Rise Up Over the Clouds

I have just been diagnosed with a “waist” problem.  And the driver who has provided this unsolicited diagnosis is to my left.  The “driver” he is in the driver’s seat.  Yes, he knows a man, near here to who can provide us with the requisite medicine.  I am not inclined to care much at all about this.  But a conversation with others in the car has been struck.  Wood on the water, we are floating along bouncing into things, meeting things we did not expect to meet.

My wife has picked up the thread of the conversation and is driving the spinning stick of wood on down stream.   “Where exactly is this medicine?  What is the name?”  I’m lost in the repartee but soon the whole car is laughing about this man’s attempt to pull me into purchasing something for my waist.  We are, a captive audience.  Who knows?  Maybe I am missing something prescient. 

Now the driver has given up on his rough commercialism. We have moved on to “how many kids do you have?”  This driver has three children.  I hope they all have hukou’s somewhere.   We are plodding along through the dusky twilight of Tai An.   When we came in during the nighttime this was a very long road.  Now, during rush hour, I can see much more, but we’re still moving slowly, tracing our way back to the high speed station, that was apparently built dramatically far from the center of things.

Now my wife and the driver are chatting amicably about how many kids is the right number to have.  “I had three as well.”  But the calculus is quite a bit different. I am learning about how much it costs to send ones children to school and it is 10K RMB.  I’m sure this is a “no-joke” figure for this gentleman, but I do note that it is set at a rather different school from what it is the international community demands.

This morning we had our wake up call at 4:20AM.  That is early.  I was ready for  it but still, you’d prefer someone came later than 4:20AM.   This because at 4:50AM everyone in our hotel will don green PLA green winter coats and march out to see the sun rise.  Yesterday, it rained.  We considered our chances slim.  Our hotel guys reminded us last time that only 33% of the people who strike out, actually see the sun rise. 

We look like a bad PLA movie, heading out en masse, before the sunrise, crawling over the mountains like so many ants.  It’s a step climb up, but after yesterday we all know we can do it.  And we line up along a bluff and look at the lightening horizon.  Up further is a yet-again higher bluff.  I go check it out.  But soon, I miss my family and return down in time to watch the orb rise up over the clouds and into the horizon.  It's a glorious proper sunrise enough to make one say it looks red out there.  From the head of Pangu:  a place to contented with.