Why China?

The other night after a long run, I took a short detour to the coast. I call it a coast when actually it is only a narrow straight separating the China mainland and Hong Kong. Minus the fishy smell that accompanies many of China's waterfronts, its quite nice. Its quiet and dark; teenage couples walk shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, giggling; older married couples walk in silence hands behind their backs; babies in assless pants waddle away from their parents and coo at the waves and the moon; people sit on benches staring deadly ahead into the water, imagination says they are contemplating the great mysteries of the world, but reality is plainly visible in the lines on their faces, their hands, their darkened skin, worry, not contemplation flashes in their eyes.

And no description of the Shatuojiao coast would be complete without reference to the great former soviet ship docked there; the big concrete pillars informing us of her permanent anchorage here, the ridiculous flags, the randomness of Minsk is disguised by the darkness. Its invasive tourist qualities fade, and what is left is just the sound of the waves hitting its sides. Towards the end of the boardwalk, at the edge of the shipping port, an older woman with silver hair coming down to the center of her back in little wisps, is singing tones at the top of her lungs into the sea. As I approach she stops and stares at me; I expect to see embarrassment in her face only because that is how I would have probably felt, but instead her face seems to say that she a has secret that I had come dangerously close to discovering. I turn away from the sea, the coast, the old woman; as I fade into the darkened street I again hear the long mournful tones of the old woman's secret echoing out to sea. Imagination says she is singing to a deceased love, telling him to wait only awhile longer on the beaches of the after-world; and I cannot think of a better reality.

When I was fifteen I read Don Quixote. A teacher passing by me in the corner of the library reading, asked if I thought it was alright for Quixote, for people to ignore reality to live in their imaginations. I was stunned; throughout the book I had believed that Quixote's world was reality, and the characters that could not see this world had fallen prey to propaganda, stereotypes, rules, conformity that masked what was truly there. People saw windmills because they were told that was what was there, Quixote lived without the masks without those ‘informing’ him, therefore he could see what was really there. After the teacher had walked away, I couldn't read Quixote any other way than a nut case that imagined things.

When I was twenty I made a life plan, what I wanted to accomplish at what time in my life; Undergrad, graduate, architect, man, firm, family, private practice, retirement. The next year I was working on my senior design project, I was trying to redesign a slum in Mumbai; from the quiet corner in my studio I focused on ‘all’ the problems, drainage, location, infrastructure; I read everything ever written on the slums; I came up with a plan of attack. But looking over my work my professor told me that he thought I was missing something.

"What" I asked.
He pointed to a spot in my diagram, “here” he said.
"What, the wind turbines?” I asked.
"One moment.” 10 minutes later he returned with a library book, set it on my desk and said, “you are seeing wind turbines, and missing the integrity, the reality of whats already there.” He turned and walked away. I opened the book, it was Don Quixote.

'Life plan’ has me in my last year of grad school; today I am in China listening to the old lady sing.