Hu Anyan

“I watched my classmates change almost the moment they left, and the gap between them and me only widened with time, our differences setting deeper in us. Meanwhile, this seemingly natural transformation continued to elude me. How they went from students to full-blown grown-ups just like that was a mystery. I questioned whether there had been an adult version in them hidden inside their adolescent selves all along. They only needed to shed their student skins and the metamorphosis was complete. Yet inside me there had only ever been a student. I was the onion that would remain an onion no matter how many layers were peeled away; destined never to be the citrus fruit, who just under the skin has a sweet and juicy pulp.”
― Hu Anyan, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing