Up
high over Shandong, once again, en route down to Hong Kong. “Get to the back of the bus” they said
so I’ve settled in to seat 57C, an aisle seat at the back of the plane. Outside at least from this vantage, there
is nothing but the glare of sun, reflecting back off a bed of clouds covering
the land for as far as the eye can see.
No breakfast this morning. Running, running, running to squeeze in more email replies
and text message updates. A glass
of grapefruit juice at home. A
triple espresso at Starbucks in the airport. From the moment I got my ticket till the time the plane took
off I was on the phone with a must-do call, that I turned off when I went
through customs. “Hi. I’m back.” Rush. It’s boarding already. “Well it really has been fascinating
discussing this with you and I, ah, they’re ordering me to turn everything
off. Strange how that can be a
blessing.
A lady just bounced by with a baby in her arms. She was, literally bouncing the mite. I can remember flying with an infant or
two in tow. I can recall trotting
around, trying to keep them happy and distracted. I can recall the moment when the pressurization shifts as
the plane begins its descent and the infant’s ears begin to feel the pressure. And then they cry. And other people start to turn around
And you glare at them, defying them to say anything the least bit compromised
about your own flesh and blood.
Sailing in to the city on the Airport Express now. The familiar jaunt over bays, on oddly
covered bridges and under mountains to the ‘green field’, “nine dragons’ and on
to the center of the bay. If I, a
mere illiterate foreigner feel emotional at the beauty of the traditional
Chinese characters, this as juxtaposed to the simplified characters we live
with on the mainland, what must it be like for so many millions of
Chinese? I know, most people could
care less. But surely this
dramatic difference causes DNA-level ripples going either
direction among the people identified with one or the other character set or one or another position on traditionalism vs. functionality and the needs of a modern society.
If you’re from Hong Kong or Taiwan you must view the
simplified characters as a dramatic, forced-fit compromise. Literacy is a lovely thing and literacy
for everyone is grand. The achievement therein an undeniable good. But the fengshui, the spirit, the breath of the simplified characters is often broken. If you’re from the
mainland coming to Hong Kong, do they look breath-taking as they do to me now? Or do they simply seem old fashioned. Surely all but the most ridiculous clod
would agree that they are much, much, more beautiful to consider, if also difficult
to decipher. Just look at the character
for “dragon”, the long out my window
on a train station sign looking 行云流水[1].
Sunny day, fluffy clouds blowing over. It’s hot and humid, but not oppressively
so. Over to the side miles and
miles of dockland, and railroad cars piled six and seven cars high. My friend is trying to make a call to
someone. I know from experience
that its only matter of time before the call drops here. It has been that way for a decade. Olympic Village is up and off to the
left. I’ve been taught hundreds of
Cantonese words over the years, that I can’t remember. But I know that the “Olympic Village”
is “Oh Hoi Sing,” because an old colleague lived there.
I’d love to check in to my hotel and just go to bed. Drift off and reckon with things in nod. But I have to bang out God-knows how
many emails. Tomorrow, early, it’s
up to Shenzhen. Only the briefest
of visits here in the SAR. Time to
pick up contact lenses and do a few meetings, but no time to talk intelligently
with anyone about public sentiment and the question of suffrage or the moon I saw early this morning.
Do you know who Llyod Miler is? My buddy sent me a collection of his with the exquisite and
provocative title “A Lifetime in Oriental Jazz”, wherein he is playing the Oud
and the Guzheng and a host of Persian and Afghani instruments I don’t know the
name of. Born in 1938 he can
apparently play over 100 instruments and though it doesn’t say where he was
born, it does say that his mom wrote a book called “Bright Blue Beads, An
American Family in Persia” which suggests he lived some formative years in that
civilization. One I’d so love to confront one day. With a bunch of time, in Idaho and a gig as a professor at
Brigham Young University, I’m tempted to guess his religion but will demur. The album is at turns delicate, funky,
swinging, which is only fitting for something that traces a “lifetime.” There are over thirty CDs of his out
there, but only one I can sample.
Discovery is beyond any one lifetime.
[1] xíngyúnliúshuǐ：lit. moving clouds and flowing water
(idiom) / fig. very natural and flowing style of calligraphy, writing, etc /
natural and unforced
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