You might even call
Beijing beautiful on a day like this.
The sun is almost hot. Buds seem
to be popping out on trees, slowly as I write.
The sky isn’t crystal clear. Off
in the distance there is a bit of haze but nothing to make a stink about. The hard earned spring is irrevocably here.
In a month or two we can start to complain again when the
annual spring winds and dust storms bring an ochre blanketing of silt into the
city making a mockery of the temperate April weather. These poplars off to my side on Jingmi Lu,
will soon bloom and send millions of white puff balls out into the air,
settling in dirty swirls on the side of the road. But it’s all still just about to happen. And life, for today, feels innocent and fresh
as only spring is allowed to be: 遍地开花[1]
Paused now in a gas station. Every gas station in China is still a full
service experience. Two or three people
per pump in fact. The man tells us to
turn off the cell phone, as it somehow might ignite the fumes of the gas. What if it rings? Dusty, dry, it may take more than spring to
lift this Sinopec lot into something that spoke of beauty.
Sleepy, actually. I
had a big salad but no coffee after lunch, and . . .
Twenty five minutes later or so, I’m back. Downtown now, on the third ring road. Off to the right is the some what disjointed
flag of Thailand and a sign for the Banana Leaf restaurant which has been there
since at least 1996 when it stood out somewhat more prominently. The city is dense and dusty but you can’t
deny the sunshine and what it does to the mood.
It’s taken me a half an hour and dreams of God-knows-what to realize
that my backside is roasting with the seat heater on full blast in our car,
here on our temperate spring day. Off to
the right, in a bus, there is an albino Chinese man with his head against the
window, standing out rather prominently with his white hair and pale complexion. Turning now across impossible traffic. But still, with a bit of swearing, we made
it through.
Double parked now. No
one beeping at us, however. Everyone is
used to the hassle. Now we’re stopped, farther
up ahead, behind someone else, who is sitting there, double parked. Before too long, we’re cursing and riding the
horn. Babucour Traore on the car
speaker, singing softly, from his 1992 release Kar Kar, trying to suggest we calm down. Relax.
He’s familiar with yellow dust. I
remember seeing him perform in Berkeley about ten years back. He was welcoming, unassuming, shepherd-like. He appeared by himself with only a man on
percussion beside him. That gent was
playing two small, spherical gourds, sounded with a roll of all five fingers in
a manner that seemed remarkably easy and accessible, but was, of course, ultimately
unfathomable, evidence of some subtle mastery.
I can recall the woman who had introduced them both, annoyed to me with
her familiarity, referring to him as she did, time after time by the first
name. “Babacour will be right back. I was chatting back stage with Babacour.”
Our meeting is at the Kerry Center, which is just longer
enough down the third ring road from where I’d normally turn off, to introduce
significant delay to my regular calculation of “going into the city.” And so, now we are late. We’ll have some excuse about the traffic. Everyone will smile knowingly when I mention
that the traffic, even after all these years of supposed wisdom, was worse than
expected. We used to drive down the
same road on the way to work at what was then the shinny, new Motorola building
back in 1998. The traffic along this
road was awful then. No matter what they
tell you it was no better in that era. The ring roads are poorly designed and
always clog up quickly.
Parking now in the basement.
Will see you on the ride home.
[1]
biàndìkāihuā: to blossom everywhere / to spring up all
over the place / to flourish on a large scale
No comments:
Post a Comment