When you travel, what you see is who you are. What enters you depends on how much you are willing to allow in. How safe you need to be. What you are willing to part with. What you are willing to condone. Still, you are always left with more than you came with. I would never be this confused in Chengdu again, so I set off alone to enjoy it, got lost, got found, got lost again, over and over, repeatedly tripping over the reptile in this brand new year of the snake. The boundless delight of an unknown city, becoming more known with each step, naked except for presumption, engraving itself upon your long-term memory, sharp, alive, wary, vagabond nomad DNA pinball machine pinging, lighting up, triggering the crazy release of startled fish in your stomach, surprise resurrected, your eyes vortexes sucking in color, texture, light. I was walking and thinking about the challenge of writing about travel. The rational part of my brain argued it should be fact-based and informative, like this Chengdu overview I borrowed from TopChinaTravel.com: Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, located in the west plain in the Sichuan Basin, is a famous historical and cultural city with a history over 3,000 years. It serves as the provincial center for politics, economy, culture, and transportation. Its jurisdiction is over nine districts, four county-leveled cities and six counties. Known as the land of abundance, Chengdu boasts plentiful local products, a pleasant climate, a large number of scenic spots and historical sites, and fine traditional handicrafts well known both at home and abroad. But the other part of my brain, the blind jazz musician side, scoffed and sneered, “Can’t dance tah that.” The rhythms of travel are indeed a form of music. I can only approach truth when I am tapping away at my keyboard as if it were a piano. So I am going to try to describe the city tonally, the way it plays in my imagination. Chengdu has a laid back vibrancy, rising upward. The city stinks of metallic coal soot, short street sweeper broom dust, exhaust, open-air fruit, stinky tofu, new money, old beliefs. It’s ripe with hip foreign joints that betray a large supporting ex-pat population emitting an I’ve-stayed-here-too-long vibe. It too is a vortex, swirling in a spiral from the 2nd Ring Road to the 1st Ring road, drawing everything inward to the waving Mao statue overlooking Tianfu Square. The Jing River is crossed by a floating dream of bridges, including the ‘Anshun Peaceful and Fluent Bridge.’ Too many people had told me the citizens were lazy, that I abruptly realized meant relaxed. And they were, as well as friendly. Strolling Chinese-style through the chilly, humid evenings, massing at intersections, crossing with the permission of traffic lights, the elderly walking with their hands clasped behind their back (at what age does this become mandatory?), mothers and fathers and children everywhere, filled with bright curiosity and wide-eyed stares at the foreigners. Chengdu pandas are the star, bamboo munching, mugging for visitors, factored into every tourist budget, a low-grade drama of overt cuddliness. As well as the Sichuan Opera. Fire breathing, traditional music, artful tea-pouring using a teapot with a four foot spout, and the mystical quick-change face done in three ways: the Wiping Mask routine; the Blowing Mask routine; the Pulling Mask routine, all performed faster than the eye can follow. Wars are fought onstage, rebellions quelled, a puppet plucks roses, a master creates shadow visions, the audience munches peanuts and sips tea between gasps and applause. In the Tibetan quarter, monks, both male and female, want to take photos with you, the wandering scarlet contemplative apparitions talking on cell phones, wearing sneakers, heads shaved or shorn close. Eating mo mos, smiling and eavesdropping on the laowai. Downtown, the architecture is expressionistic-modern. Buildings change shape depending on your viewpoint. Towers soar, flatten out, leap, wind upward like the magic beanstalk, turn into giant flat screen TV commercials.
Everything is for sale including barbecued quail eggs on a stick. Through this inviting landscape I wandered with four willing and engaging accomplices. We talked, we laughed, we walked, we scoffed, we gave ourselves over to it, comparing notes, satisfied in an inexpressible way that we had reached for something and it had reached back. I took the afternoon train back, back through the tunnels, the farms, the fading daylight, then through the darkness, with the Edward Hopper night trains resting along the tracks in railway stations, the roving vendors selling vacuum-packed mysteries, relaxing pleasantly in the comfort of the ‘soft sleeper’ and fell asleep dreaming of China and all that flowing, incomprehensible life speaking in a star language that I could understand, but woke up to find that it was evidently not true. I could write more—there is always more—the struggle is what to leave in and what to leave out. I could spend my entire life on vacation, the gist being derived from the word—vacate. As long as I can see one star in the sky above, I will always be at home. For more photos, click on a few photos of Chengdu.
1 Comment
Mary
3/18/2013 05:42:14 am
ee -- the great traveler!! Like your description best. Looks pretty at night with the lights. How exciting for you all these new adventures and always learning more and more never ending. Some cities here in the US celebrated the Chinese New Year and I thought of you.
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