No Notable Redesigns

If I dash into a building and notice it’s a mall I am usually certain I’ve come to the wrong place.  The people I’m usually going to talk to are invariably officed in an office tower.   This evening however I’m here to see a school.  An after school program to be precise, and this mall setting with escalators, shop fronts and lots and lots of stores for children, is a perfectly reasonable place to imagine such an enterprise being located.  There it is, with the white picket fence out front.

Later, under the river and up into the former French Concession.  Xintiandi felt old before it felt new.  And tonight, it felt rather older.  I went to the place that has always been there which I knew would be good:  “Really?”  “Yah, you’ll at least thirty minutes before we can seat you.  Memories of flashes from earlier in the day:  make a reservation. 

Began the morning in Hangzhou.  “You are in fact crossing over the Yangzi River.”  That’s wrong.  You’re crossing the Qiantang River.  It finds its own way to the sea without the help of the Yangzi.  This is precisely why the city is located here.  This is why this city served as a capital at more than once in history.  The river hasn’t been recently remodelled.  The river wasn’t recently upgraded.  There have been no notable redesigns of how the river moves or why it does. The river is not impressed.

The Hangzhou East Rail station is something that has been recently rebuilt into something strikingly more modern than anything in the U.S.  But in software terms, there are many bugs.  The ticket office forces you to stand in line.  This is the same in Jinan, in Beijing, and in Shanghai and I can only imagine in every station, across the nation.  The wait is stressful, because there is always someone who pursues a long exchange with the testy, well-amplified ticket gal, for no good reason. “How much is the fare if I leave the same time tomorrow?”  “It’s the same.”  “And what about the day after that?  What is that price?”  You know someone will inevitably try to cut front of you.  Someone will.  When they do you have seven things ready to say.  None of them polite.  All of them presumptuous. 

I’m going in now.  Passport under the Plexiglas.   Now more delicately, my iPhone so she can see the e-ticket number.  If she touches the phone carelessly the screen will change and we’ll nee to start all over again.  Soon my tickets are sliding one by one out of the machine. Up the escalator, around the corner of the building and in the main entrance.  Step into another line, this time for security.  Another bug in the soft-power; a cicada perhaps. More screaming announcements from the distorted megaphone, belying the utility of the message and the grandeur of the station and the enormity of accomplishment that a national, high-speed rail network represents.  Don’t think about it and it will feel like a normal day in Cathay.

The train sped quietly through the river land of Yue.  Rain had been falling all day.  Everything looked drenched and sullen up the canals and across the aqua culture fields, extending moisture everywhere.



Thursday, 11/16/17