Nor Cang Lang Ting

Who is, or more likely who was, Carmell Jones*?    His version of “Willow Weep For Me” is helping me feel much better about the day.  I’ve always loved this melody to “Willow Weep For Me.”  This morning I wildly underestimated the time required to go from Changning Qu hotel, back to the People’s Square.  I thought I was slick, telling the bell man I needed a cab before I checked out of the strange hotel.  I popped outside to see it was raining, to remember it was rush hour, to be shown: see, look outside at the kid out in traffic with an umbrella, he’s looking for a cab.  I incorrectly assumed he was looking for mine. Another bellhop repeated my destination and offered up some advice:  The subway will be faster.  I should have taken it. 

The kid with the umbrella down on the street found a cab quickly.  Relieved, I headed over to meet the driver in the rain but out jumped another guy two steps ahead of me.  “Hey, were you line?”  He ignored me and began speaking to the bellhop who had obviously gotten the cab for him and not me.  “Hey, so, did any of the other guys tell you that a car’d been called for ‘People’s Square’?”  “Nope. “ He went back tout to find me one, but at this point I had lost all faith in the hotel’s ability to communicate and prioritize. 

I plodded out in to the rain.  I stood beneath a plane tree to minimize the downpour and fiddled with my Uber app.  They offered up a guy who needed to drop someone off first.  Then, he’ll be on the way! I watched his little red car on the app toot along.  It stopped at an intersection and then turned left instead of heading to me.  The minute estimate went down to three and then back up to six.  Now I would really be late.

A minivan cab came along and I bailed on Uber.  I hopped in, expecting to fly and sat in back street traffic that lead me to more back street traffic.  Where yesterday I’d had a remarkably sophisticated Shanghai taxi gent with whom I had a substantive analytical discussion of U.S. China relations, drive me about, today I landed a surly toad.  I had to repeat the simplest things in Mandarin over and over. He kept hoping I’d get off at a subway station.  Rather than say something I’d regret,  I closed my eyes. and simply tried to mediate, think of nothing, save the count from one to ten. 

Now it’s later and I’m streaming up to Suzhou on the high speed train.  I don’t think I’ve been to this city since I made the obligatory pilgrimage in 1993.   I won’t be going to see Tiger Hill, nor Cang Lang Ting.  I’m sure we’ll just get on another non-descript highway and tear into off an industrial park where my prospect will be waiting.

*Carmel Jones b. 1936 - d. 1996.