Visiting the Frontier in the New Era · Entering the Frontier, Understanding the Journey Military Wives Make Across Mountains and Seas
Visiting the Frontier in the New Era · Military Wives' Family Visit Season
Editor's Note: Deep in the ocean, isolated small stations hang suspended amid ten thousand acres of blue-green waves; beneath the Changbai Mountains, dense forest conceals sentry posts along the border line. In the heat of midsummer, another cohort of military wives has shouldered their bags, taken their children by the hand, and set out on the road to visit their husbands at the frontier.
At the end of that road is the place their husbands stand guard.
From the shores of the Yellow Sea to the Changbai mountain range, from radar positions to network and information operations rooms, not one stretch of this journey is easy. Hours of pitching and rolling on a boat, the helplessness of being locked in by wind and waves, the exhausting transfers between car, high-speed rail, and airplane — these are the experiences military wives have come to regard as routine. Yet they rarely calculate the mileage or the hours. They count only the days since the last parting, and look forward to the next moment of reunion.
The road to visit family brings hardship and setbacks. Wind and waves, seasickness, loss of signal — agreed-upon dates pushed back again and again. Some have endured hours at sea clutching their children through the swells; some have swallowed the bitterness of "there's a temporary mission" on their end of the phone line; some have cashed in six months of accumulated leave for a boat ticket that was refunded three times.
The road to visit family brings happiness, too — and more of it. The moment the boat touches the dock, the moment the camp gate comes into view, the moment a child calls out "Baba" — all the pitching, all the exhaustion, all the grievance dissolves in an instant the family is together. The spotlessly tidied family quarters, the pothos transplanted to the windowsill by a comrade, the soldiers calling out in unison "Hello, sister-in-law" — all of it speaks to a single truth: the barracks is another "home."
Yet reunion is always brief. The combat-readiness alarm does not pause because loved ones have come to visit; the radar antenna does not slow its rotation for family visit season. A husband's silhouette disappears into the night as he rushes to his position; his wife stands at the window watching him go. A military child's hand-folded paper boat sits on the windowsill, standing in for the child itself, keeping watch over the mountains and sea alongside father. Because they have seen it, they understand. Regret and sacrifice are the "required coursework" (必修课) of military wives; understanding and resilience are their most moving qualities.
This road to visit family connects, at one end, to the steadfast watch kept at the frontier, and at the other, to a home far away. In between lie countless "good nights" exchanged through a screen, the few seconds of silence on a phone call, a gift a military child sends to a father, the "growing old together" and "till our hair turns white" that military couples keep treasured in their hearts.
Every journey out is a crossing over loneliness; every reunion is a reaffirmation of conviction. Military wives measure the distance between home and nation with their own footsteps, and with each journey into the headwind and the waves they give voice to a declaration of deep devotion — you guard the frontier, I guard the home; you stand watch so the mountains and rivers remain unharmed, and I receive every glance you cast back over your shoulder.
This summer, let us enter the frontier, record these stories of visiting family across mountains and seas, and pay tribute to every military wife who quietly keeps watch from the rear.
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Military Wives Go to the Island: Wind and Waves Bear Witness to Love and Steadfastness
■ Jiao Yibao, Teng Yi
The road to visit family is the longest road and the happiest road
Blue sky, sunshine, sandy beach, seagulls — for most people, a trip to a sea island means romance and ease. But in the memory of military wife Zhu Jianing, that stretch of sea is a bone-deep pitching and rolling, a long wait separated by waves.
Her husband is the political instructor of the Northern Theater Command Air Force's "Red Vanguard Radar Station." From the day she decided to marry a serviceman, Zhu Jianing had steeled herself for a life of more separation than togetherness — yet she had not anticipated that reality would weigh heavier than imagination.
The first time she went to the island, she ran into a gale. The sea surface surged with whitecaps; huge waves crashed against the hull one after another, the entire vessel shuddering violently in the swells, the sound of children crying drifting up from the cabin. The discomfort lasted from morning into the afternoon, an intense dizziness that followed her like a shadow — tightness in the chest, nausea, her stomach heaving. Zhu Jianing could not fathom why a reunion she had longed for had to be purchased with such torment.
Then the boat touched the dock. She dragged her heavy legs down the gangway, looked up, and saw her husband already waiting at the pier. A weary smile had barely formed at the corners of her mouth when Instructor Zhang strode forward, picked up the luggage, and asked quietly: "Are you tired?" In that moment, all the grievance she had carried the whole way broke through as tears.
"That trip to the island nearly cost me half my life — I'm never coming back." She said it to her husband with a touch of spite. But behind those words of pique lay this military wife's unshaken resolve to make the long journey regardless, the longing that had built up in her heart through long separation, and the heartache that welled up naturally when she saw her husband rooted to that isolated island.
Setting foot on the island and entering the barracks, Zhu Jianing gradually came to understand her husband. As the company's political instructor, he had no nine-to-five, no weekend leave — the five words "on duty every day" spelled out the full, weighty meaning of "steadfast watch." The radar station maintains an independent garrison, on combat-ready duty around the clock year-round, monitoring air conditions without distinction between day and night; the training, duty, food, clothing, and lodging of dozens of officers and soldiers all fell to his concern; combat readiness training, camp construction, and daily support — every item pressed down on his shoulders.
Power and water outages on the island were routine. During stretches of sustained high winds and heavy fog, the ferry would suspend service and supplies could not get through. Whenever that happened, the company's two principal officers were run off their feet. Zhu Jianing watched and ached — the isolated island that a military wife found harsh and unbearable was the battle station her husband guarded day and night; the great sea that stretched between them, the wind and waves that were so hard to endure, were precisely the vigil kept by radar soldiers.
On that visit, Zhu Jianing had only three days of leave once travel was accounted for. A cold front brought heavy fog, the ferry suspended service, and her return was forced to a halt. She refreshed the ferry schedule on her phone and applied to her work unit for additional leave. With no departure date in sight, she was stranded on the island for days, waiting for the skies to clear. It was precisely this experience that gave her a far more vivid sense of how hard her husband's life on the island was.
During those days, Zhu Jianing often stood on the hilltop position and gazed out. In the howling sea wind, the radar antenna turned as always — no matter how severe the weather, no matter how the seasons changed, someone was always standing watch here. In that moment she understood: this remote sea island was an advance outpost of the nation's maritime frontier; the vigil kept on the island bought peace and tranquility for countless families on the other side of the sea.
"The road to visit family is the longest road, and also the happiest road." After returning from that visit, Zhu Jianing engraved those words in her heart. The "complaints" she had once voiced so often — "Why does the agreed-upon time to come home keep getting pushed back?" "Why is the promised trip always impossible to make?" — had by now transformed into quiet acceptance, into the action of packing her bags, booking a boat ticket, and setting out across the waves without hesitation.
Zhu Jianing says that visiting family is a journey of growth and also a journey of "coming to understand." Grievance and longing have long since been scattered by the sea wind and settled to the bottom of her heart. No matter how far the mountains and sea, no matter how bitter the road, wherever a serviceman stands his watch, his military wife will make her way there — even if it means crossing ten thousand mountains and ten thousand waters.
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To understand the husband's "reasons" is to truly understand him
[Caption: On a weekend at the island barracks, Guo Kangcan is together with his wife and daughter, who have come to visit.]
A call agreed upon in advance suddenly canceled; a video call finally connected and then hurriedly cut short. For a long stretch of time, the phrase "there's a temporary mission" from her husband Guo Kangcan became a knot that military wife Deng Juan could not untie in her heart.
Guo Kangcan is the combat duty platoon leader at the radar station, garrisoned year-round on the island, rooted to his battle station. In a life of more separation than togetherness, the mobile phone is the only thread of communication connecting this couple.
After their daughter was born, the couple agreed to make one video call every day. But sometimes it would happen that the video had barely connected and a few words been exchanged before Guo Kangcan had to hang up, always with a reason: "I have duty again in a bit," "the signal on the island is bad," "I'll call back a little later" …
Three reasons, repeated year after year.
At first, Deng Juan did not know how to explain it to her daughter; later, as the girl gradually grew old enough to understand, the confusion and grievance in her heart accumulated thicker and thicker, and every time she heard her father's "explanation" she would pout.
Separated by vast mountains and sea, longing and grievance had nowhere to rest. In the girl's still-hazy understanding, her father was strong — yet also distant and unfamiliar; in Deng Juan's heart, her husband's care for his daughter and his family always seemed not quite enough …
"Let's go to the other side of the screen and visit Baba." This summer, Deng Juan took her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter on a winding journey to the island. She wanted to use this visit to let her daughter feel her father's love, and to let her daughter see the place her father stood watch.
When they stepped onto the island, the signal inside the barracks was full strength and communications were clear. Deng Juan placed a video call to her parents — the picture was sharp, no lag, no interruption. Where was the "bad signal"? It had never been a limitation of conditions on the island; it was a gentle, heartbreaking white lie that Guo Kangcan had hidden for years.
On the first night in the family quarters, the daughter nestled in Guo Kangcan's arms, her small hand gripping her father's sleeve, sleeping with unusual soundness and sweetness. Outside the window the sea breeze was soft and the stars were scattered; Deng Juan sat at the writing desk with reddened eyes: "There's no bad signal on the island at all — why did you lie to me?" Guo Kangcan lowered his head, gently patting the daughter's back with his hand, and said nothing more.
Deep in the night, a sudden urgent combat alarm bell shattered the silence of the barracks. The soldier's instinct carved into his bones brought Guo Kangcan instantly to his feet; he grabbed his jacket and rushed out the door.
The sound of hurried footsteps faded into the darkness, and the room fell instantly quiet. Deng Juan could no longer sleep. She got up and walked to the window — the night was deep, the radar position on the hilltop blazed with light, figures moving within it. In that moment, her husband's silhouette as he rushed away seemed to tell her something she almost understood, and her heart was filled with a tangle of feelings.
The next morning Guo Kangcan returned, dragging his exhaustion, his eyes shot through with red. Meeting his wife's concerned gaze, he said with a smile: "The bell is the order. When the bell sounds, everything else can only be set aside for the moment …"
One plain sentence dissolved all the grievance in Deng Juan's heart in an instant. In that moment she truly understood her husband's "reasons" — behind those calls suddenly cut short were unexpected air situations and emergency responses; behind those video calls abruptly canceled were combat-readiness missions and standing by at post; behind those messages long left unanswered were eyes fixed on a screen, not moving an inch.
Servicemen are not without feeling — their feeling is bound up in family and nation. It is not that they have no love in their hearts — it is that the love in their hearts encompasses something greater.
As a husband, Guo Kangcan had not grown cold toward his family; he carried responsibility on his shoulders. "He is not neglecting his family — it is only by looking after the larger family that he can protect his own; he is not deliberately keeping his distance — it is that the nation's airspace and skies need his watch." This visit to the island brought Deng Juan an inner harvest of understanding; she resolved to give her husband more room.
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Scattering a handful of soil from home, settling the heart here
[Caption: The Tang Dengfeng family reunites on the island.]
Sea wind carrying the salt of the water brushes across the skin, humid and sticky.
Another midsummer has come. Military wife Jian Haijie packs her bags and travels thousands of li to reach this radar station on a solitary island in a blue sea — to reach the place her husband, radar technician Tang Dengfeng, stands his watch.
The road ahead is long, the voyage rough, yet in her heart there is no longer the grievance and anxiety of that first journey — everything has become familiar and settled.
Two years ago, on her first trip to the island, carrying her longing for her husband and her curiosity about an island barracks, Jian Haijie set out from her hometown in Hunan, leading her three-year-old daughter — car to high-speed rail, high-speed rail to airplane, then finally boarding the ferry for a five-hour crossing. They happened to hit a windy day; the daughter could not bear the pitching and rolling and cried the whole way.
The vessel slowly came alongside the dock. Jian Haijie walked out carrying the luggage and leading her daughter. Tang Dengfeng came quickly to meet them; the daughter threw herself into his arms, calling out "Baba" with affection. Tang Dengfeng gently patted his wife's shoulder and raised his hand to point toward the towering hilltop in the distance: "You see — that up there is our radar station."
From the dock to the barracks was a winding mountain road. The vehicle spiraled upward and soon reached the summit. Comrades who had been waiting at the gate came forward warmly, took the luggage, handed over bottles of mineral water, and called out one after another with genuine warmth "Sister-in-law" — in an instant the fatigue of the mother and daughter's long journey was soothed away, and Jian Haijie felt the warmth of home on this unfamiliar island.
Jian Haijie never thought of herself as a passing visitor. She wanted to do what she could for the comrades. When the morning bugle sounded, she picked up a broom and swept the barracks yard alongside everyone else; when the cooking squad was busy, she walked into the kitchen to help pick vegetables and tidy the utensils; when the company held recreational and sports activities, she took the initiative to join in, and in her free time chatted with the soldiers, listening to them tell stories of keeping watch on the island.
Through days spent together, she witnessed firsthand the optimism and tenacity of the radar soldiers. The longer she stayed, the more she understood the thousand-catty weight of the word "steadfastness" that her husband spoke of — the sense of responsibility of the veteran who says "the position has me, the motherland may rest easy," the drive of the new soldier who says "I want to qualify for independent duty watch as soon as possible." This island, far from the mainland, held a blazing sincerity.
On her return to the island, Jian Haijie looked at the familiar barracks and the familiar comrades, and her eyes and brow carried a new composure and settledness.
Hearing that the company had a tradition of "bring a handful of soil when you come to the island," Jian Haijie had this time deliberately brought a bag of soil from her hometown in Hunan and scattered it in the company's vegetable plot. She said: "The island has become Lao Tang's 'second hometown.' Scattering a handful of soil from home is a way of settling the heart here."
Seeing his wife genuinely understand his choice, Tang Dengfeng — who has kept watch on the island for more than ten years — was filled with emotion: all the solitude and hardship dissolved into sweetness in that moment.
At dusk, the setting sun spread across the sea. The family of three strolled along the shore, gazing at the lighthouse in the distance, as a familiar song played from Jian Haijie's phone: "The lighthouse's light, cutting through the mist, a love that stands unchanging."
[Captions:
A veteran tells new soldiers about the red traditions (红色传统) of the battle station.
At dusk, soldiers maintain equipment.
Deep in the night, soldiers stand watch on the hilltop.
Photography: Teng Yi, Bao Zhensheng]
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A Pine-Wood Plaque Carries the Heart
■ Long Shuangyong, PLA Daily Special Correspondent Xu Yuzhe
Summer comes late to the Changbai Mountains. The snowline has only just retreated to the peaks when the birch forest at the foot of the mountains races to put out new shoots. In the barracks of a certain company of a certain unit, Staff Sergeant Second Class Zhang Zuosen was finishing the last item of a maintenance task when the sky outside the window darkened.
After dinner he connected a video call; on the other side of the screen, his daughter in her swaddling clothes waved her little fists and babbled. He called out softly "Zhiyi," and held up a pine-wood plaque carved with the three characters "Shān Zhī Yì" — knowing warmth and cold, everything just as one wishes — the name he and his wife Chen Xin had chosen together for their daughter.
During the home leave after their marriage registration that year, he had carved a pine-wood plaque by hand with the words "Cháng Xiāng Shǒu" — "always keeping watch together." On the platform as he departed to return to his unit, he placed the plaque in Chen Xin's palm: "You guard the home, I guard the frontier — we keep watch together always." Chen Xin looked down at the three characters on the plaque that spoke her husband's heart, and tears welled in her eyes.
From that day on, Chen Xin carried the plaque with her always — from her hometown to school, from the delivery room to the side of the baby's crib. On the day of their daughter's hundredth-day celebration, Zhang Zuosen broke into a grin looking at photo after photo of his daughter on his phone — Zhiyi had learned to smile, had learned to grab her mother's finger. Watching her husband's happy expression, Chen Xin quietly made a decision in her heart.
On the eve of the summer holiday, she applied for leave from her school, packed her bags, and headed north to visit. The night before departure, with Zhiyi sleeping soundly beside her, she took out the "Cháng Xiāng Shǒu" plaque, held it in her palm, and turned it over and over.
First by high-speed rail, then by car, traveling thousands of li, mother and daughter finally arrived at the northern frontier barracks. Zhang Zuosen came sprinting out of the operations room the moment he got the call, took the daughter from his wife's arms and held her close: "You're here — that's all that matters." The soldiers lined up and called out in unison "Hello, sister-in-law"; little Zhiyi stared at the unfamiliar faces, froze for a moment, then broke into a wide smile.
When the door to the family quarters was pushed open, Chen Xin's eyes brightened: the windows were clean and bright, sunlight falling on the pothos arranged on the windowsill. At dinner, the cooking squad leader brought out a bowl of millet and red-date congee: "Sister-in-law has come such a long way — I made a bowl of congee to nourish your blood and qi."
That night there was a line-maintenance task; the Changbai Mountains are cold after dark. Zhang Zuosen put on his camouflage uniform and headed for the door; Chen Xin chased him to the doorway and pressed a thermos flask into his hands: "I steeped some ginger tea — share it with your comrades." The light in the family quarters stayed on all night. Chen Xin held her daughter and gazed out at the dark forest beyond the window, imagining her husband at that moment making his way along a slippery mountain path; and on that mountain path, Zhang Zuosen would occasionally stop and look back in the direction of the barracks — for a moment, he seemed to see that window glowing with light.
On a weekend evening, Zhang Zuosen asked the company for leave and took his wife and daughter outside the barracks, strolling along the line-patrol route. On that patrol route, the overhead cables were lit by the evening glow into a line of light and shadow; a squad of soldiers returning from a patrol was coming down the mountain path.
The couple, holding their daughter, walked forward along the mountain road, and the sight of it brought tears to Chen Xin's eyes. Walking side by side with her husband on this road at this moment, she finally understood what he so often said: "The mountains hold hardships that city people never taste, and the mountains also hold scenery that cities never show …"
They sat down on a flat stone slab. Chen Xin took out the "Cháng Xiāng Shǒu" plaque she always carried; Zhang Zuosen produced the "Shān Zhī Yì" plaque. He told her it was the gift he had prepared for their daughter.
The evening wind passed through the forest, carrying the scent of pine. Chen Xin leaned against Zhang Zuosen's shoulder; little Zhiyi gripped her mother's key fob in one hand and her father's plaque in the other, smiling sweetly. Behind them the great mountain stood in silence, the sea of forest surging like waves in the wind.
As the family visit leave drew to a close, Chen Xin said to her husband: "I want to carve a pine-wood plaque too, for you to carry with you always. From now on, our family of three — though separated by ten thousand mountains and ten thousand waters — will be as if we each hold the same stretch of mountain forest in our hearts."
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Camouflage Paper Boats, Keeping a Warm Promise
■ Zhang Guoqiang, Li Mo
[Caption: The Wu Hongping family climbs to the hilltop and gazes into the distance. Photo by Li Mo.]
On the shore of the Yellow Sea, atop a mountain peak. The radar of a Navy high-mountain observation and communications station turns without pause, day and night. In the morning, Staff Sergeant First Class and technician Wu Hongping had just finished an equipment inspection, grass clippings on his trouser cuffs, grease worked into the creases of his fingers.
He stood in the operations room and checked the duty roster one more time, but his thoughts had already drifted far away — his son Wu Jiarui had this year made his third appeal to his mother to take him to the island to find his father. Summer vacation had arrived; the time he and his son had agreed upon was drawing near again. Wu Hongping quietly gathered his resolve, pushing his tasks ahead of schedule to free up time to be with his wife and son: "Fulfill my son's dream as soon as possible."
Sixteen years in uniform, and the high-mountain position has always been Wu Hongping's battle station. Three years ago, when the station received new equipment, he — with more than ten years of maintenance experience — voluntarily transferred to the new role. The position changed, the equipment was upgraded, and missions were completed successfully one after another; yet the debt he owed his family continued to "accumulate."
Little Jiarui is six and a half years old and has lived with his mother in their hometown in Jiangxi all his life. The boy has long had a dream of visiting his father — of going to the hilltop where his father keeps watch and looking out at the sea. Father and son had discussed the plan several times, but it always fell through because of unexpected missions — the Qingming holiday, a major equipment overhaul came up; the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, a temporary support mission intervened.
"Wait until Baba is done being busy, and then we'll go to the island." Hearing his mother's words, little Jiarui nodded with understanding beyond his years. In an origami class, he learned to fold paper boats. Back home, he colored them in camouflage with felt-tip pens, and told Wu Hongping during a video call: "When I get to the island, I'm going to put them on the windowsill of Baba's dormitory."
The summer reunion was drawing near. Wu Hongping tidied the family quarters, bought the child a camouflage cap, asked locals which beach had the most shells, and prepared a small bucket and shovel.
Then, unexpectedly, the station received another support mission. Inspection, calibration, emergency duty watch — every step required him, the key specialist. Orders are orders, and there was no way to be in two places at once; it looked as though he was about to break his word again … Wu Hongping paced back and forth outside the operations room, phone in hand, then steeled himself and connected the video call.
Little Jiarui held up a camouflage boat close to the camera, shouting to show his father. Seeing his father's grave expression, the boy's small hands slowly lowered and he asked quietly: "Baba, are you busy with work again?" Wu Hongping's throat moved; no sound came out. The screen was silent for a moment; little Jiarui's eyes reddened, he turned and buried his face in his mother's arms, and began to cry.
His wife said on the phone the next day that the boy had held the photo of himself and his father all that evening, and just before falling asleep had whispered to her: "Mama, I won't cry — a man shouldn't cry just like that."
In the days that followed, Wu Hongping worked around the clock with his key specialists, multimeter and screwdriver never leaving his hands, eating and sleeping in the duty room. In the gaps between tasks late at night, he took out the photo of his wife and son and looked at it again and again; the moment an equipment alert sounded, he threw himself back into the fight. He understood: with the uniform on, the post is the battle station.
When the mission ended, the station approved Wu Hongping for "in-place leave" (原地休假). He had his wife and son come to the island at the first opportunity. A few days later, at dusk, his wife led little Jiarui up to the hilltop station, and the family had their reunion. That morning, standing at the camp gate, little Jiarui looked into the distance and shouted: "That's the radar Baba stands watch at!" Wu Hongping took his son by the hand and walked him through every corner of the barracks, explaining how the radar becomes the eyes of a warship.
As the leave drew to a close, little Jiarui arranged his newly folded camouflage boats on the windowsill of his father's dormitory. He also made a promise with his father: next time he visits, he will fold even more camouflage boats, and he wants to see with his own eyes what it looks like when Baba is on duty.
The hilltop radar turns day and night; the camouflage paper boats on the windowsill "set sail" into the sea breeze, as if keeping a warm promise: in little Jiarui's heart, the father who guards the mountains and the sea is his pride — and when he grows up, he too wants to be an honorable observation and communications soldier (观通兵).