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The Great Race 2: Racing Against One Self

Went to the annual physical check, found out new problems on top of old, un-receding ones. Had a new revelation: I'm in a race against my own self, my own body with its ticking clocks. I shall rash to complete what I'm destined to do in this life, or rather, start embarking on it, before the defects of my body catch up with me, with my superior yet dependent self: my will.

The Great Race 1: Racing Against the Giant

Watching another news break-out about another huge railway constructing costs billions found out to be cut into pieces and sub-contracted to suspicious groups including one bunch of peasant workers with neither experience or certificate, headed by the figure of nobody but a small-time chef.

The TV screen showed a handful of lonesome great columns, which were erected to support the great railway, now standing uncertainly, nakedly with rough finish, in a bleak countryside of nothing. They were supposed to be filled with concretes, but now it's known their thick bellies are fed with not only concretes, but also cheaper fillings of gravels.

I suddenly had an revelation: I'm in a great race � against the giant turning loose in its head-long, feverish rash to nowhere but a headier space. We're rushing against each other for time: I need to get out of here before it catches up with me, before they catch up with me: its numerous physical, financial, social and political bombs buried under its numerous bridges, highway, skyscrapers, subways and other 21^st century temples saluting the so-called awakening dragon and its mythical powers.

Beggars vs. Dishonest Workers: which one is viler?

Beggars are one essential scene in the so-called rising China of the 21^st century. Reason simple and straightforward: we're too many. So we have more waste, left-overs and defects than any other too.

While I sometimes gave to the old beggars, often run away from children beggars (for the look in their eyes � hatred, canning, distrust and aggression that akin to criminals instead of children in my imagination � the adult and old beggars generally do not betray any emotion in their muddy eyes), I always despised adult beggars with whole limes � why don't they go to find a job? Haven't they hands and legs?

 

But with the revelation of recycled cooking-oil from restaurant left-overs � so dubbed "gutter oil" as another ingenious true Chinese invention of the 21^st century � it's sheer scale and sophistication, its whole system of operation as a mature industry, its penetration far beyond occasional patronage by nameless digs, appalled me more by the unspoken collapse of moral system in this society, than by its hideous products, I began to re-think: beggars and dishonest workers, which one is viler?

 

These are people with whole limes and functioning brain, who don't want to sit there and beg. They work hard to get the restaurant left-overs smuggled across provinces to be "recycled" into yellow-fluid that looks like low-quality cooking oil which they don't use for their own meals but sell to whoever what to make money the cheap way. Now, are they just ignorant people, dishonest workers, or monsters without hearts, or monsters who have eaten their own hearts?  

Now I wish they just gave up their abhorrent trade, go into the street, sit and beg. And I'll re-think my beggar-giving strategy not as a charity but as a program to promote no-harm existence.

No Way Home

Mom said on the phone: "Why do you even think about coming back here? I myself just hates I can't get out of here. I can't stand its backwardness, its lack of civilization. I can't stand it every day and every minute and I absolutely don't want my children to come back here, EVER! You're born in this damn place, and you actually want to die here?!" Her voice broke in a sudden outburst of anger.

I put down the phone calmly. But there's undoubtedly a hard bump forming in my chest. Then I realized that the last ditch of efforts of my mom in her life long battle against her cursed destiny is to keep her daughter from returning to the place she was born in. The bitterness of my mom has a long root, but let's just say, she's from a better place.

 

I had left the K city at age eighteen with the same distain of that place, and the great expectation that I was going out to the big world, the real world and I was never going to come back, EVER. I had made my efforts. I went to a top University of the country, in the "developed region", I took a job in Shanghai. I took an MBA in Hong Kong, I stayed briefly in the U.S. and I came back working in Shanghai. It was not my plan to go back the K city. The plan was to live in a nice European city, or a small town is better.

 

But I'm tired at the age of thirty-seven. I had worked double the hours than my generation before and perhaps ten times the hours than the average person in my parents' generation. And Shanghai has been getting on my nerves for a while. The maddening crowds, the unending construction, the unrelenting noise, the corruption of morals (which is no way to run from, actually, unless I run out of the country), and the rocketing real estate price that kept the house of my desire eluding my power and finally a CPI index that seems to be spinning out of control, that drove me to draw up this back-up plan to finally wind up an apartment in the K city, as an insurance against the depreciation of my hard-earned money.

 

As the turn-around of mind works in favor of the K city, I started to miss its blue sky (still much bluer than all most all of the cities in China), its abundant sunshine with pleasant climate, its mushrooms in the summer, its air at least fresher than Shanghai and everything much cheaper. As to the backwardness and lack of "civilization" as my mom calls it, actually is an ignorance in itself, but not malicious or harmful. While the local people on average do lack in the grace of manner or style or sophistication compared with people in Shanghai or other "developed" cities, they're generally considered to be more honest, down to earth, or even good-hearted. To be true, there're more than a few people who actually told me that they are so drawn by the city's lay-backness, the good weather and cheap price that they want to retire there! Imagine how shocked they would be, to hear my mom's verdict on the city.

 

Still, my mom's protest has revealed a startling fact to me: that there is No Way Home for me. The draw-backs of the K city might still gets me, with a good chance, shall I really go back there.  Shanghai is becoming too expensive, plus too noisy. And the respective effort of me and my boyfriend to make a breakthrough outside of our jobs on projects with potential financial success may never born a fruit. 

 

Just yesterday I had been mourning about Lily's destiny, that she has a home she couldn't go back anymore and she has no place in Shanghai. But now, am I at a better place?

 

But if there's anything I'm really proud of, I have a heart of a rock, and I'm in this life a self-proclaimed passenger anyway. Home will be where my books are, home will be where my pen is (or actually keyboard and Internet connection). So if I have no way home, I'm not on the way home either. I'll just be on the road. Keep the music on.

Girl With No Home

The conversation on the lunch table, in a most uncharacteristic way, turned to Lily, the assistant of the team.

We were gathered casually for lunch in a restaurant on the fourteen floor of one of the unnamable, numerous office towers in the high-end office district near Jing'An Temple. You could see from the window the temple actually glows from real gold donated by pious billionaires.

 

"Lily bought an apartment?" everybody was asking, turning their glares toward the girl fidgeting in her seat, as she always does, under unaccustomed attention. Finally somebody has to repeat the whole story: Lily went to an real estate project under-building the weekend before and made a guarantee of ten thousand bucks, probably a good five months of her salary after tax. The problem is, the apartment is on the far end of Feng Xian, a suburb district of Shanghai that I know exist somewhere on the map. And her future home is so far away that you could almost see the sea from it.

The real problem is, the suburb of Shanghai is not in the concept of suburb of NYC or LA, it is a place, well, let's say "not suitable for Shanghainese", and Shanghai, being a city on the sea, has but a horrible coastline that constituted with smelly mud and smelly, muddy waters.  

 

"I told you you should not buy it, it's too far away, you can't come to work"

"Did you actually bought an apartment just by looking at it for one time?"

"You didn't even see a "sample apartment", just saw the building under-building?"

"Did the old couple you met at the sales office who said they are buying too actually said they'll take care of your child when you have one?"

"Why are you in such a hurry to make the guarantee? Why don't you ask people before you do?"

 

Lily was instantly buried under bombardment. And she tried feebly to make her story, "Well, I thought if I do not buy that now, I would never be able to buy an apartment in Shanghai". This arouse a new round of questioning:

"Why don't you wait a few months, the pricing would go soft by year end"

"With just a little bit more, you could get a fully furnished one by the Metro Line 13 and you could come to work easily"

"How could you furnish your apartment? It's so far away and you need to transport everything there, it's impossible"

"Why don't you look further? How did you come to that?"

Well, at least she could answer the last question, "I just went to the website and made assortment by reversing price and I just chose the cheapest one from the list"

 

Xiao Fan, her best friend in the office shook her head and said "For a dress of 200 bucks, you think so hard and keep going back for four, five times before you decide to buy, for an apartment, you just decide to buy it in an hour, what's the matter of you?"

"Well", the already humbled target confessed, "when I made the payment, I said I have no money and they said I could use credit card and I gave them the credit card but I snatched it from her hand and she snatched it away again and I snatched it back again and it went on four or five times and finally Ah Lai (her husband) couldn't stand it anymore and he just took it from me and gave it to her. He said if you wanted an apartment so bad, you just do it this time".

"Perhaps you could call the Bank and ask them to hold the money" somebody made a final suggestion. To this, Lily struggled facially for a moment before sank into her usual resignation, "well it has been two weeks…" I wanted to say perhaps you forget the guarantee and took it for a lesson. But nobody else is saying this so I guess it's not a good piece of advice.

 

The discussion about Lily's apartment went on for two weeks in the office with or without her. And everyone has come to the consensus that she had made a bad decision and that if she move in her future home in a year or so, she couldn't work in the office anymore, but perhaps she could work as a sales rep who covers that suburb, but she would also need a car.

 

Then one day I was in the toilet stall and heard Lily and Xiao Fan, each in a next stall exchanging more conversation about the apartment. When we all came out of the stall, I asked a question which I had been holding for a long time: "I don't understand it, Lily, why do you HAVE TO buy an apartment in SHANGHAI?"

 

As a famous dissent against the rocketing real estate price in Shanghai, I'm die-hard against buying an apartment in Shanghai, my argument is crystal-clear thought never echoed with: if I could buy a decent house on the Cote d'Azur, or a decent apartment in Paris, with the same amount of money, why would I buy an apartment in Shanghai?" Besides, if I'm not lucky enough to retire on Cote d'Azur, I shall retire back to the K city, a place with pleasant weather year around, abundant green and flower (who supplies half of the country's flower market), delicious mushrooms in the summer, half of the living cost and much less people, traffic and noise. In sum, I could hardly find a motive to buy an apartment in Shanghai and I don't understand why Lily, who's also from out of town and who obviously couldn't afford such price, has to?

 

"I must buy an apartment in Shanghai, coz I have no house back home" Lily burst, perhaps had enough of us.

This was totally out of my imagination. In my mind, every small-town people come to Shanghai has a house back home, coz our parents have to have a house; as to people from the countryside, they not only have house, but farm land too, otherwise how to they survive? It's up to you that you do not want to be a farmer anymore and move into the city, but your "country house" should always be there.

So I wasn't ready to give up. "How come you don't have a house? Don't farmers always have a house?" It's very unusual for colleagues to ask so deep and specific into personal information, but Lily and I were already familiar and she is a girl who never gets upset or anything, so I decide to go all the way to find my answer.

"There's nobody in my village anymore, all the young people have gone to the cities, last time I went back, there was weeds by the road up to my waist."

This finally shut me up. It has never come across my mind that her "home" back home is no longer habitable.

 

A few days later, I took Lily and Xiao Fan to lunch.

I always need company for lunch and sometimes when the people I usually luncheon with are not available, I took the juniors in the team out. Lily and Xiao Fan are not my team, but I have developed some special sympathy for them and like to share some of life's niceties with them that they could not afford by themselves.

So we found our way, or I found our way to Bellagio, an Italian restaurant next to the temple. The name is a miss-match though coz it's actually Venetian-themed with a painting of St. Marco, masks on the wall and part of a gondola as a bar.

When we were sharing a big Tiramisu, Lily told me more about her home.

"People used to plant all kind of vegetables around their house, in the summer, there used to be all kind of melons, and I remember sometimes we slept by the melons to keep them from being stolen, now there's no vegetables any more, no nothing, lands are wasted, old people don't have energy for that, it's all weeds everywhere"

"We used to have this brooks by the village and we drink from it when we were thirsty, now it has tried up with only a strait of mud covered with garbage"

"We used to have a swamp at the end of the village and they leased it out to people running fish business, they said when the project earns money, they will distribute it to the villagers, but every year they say the project is losing money"

 

"Don't the young people ever want to go back home farming? Don't you want to?" I asked cautiously, already sensing a negative answer. The Answer is negative, but in a way I didn't anticipated.

"My family has but a little piece of land, it's not enough"

"Why do your family have but a little piece of land?" (a stupid question)

"Ai", Lily signed in her little peaceful way, "somehow my family only has a little bit of land… after my father died…. And once they were digging a ditch through the village and it cut through our land and where my father's tomb lies and they asked my mom to move it coz "otherwise water will go around it and you could not do your tomb-sweeping anyway", they said they will give my mom 200 bucks for it, my mom paid the tomb-moving people 1000 bucks but they didn't give her the 200 bucks…"

I found myself short of words. Now I see Lily has to stay here, her adopted home of Shanghai, although the city is too big and she's too small.

 

"But how about the place you're renting now? Can you keep renting it?"

"We have moved so many times, I do not want to move anymore…"

Xiao Fan cut in to provide her witness "She hasn't unpacked everything from her last move"

"Why do you move?" (I have stayed in my place for an amazing ten years)

"The landlord want to raise the price every few months � they said everything is more expensive now and they have to make a living too…. And it would be nice to have a shower with hot water at home…"

"You don't have a shower in your place?"

"The machine is broken"

Xiao Fan cut in again, "you should test it before you move it, or you should ask the landlord to reduce to the price",

"Well", Lily signed her little peaceful sign again and inclined her head, "you have to live in here anyway"

 

"But do you really like Shanghai? What do you like it for?" (this has recently become my favorite question to everyone I met who's not from here)

"She said she could buy things cheaper here" Xiao Fan volunteered, adding her own derision in the tone.

"How's that possible?" I couldn't believe it.

"That's true. I could buy a jacket for 40 bucks at Qipu Road last year � this year of course it will be 70, but the same jacket will be sold for 200 bucks at our place"

"Your village?"

"No, the town, and it's still cheaper than Ah Lai's town"

"Really?!" I cracked my spoon on the plate.

 

By the time we collected our bags to go. I'm fully convinced that Lily should buy an apartment in Shanghai. "Well" I said, "if you have the money for the down-payment, I think you should buy it".

"I don't…I'll borrow it from my aunt and my uncle besides the bank…." Her voice traced off.

 

Stepping out of Bellagio, the humid and heat of Shanghai's summer swamped us immediately. It's another day of gray fog but no rain. The new office buildings of glossy glass walls towering into the sky, like a fleet of giant ships lost in a misty sea. At their foot, construction machines are tearing open the ground again for a new Metro line, so that more land in the suburb could be sold at a good price and built up with "cheap" apartments and the Lilys of the city could buy a piece of home of their dream.

A Bob Dylan Concert

I got to know Bob Dylan in my college years in the early 1990s, not too late for a Chinese. I heard some of his songs in the excellent Nanjing Music Radio, but mostly I read his lyrics in a book I had about Rock & Roll and they were like anthem to me at that time. I knew I found my spiritual home in his songs as well as many others' from the book. I never felt alone since then even though I barely listened to them since then.

Fifteen years had gone by and I lived in such a way and looked in such a way that you would never have guessed I had a heart of rock. Trotting in my silver high heels in the most sleek district of Shanghai, where glimmering towers of office buildings enslave thousands of decent-looking, well-educated citizens of this metropolitan, I always had this feeling that I'm an under-cover in the crowd and I often amuse myself with the imagination of me coming out of the closet, or the revolving door.

So when Bob Dylan dropped by Shanghai to give one concert on this foreign soil, I felt it my obligation to make the pilgrimage.

 

So I arrived at the Shanghai Stadium, and found with great comfort a Starbuck which I never knew existed to cater to my physical hunter and thirst just by the entrance. It's almost sold out by the time the concert opens.

 

We sit in the plastic seat at the far-back where the cheapest tickets belong, and found with dismay how small the figures appear on the stage and how impossible to actually see any face, let alone facial expressions. He's wearing a cap anyway.

 

As I was in the pit of fever for Weibo (the Chinese Twitter), I started to report the concert on it and here're my fires:

 

"Waiting for Bob Dylan!"

 

"Shanghai is still lukewarm towards Rock, they can't even fill a stadium of ten thousand"

 

"By eye count, one fourth are foreigners and there seem to be nobody from the 1990s"

 

"My blood still remembers the sound of electric guitar"

 

"Bob Dylan is a small white cap tonight, every other thing is surreal"

 

"Bob Dylan refuses to sing his old classics, a bad idea flash through, is he trying to force us to listen to his new songs (not so new anymore)"

 

" There are but ten glow stick in the stadium, do we have too high a CPI, or too old an audience"

 

"Bob Dylan actually sings pretty clear, much better than Jay Chow"

 

"Can Bob Dylan or anyone stay relevant for 40 years, except for Confucius, or God himself?"

 

"Bob Dylan really is strong for his age. Now this is a new idea: when he go to heaven and meet up the old guys such as Jim Morrison, Jimmy Hendricks, Janis Joplin, would they laugh at him: look at you, how come you become so old?"

 

"Good night, Bob"

 

We came out and came back into the muddled air of Shanghai's night, I felt still unreal from the idea that I was just so close, and so far-away from Bob Dylan and everything he represented in my life. But I decided once and again that there's nothing more important as ART and there's nobody as precious as ARTIST and that I should finally throw myself into my destined journey as an artist as soon as possible. 

 

Moving just a few yards in the dispersing crowd however, amidst smart street vendors selling Bob Dylan CDs, I was greeted with a street artist performing on his guitar, trying to make a tune of some sort. This served as an unwelcome but live alert to my just inflated mood: he once believed in his art just as Bob Dylan had believed?

A Girl’s Talk in Beijing

"I'm under the huge screen in the center of the square"

So I spotted her in an orange coat amidst the crowds in the darkening twilights of the San Li Tun Village.

"Hey! You look great! Look at you, all Japanese style"

"I dress up today coz I'm going to see you!" She lights up and looks down at herself, "But I'm actually working at a Japanese company now"

"Do you?" I grab her arm and glance around, "shall we look around first � we could grab something to eat at any time"

 

"Wow this place is so cool, it's like XinTianDi in the early years, I can't believe Beijing is so fashion, so how are you doing nowadays?"

"Did I send you the message that I'm divorced?"

"You, divorced! No, what happened?" It flashes through my mind that she was pretty happily married and her husband is a super nice guy, although not handsome and not successful. But my attention is diverted by the window display of a boutique � "Hey, there's Guba! You have Guba here too! Let's go in and have a look".

 

Inside Guba, the Spring collection is blooming with colors and patterns and I am dazzled. "Look here, they got an DVF piece, ah, I hope they cut the DVF label and cut the price in half", I dropped the piece of green geometric strip on white. Although it's sort of funny to spend time in a fashion boutique that we have too in Shanghai, but perhaps they got different pieces, I quickly laid my hands on a light green nymph-style DVF skirt and a rosy silk Fendi top, unfortunately, the skirt is too small and the top too large.

 

"So why indeed did you get a divorce?" Emerging out of Guba, we continued.

"Well, you know, me and my husband, we never felt that kind of passion…… we were just lukewarm from the beginning, it's always he who is really caring and I never felt the burning desire to devote myself to anyone……And I wonder is there such a thing, or this is life, so I decide to get a divorce and be alone and quiet for a while"

To be true, me and Xia, we were never that close and never shared that kind of intimate topics, but that's why I sort of like Xia, for she's got no nonsense and she could cut straight to the point, or perhaps it's Beijing girls who speak more audaciously, or perhaps it's the TIME, women of our time could face and talk about our relationships and troubles in a flat "this is the fact and this is how I'm dealing with it" sort of way.

So I grab her arm again, "I see, I understand, I am supportive".

"You do? Ah my friends are divided, half said go back immediately and half said just do it so I finally decide it for myself".

"Well, I think you are an independent modern woman and you have every right and power to make such decisions for yourself". But down to my heart, I'm afraid she will be disappointed at the end of the route, nothing's more disappointing than the morning after of passion. And this TIME, every one is so hunger and anxious and crazy for money and success, it's no TIME for  passion for people have only brain and appetites, no hearts.

But I kept that to myself. Who knows, Xia's always a special person, perhaps she has that in her fate.

"So, what did your husband say?"

"We are still friends and he come to see me often � ah, I bought my own apartment!"

"You do? Great! What's it like?"

"It's a small apartment close to downtown, when I open my window, I can see the biggest morning market in the district"

"Wow, sounds nice, remembers me of the European life"

"Well, it's different, but perhaps similar. I saw it the third day I was shopping for an apartment and I signed the contract the next day and I just packed my things and moved in � couldn't be better if I modeled it myself"

"Splendid"

 

Now we are walking down a flight of wide stairways lighted elegantly with bamboos lying at the end, more fashion boutiques, and more exclusive. I am completed amazed.

We linger from shop to shop, surveying shelf after shelf of designer fashion, caressing the fine fibers of woolen skirts and marveling at the sculpture-like shoes � actually it's only me, Xia is very much at control.

Now she started with this intern she just hired.

"She's got a really fine education, graduate student at Capital Medical University"

"These new graduates - do they still want to stay in Beijing? Are they daunted with the life in the Mega cities?"

"Yes they still want to stay in Beijing"

"What is that that they want at here after all? … Well, I can't seem to remember why I myself had to go to Shanghai myself � but it was a different time, there was nowhere but Shanghai Beijing and Guangzhou"

"Well, I don't know if Beijing is really what they want, but I guess it's just difficult for them to pass it by"

"So this intern you got?"

"She's got the look of one who has always worked hard and got everything from hard-work � and yet the other day she talked to me and said perhaps she should try some other means too, besides hard-work"

"Meaning?"

"She's showing interest to the boy in my team"

"How's he like?"

"He's from Beijing. And Beijing boys are always very sought-after"

"Why are they sought-after?"

"Coz they've got the house or apartment from the family, and if you marry a Beijing boy, your child will have a Beijing resident status"

"Is the resident status still important?"

"Well, for people from outside, they want to become a Beijingnese eventually and a Bejing resident status is just the verification"

"I had thought that the gap of development and the mental inferiority of people in the lower cities are now narrowed much"

"Perhaps for people in the 2^nd tier cities, but this girl, she's from Hengshui, in Hebei province"

"Never heard of"

"Exactly"

"It's too bad people don't know what they really want in life, they want apartment, car, marriage, Beijing resident status, but they don't know what do they want it for � they just want it because everybody else wants it and everybody else seems to get it better � how can you actually get what you want in life when you don't know what's it that you want?"

 

Finally we are seated down for dinner. It's a cute Italian Pizzeria. A young Chinese girl is shouting at a bearded Italian man, the man is embarrassed, I think he's going to take flight but he manages to stay and more or less calmed that girl down.

 

"You know in Beijing, I think of totally different kind of questions"

"Is it just you? Or people around you are the same?"

"I think people in Beijing think different questions than people do in Shanghai. When I was in Shanghai, I think of what to dress tomorrow, what to do over the weekend. In Beijing I think about questions such as what are we living for….."

"Why do you think is that?"

"I think it's because Beijing in too big"

"So?"

"So you constantly have to defer the gratification � like in Shanghai, you think I want to eat at that restaurant today and I do so right way, but in Beijing, you think I want to eat at that restaurant, and you drive out and there's so much traffic that when you arrive there, it's perhaps two hours later � and sometimes you have to give up"

"Ah-ha. Or perhaps it's age. You start thinking about these questions after you're thirty, or thirty-five. You know I have been thinking too and I've got the answer"

"What's it?"

"I'll become an artist, that's what I want to do eventually. You know I have been thinking about quitting my job for a while"

"Maybe it's a phase. Maybe you could take some time out"

"Right, that's what I think I'll do"

 

Xia looks at my goat-cheese Penne, "Can I try some of this?"

"Sure, of course, go on, sorry I should have invited you earlier"

"You know since I got the divorce two months ago, I've become very busy, a lot of social engagements suddenly � let's see, I met a friend yesterday for dinner, and today with you, and the day before I had some other thing I can't remember"

"That's good � that's because you're available again"

"Yes, before, I was only going to work and going home. But this friend I met yesterday makes me a little uncomfortable, I don't want to become like her one day"

"?"

"She's forty or forty one. She still keeps her body great. She looks really good even in the girly clothes, and she's talking to me about taking Ballet classes and learning to play piano and it seems that her life is full, I can still feel that she's really lonely � she's like a dancer dancing in a frenzy in the middle of a square, but you know that nobody's watching"

"Well, I have cases to counter that � it's not about being married or not. I have this friend who's lived a quite traditional life, got a good career, married at suitable age, had child at a suitable age, but she told me before that she didn't know where her heart lies � it's not with her husband, not with her daughter � and then she bought a car, and she's got this sense of control and belonging and then she's got a dog and she's got a much better sense of belonging and she's got an affair and now she's finally settled and coming back home. So you see, it's really not about being alone � it's about whether you have a purpose in life or not"

"I see, but still, when I look at my friend, I'm a little frightened and I just want to run away. I really don't want to end up like her"

"Well, that's no problem at all. You have your husband as your back-up"

"But that's really unfair to him"

"There's no such things as fairness. Someone said that in a relationship, there's always a gardener and there's always a garden"

 

It's ten thirty when we got out to the street.

"You know what - I will become an artist too � a performance artist", she suddenly announces when we arrives at the curb way and try to waive down a taxi.

"I'll create life. When you don't know that you want, you'll be dragged along by life. I'll not be dragged on by life. I'll create it"

"Marvelous"

 

But the traffic condition in Beijing is not marvelous. We couldn't get a taxi. We got on a motor-taxi and ask him to take us to the Metro station. When we're arrived we realize it's so close. But we gave him the fare as agreed as a contribution to construction of an harmonious society. Xia gave me instructions on transfer before taking off at her stop. I emerged to the street-lamp washed Chang'an Street, found nobody but a group of wondering teenagers in the empty grand artery of Beijing. I lost my way temporarily, re-oriented myself after calling the hotel and finally walked my way to the hotel, ending a little adventure in the unfamiliar night of Beijing.