周庄

Today is the day of the dragon boat festivals in Shanghai, a national holiday. We decide to take the day and go to Zhōuzhuāng 周庄. Apparently the Venice of China.

I wake Ali up; my hangover from the night before kicks in. We rush to get ready and leave the hotel at 7:45. I get in the taxi and mumble

"人民广场"

Before getting on the bus, we stop for fried street noodles, a breakfast that proves itself to be utterly terrible for our uneasy stomachs.

We finally arrive two hours later. I’m led through a woven maze of people I tower over once again. I lose my group. Walking around the small water town by myself. The smell hits me. It’s known in English as “stinky tofu”; I gag. Here more than ever, it’s obvious I don’t belong.

I’m visiting this rural town admiring its quaintness. The golden-teeth paddlers rowing their boats. The unknown person getting water from the river. Two women weaving thread. The small dogs lying across the river bank. This town is their real life. This is all they know.

The town is used to visitors. Tourists come from all over China to admire their watertown and quaint way of life. They’ve adapted a way of blocking them out and carrying on as if no one was there. Being here, I felt like a voyeur spying on people who didn’t want to be bothered. I was lost. I entered a restaurant and attempted to speak my broken Mandarin but the shopkeeper wouldn’t be bothered. I wrote down “bus stop?” But my strokes were wrong. I thought of the Theory of Text. How is it I’m so far away from what I know?

I walk into a shop of postcards and see other head peer out of the bookshelves. Someone tall. I look over and see another foreign face. He was on my bus. I walk closer to him and smile.

東京 Eastern Capital, Tōkyō

Wesley nudges me awake as our plane lands into Narita airport. We took a few days off work in Shanghai to visit Tokyo.

The train is cleaned before we enter onto it. The softspoken soundsystem seems to whisper in high-pitched voice “Kon'nichiwa, kaigai de kangei shimasu. Ressha wa sugu ni Naritakūkō kara, c e shuppatsu shimasu.”

こんにちは、海外で歓迎します。列車はすぐに成田空港から、東京へ出発します。

I’ve never been in such a labyrinth of confusion. Shanghai was loud and hectic, but Tokyo just had so much. Mass. Expanse. People. Wes flags down and cab. The door opens automatically. As I slide onto the leather seats, the white-gloved driver takes our address card and whisks us into the heart of the confusion. I felt like Marlowe going into the Heart of Darkness.

The receptionist at the hotel Hanabi gestures for us to remove our shoes and place them into lockers. As

we walk in, I see no furniture only a room with bamboo flooring. In the cupboard are little mats for Wes and I to roll out and sleep on.

 At night, we talk the subway into Shibuya and walk the busiest crosswalk in the world. We sit in a tiny sushi restaurant, ordering rolls off of iPads and waiting for it to slide out on wheels out to us.

When we walk the streets, Harajuku girls with large eyes and long eyelashes motion for us to come in. Bows in their hair and tutus on their waist. It was a fantasy world.

Juxtaposition

Two years ago, I spent six weeks of the summer in Paris on an intensive program for Art History majors. My long days were spent in museums absorbing as much art as I could handle. Nights spent in the Tuileries gardens devouring macaroons like candy. I was only 18 and a sponge to Parisian culture.

Being in Shanghai makes that summer seem so far away. The macaroons replaced by street noodles, museums replaced by the congested metro. In Paris, I lived a lavish life; a vacation from normalcy. While now, I was in a developing country unsure of what I was doing and unable to communicate.

...Was I safe? 

In Paris yelling “au secours” was enough to get anyone’s attention, even during a gang fight. Shanghai is so noisy. Scooters whirring past. Elevated highways with cars zooming. Taxis honking. It’s hard to distinguish talking from yelling, it all sounds the same. Everyone demanding to be heard. Would anyone hear me scream? In pain? Terror? How do you pronounce the world help again?

帮助 Bāngzhù

The other day I was walking along Changshu Lu and saw a woman hit by a bicyclist while on the sidewalk. She tumbled off the curb and onto the road. She lay there, groaning in pain, while no one helped. Onlookers did not stop themselves from watching her. She was expected to pick herself up. It shocked me that no one cared to assist her, but looking back I realize I didn’t either.

Maybe I’m assimilating better than I thought.