Away from home, once
again. Cars are riding their horns down
below the 12th floor of the residence I’m staying in. Urban sounds that rise and receded with every
traffic light. Horns are like birdcalls
that come randomly while the pulsation of traffic flow, is governed by lights and
the rising tide of morning time traffic. Something deeply familiar about city
sounds, but distant as well.
Overcast outside but it doesn’t look polluted. Shanghai is almost always moist. And moisture is forgiving. I tried to remind my daughters about what
Taoism was when we were on the holy Taoist peak last weekend, through the use
of the few aphorisms I could recall:
Water is stronger than stone because it can wear down stone over time. So we’ll think of moisture as strength, as
well.
The last time I stayed here I think I heard a subway or
similarly deep and regular run against the foundation of this building, every
so often. But that was down on the fifth
floor, closer to the girders that run down into the bedrock. Up here on the twelfth floor the vibrations
don’t seem to register. Though perhaps
it is because I’m all the way down on the east side of the building, much
further from the elevator.
I never used to know my sense of direction in Shanghai. In
Manhattan, east and west is pretty straightforward. In Beijing its all squares radiating out from
the emperor's throne. During my first
stint here, there was no “Pu Dong” neighborhood of any consequence. Once you define the city as east and west of
the river, as they do now it becomes easier. And at
this residence, we conveniently have a ‘Beijing Road’ running along the north
side of the building. Other
neighborhoods, away from the river, away from the main arteries, I am lost,
once again.
No comments:
Post a Comment