"The Destination" is a story about a man named Chen Xin, who has decided to go out to the countryside so that his weaker brother would not have to suffer and toil with being away from home. Chen Xin's elder brother is the one who should have gone to the countryside to be a student but he was weak, now he has a wife and a son named Nannan, they all live with Chen Xin's mother and her youngest son. Chen is desperate to get home from the decade of being away from home and the lack of family. His memories of home are everything he desires in life. Once he is home, he realizes that reality is not as precious as his sweet memories, which are sugarcoated with the passing of time. The slow realization of his undesirable place in reality makes the story a bit ironic. With a basic understanding of human nature, it is simple to see the mindset that is presented by Chen, and you will come to understand the pressures that are placed upon him by the sense of happiness that he feels when he sacrifices his own wants for the betterment of his family, the guilt when he is not satisfied by his own reality, and the inability to realize his own destination will never be reached.
With a need for the past, the present becomes a mission to achieve the desired outcome for the future. This desire is stated by Chen's, "longing for the past the years, and ache that had affected his sleep and appetite, had come to an end. But it had given him a goal to fight for. Now he was at a loss and felt empty" (Anyi 126). This realization that he was let down by his life is the only thing that gives him the power and hope for a brighter future. A sense of purpose gives Chen a drive to find his destination and the power to accept that his place in society now is not his destination.
Once our destiny is fulfilled we will only have darkness and despair to look foreword to. With the completion of our destiny we will have reached our final destination.
