Jamie Doom...

Friday, November 21

Cure for the Common Cold

Sometimes all of this is just too much for me. I wonder why I am here in China right now at this moment. Why am allowed to see this? What am I supposed to do with it? I’m inadequate to record it all. My words are too rough and too Philistine to accurately give this flesh. My mind is busy filtering and sorting; maybe I am missing it. But maybe I can catch a peek, a fuzzy slide on the gray wall of my brain.

I spent the half of Wednesday and all of Thursday in bed with a cold. Strong cold medicine conjured dreams of home and fresh coffee. So yesterday afternoon I awoke and went walking to get some fresh air, good coffee, and remind myself I was still in China. It was a little after four o’clock when I started walking, and it was becoming apparent that I had slept through most of a perfect November, Haikou day. It was in the low eighties and the trees planted by the road were making crazy dark shadows which were strewn with bright shards of shattered sunlight. Old couples were gingerly taking their afternoon stroll. Some of them were swinging their arms simultaneously around like swimmers loosening up before a heat. Many of these old couples were carrying with them their reward for still being alive—fat, round-headed grandbabies in split pants.

Some of the old people aren’t walking so much as they are shuffling down the street. Ancient men either in dark suits or bare-armed in white wife-beaters walk slightly bent with their hands folded neatly behind them. With each shuffle they alternately look down at uneven cobbled sidewalk then back up at the less even humanity passing them. Often their eyes meet mine, which gives me pause for these are not eyes of shufflers but of sprinters. There is recognition. Often they smile slightly as if suddenly they have remembered something. Sometimes, I sense the hint of a nod.

At this time of the day, sidewalk and bike path sweepers are out en masse. Their equipment is as course as my memory: large and irregular straw brooms, four-wheeled rubbish carts and metal dustpans. Their uniform consists of wide straw hats and neon orange traffic vests finished with bits of reflecting material. As I am walking, I am stepping over tidy piles of dirt and rubbish. Later, they will return for any piles not leveled by foot of nature. One older lady is diligently making the cobble stoned sidewalk clean. I look closely at her. Her orange vest is covering a smart gray business suit, and she’s wearing matching long-toed high heels as well. Many of the sweepers have forsaken sweeping and are basking in the sidewalk breeze while leaning on their brooms and making glib conversation with shop keepers and fruit venders. I imagine they must be talking about the most important things. For when I approach, they quit talking and look up at me. They resume their discourse after I am five or six paces away—foreigners aren’t privy to complicated conspiracies whispered about by sweet sweepers!

School is now letting out. In contrast to the plodding, platinum-headed sages, hundreds of uniformed children are running frantically from those horribly confining institutions. Most don’t see me at all; the ones that do looked surprised before showing me a gapped-toothed smile which is sometimes accompanied by a brave, adventurous “hello.”(I may tire of “hellos” but never from them. They can sing it to me as often as they like. And I never feel more sincere than when I am smiling back at them.) Then they are off, back to the extraordinary business of being young. But usually, they don’t see me at all. They only see each other; others, large adults especially, are only props to hide behind or obstacles to swerve around. Unlike the adults inhabiting the years between youth and old age, these children are occupied with far more interesting things than a random foreigner walking by. Two young boys in identical uniforms are slurping at identical ice cream pops. Arms are slung carelessly around each other’s necks, and they are laughing hilariously about it all. Universally, children’s laughter is medicine. Indeed, “it’s sweet to your soul and health to your bones.” My cold is beginning to clear.

I continue my stroll past a new park; older middle school and high school students, also in uniforms, are lounging on ridiculously green grass under tiny trees. From time to time, they prop themselves on elbows to spit sunflower shells into the wind. Their communication is less frantic but no less lively. Boyfriends and girlfriends are getting their alone time here. It’s apparent; they are in love. They are alone in front all of us sidewalk pedestrians, beeping taxis, and fellow students. The rest of us could be banging on pots and pans with large wooden spoons while screaming loudly, and they would scarce look up. Their world is two people, and it has little to do with the other world. Blah! At least they could hide their happiness or feign some distress for the rest of us sad wretches.

Soon, I am crossing traffic. The secret to arriving at the other side of the street safely has little to do with cross walks or green lit pedestrian signs. I have learned this much here in China. Walking across traffic is about singularity of purpose. Once you begin your journey to the other side, don’t slow down; don’t look around. You will only confuse the matter by acknowledging the busses, taxis, or motorcycles that are hurtling towards you to cause your certain doom. As the primary damage inflictors, they have the responsibility of beeping and swerving. If they are going to hit you, they will beep loudly; then and only then should you look up and see what the situation requires.

I’m across the street now. I walk past a dirty homeless man, completely naked, sleeping under some steps. A large carwash is busy washing cars less than twenty feet from where he sleeps soundly. Mercedes and BMW’s gleam and drip in the afternoon sun. Blue-uniformed car washers pop their towels and stroll around admiring their work. The air is filled with car air freshener and the stench of something decaying. Next to the car wash, a gold-toothed street vender is using a newspaper to fan the coals under thick sugar cane.

Soon I arrive at my supermarket which is a nice modern place only recently opened. I stock up on chocolate, Maxwell House Coffee, Jiffy Peanut Butter, and sliced Kraft Cheese. Sometimes, I wrongly imagine that these make me more at home in a culture so different from my own. But then I remember that home isn’t a building or food or a location on a map. I think it’s the people that you know and love. It’s being known and loved. Maybe that’s why Thomas Wolfe said we can’t go home again. People aren’t static. They change and become. So these days in China, I am feeling a little bit more at home; not because I have identified with a bit of “real” coffee, but because I have identified with some real people. Slowly, sometimes too slowly, I am beginning to notice less and less of those easily caricatured preconceptions and more and more of that familiar life.

In China, most of this is still beyond my comprehension. Some of it remains inscrutable. Maybe I will never be privy to all of it or even most of it. Much of it is my fault. I walk past naked homeless people and quickly change my thoughts to the business of car washes. I don’t want to think about all of it. I can’t. But I’m happy to catch glimpses.

Today I took a walk to the store. On the way there, I think I saw 1.4 billion people; but I can’t remember them all. I’m trying; but when I close my eyes, it’s all shattered sunlight under cool shady green. Old couples, bent slightly at the waist, shuffle eternally towards me. And somewhere children are laughing.