今天早上下了雨。 有风。911路公车的电视上， 播放着春运的火车站的繁忙。 从公车站到办公室的路上， 感觉有点凉。
一早起床， 妈妈就问我， 你看双双共赢好不好， 还有， 你看， 世界潮好不好。 我乐了， 昨晚我让爸妈帮我寻思怎么给我的新年贺卡对个下联。 她就一晚上没睡好， 翻来覆去地想，想出来还半夜告诉爸爸。 这个妈妈， 原来真是她女儿的妈妈， 和我一样， 心里盛不住事儿的。
办公室里很安静。邮箱里没有邮件。 要做的事情， 就是把贺卡做好， 发出去，就可以回家办年货了。今天腊月二十八了哪。
This is the fourth time I am in Hong Kong international airport this month. The first two times visiting Hong Kong, the other two transfers through.
From international arrival at the lower level, one has to go through a security check before being let back to the departure gates in the middle level. Above that, is another floor, carved into amorphous shape, floating in air. Cafes, bars and restaurants are scattered around, so are ample comfortable sittings. A decent place to hang out given the fact that this is an airport.
I am returning from San Francisco back to Shanghai, after a week long conference. This particular transfer is two hours and half long, at eight at night Hong Kong time, two in the morning San Francisco time, I was sitting behind a 13 hour intercontinental flight after a weeks of average three hour sleep per night.
Right now, I am probably at the epicenter of half in and half out, transferring from west to east, from day to night, and from a professional pursuit to a family life. The signs around me are in both English and Chinese (this is Hong Kong, everything is bilingual), my thoughts are mixed at work and at home, and my minds are tangled by… the world.
I sat down and took notes of a poem I saw in the San Francisco airport - the SF airport, not surprisingly, is artful and has quite a few large-scale painting here and there.
Rowing in Eden – Ah, the sea! Might I but moor – tonight – in thee!
去者日以疏， 来者日以亲。
The painting was in blue. A big hand is putting down paper boats on a large body of blue, each boat has a poem written on it, in a different language. There are maybe ten boats there. I can only recognize the two poems in Chinese and English, neither of which I totally understand. I feel a bit sad reading the Chinese one, and maybe a stream of romance reading the English one. They don’t sound stupid, so I wrote them down.
I packed a lunch box for myself tonight. Just leftover from dinner, nothing special, only that I haven’t done it for a long time.
I also found a new old book to read. A new old book is a book that I had started reading before but did not finish, so part of the book is still new. I have many new old books, today I picked out “the sound and the fury” by William Faulkner.
O is sound asleep. He had gotten into the habit of getting up in the middle of the night and come to the big bed to visit for a couple months now. He didn’t do it last night. Maybe because he was exhausted from the weekend trip to Nanjin. He climbed up some 300 stairs in Zhongshan Ling to visit Grandpa Sun. That is pretty good for a two year old. There are totally 392 stairs, he refused to climb the last strentch of some 40 steps - not that he ran out of fume, only that he doesn’t want to anymore.
I wonder whether he’d get up tonight.
The other day I asked him, “巧克力的英文是什么？”(What’s English for Chocolate?”
“Happy!” he said.
He likes chocolate.
The thought afterwards comes in a few week after I started the list. The thought is as follows: why do I have to love every city I live? Why is that every city I decided to live in has to conform to my dream? Maybe I can just enjoy Shanghai, enjoy it as a stop in my life, as how I enjoy the unfamiliarity I love in the towns I have wondered in my travel, as how I enjoy the difference in a new dish, cooked with a different philosophy, a taste I may not like but nevertheless an experience I delight? Maybe I can enjoy the city for all its ridiculousness - the pajamas on the streets, the serious faces the citizens took on the tinies affairs, even the construction that changes the city’s face everyday - laugh at it, understand it, sympathize it, maybe one day love it for who she is, maybe not, and why do I have to love it anyway? Enjoy it. Enjoy this city that is one of the fastest growing city in the world, and see how it grow, for better for worse, and recall this experience with fun, if not fondness, ten, twenty or forty years from now, in my living room whichever city I live then, and say” When I lived in Shanghai 2008…”
———–
When I got off the plane in Shanghai, back from an otherwise unfortunate Christmas vacation, I was met by the grey sky and the noticeable dusty building, dusty cars, dusty people, and I was reminded of the dusty neighbors and dusty events unresolved from the renovation. I was surprised to see how clearly unhappy I was to come back. So I ask the question why I live in a city I am so unhappy with. Then in an effort to be positive, I ask the question in a different way, what are the reasons I live in Shanghai? Actually my heart cried,” Give me reasons, give me one reason, to justify moving to this city, to continue living in this city, and to persuade myself not moving away from it. ”
So I am starting a list of things I like about Shanghai. Maybe I can find my reasons.
1. In Shanghai people are conservative in promising others in term of time. People I’ve worked with very often deliver before the time they’ve promised. For example, they’d say” Oh, it is busy season, the fastest I can give you is next Wednesday.” But mostly likely the things get delivered or tasks get done by Monday. I have never had this happen to me anywhere else. So, cheers to Shanghai on this one.
2. Views of gingko trees from the bedroom window and the living room window. There aren’t any leaves on the branches now, but there are buds bursting with lives. At the first of the spring, they will turn to sprouts of green. Tender, fresh, lovely.
3. The French balony and the French window, with shutters outside and dark pink curtains inside, on the third floor of an old house on Ruijin Rd. between Yongjia Rd. and Fuxing Rd. , and the person who closed the curtain - seeing from the No. 145 bus going North, at six o’clock in a early spring evening getting dark.
The first time I tried, I managed to go across the street, waited for a taxi on the cub side, dodged the fan of water spray created by several taxis driving so fast and so close to the curb as if they tried to rescue me from my enemy in a chasing scene. Then finally, a bus managed to catch me, and sprayed dirty rain water all over my clothes. I can see the bus driver sneering and giggling at the sight of me soaking wet.
The second time I came out, I got a bigger umbrella, flipflops on my feet, a set of exchange clothes in the backpack. I was lucky to get a taxi right away, and here I am in the office.
It is bright and comfortable in the office. People smiled and said hi to me when I entered. There are friendly exchange here and there. After I changed into my dry clothes and made myself a cup of hot tea, I feel beaming with gold.
N’s office on Dapu Road near Xujiahui Road was the Shanghai part of A and N’s trading company. The American office is in New York, on Canal street a couple years ago, now on midtown east.
The office consists of four people. Two Chinese, one American, one British.
N has been worried recently. Their Chinese partner all of sudden don’t trust them and they have slowed down some business. This happened just when things seem to catch up and they could make profit and they are looking to expand. This happened just when they got a new office space and spent bunch of money to renovate.
They used to have four desks. Now they have ten desks, in addition to N’s private office.
N just turned 30, but he has an air about him that makes him 36. He weighs himself down, and his words are listened to with respect.
上周四去了趟北京，有个非正式的面试。 在国贸CBD那里。 晚上去大学同学那儿住的，同学和表姐家住一个小区， 叫清缘里， 在清河桥附近， 北面， 五环和六环中间。 第二天的飞机是下午一点半的， 正好有时间吃顿早饭， 就约了大鼻子的老罗。 老罗住鼓楼大街附近， 但说好在东直门见面， 他说那里他比较熟悉。
从十几岁就去北京， 回国了后因为工作的原因去的次数更多了， 但是从来都是别人带着走的， 小时候是表哥， 大了是同事和出租车司机。北京的路， 我一点都不熟悉。这其实让我很恼火， 有一次， 急了， 我跟一出租司机商量， 我说我二百块钱， 你拉着我熟悉北京的路和景吧。 记得我们是在园明园出发的， 首先去的是北大和清华， 后来去看鸟巢，还没盖好， 再后来我要去看北京的胡同。中间有经过长安街， 也看到一些有创意的办公楼， 但不知道在哪，其中走到北大和清华中间的那条路上， 我是听说过这里有有意思的咖啡屋的， 然而说拆了， 我就在路边的小饭店请司机又吃了顿午饭。
这次去， 我用了公共交通系统。出了机场门，就是机场大巴， 一号线直通国贸， 车站在国贸中心马路对面。一下车， 有片雪花飘到了我的鼻子上， 我突然意识到， 我又在北方了。真想念啊！
I have been feeling lonely for twenty or so years now. Ever since that afternoon when what’s-her-name refused to play with me and instead played with a group of others. So I just squatted under a tree scribbled on the dirt while sobbing to myself.
It was cool to be a loner in junor high. The black hand-me-down sweatshirt from my gangster cousin makes it even cooler. Two other girls thought it cool too. So the three of us were together all the time to be lonely. Usually hanging out in the construction sites and school warehouse, best if at night. High school ended that sweet lonesomeness, for I somehow ended in the city’s best high school with the highest score. It was something all was proud of, except when the first day of the school, what’s-her-name came out of no-where and said, ” we went to the same kindergarden. Our beds were next to each other. I kicked you all the time then. I heard your entrance score is the highest, I think soon it won’t be the case anymore. ” I don’t remember what I said to that. I only remember she wore a large pink dress with large white frills. But that did started a long disastrous three years of everyone feeling glorified for beat me in the academic score. I spent my age 15 to 18 desperately scramble to keep my territory while pretending I didn’t care - “Look at the violence inherent in the system! …”
I felt lonely when I was in America, culture shock stuff, also have difficulty identify with my fellow countryman. I feel lonely now when I come back: reverse culture shock stuff, also have difficulty identify with my fellow countryman, and with my fellow expatriates.
Sometimes I turn on my charm. Organize a trip, host a party, go to an event, food and drink, pleasant smile, caring chitchat. Rarely the conversation goes beyond the basic what one does and what one has, one somehow unconsciously judging others and being judged by others. But the need to be social is compelling: what are people talking about these days, we mustn’t look like people of solitude in other people’s eyes. So one is afraid to be the first ones to leave, and afraid to see people leaving the party. I found more and more I am glad to see such things over, and feeling anxious to see one coming on the calendar. Real precious time seems to be at home watching a movie, and go to a coffee shop doing nothing.
I envy those who have friends. I envy that they can call up someone and go shopping together. I envy those who “went to a bar last night with some friends”. I envy those who have their weekend scheduled weeks ahead and didn’t have to scratch hair Saturday at eleven o’clock at what to do this weekend. I envy those who were told by friends where all the promotions are and the little agent they have that can help to find anything through insider tips, I envy those who have tons of friends on their MSN and who have little flashing bars calling them at work. Yeah, to be able to like many and to be liked by many is a enviable thing. And not being able to do that, makes me feel lonely.
This morning M wrote back. He thanked my “cogent analysis”. And told me about John Mcphee, Kurt Vonnegut and William Faulkner whose writing sometimes ” takes a timeline or a chart to figure out what’s going on”. I was made smile by that description. And I was thoroughly touched - Andy workes long hours. As I was smiling and touched to tears at the same time, I remebered the conversation with W, under the shanghai’s neon skyline on our terrace, that instilled confirmation to our old-fashioned belief and idealistic hope; I remembered the letters from P, the first thing in the morning, that were so correct that sends me into deep pain for weeks and come out stronger and clearer. I remembered the calls came from the west coast, saying ” I must talk to you. If I don’t, I will burst.” The call from east coast, telling me, ” I am pregnant again. ” The snail mails that list reasons of me being great when I feel so little of my self, the ski training program for my nine months old son, the friend who came and who told says “never go bolistic”Then there is the words that says, ” that leading a good life is possible, that being a good person is possible, … , that truth can exist alongside beauty.”. Words that says “It exists in other people’s mouth, in other people’s contexts, serving other people’s intentions: it is from there that one must take the word, and make it one’s own.”
At that moment, I suddenly realized, something I so foolishly didn’t see for so long, that I am not lonely. I have all over the world the treasure of friendship, the very best that outlasts time, space, occupation and wealth.
A lot of time life seems a big taggle of worry to me. It starts from the basic mandane subject of clothes, food, job, house, transportation, to the higher-level subject in persistant pursuit of a true identity and eternal happiness. After I got a husband, such worries are doubled. After we got a baby, such worries are octopouled. For I have become a parent, and I worry about our parents, old now.
Outside my tiny world, the big world seems to have made itself a even bigger taggle of worries to itself. Everyday the headlines in New York Times are how many people died in Iraq. Sometimes, it is how many people died in Isreal. Sometimes in the other part of the world. There are worries on global warming and oil price, there are worries from the housing market, subprime credit market, medical insurance, drug safety, food safety, toy safety, divorce, scam… The local newspaper of course cover the 17th people’s representative meeting, but what people really enjoy are the “Nanny Kidnapped Baby!”, “Fire on top of the tallest building in Asia!”, “Paris embrassed herself, Again!”. People say all they want is happiness. But in reality, people seem to enjoy sufferings, others of course, but maybe even their own.
For me, worry have become a habit, something like brushing teeth in the morning. A subconscious things-to-worry list, aside from things-to-do list, have to be there in the back of my mind everyday. A few days ago, I suddenly noticed I was not worried about anything. I felt uneasy, I felt out of sorts about myself, as if I am not important enough, and I couldn’t find my self-worth.
This morning, I noticed D is shorter. Oh, poor D, he worked too hard and he has shrinked into an old man. I exclamed:” What did you do to yourself? Why are you shorter? My head used to be on your shoulder, why is it on your eye level now? ”
“You are wearing slippers, and I am not.”
I kicked off my slippers. He pulled me in front of him and we stood up straight, face to face.
My head is indeed still at his shoulder level, my forehead the same level as his lips.
He took the opportunity and kissed my forhead, “See, it has always been here. Always.”
I felt heat coming to my eyes, and I hear that poem in my ears: ”They say happiness is not fair, I don’t dare…”
He looked up at me, staring, quietly but intensely, studying my eyes, my nose, pondering, as if I am his whole world.
I noticed him, smiled and said,” why are you looking at me this way?”
He gave me a little smile. Little red lips. A hint of shyness. But kept looking, with such admiration.
Baby cannot talk yet. But I think I heard him telling me, you are beautiful.
小小子儿， 坐门墩儿，
哭着喊着要媳妇儿。
要媳妇儿干吗？
点灯， 说话儿，
吹灯， 作伴儿，
早上起来梳小辫儿。