In 1981, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, where I worked as a photojournalist, assigned me a house in Nanxiao Lane in the eastern district of Beijing. At the end of each day, it was a relief to leave the lies and deceptions of my propaganda work behind and set off on my journey home.

I would squeeze wearily onto a crowded bus that cut across Tiananmen Square and dropped me at the end of my lane—a long, narrow street flanked by crumbling gray buildings and dusty locust trees. I would tread through the black soot outside the charcoal store, past the Hospital of Traditional Medicine, the fruit stalls, the kebab vendors, the shop that sold burial clothes until I reached my house at No. 53. I would then take the key from my pocket, turn the latch and shut my door at last on the outside world.

It was a humble dwelling—a one-room shack and tiny yard enclosed by a tall brick wall. But to me it was a paradise, a haven from the madness of political meetings and directives, a refuge in which, for the first time in my life, I could enjoy a few moments of solitude. In my room, I would paint imaginary landscapes and read mimeographed copies of underground magazines. At night, my band of dissident friends would turn up, and we would open beers and discuss our hopes for a better future.

But in China, no refuge is safe from the sharp claws of the state. Before long, my neighbors started to report my "bourgeois" activities to the police. In December 1983, I was taken to the Public Security Bureau for interrogation, and when I returned to my house three days later, I discovered the police had ransacked my room, upturned my drawers and even slashed my paper ceiling. When I walked home from work after that, the city seemed to be constructed entirely of walls, and through every crack there seemed to be a pair of eyes staring at me. My house was no longer a refuge; it was a prison.

So I left Beijing and wandered into the wilds, searching for a corner of the country where I could feel at home. I traveled from the western deserts to the steaming jungles of the south, living in remote villages inhabited by minority nationalities. However, after three years on the road, I realized that there was no place in China that was free from the communist stranglehold. I was exhausted and felt a sudden need to be surrounded by familiar objects and lie down on a bed of my own. I returned to Beijing in a state of elation, but as I approached my front gate, my spirits sank. My neighbors had taken advantage of my absence to extend their kitchen along my front wall and had even attached their washing line to my gate. Within a few days of moving back in, the police were questioning me about the various political lectures I had given during my travels, and the old women from the neighborhood committee were knocking on my door, pestering me to go out and find a job.

I could feel the walls close in on me again. With the help of some friends, I secured a passport and escaped across the border to Hong Kong. I set to work on my first novel, supporting myself with a series of menial jobs and drifting from one rented room to the next. At times I was so poor that I had to pilfer food offerings from the altars of Buddhist temples. The freedom and prosperity of Hong Kong meant nothing to me. When I walked through the well-dressed crowds of office workers and businessmen, I felt no attachment to my new home. Hong Kong seemed like a large floating jetty that I might disembark onto one day and leave from the next.

In the spring of 1989, the newspapers and television screens filled with images of bedraggled crowds marching through the dusty streets of Beijing. An immense nostalgia overcame me. I knew that those streets were where I belonged. I took an express train to the capital, thrilled by the hope that at last my country was changing and that finally I might be able to make Beijing my home.

As I walked down Nanxiao Lane, I listened to the stallholders hurling abuse at each other as usual, and smiled. The stench from the public latrines no longer bothered me. When I entered my gate and saw my neighbors' discarded eggshells and cabbage leaves littering my yard, I didn't flinch. I dumped my bag, washed my face and headed for Tiananmen Square.

In the dark days following the massacre, I slipped back to Hong Kong and laid low for a while. But the death and brutality I had witnessed plagued my thoughts. I needed to make sense of what I had seen, and for that, I knew I had to return to my native soil. A few months later, I moved back to Nanxiao Lane. I gave my walls a new lick of paint and installed a gas supply. As the snow fell onto my yard, I picked up my pen and drew up a plan for my third novel. For a few months I felt protected and at peace, but while I was cocooned in my little nest, the streets outside were changing fast. No one talked of politics any more. My dissident friends were buying property and opening businesses. The old shops in Nanxiao Lane closed down and were replaced by hair salons and restaurants. The air smelt of soapy water, singed hair and fried carp; at night I could hear the new neon lights hiss in the rain. The changes saddened me and frustrated, yet again, my hopes of finding contentment in Beijing. As soon as my book was finished, I retreated once more to Hong Kong and rented a house on one of the territory's outlying islands.

When People's Liberation Army soldiers marched into Hong Kong in 1997, I felt that the home I had tried to escape was chasing after me. So I moved as far away as possible—first to Bochum, in Germany, then to London. I thought I had outgrown my sentimental nostalgia for Beijing. But after five years of self-imposed exile, I found myself lying awake at night dreaming about the sounds and smells of home. When a friend phoned last year to tell me the authorities were planning to tear down Nanxiao Lane in a matter of months, my heart clenched. I knew I had to go back.

Living in London was like being trapped in the first-class cabin of an airplane: I was comfortable and well fed but always sensed I was hovering in midair. When I arrived in Beijing I felt that my feet were at last planted on firm ground. I took a cab straight to Nanxiao Lane but was not prepared for what awaited me. Construction work had started early, and the lane was already a scene of devastation. The buildings on one side of the street had been flattened; the line of locust trees was gone. The workmen told me they would demolish the other side the following month to make way for a six-lane trunk road.

I crossed the street and found my way to No. 53. The outer wall was still standing, but it was surrounded by rubble and debris. I stood in front of my gate in a daze. I couldn't find the courage to open it. The space inside seemed sacred. For 20 years, that little brick box had both imprisoned me and set me free. It had sheltered all my hopes and dreams. I realized that although at heart I was a nomad, incapable of feeling at home in one place, my thoughts always carried me back to Nanxiao Lane.

In the end, I knew there was no need to walk inside the gate, because wherever I went in this world, this house would remain, like China itself, imprinted on my soul.

I dropped my key back into my pocket, took a cab to the other side of town and checked into a hotel.