brought out the food and drink on a tray, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Behind her trailed a small boy, hands churning the air, going “brrm brrm” — driving some imaginary car. She set the cold platter and the Ration Spirit down on the table, and the boy stopped in front of me, forehead damp with sweat, and stood there, eyes wide, staring. I asked:

“How old are you?”

The boy ignored me. The woman answered for him:

“Two and a half. He’s a real handful.” She gave his bottom a smack without missing a beat. “Someone’s talking to you — don’t just stand there gawping. Manners!”

The tone, the smack — his mother.

“What’s his name?” I asked, just making conversation.

The woman nodded towards the owner, busy wiping down other tables. “His dad made it up. Sydney. I mean, honestly — isn’t that ridiculous?”

I laughed. I hadn’t expected to run into Sydney in Tai’an. And just like that I had the full picture — a husband-and-wife operation, the older man, the younger wife. I said:

“It’s a fine name. Grand. International.”

“Oh, he’s named other people’s kids too,” she said. “Paris, New York, London, Cape Town —” She pointed out of the window. “Across the road, the couple who sell sun hats and sunglasses — they had twins, asked him to pick the names. He named one Tela and the other Viv…”

She bent double, laughing. I laughed too.

“If everyone comes to him to name their kids, he must be a man of some learning.”

“Learning or no learning, it’s only a name,” she said. “Call them anything long enough and nobody thinks twice.” Then: “You’ve been queuing half the evening — it’s gone eight, you must be famished. Go on — eat!”

“Right,” I said.

I poured a glass, took a sip; picked up my chopsticks and started on the food. Through the window, the street was alive — people of every age hurrying past beneath the lamps. The names set my thoughts drifting. Sydney, Paris, New York, London, Cape Town, Tel Aviv… Here in Tai’an it was evening, but at this very moment some of those cities lay in darkness, others in broad daylight. Different skin, different tongues, different gods, different creeds — but when they were thirsty they drank water; they ate three meals a day; they married; they had children. In that much, everyone was the same. Set that sameness aside, though, and what grew was difference — and from difference, dispute, and war, year upon year, without end. In every city, on every street, each person walking carried some wound inside them. They’d all had it hard.

Then, out of nowhere — a few years back, I’d gone with a classmate to Cockcrow Temple on Cockcrow Hill in Yanjin, and we’d sat talking with the monk Zhiming. My classmate had asked: Master, you’re always telling us the sea of suffering is boundless, and you’re always telling us the dharma is boundless — so which boundlessness is the more boundless? Zhiming had answered: Limits are what make the limitless. At the time I’d heard it and let it go. Now, suddenly, something stirred. Back then it had meant nothing to me. Perhaps now it did. The world’s conflicts come down to too many borders. The world has no truth — only borders. A hundred and ninety-odd countries, eight billion and more souls. The Earth hurtles through space at six hundred kilometres per second, carrying every one of them, while none of us feel a thing. And then it struck me: Zhiming himself was from Tai’an. Here I was, in his hometown. But the monk had once said: Talking to a man who’s left home about home — you’ve left me with nothing to say. I’d taken a wrong turning again. On and on it went, one thought snagging the next — until I told myself: enough. Even thinking has its limits. If I didn’t stop, I’d never eat my dinner.

So I reeled my mind back in and gave the food my full attention. I sipped the Ration Spirit slowly this time — surprisingly mellow. I took my time with each dish — the meat, the greens — and each had its own clear flavour. I’d chosen well. At the next table a group raised their glasses — “Cheers!” — and I, alone, raised my Ration Spirit and drained it with them.

The banner is designed by Chen Dongmei 陈冬梅.