Burn the dates
20250104 13:00-18:34 + 20250120-0307
I bought two full calendars—one for this year and one for last year. I hung the 2025 calendar on my chest, the 2024 calendar on my back, and dragged a ghost moneyburner behind me with a rope.
I started at the park entrance near Nanjing Fuxing Station. I tore off the January 4th page, burned half of it with a lighter, and threw the rest into the burner. I didn’t plan to use fire again after that.
I walked into the park, stopped on a raised patch of grass and tore random pages from the calendars, shredding and tossing them into the burner.
At a red light, two Chinese international students asked what I was doing. We crossed the street together. I explained what I was carrying and asked if they felt bound by the past or worried about the future. One of them said yes. She was a PhD student in biology and was worried she wouldn’t finish her dissertation. I invited her to tear a page from the 2025 calendar. She chose her birthday. I wished her luck with graduation, and we said goodbye.
At the entrance of the market, blocked by a white garbage truck, my French friend Chlovis arrived. “Does it mean I like the day or I don’t like it?” she asked. I replied, “Doesn’t matter. Just say a proper goodbye to that day.” She tore out the day her mother passed away from the 2024 calendar. We hugged.
Under a big tree at the market entrance, two elementary school boys stared at me with curiosity. I asked, “Want to tear one? You can!” One of them hesitated and looked toward a woman nearby who was packing up a stall. I said, “Don’t worry, it’s free!” The boy asked, “What are you doing?” After I explained, they jumped in, shouting, “Yeah! Let’s rip them all up!” The other kids chimed in: “Just tear one page!” “But there’s homework every single day!”
They tore vigorously through many Mondays to Fridays. One said, while ripping, “He always cries while doing homework.” Not far away, one of their moms shouted while packing up, “If you bring those scraps home and make a mess, you’re dead!” A girl joined in too. She tore the date of her next midterms and complained about her teachers. They were all students at Changchun Elementary School.
A large group of kids swarmed around me, tearing calendar pages like crazy. I felt like a statue covered in birdseed, mobbed by a flock of sparrows. I asked, “What does this feel like to you?” They shouted in unison: “Burning ghost money!” I asked if they had any days they actually liked. The answer was birthdays. The boys started picking out their own birthdays and the day of the Haikyuu Marathon. One boy decided to keep his page: “I’m bringing my birthday home!” They asked when I would burn all the calendar pages. I said, “I won’t. I want to protect the Earth. Have you learned the term ‘metaphor’ in Chinese class? You don’t have to actually use fire to burn something.” Immediately, one of them shouted, “I know! Use an alcohol lamp!” They then pointed out which direction had more people and told me to head that way.
Two intersections later, I stopped. One of the boys caught up to me on a bike. He had gathered the fallen scraps and placed them carefully into the burner.
After that came a long stretch of walking and stopping with no interaction. Whenever I stopped, I quietly continued tearing the calendar pages myself.
I sat on a bench in Rongxing Garden with a few scattered people and continued tearing. Then I walked to Xingtian Temple, where the security guard kept looking at me.
Passing a construction site, three male workers were standing around. After listening to my explanation, one of them said, “Just a way to relieve stress!” He casually tore out a page and said, “I’m saying goodbye to tomorrow!”
Two middle-aged men were smoking by the road. One of them said in Taiwanese, “I know this is some kind of performance! You’re shooting a movie, right?” He tore a page from last year, hoping for good luck.
I was dragging the burner along the sidewalk when a man suddenly stood at attention and gave me a salute. I invited him to participate. He said nothing, tore a page from this year’s calendar, then called out “At ease! Dismissed!” like a drill sergeant. We saluted each other.
In Zhongshan Jiancheng Park, a middle-aged man wearing a mask told me he was afraid of the future, afraid of growing old and ending up completely alone. His name was Ah-Zhong. He said it was his first time seeing something like this in the streets. He tore out a page. I told him, “Someday, when you’re very, very old, you’ll know that someone remembers you. I will remember you.”
At the red light near the Zhongshan North Road police station, I made eye contact with a woman in the crowd. I invited her to join. She tore a page from the 2025 calendar. Before we parted, she said, “The future will be better.” I answered, “It will.”
I returned to the wall on Chifeng Street where I had planted myself. A mother and her two elementary-aged daughters came by. The younger girl wanted to pick her birthday from this year’s calendar. The mother helped her read the calendar, and once they found it, she decided to keep the page.
Two young women, both more troubled by the past than the future, tore pages from the 2024 calendar.
Two teenage boys came back to ask if January 1 was available. Both wanted to tear that day, but it was already gone. They were both burdened by the past. The days they chose were tied to bad memories. One of them nearly tore apart something else he was holding in the process.
While the boys were flipping through dates, a girl approached and asked, “So this activity is about choosing a page and tearing it up?” She picked her ex-boyfriend’s birthday from last year. She said she’s moved on.
Another young woman wanted to tear up the memory of her crush. I wished her well, “Tear it up, and let it go!”
In front of Shuanglian Wen Chang Temple, a man walking by asked, “What kind of trick is this?” He didn’t take part.
Two older women sat on a bench. One of them laughed heartily, “I just want to help you. Don’t want you to get home too late!” She tore a bunch of pages and even offered to lend me her jacket.
In front of Coffee Dumbo, Hua came out to give me an espresso. She tore a page from last year and one from this year, murmuring, “There are still some things I want to do this year.” Soon after, my friend Zi-Ling passed by on her way to go shopping. She tore a page from 2025 and said, “I just want to move forward.”
A couple passed by and came back a moment later. Both were more haunted by the past and chose to tear pages from the 2024 calendar.
I moved to the lit-up archway near the MRT building and stopped there. People came and went on both sides of me. An older woman asked me to take a photo of her with the lights, then left.
From this point, I realized it wasn’t just about sharing my own story or those of the people earlier. It was now an invitation: Let’s clear away the past and the future, and join together in the here and now.
A mother and daughter were taking photos. Then the mother came over, curious, “I’m more worried about the future. The past is already over, but the future is still unknown!”
Two young men joined us. One of them said, “I already know which days I want to tear,” as he began tearing pages.
I handed a half-torn page to a guy wearing headphones. He thought it was from 2024, but when he saw it was 2025, he said it was interesting. He said, “Thinking about the future gives me anxiety. Thinking about the past makes me depressed.”
The last person I interacted with was a man from Hong Kong. While tearing pages, he shouted, “How can the future be thrown away?!” In the end, we added each other on Line. He said he’d like to see my work again someday.
By the end, both calendars were completely torn and tightly packed into the burner. Spending more than five hours on the street, this was my longest performance so far.
I thought to myself: If you don’t have to use fire to burn, what about using water? So, starting January 20, whenever I had time, I began recycling the shredded calendar into handmade paper sheets. I’ve made over a hundred papers so far, varying in thickness. I selected thirty sheets with similar thickness, carved text into a rubber plate, and used purple ink to print “Today” on each page. I made three ten-page calendars and gifted these handmade calendars to those they were meant for through a small online activity.
Special thanks to Maggie for lending the burner, and to Nicky and Joyce for documenting the process, especially Joyce, who filmed into the fourth hour.
