Garage Sale

→ About

who's behind the table

→ Garage Sale

poems, zines & objects

→ Communities

letters, classrooms, communities

← Back to Garage Sale

I started learning ballet at the age of four and received professional training in both ballet and Chinese folk dance until I was ten. After getting injured at eleven, I resumed dancing at twelve, taking amateur ballet classes with adults and performing in many self-choreographed dance pieces.

← Back to Home

Hi, I'm Hongyi Wang, though most people call me Ariel. I'm a 12th-grade student at RDFZ ICC in Beijing, the city where I was born and raised.

I’ve always believed that a person’s memories are like quiet rivers—they may look still, but beneath the surface, everything moves. I grew up between books and running tracks, between art galleries and long Beijing winters, learning to find rhythm and warmth in every space I entered.

I love sports, art, and literature—not just as hobbies, but as ways of understanding the world. Movement clears my mind; art lets me breathe; and words give me a way to hold time still, even for a moment.

This website is a small archive of my thoughts and stories. Here, you can walk through fragments of my memory—photos, essays, projects, and the little things that make me who I am.

Welcome to my corner of the world. I hope you stay a while.

← Back to Home

Poetry Collection

This collection contains over twenty original poems that reflect my daily life, reading experiences, and emotional world. Through these poems, I explore the small and large moments that shape my thoughts and feelings. Poetry is both a power and a voice for me, a way to be heard when silence might otherwise take over. If you connect with my words, you can understand a part of who I am.

View Poetry Gallery →

Zines

I have created several digital zines that serve as a visual diary of my life and thoughts. They capture moments with my family, journeys I have taken, books I have read, and films I have watched. Each page combines images, text, and layout in a way that reflects how I see and feel the world. When words alone cannot fully convey experience or emotion, these zines become my medium of expression, allowing me to translate memory, reflection, and imagination into something tangible and personal. Through them, I hope others can catch a glimpse of my perspective and the way I experience life.

View Zines Gallery →

iPhone 5c

My iPhone 5c has been with me since childhood — a small, stubborn companion with a cracked screen and a fading blue shell. Every photo in my zine was taken with it. It doesn’t capture reality as it is, but as it remembers it: soft, grainy, slightly out of focus, as if seen through a thin layer of time.

Its camera carries a kind of mercy — it forgives the world’s sharpness, turning noise into haze, light into memory. When I scroll through the album, I see not just images but sedimented moments: the corner of a schoolyard, a train window, a face I no longer see.

The iPhone 5c is obsolete now, yet it holds the pulse of my growing up. It reminds me that nostalgia isn’t about the past itself, but about the distance between what was and what remains.

Shark Pillow

He's been with me since I was twelve. He's soft, slightly greyed, smells like childhood and detergent. He knows all my secrets and still sleeps through them.

Books & Poetry I Love

Books that shaped my syntax and made my silences feel less empty. Some are underlined, some are stained by tears or coffee.

These are only the paper books in my room — books are scattered in every corner of my home. They are the most vital part of my life. My dream is to spend at least five hours reading every day. I love reading, and I love thinking.

Excerpt Notebook

My notebook of borrowed sentences — words I wish I'd written first. Ink, glue, and uneven pages; all in my handwriting that changes with the weather.

View Excerpt Gallery →

Opera Sleeves & Fan

I have been studying Peking Opera since I was five, progressing from Huadan to Qingyi roles. I fell in love not only with the beautiful, intricate costumes but also with the singing and melodies. Every movement, every note, carries a distinct meaning, and performing them allows me to experience a language of gesture and sound that is both expressive and deeply personal.

View Peking Opera Gallery →

Ballet Shoes, Ribbon, Skirt

I have been dedicated to ballet for fifteen years. Even after experiencing fractures in different parts of my body, I have continued to pursue this passion. These shoes, ribbons, and skirts carry the marks of practice, perseverance, and love for the art. Ballet is not just a hobby; it is a part of me, and I intend to keep dancing for years to come.

View Ballet Gallery →

Flowers I Planted

I grew them slowly, one pot at a time. They watched me as I wrote, as I procrastinated, as I stared out windows I couldn't leave. Every bloom feels like a small victory, every wilt a gentle reminder.

View Flowers Gallery →

Photography & Albums

My collection of photo books and albums. I like flipping through them slowly, touching the pages, tracing the captured light. Each image teaches me to see again.

View Albums Gallery →

Coffee Cup

This cup has been with me for years. It carries the warmth of countless coffees, late-night studying, and quiet mornings. More than a cup, it holds a dream — the university I longed for, the future I imagined. Every sip reminds me of where I came from and the path I'm still chasing.

Class Publication (Elementary → Middle School)

From elementary through middle school, I ran the class publication. Every issue was a small universe: I collected classmates' stories, poems, drawings, and essays, edited them, and made sure they were ready to be printed and shared. Being the editor wasn't just about organizing papers — it was about listening to voices, preserving small sparks of creativity, and giving them a place to be seen.

← Back to Garage Sale

← Back to Garage Sale

← Back to Garage Sale

← Back to Garage Sale

← Back to Garage Sale

← Back to Garage Sale

← Back to Home

Poetry Teaching Project · August 2025

In August 2025, I taught a week-long poetry course for a group of left-behind children in the mountains. Together, we read poems from Poems for Children edited by Bei Dao, exploring works by both Chinese and international poets.

They took careful notes, their eyes full of curiosity and thought. I combined meditation with poetry, hoping to guide them beyond the rigid frames of school textbooks — to help them observe, write, and think from within themselves.

It was not only about poetry, but about awakening the quiet power of expression, and showing them that their voices, too, matter.

The Color of Childhood

When the egrets glide over the fields,
childhood is a green so alive it almost breathes.
When sweat rolls down a small forehead,
childhood is the color of laughter untainted.
When the streets echo with children's voices,
childhood is a hue that skips and twirls.
And when the morning sun begins to rise,
childhood becomes the color of the earth itself.
I think—
perhaps childhood is a color that cannot be named.

I

I am a lonely person, unseen by others,
consoled only when I am among them.
I am a sensitive person, almost articulate,
almost able to say what I mean—
what saves me is the courage to keep speaking.
I am a sentimental person, lacking recognition,
starved of understanding,
yet when someone holds me in their heart,
I become open, almost whole.

The Snow Mountain

The wind howls—
the snow mountain's laughter.
Teeth clenched, the challenger endures.

The mountain never expected
that the lowly ant
would one day stand at its peak as a giant.

From the summit,
the giant looks down at the ants.
But every giant, in time,
becomes the ant beneath another's heel.
And the ant, underfoot,
learns to breathe again.

View Students' Notes Gallery →

Circe's Pen

I founded Circe's Pen, a poetry club named after Margaret Atwood's 1974 collection Circe/Mud Poems. In Atwood's work, the voice of Circe — the witch from Homer's Odyssey — tells a story never truly heard. She is not merely the seductress who turns men into pigs, nor just a female sorceress; she is a woman with emotions, desires, questions, and thoughts, cast against the unrelenting journey of Odysseus, the hero who always "moves forward," conquering without pause.

Penelope is defined as the watcher, Circe as the obstacle and the trial. Yet Atwood's Circe asks: Who defines the epic? Whose journey counts? Whose voice must remain silent? Through her perspective, Atwood deconstructs heroic myths and rewrites the complexities and power of female existence.

At Circe's Pen, we write, recite, and shout poems. We listen to one another. We speak the words women were not allowed to speak, and write the stories that were never written for them.

Spittoon

I participate in Spittoon, an organization that hosts literary events in Beijing. Here, I share my own poems, listen to the works of others, and engage in discussions about literature, the city, and everything in between.

Every session is a small world of words and attention. We read aloud, debate, and reflect — sometimes playfully, sometimes seriously. Being part of Spittoon has taught me how to give space to voices that demand to be heard, how to hold silence as carefully as language, and how a poem can spark connection in a room full of strangers.

It is not just a place to perform; it is a space where language becomes a bridge between people, ideas, and experiences. Every time I step up to share, I feel both vulnerable and alive, and every time I listen, I carry something new with me.

Infinitude · School Magazine Editor (2021–2025)

Since 2021, I have worked as an editor for Infinitude, my school's official magazine. Through its pages, I've recorded stories of campus safety, the golden age of student clubs before the pandemic, and how these communities found ways to survive and adapt during isolation.

Every week, I joined editorial meetings, pitched ideas, and collaborated with others to refine our issues. What I love most is interviewing and writing：capturing voices, emotions, and fleeting moments. Being an editor taught me not only how to tell stories, but how to listen.

Running & Sports

Since 7th grade, I've kept a weekly running routine of at least 10 km — through midterms, finals, even Lunar New Year. In April 2025, I traveled to Korea to complete my first half marathon, a milestone that reminded me how endurance often begins in the mind.

In middle school, I was part of the school volleyball team and actively joined badminton, soccer, and basketball leagues. Since 8th grade, I've also been practicing kickboxing — learning how strength can come from both control and release.

Sports are an essential part of my life. They've shaped my sense of discipline, balance, and self-trust — the same qualities I bring to everything I do.

View Sports Gallery →

My Sister & I

My sister is nine years younger than me — the closest person in my world. At home, I've always been her tutor, teaching her math, Chinese, and English. When she was little, I pushed her stroller through the narrow streets of every city we traveled to, whispering stories only she could hear.

Now we learn Peking opera and ballet together. She loves to write about me in her essays, and often tells her friends, half proudly and half shyly, about the things I do.

Our bond is soft and steady, like the blanket we were both wrapped in when we were born — warm, inseparable, and filled with the quiet rhythm of growing up side by side.