China Reflection

During Chinese Lunar New Year it’s customary to visit family and friends over the course of the holiday.  I met with many friends during this year’s holiday, but the visit that sticks out most in my mind is the one I had with Lao Zhang.  Lao Zhang is a man who wears many hats and takes many titles:  teacher, philanthropist, calligrapher, poet, friend, folklorist, chemist.  After first meeting him in Ren Ding Hu Park while listening to the four fingered phantom of a man playing accordian for us, our paths have crossed from time to time.  I have visited him on numerous occassions.  We usually meet at the South entrance of the same park we first met each other.  Each time we meet each other, I can feel the excitement build for the conversation that is about to ensue, and each time I leave I always think our visits are too short.  Either that, or the time around us speeds up.  For every time I meet with Lao Zhang I walk away wiser for the journey that I take with him.  He has an uncanny ability to take with him as he leaves the present and turns back time with his words and mind.

I am in the sitting room of Lao Zhang’s house.  He and his wife are preparing dinner for the three of us.  For fear of my being bored, he tosses me something to look at and practice my Chinese while he cooks.  It’s a dusty old, blue notebook filled with handwritten Chinese entries.  When I ask him what it is he, turns his head and smiles.

“This is the journal I wrote in 1966 at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.  I wrote an entry everyday during that time.”

I look down at the journal’s dusty cover.  It seems plain enough to me.  Leafing through the pages scrawled in unintelligible Chinese, I can only wonder at the content.  Here and there I catch a word.  I want to know this journal.  I want to know its journey. 

His wife comes out and I ask her to read to me the beginning of the journal.  I ask her to read slowly so that I can understand every word, every detail, every step of the way.  As she reads, I hear the sound of a crowd gathering. 

Train Station

The square in front of Beijing railway station is filled with students wearing red armbands.  They are the members of the Red Guard^W.  Tickets aren’t sold during these days.  After a proclamation by Mao Ze Dong^W that encouraging students to join the Red Guard and use public transportation for free, chaotic and crowded railroad stations have become commonplace all over China.  It’s first come, first serve, and you get a ticket for wherever you can go.  Students can travel anywhere they want for free.  But Lao Zhang isn’t a student at this time.  He iss a teacher.  He stands in the square with the ticket that he had snagged departing for Guangzhou^W, but with the rain beginning to fall and the square bursting with students from all over the country, it is clear to him that he isn’t getting on any train this day.   

“Circumstances have changed,” he writes.

Everything has changed.  Mao fever is in the air again, it is the beginning of the Cultural Revolution^W; the world has turned itself over and is standing on its head.  Masses of people are falling out of its pockets like coins on the pavement.  No one knows where to go, but everyone is going somewhere…at least students are.   Progress has stopped, or maybe its just starting.  Upheaval rules.

As a teacher, Lao Zhang finds himself out of place during this particular time.  Students were told to rise up, join the Red Guard, and strike down anything too bourgeousie.  They were supposed to go out, traveling freely, learning about the great country and join the revolution that had been started by Mao and the Communist Party.  As “punishment” for being a figure of authority during this time, Lao Zhang is ordered by students to relieve himself of his teaching responsibilities and instead spends a month sweeping up the school as a custodian.  Schools are empty of students.  Students can go anywhere they want.  The bell has rung its final toll.

Lao Zhang looks at the ticket in his hand and knows he is in for a journey.  He isn’t going to take a train anywhere.  He is going to walk this time.  He is going to walk a long, long way.  He is going to walk 38 days from Beijing to Yan'an^W, the endpoint of The Long March^W, and one of the revolutionary centers of Chinese Communism.

Construction and destruction. A barrage of jackhammers greets me as I walk through Beijing with no particular destination in mind. I pass the loud pounding cacophony of a construction site. I stop to watch for a while. Men with hardhats are standing on what I guess used to be the foundations of some old building. There are thick spaghetti strands of iron reinforcements sticking out of the cement like aged branches on some old bramble bush. The men position themselves in different positions on the stump of the building and eat away at what remains with their jackhammers. Like woodpeckers burrowing a hole into a tree, their work is quick and to the point. There’s nothing the building can do to stop them. I’ve seen this site a thousand times in China, but it still draws my attention. It seems to me that the Chinese love compressed air jackhammers. They are as ubiquitous as cranes are on the construction sites. There is this endless cycle of construction juxtaposed to destruction and rebuilding wherever I go. Beijing is just one of many examples. I’ve seen it out in the countryside, spreading throughout cities small and large. Now with the Olympics coming, there’s a mass scramble to get the construction done as fast as possible because everything will come to a halt when the games finally do arrive. The officials and leaders want to make sure Beijing is filled with peaceful and joyous celebratory sounds, instead of the sounds of a jackhammer doing its duty. After talking with the men for a few minutes (none of whom are from Beijing), I snap a picture and head on my way.

I want to see a bit of green today, so I head towards a park called Ren Ding Hu Park. This roughly translates to “People’s Lake Park.” As I make my way from the north end of the park towards the south end, I hear the harmonious sounds of an accordion calling out to me. Until this moment, I never realized how much I actually enjoy the accordian’s voice. It gives me goosebumps immediately—a much different sensation compared with that of the jackhammers’ voices. I decide to go over and watch. Underneath a small awning there’s a man playing the accordion. I guess he’s playing a Russian song. It has that Russian sound of winter marching, vodka, and cold, blue eyes. As I listen I decide right then and there that I want to buy an accordion and learn how to play some tunes on it. I never thought about learning it before, but it just seems like something I could and should learn.

As I stand there hypnotized by the tune that the four fingered accordion player performs, I notice that another man is also standing there humming along with the tune and singing from time to time. He wears an unassuming grey coat, square framed glasses, grey hair, and a curious smile that invites me to talk with him. His name is Mr. Zhang, but he tells me to call him “Lao Zhang” which means, “Old Zhang.” This is a common thing to do in China. Once one becomes familiar with an elderly person, we can usually add the word, “Lao,” to their last name. It’s kind of a term of endearment. It brings the distance between the two of us closer together almost immediately.

I instantly like Lao Zhang. We start off talking about the usual things. Where am I from? How long have I been in China? What am I doing here? We talk about him as well. He likes doing tai chi in the mornings, he takes care of his parents who live near him, and he meets with a group of friends to sing Russian songs once a week. No wonder the accordion also drew his attention. He can speak a bit of English, but we mostly talk in Chinese. He used to be a teacher in a Japanese/Chinese Frienship school. He has visited both Japan and Korea. In fact, he was part of the first group of students and teachers from China to visit Japan after normalization of the two country’s relationship. This fact hits a chord deep within me because I know that the two countries have so much misunderstanding and bad blood as a result of WWII. Most young Chinese will say that they “hate” Japanese without really understanding or knowing a single Japanese person. Many Japanese I have met are “afraid” of China without having met any Chinese people. I have lived in both countries, and it saddens me to hear these sentiments from such young people who will potentially become leaders one day. All it takes is a bit of communication, an open heart, and maybe some time to travel if one can afford it. Lao Zhang understands this more than anyone.

Our conversation flows back and forth between different subjects. We talk about Japan, America, travel, the accordion, interests, hobbies…one of those conversations that I feel as if time stopped for the two of us. All the while the four fingered tune serves as our theme song, guiding us through the topics. Mostly we talk about China and the construction and destruction.—construction of new buildings, destruction of older ones, construction of the economy, destruction of culture. Something is gained, something will never be seen again. I talk about what I walked through today, what we walk through everyday–the construction and destruction. We talk about intangible culture…the things that one cannot touch but are every bit as precious to a people–things like the open-air markets, the old songs, the people dancing in the mornings, the sellers who ride their bicycles through local neighborhoods yelling “beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer,” “traaaaaaaaaaaash collection,” the four fingered accordion players, the Lao Zhang’s. We cannot feel these things. They are not made of any kind of material. We cannot hold them in our hands. But Lao Zhang knows that that they are slipping through our fingers like sand. We want to hold on, but we can’t. The tune continues…onward we march. We share a deep silence together, broken only by the four fingered tune. In that silence I can truly feel the weight of China’s history and culture. Sometimes this phenomenon happens to me when I talk with a Chinese…especially someone older than me like Lao Zhang. Our country only has about 200 years of written history. China has about 5000 years of history. 5000 years of history and culture. This number, 5000, is impossible for me to grasp. I think it’s impossible for most people to grasp. But sometimes…sometimes…when I listen to the stories that people tell me of days gone by, when I hear the songs that old people sing, when I here someone talk about his/her hometown….sometimes I truly feel that I am out of my element and area of understanding. The tune continues onward and I just step back and listen to the person next to me, Lao Zhang, as he shares and breathes history with me, and I truly feel blessed to have the opportunity to get a glimpse of this fathomless culture through the eyes of one so wise. Lao Zhang and his roots go deep into the ground, 5000 years of extensions. His words and silence humble me. They are filled with balancing the gains of China’s present with the lost of China’s past. It’s the kind of conversation that makes me believe magic is at work—it’s as if I am a better person because of having had this conversation and having met Lao Zhang. The four fingered tune continues. We exchange numbers and agree to go out for dinner sometime in the near future. He leads me out of the park, still wearing that same curious smile. He turns left, I turn right. Old friends and new stories. Erasing history and developing futures. Construction and destruction. We leave our conversation in the distance behind us, the only thing to remind us that it really happened are the echoes of music we both hear as the four fingered tune player guides us onward.