Ordinary people (老百姓)

For example, I like to buy notebooks, especially beautiful and expensive ones. But I’m afraid of writing down poor ideas, not worth such expensive and thus wasting such beautiful notebooks. So actually, cheaper notebooks are more useful than expensive ones. Very expensive restaurants or hotels are a bit like this as well. If they’re expensive — I tell myself I can’t just simply eat or sleep there, I should forcefully enjoy it! What I mean is that ordinary things are sometimes better than exceptional ones, because the meaning is only the thing itself, nothing else.

Today I saw Liu Xiaodong’s painting exhibition, about the common people, and it was a good day. I don’t want a common life, but I like common days.

(This piece of text is the first piece of text I first wrote in Chinese, and then translated it into English, rather than the other way around.)

中文:
比如,我很喜欢买笔记本,尤其很漂亮又贵的。可是我怕写下来不好的主意,不值得而浪费那么漂亮的笔记本。所以在现实中,便宜的笔记本比贵的有用。很贵的饭店或者酒店也是有点儿这样,我告诉我自己我不能随便吃或者睡觉,我应该享受!我的意思就是,普遍的东西和事儿有时候比优秀的好,因为意义只是事物本身,没有别的。
今天骑自行车来回,看刘小东的画展,关于老百姓。好日子。我不要普遍的生活,可是普遍的日子我挺喜欢。

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