Let’s be honest, there’s nothing poetic about Beijing. It’s as if a giant octopus lay down and died here, its tentacles then forged into great concrete roads, overhead passes, and more formidable looking blocks of government buildings, malls, and office towers. Man is dwarfed here by the length of the avenues, the endless stream of cars, and the incessant beckoning from red banners that seem to shake you by the shoulders: “stand up for a new generation of civilized Beijingers,” “strive toward a harmonious society.” BE HAPPY, the banners shout, for god’s sake, be happy. For once, I feel beleaguered by the sheer volume and noise of things. A funny feeling for someone from New York, New York, where everything is packed down to an atom, overreaching in density. But on the third trip back to China, I did not leave from the hills of Ohio. New York is in my blood, and I see everything now with my Broadway Layfaette lens and Sunset Park heart. Only a week ago, while watching the cityscape unfold from the N train: Brooklyn Bridge, Chinatown, people from all over the world, did I ask myself, do you know every nook and cranny of the city? Do you know its every contour, every hidden cul de sac, every line of division, all its history. Are you really leaving the city that breathed life, love, and audacity into your very being?
(Pause for an extended “I love you, New York” moment.) But yes, I suppose, I guess, I _know_: I wouldn’t want it any other way.
On the third trip back to China, I am no longer wide-eyed and ecstatic, but rather, hardened by expectations. Places have always excited me, but that excitment I had/have for New York, in the end, slowly chiselled an armor for me, where I focus on my iPod, iPad, iPhone, iLife as opposed to strangers making small talk on train. I’m not sure when the infatuation stage ended, when we settle into the mundanity of everyday life, when cities lose their splendor, and strangers no longer a potential friend.
This was the armor I wore on a flight to Beijing, and that was the reality I was ready to smash. In China, everything disarms and unsettles. On the flight, I listened to kids next to me having a spirited discussion about China — its economy, its politics, its shortcomings, its accomplishments. The conversation concluded with a proverbial statement: if you don’t have what it takes to leave, then you’re stuck with it. (没本事出来，只能憋着). This is the irony, I suppose, confronting all of us “sea turtles” who make the decision to return.
Yes, with regrets, and yes, with greater audacity, and yes, with a touch of madness that I need to confront a wholly different concrete beast.
Beijing awaits, I hope, in all her foggy splendor, with all her strangers.
Here’s an effort in better record keeping.
DAY 1: Friday, August 26
An acquaintance, friend of a friend, became a friend on the flight from Chicago to Beijing. I considered this somewhat of a serious karmaic mind fuck, and cautiously believed it an auspicious start for my voyage to China. Not only did we end up being on the same flight, but getting a seat next to each other? Freakish. All this in the back drop of an incoming hurricane hurtling toward New York City that I somehow managed to avoid, Godspeed.
I kept on sitting next to all sorts of interesting people. In the waiting room in Chicago O’Hara Airport, two Chinese men, one in his fifties, one in his late thirties, were, of all things, discussing the merits of The Dream of the Red Chamber. The younger one claimed that there were simply too many characters in the classic, and that it was a useless read and not applicable to contemporary life at all. He then went on to cite an even earlier classic, Outlaws of the Marsh, and one of its many, many characters, Song Jiang as “just like a contemporary government official, always courting favors with people.”
The older man then patiently extols the values of Red, its deep symbolism, the vast fabric of relationships and customs that still remains in modern China. Of course, then a three-year-old boy from across the aisle would make an attempt to climb on the old man’s knees, and as the mother frantically apologizes, the old man patted his knees and says, “no worries, no worries, let him climb on.”
For the next ten minutes, I watched the old man help this kid climb on his lap. The kid would stand proudly on the old man’s lap, his chubby arms stretched out like a superhero, then the old man would help him down, only to have the him climb back up within seconds.
“Not afraid of strangers at all, this one,” the old man beamed to the boy’s mother. “It’s good to be so mischievous now, but when he has a mind of his own, then it’s trouble. Children are at their most innocent now.”
So said the walking sage, who, as he helped the superhero down once again, made a sound of a happy yelp.
DAY 2: Saturday, August 27
China is still very poor. With all the focus in the western media on Chinese optimism, Chinese efficiency, that debt we owe the Chinese, it’s easy to forget how poor it is. It’s a type of poor that most Americans cannot begin to imagine, a deepest kind of poverty that goes beyond food stamps and panhandling, a kind of poor that you can feel, see, smell on a morning walk in Beijing if you know where to go. In the crevices of all these grand new developments, parts of Beijing still looks like a village.
China is also very rich. On my flght back to Beijing, I sat next to a group of 7th graders who just returned from a visit to America, a grand ole tour that included several Ivy Leagues and major cities. The kids holding iPads on one hand, iPhones in the other, and a Nintendo DS in between told me last year they went to the UK, to visit Oxford and Cambridge, and all this was organized by their private school in Beijing. This in a nation where the average worker in Beijing still only makes around $400-$500 a month, and that’s Beijing.
DAY 3: Sunday, August 28
First full day in Beijing, it felt like I was only waking up. Now a foreigner, I spent a good full day attacking errands, trying to piece together a new life: getting a new sim card, re-activating my bank card, getting a new subway card, registering within 24 hours at the local police station, where the officer let the phone rang for a good twenty minutes, and never picked it up.
Efficiency, just lovely.
Saw Rongrong, her story is complicated, something to file away. Saw Fanqie, she recently lost a financial analyst job due to instablity in the American market, and a boyfriend too, due to Chinese dudes who need to man up, but that’s another story.
Fanqie said, “you’re more mature.”
The Confucian inside me automatically retorted, “I’m just old, that’s all.”
Fanqie makes a fake angry motion at me, “if you’re old, what am I, dear girl?”
I love this girl. Her hair’s grown out to her waist, and it’s a beautiful curtain of black that she likes to joke, “would be great for a hair commercial if they only shot it from the back.” I don’t know how many times I’ve told her she’s a gorgeous girl, and that if she were in America, she would be snatched up so quick. Then I remember myself, this ain’t America, this is a place where dudes need to man up, but that’s another story.