Wu Lei spent his coming-of-age holiday chopping wood

On Christmas Day, the Sri Lankan sun was glaring and the air was hot. In the old town of Galle, Wu Lei and local children were playing football barefoot. Tourists passed by on a tutu and shouted “woo——”. The screams quickly faded away with the sound of the tutu’s motor. Under the sun, Wu Lei opened his arms and responded loudly “woo——”, his jaw angle raised, and sweat hung on his temples and shone on his face.

This journey was special, as Wu Lei spent the last day of his 18th year and the first day of his 19th year on this South Asian island. But if he had a different life, what would an 18-year-old boy be doing at this time?

We put Wu Lei’s imagination into the new video column “The Traveler”. Here, each cover character will share his unexpected encounter with the world. This time, let’s take a look at the 19-year-old Wu Lei acting out a story of “If I were not Wu Lei”.

Wu Lei’s last day at the age of 18

The hotel lobby was glittering with gold. The pine branches were piled with gold and red: light balls, roses, and lilies covered with gold powder together formed a huge peacock; the hotel had a wide ceiling, and the Christmas trees on both sides still reached the ceiling.

On Christmas Eve, this was a very lively place in Colombo – jazz was playing in the bar on the second floor, applause and screams of celebration were heard one after another, and people were toasting on the terrace. When Wu Lei walked in, it was already dark. Even though he was in the largest hotel in the capital of Sri Lanka, it had nothing to do with the excitement and liveliness of Christmas – he waited in line for too long after the plane landed, and he was a little dazed, and he only felt that it was pitch black outside the building.

It was not until the next day, when he opened the curtains, that he discovered there was actually the sea outside. The pearl of the Indian Ocean is at his feet. It has been a maritime transportation hub connecting the East and the West since ancient times. The tear-shaped territory encompass seaside, religion, and exotic culture. Sri Lanka is not only the home of gems and black tea, but also the safari and elephant orphanage are places where people linger. On Christmas Day, the sky of the tropical island country, which is like summer all year round, is blue, the sea is a little grayer than the sky, and on the long coastline, pure white waves hit the beach.

The morning sun was warm. This was Wu Lei’s last day at the age of 18.

At the age of 18, he concentrated almost all his energy on completing the college entrance examination. For Wu Lei, this was the first major challenge in his adult life because “I was too busy with work in the past few years and fell behind in my studies.”

After his birthday, the art exam was just around the corner. After completing the art exam, the countdown to the college entrance examination was imminent. Before he had time to think about what the change in age meant, the pressure came first. At that time, he had no idea whether he could pass the exam, and he had fallen behind in a lot of schoolwork, so “it really felt very uncertain.”

The work team didn’t worry too much about this, thinking that he was “very smart and did study until late at night.” While he was reviewing, a work was released in the second half of the year, and he had to occasionally take time out to promote it during the publicity period.

Wu Lei’s original words were “There is no question of whether you are adapting to the college entrance examination or not.”

The initial goal was to get 450 points in the general subjects, but after a week of studying, he felt too tired and thought this score was unrealistic. He lowered his goal a bit and worked hard to get 400 points.

The result was unexpectedly good, he was admitted to the Beijing Film Academy with 456 points – his 18-year-old coming-of-age ceremony was completed in the summer, with sweat in exchange for echoes.

Cars drove through the streets. Around Christmas is the peak tourist season here, and there are very few Chinese faces compared to other islands. Compared with the islands with developed tourism, this place is more undeveloped. The streets of Colombo are low-rise with shop signs scattered all over the place, reminiscent of small towns in China. There were few cars and people on the streets in the morning. 18-year-old Wu Lei was sitting in one of the cars, enjoying a day in a foreign country, and flashed through the screen.

Spend the holiday palying e-sports and chooping woods

The first stop is the train station. A large area of ​​fresh green overflows from the fence on the roadside. Enter the fence and step on the creaking wooden stairs to the overpass. The smell of burning spread through the wall, and then the white smoke spread over the wall, accompanying the pedestrians on their short journey on the overpass. Squinting your eyes, the atmosphere of the streets reminds you of Bollywood movies, chaotic and relaxed. The people here are also relaxed, with lazy steps and soft eyes.

The station is also a small one. The pink and orange house has the sea on the other side of the doorway. The cries of crows and the crashing of waves are the only sounds, which are as quiet as Wu Lei’s rare journey in the summer.

He was on the road when he received the college entrance examination results. That was a truly “very happy” moment. He sat alone in the car, looking at the street lights outside. He didn’t feel as excited as in movies and TV dramas, but “I felt very satisfied in my heart. I felt so tired, but it was worth it.” He was also very proud that he had realized a small wish of his and proved himself in a sense.

Wu Lei always wanted to travel alone, and it was not until the summer after the college entrance examination that he finally realized it. Where he went is still a secret: “There are always too many people around me. That time, apart from my family, even the staff didn’t know about it until later.”

This rare opportunity to be alone is a benefit of adulthood: At first, even his family wanted to accompany him, but Wu Lei still went on his own.

Seven days was considered a long vacation for him. He booked a flight for himself and chose a quiet mountain hotel for accommodation. His daily routine was like this: “Climbing mountains, riding horses, and then chopping wood in the mountains. The rest of the time I played games in my room.” The place where he chopped wood was on the mountain where the hotel was located. After a few days, the staff stopped him from chopping wood, saying that the hotel had chopped enough wood for the next two weeks. After dinner every day, he returned to his room, select a profession*, and played e-sports games.

*refer to selecting a player/role in a game.

In order to enjoy this kind of quietness, he agreed with his team in advance to set aside working time. Loneliness is inevitable, but freedom is certain—he did not post on Weibo for seven days.

He always has to work hard

Starting from Colombo, it takes two hours to drive south along the coastline to Galle. This ancient city full of colonial style still retains traces of old Ceylon.

We had seafood for lunch that day. The owner of the restaurant was a Chinese immigrant who settled here because he missed the leisurely life and pure air here when he traveled. In the wood carving shop next to the restaurant, an old worker sat at the door and carved a Buddha statue in the sun; his neighbor was an old man with a fluffy beard and long white hair. He walked slowly through the narrow alley with his belly across to watch the children play cricket. Wu Lei also seemed to be relaxed. After dinner, he watched the children playing games at the restaurant entrance and stretched his body. Work was forgotten for a moment.

The first time he encountered the scenery of Galle was under the white lighthouse. Here, Wu Lei walked around the ancient city wearing HOGAN sneakers. He turned into a skateboard boy on the embankment. The beach was covered with tall palm trees. There was a white Islamic mosque across the street. The sun made his feet hurt. Young girls in saris and tourists holding parasols stopped to look at him.

Going to the streets again, he wore a loose light pink suit, sat in a tuk-tuk and talked with the driver, then leaned half of his body out and looked into the distance of the road: on one side in front of him was the wall of the ancient city building, white and tall, with the shape of the arch recessed under the pillars, going away and shrinking one by one; the brown stone bricks on the ground were heated by the sun, and converged into a small dot with the towering trees at the end of the field of vision.

A white tourist from the ancient city passed by on a tutu and shouted “woo——” at him. The scream quickly faded away with the sound of the tutu’s motor. Under the sun, Wu Lei opened his arms and responded loudly “woo——”, with the corners of his jaw raised and sweat hanging on his temples, shining on his face.

The picture makes people smell the sunshine of South Asia – the air here is a mixture of scents: The plumeria flowers at your feet are sweeter than those on the tops of tall trees; the rubber tires emit a burning smell under the sun; the golden light of the sun is not part of those sense of smell. But the scorching sun casts on the white wall, the color is saturated to the point of distortion, the green trees, the blue sky, and you know that the waves are hitting the shores in the distance – This is the endless summer of adolescence. The scents of this moment should smell like in this picture.

The local kids came, wearing flip-flops and jerseys. Wu Lei went to play football with them under the white wall. The kids were full of energy to compete with the adults. The kid with “Messi” written on his back was particularly accurate. After several dribbles and encirclements, Wu Lei surrendered.

Two o’clock in the afternoon is the hottest time of the day, and there are few pedestrians on the road. The children threw off their slippers several times and simply went barefoot. Wu Lei also took off his shoes and socks and kicked the football barefoot. After a while, he screamed because of the square bricks burned by the sun. In fact, he was quite afraid of heat. After wiping the sweat from his temples, he still couldn’t help but go barefoot again.

A short game can barely be considered another kind of vacation. Take yourself away from your original life, look for scenery you have never seen, and then integrate into it. The journey is just a small reward for yourself after all the hard work.

Wu Lei always seems to be hard-working. Even after entering university, he was more tired than he imagined: “They say university is a place where you can relax and learn a lot. After entering the Beijing Film Academy, I felt like I was immersed in a sea of ​​knowledge every day. I learned a lot every day, and I had a lot of homework. It was no easier than high school.”

After a semester of college life, Wu Lei’s overall feeling is good and happy. But then again: “No university is like us, rehearsing from 5:30 in the morning to the evening, sometimes even staying up all night…right?”

His hard work history can be traced back to when he was five years old. He fought for the opportunity to play the role of Nezha in the TV series. Wu Lei’s memories of his childhood include “the competition was especially fierce”, “the children were especially a lot”, and “you had to work especially hard to stand out”. Although he used three “especially” in a row, Wu Lei is not a competitive person. He prefers to classify himself as a “show-off*” team, belonging to the “type with a strong desire to perform”.

*人来疯 means people who get hyped up in front of an audience

When he was in the training class at the art school, the crew went to cast, and he thought they were looking for young actors for an advertisement, so he sneaked out of class and asked “Can I try?”, and he was selected. When he arrived at the crew, the male and female protagonists were Ma Jingtao and Fan Bingbing, and he thought “so good and amazing” when he saw the stars. He could not imagine how hard it would be to actually shoot the movie: wearing a bellyband in the middle of winter and landing on his head on a wire for the first time.

Even if his mother felt bad, he had to finish the work. After filming the first play, his family thought it was too hard, but he still liked it and told his mother that he still wanted to act. “Now I think it might be because I didn’t want to go to kindergarten at that time.” Wu Lei said. He really found the fun of filming because he was influenced by the seniors around him. After that, he couldn’t stop acting and has been acting for so many years.

Wu Lei has appeared in the public eye as a teenager in recent years. In 2015, after playing Fei Liu in Nirvana in Fire, he gradually left his identity as a child star. Those were also the years when the boy grew up the fastest. The shadow of a child quickly faded from him, and the tough lines gradually appeared on Wu Lei. Two years later, when he appeared in Zhang Yimou’s film Shadow, the young general had completely become a young man.

Watching the sunset on waves

In Sri Lanka, South Asians generally have thick, curly eyelashes, deep eye sockets and three-dimensional facial features for both men and women. Wu Lei’s eyelashes are very long, casting shadows, and his eye sockets are three-dimensional, just like the locals. But wearing a TOD’S suede motorcycle jacket and HOGAN sneakers, he looks so fair and tall that he stands out in the crowd.

That afternoon, when he boarded the train at Galle Station and looked out from the carriage, there were always several layers of people surrounding the photography team behind him, and he was the focus of attention. The crowd was quiet, and when they looked at him, the locals occasionally smiled shyly, but still stood firmly in place, watching him leave the crowd again and head towards the coastline of Galle.

Here, Wu Lei played a stilt fisherman. This was once the most iconic symbol of Sri Lanka. In historical stories, fishermen who had no money to buy boats came up with this fishing method, erecting wooden “stilts” in shallow waters to catch sardines in the morning and evening. Nowadays, few fishermen use this method to fish, and it is more of a performance than anything else.

While others were watching lizards on palm trees by the beach, Wu Lei was sitting on stilts in the shallow sea, fishing with fishermen. The fishermen were dark-skinned, bare-chested, with their heads covered, looking relax and happy like locals.

The rain on the island is always unpredictable. A cloud floats over and a shower of rain falls. The gloomy sky is accompanied by the waves, which creates a very unpredictable mood. The rain is gentle, and a few drops fall on the sand, leaving small circles. Wearing a sun hat, watching the rain at the beach, the sky clears up after a while. The waves in Galle are fierce. Wu Lei sat down, and the waves wet his trouser legs and calves.

Without being watched, sitting on a high place and looking at the sea, there is a sense of tranquility and loneliness. When sitting on the sea, Wu Lei really felt that his trip was worthwhile. The sunset was orange, the clouds reflected the sunset, and the sea and the sky were pink.

Wu Lei has not been to many places for traveling, but has been to many places for filming. Every time he films, he has to stay in one place for dozens of days or longer. The destination that he remembers most fondly is Hengdian, which is “cold in winter and hot in summer”; The first principle for filming locations is always the location of the scene. He has stayed in a strange little hotel in Alxa town and has been living on dirt all the time; his favorite places are Qinghai Lake and Alxa Desert, which are also like the sea, vast and spectacular.

So far, Wu Lei’s longest flight was 12 hours. He can’t remember whether he went to the Czech Republic or New Zealand. He thinks “the Czech Republic, which has a strong humanistic culture, and New Zealand, which has natural scenery with vast grasslands, have different beauty.” Unfortunately, he went to both places to record programs, and lost a lot of travel experience. He yearns for the kind of travel where he can live a leisurely life at his destination, but more often than not, he needs to discover the beauty around him while working.

“I like ancient towns in Europe. Imagine going there, being attracted by the artistic atmosphere. There is a sense of strangeness and romantic comfort. The pace of life is slower, and traveling is more relaxing. In such a beautiful city, it feels like you can encounter someone at any time,” he said, adding, “although I have never been there.” This is his ideal trip in the near future, and Wu Lei is looking forward to it. “Does traveling need a reason? I don’t think so.”

First job at 19th years old

Wu Lei’s first job at the age of 19 was on a Sri Lankan train. The train was old and traveled along the coast of Ceylon all the way south from Colombo to Galle. The doors were open as the train was running, and the sea passed by, sometimes fast and sometimes slow.

The train was crowded with people, including locals, white people, and a few Asians. Some people walked through the train with small baskets on their heads, selling fruit.

Wu Lei bought a ticket and come to the train. The train passed by the golden coast, low houses and palm trees. After the performance, when he got off the train, he had arrived at a strange town between the two cities. The afternoon sun was still scorching the earth.

Wu Lei doesn’t have the habit of celebrating his birthday. In the past 18 years, he spent some of his birthdays on the set, or maybe some of them slipped by unknowingly. “I don’t remember having a special day for my birthday. I did celebrate it last year, and I had a birthday party, because adulthood is a big deal. For me, it’s a reminder to just spend my 18th year naturally.”

The end of 18 seemed so long, and the first day of 19 passed in a flash. On the way back, his fans were waiting at the airport in Colombo. The cake was left at the check-in counter, and the two girls told the ground staff to take out the cake when they saw the name “WU LEI” on the Chinese passport. The little surprise lay dormant in the hot South Asia.

Source: Condé Nast Traveller