Wuhan is Gao Lian’s home, recalled through small sensory details as he begins to explore Stockholm alone. It enters the narrative not through a description of the city itself but through the impressions he carries from it: swallows beneath the eaves and a familiar smell that Stockholm shares, though in a cleaner form.

Home Recalled Through Sensation

On his first solo walk in his new country, Gao leaves the apartment on Borgmästargatan, descends the slippery stone steps on Klippgatan, and makes his way toward Ersta Hospital. The swallows calling as they dive for insects remind him of the birds that lived beneath the eaves at home in Wuhan. The resemblance offers a point of continuity in an unfamiliar city; the smell, too, feels the same to him, even if Stockholm seems cleaner.

Contrast with Stockholm

The remembered details emerge as Gao moves through Stockholm rather than as a separate account of life in Wuhan. From Fjällgatan he looks over the ferries and yachts toward Gamla Stan; then he crosses the bridge and wanders the old city’s narrow streets and alleys. Its unfamiliar language sounds to him almost like singing, while the birds and smell evoke home. The contrast makes his new surroundings both strange and approachable: he is learning the city by walking it, while recognizing fragments of Wuhan in what he encounters.

Narrative Significance

By evening, Gao has formed an internal map of Gamla Stan and knows how to find his way through it. Wuhan remains the reference point for the familiar natural and sensory details he notices, but the walk also marks a growing independence: he is beginning to orient himself in Stockholm without assistance. The remembered home and the mapped new city therefore meet in a quiet transition from dislocation toward self-directed movement.