Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Rain, Finally, Somewhere.




I don’t think I have an especially large backside.  I may be wrong.  I am, alas, bigger than you’re average Shanghainese.  That’s probably safe to say.  Sitting now on the number 4 train line and there are two seats with a slight rise between them, meant to signify the divider.  But there is a modest sized man beside me and to give him the politeness of an inch or so of space my ass, spans way over the middle divider.  Should one more person sit down, its all over. 

Now a beggar is passing by.  An older gentleman, who is most assuredly in for a crummy Chinese New Year, presumably doubly undignified to be poor and without any filial care on this symbolic time.  I wonder if anyone comes through signing songs, or playing bongos or doing some controversial street theatre that doesn’t expect any money.  Unlikely.



I felt like some elemental Masai nomad in Karen Blixen’s stories of East Africa as I walked out my hotel this afternoon.  It was dark out, people darted about under umbrellas and uncharacteristically I was overjoyed.  Rain!  Nice to see you.  How long has it been?  I walked out under the awning and felt it hit my skin.  I might have sung a different tune if I’d had to walk for a few hundred yards in a deluge, but it was a simple drizzle and the moisture was like a morning shower, completely welcome.

I haven’t been tracking.  I’m sure it’s easily locatable on line somewhere but it has been many months without any precipitation, rain or snow, in Beijing.  And it shows. Here the presence of moisture, the 潇潇细雨[1]conveys something civilized. 



I’d been out walking around two hours earlier and no rain was falling.  I had to walk a few blocks to find a café with espresso.  Costa Coffee:  That’ll do.   There must have been a check out design flaw, because these three young ladies were working indefatigably and yet the line to pick up your coffee snaked around behind the garbage can for eight people or so. 

I heard one of the ladies finally call out the word “dopio” and I butted in, in Mandarin that it wasn’t a dopio but a triple shot.  She replied in English that she was aware of this and then commented kindly on my Chinese, to which I replied that we should speak the local dialect, Shanghai-hua.  And as has happened probably five hundred other times I’ve uttered that cheeky line, she of course replied “you can speak Shanghai-hua?”  Which is my queue to say, “I can’t speak Shanghai-hua” in the local dialect.  This, being one of a dozen phrases I know.  I should be tired of this silly routine but it is pleasure inducing, nearly every time.  The day is always a bit easier when you make someone smile.

Then, kindly switching to Mandarin she asked me something I don’t think anyone ever said before, which was “ahh, so you must be married to a Shanghainese woman?” I told her I was the husband of a Shandong gal, which she and the woman in front all found entertaining.  Walking out with my triple shot, I mused on the classic Shanghai dichotomy of kiss up to foreigners, kick-down to Chinese who are not from Shanghai.  And theoretically it is a drag, something less than fair.  And that analysis may all be a bit anachronistic.  But in the moment, it was pure fun to speak bits of Shanghai-hua and elicit animated, flattery and engagement. 

OK.  Next stop is my change station.  Back later, if I get a seat or two.

No such luck.  Those five stops were done standing.  At the Hong Qiao Terminal Two departure hall Starbucks now.  Just before switching trains I was distracted by two people speaking in sign language.  Of course it is impolite to stare, even if that is the native custom.  And of course it is even less polite to smirk, unwittingly at someone’s exaggerated facial gestures as they use their hands to communicate.  And it is then, the depths of poor taste to connect the mental dots from this remarkable language to the South African gentleman who recently did translations for world leaders at Mandela’s funeral that were, it became clear later, utter nonsense, but that’s what my mind did, sitting there on the train. 

Orchestral jazz, Gil Evans “Big Stuff”, from “Gil Evans & Ten” on the mix.  Calming sophistication to watch the holiday traffic promenade by.  Still enjoy looking out at the rainy road out there, within site.  There won’t be any puddles where I’m heading.  Tomorrow we join the other five hundred million or so and head to the “old home” in our case Shandong, where things are scrupulously traditional.  This is a three-hour drive that will likely take us five or more hours with the traffic.  There won’t be any puddles out there either.  Dry, overworked farm land that’s been worked hard since not long after Peking Man.  But that’s OK.  It’s dry and rough, but it is magical, and medieval, particularly at this time. 



[1] xiāoxiāoxìyǔ:  the sound of light rain or drizzle (idiom)

No comments:

Post a Comment