Sunday, Nov 28
Driving back to gf's apartment tonight. The cab is going through the streets behind the Forbidden City. It struck me that I haven't seen parts of Beijing or Shanghai like this very much this time back. These streets were quiet and dimly lit. Not much people or traffic around. There are not a lot of store fronts. All you see are trees lining both sides of streets soldierly, with the occasional street lamps totting the line. Walls remain silent but dignified, concealing what's behind them, houses maybe, or just some government DanWei.So much of what visitors sees in today's cities in China, willingly or not, is quite different. The bristling streets with cabs jostling for positions in a snail-race. Highrise building towering over you. Highways, pedestrian overpasses, and billboards doing their best to shield out the sky. Look around you, and you invariably see a sea of businesses, usually grouped together by variety. Dazzling restaurants with greeters by their doors and doormen/salesmen hailing cabs and haggling passer-bys. Cheap stores that blare out sales pitch, or better, Celine Dion's Titanic, to attract the naive visitors from the country side. High-end chic stores that display designer clothing and newest electronics that rival any American malls. And people. People window-shopping. People eating street-snacks. People selling and pushing whatever they do. People haggling. People spitting. People rushing to somewhere. Just a lot of people. And signs. No space is wasted.
This is not the China I remembered, and I grew up in Shanghai, its biggest city. What the cab ride through the dark streets of Beijing have reminded me was another lifetime ago, where bicycles outnumbered the cabs, and the ding-dings of bike rings were the only noise poluution on the streets. It's been so long that I only RE-membered it now. It would be Sunday night, and I am sitting on the back of my mom or one of my uncles' bicycle, going home after visiting some relatives. Trying to hold on to the tiny, uncomfortable grill that pretends to be a seat, and looking around the adult to see where we are going, even though I had traveled the same road every week. What I ended up watching was not what's in front of the road, but the road itself. The smooth asphalt. The occasional yellow dashed line. And the Shadows. Our shadow outlining the bike, with the spool of its wheel in lighter blur, and its occupants. It would be dark and stubby. And as we move past the lamp overhead, the shadow would get stretched and get lighter. Just when it started to become too faint, a new one would emerge, getting darker and shorter. There is a moment of suspense as if the two shadows were really tethered to the lamps and which one would win. But as always, the new one wins and replaces the old one. And we start over again. There is not much noisy nor people. It's just me and the wax and wane of the shadow. The cycle would repeat dozens, hundreds of time, forever, except home is not that far away.
Shanghai and the rest of China have come a long way, but I wonder if I look hard enough will home of my younger years be that far away?
posted by hedgehog @ 11:12 PM
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