Tawny, Chaulky, Winter Earth

Spring has just about come to Shandong.  The fields are green.  From a distance you can see buds, faintly on the trees.  But most of the trees are still bare.  Most of the land is still tawny, chalky, winter earth.  And soon it will all change.  It’s right before me, as I speed across Qi Guo at remarkable speeds.  If we were heading the other direction on this high-speed train, south, the waxing spring would be undeniable as Shandong turns to Jiangsu.

It’s a remarkably blue, optimistic day.  There is some particulate matter in the air, but it isn’t oppressive.  In this distance there is an odd tower of some sort.  It resembles the Shandong city of Dongying looks like from a distance.  But it may be a plume of smoke.  It is obscured like a Monet painting of London.  Soon this rural setting will give way to Tianjin, which seems to be approaching in the distance. 

The train is remarkably silent.  I hear my colleague talking in Chinese.  To my side another colleague is speaking in English.  Reasonable Chinese train behaviour.  These though, are the only voices I hear.  No one is watching any videos on their phone.  No tinny jingles are reaching my ears from anywhere else on the train.  Occasionally I try to take a picture of what I see.  Why is everyone else so quiet?

The young lady in a purple uniform strolls by.  I ask her for a bottle of water.  “Which kind do you want?”  “It doesn’t matter, any kind.”  “Any kind?” she asks incredulous.  “They’re all different!”  I pick out a bottle that seems a bit bigger than the others.  “I’ll have two.”   More plumes of smoke.  Closer now.  I can say for certain that this is smoke, certainly, contributing to the particulate day.  I can see where the fire should be now.  I just saw a little grove of cherry blossoms.   The villages still appear, but now they are dwarfed by housing complex in the distance.  And here are a pair of nuclear reactors that come and go from our site.  

We are leaving Tianjin south station.  A building rose up to the right.  From the distance I assumed it was the new tower, Beijing’s tallest, located there near Guanghua Lu.  But it is just another new hundred story building there in Tianjin.  Nothing special.   Hundred story towers like pagodas then, after a storm. 

 Tuesday, 03/14/17