The way to deal with jet lag was simply to ignore the hour and lie down
when sleepy and get up when awake. Easier said than done, of course, but
no better sleep after deprivation and, for me, it was pleasant to head
out of the door before 5:00am to have the streets, thronged with people
during the day, to myself for a couple of hours.
The roads were newly paved and well-swept. The air was slightly musty
for the time of the year but felt clean. (It must have helped that, in
one stroke, the fuel of the land had switched from coal and plants to
natural gas.) Young sweet gum trees with lush crowns, called the French
sycamore in Chinese, lined the streets. In the long sweltering
afternoon, they provided welcoming shades. Before sunrise, quiet and
still, they took on the look of dark shades themselves and blended with
their surroundings. Resting my eyes on them, I felt a peace that only
nature could offer.
A few breakfast spots were getting ready. Small-scale family businesses,
some rent shops the size of a two-car garage and others just
brought their fare and set up tables on the pavement for the next few
hours. I sometimes imagined such a life. Hard work, no doubt, it had the
charm similar to fishing: you prepare some bait (often with your special
ingredients), find a good spot, present it to the fish and, depending on
the day, have some success. The old town where I used to live as a boy
boasted quite a few such shops and some, such as Lao Ma's tofu, had
lasted generations.
Today, I was heading to the younger east side that hosted exciting
developments since I moved abroad. A bullet-train station and a freeway
were only part of the story. The landscape had undergone a major overhaul.
Old roads were replaced or expanded and new ones built. Villages and farms
were bought out, erased, and replaced with 20-story high-rises. Young
white-collar workers settled in for the short commute to Beijing. Ex-villagers
including some of my middle school classmates, sure welcomed the money
from land sales but were at the same time nostalgic and ill at ease, I heard,
as something else felt irretrievably gone with the land.
MacDonald's and KFCs had become part of the community. Declining in the
West, they were embraced by the locals. I felt at home in these fastfood
joints, sitting for hours reading, writing, and sipping coffee. Well-kept and
air-conditioned, they took convenient spots in the busiest neighborhoods
and operated side by side with Eastern brands. Sure, they charged much
more than street stands for their inferior offerings. In providing clean and
free restrooms, however, they set up a good example and surprisingly
maintained the best practice with the local toilet, called by some the asian
toilet, an elongated porcelain bowl in the ground with a hole at the front,
and one had to do a full Asian squat, a great mobility drill, to use it.
It was still early and few people were out and about except for the
commuters on the first buses to Beijing. A few runners and cyclists
silently passed by, all men, mostly middle-aged, and no greetings as
greeting strangers was not the custom of my tribe. All we really needed
were clean air and water. A warm feeling of brotherhood nonetheless
came over me as I sped up. I arrived at the Cultrual Square after 45min
of fast-walk and a good sweat.
I must have passed over a hundred restaurants, cloth shops, barber's
shops, hardware stores, drug stores, grocery stores, convenient stores,
bus stations, post offices, banks, hotels, cinemas, schools, hospitals,
etc., etc. These did not include the morning farmer's market where a
wide variety of seasonal produce were available, fresh and cheap and for
less than one USD, one can have a hearty breakfast of soft-tofu and
egg-and-veggie crepe or roast sweet potatos. There was absolutely no
need for a car, despite of the nation's craze for them. Often, one
didn't even need a bike.
The Square was actually a giant rectangle twice as long as it was wide.
The south half hosted a circle resembling a small running track. The
north side was further divided into rectangles holding group exercises.
People were walking, running, dancing, kiting, inline-skating, or doing
calisthenics. I came for top-spinning which took the north center. A few
guys, all over 45 but under 70, were already at it.
A traditional children's game, the spin top was popular when I was small.
A few inches of wood and a soybean-sized steel ball were all one needed
to fashion a cone-shaped top. The whip was also easy, a length of rope
attached to a short stick. We played in the streets and hard-packed yards
for drying crops and the challenge was mainly to whip often enough to
keep it spinning on uneven terrain and within the limits of a small area. I
probably hadn't played for 40 years.
Unbeknown to me, the game has branched and evolved into a serious
full-body exercise for the adults. The whip hasn't changed much but the
top, made of stainless steel, is many times heavier and can take heavy
blows. Once started, it rotates on a polished surface for a long time
and one can give it all he's got. Half a dozen lashings would send the
top whirling to the point that it looks still and the guy's heart rate
through the roof. After a few minutes, one takes a rest, gives it another
go, and repeats, a la HIIT (high intensity interval training).
At the Square, spinning top started as early as 6:00am but no earlier as
the thrashing could be loud. Mr. Li, 49, had been playing for three
years and, unsurprisingly, lost 30lbs and his cerebro-vascular malady.
Both my cousins started to play recently and lost some weight.
There were skills involved, of course, for the regulars. As a beginner,
I just wanted to have fun. For the next half an hour, my limbs, core,
and coordination were tested. I sweated profusely and left with a blister
on the right thumb from chafing. By the time I sat in MacDonald's reading
Garrison Keillor's "Good Poems for Hard Times," it was only 7:30am.
For most the day had just begun and I had already had a great time.
