I never get tired of this picture
I took a long walk to the local McDonalds here in my remote neck of Northern Beijing today. It was a dreary walk really. The weather is starting to chill now. But everything is so dismally dusty. There is no horizon most of the time here. Everything seems washed out, like a movie shot in sepia tone. The sidewalks are all blown over with dirt and my mouth is dry and parched despite the icy air. The buildings are imposing and utterly functional in their architecture. They lack any type of form that would alleviate one´s tension and isolation. You are simply walking between big, bland concrete structures, and with a cruel chilly wind blowing dirt and dust in your face amid the constant din and clamor of the endless construction and aggressive traffic. I just drifted down the long sidewalks looking for color somewhere. I found some purple plants that looked lovely and distinct. They looked like cabbage sort of, but were tall and bright at the top, like flowers in a way but different. I do not know much about plants except how I respond when I see them. I felt soothed. That is until I saw a clump of vomit all over one. I became aware then of all the human waste around me on the sidewalks. There was a pile of shit beyond the bus stop, and I was sure to go out of my way on the way home to avoid it. There were more piles of feces of one form or another in various stages of decomposition here and there. Not all was human of course, but enough was to make me wonder how in the hell did it get here, in the wide open area of the sidewalk. The people did not even hide in an alley. And then I saw more vomit collections. There was a collection of puddles spewed out on a series of trees. I deducted that the same person hurled each batch as the food particles appeared the same, and each batch got smaller and smaller, as if he or she up chucked a load, walked a few steps then began retching for life again as they hung to the tree for support. Shit. Vomit. And then there was the stench of urine everywhere, especially as I walked by an alley way. It blew out and mixed delicately with the car exhaust and pollution and desert dust that layered every visible object.
I realized how much I had not learned about anything in my time here. All my angry conclusions about mankind were not challenged and replaced by some higher notion, but I had only come to despise the human race more and more. I long ago stopped seeing myself as distinct or apart from this rancid miasma collected on the surface of the planet like mold on an old orange. I am as rotten and filled with blackness as the son-of-a-bitch who yanked down his pants and shit at the bus stop or barfed in the garden of purple flowers. I wonder if I have ever done one truly good thing in my entire life and if I did why ruin a good blog by talking about all that crap. Hell, one time here in Beijing I was made fun of for giving two RMB (about 25 cents American) to some poor bastard who had no arms and no face. He must have been roasted in some industrial accident and left to rot by the "humane and sensitive" Chinese government and population. I did not see the value in laughing at the loveless wretch or denying his a couple pieces of paper to get some food or a warm drink with, if anyplace here would allow him inside to make the purchase. In my heart I thought I did a good thing, but it was taken away from me later with criticism that I helped no one, that I am essentially enabling such behavior and I only did it to serve my own selfish motives. Shit. Look, that poor guy never hurt me and I can do with my money as I wish. He has no one t love him. No job or future. And yet, some bastards shit, piss and puke on the sidewalk and they walk away unscathed. I will never feel ashamed to give 2 RMB to an armless and disfigured human again, because one night we all went to dinner and spent nearly 200 RMB on Coke-a-Colas!!!
There seems no balance here. None that I can find, and I had lost all mine in Seattle long ago after my long period of shameful tribulations. I seem to be propelling myself step by step towards the big sleep now. Nothing can change it. I can learned to have a sense of what death can almost be, and it is not so great a thing. It is a thing to be feared and respected and something to avoid whenever possible. There are two deaths we consider in our lives. The death we think about when we are young, and the one we think about as we get older and older. The former is not such a monster really. It is something to say "what is there to fear...it happens to all things!" There is arrogance and denial to spare about all subjects when we are young and full of a future. The latter death is a thing to tremble before and we say "yes it will happen to all things... and soon now it will happen to even me." And when I am in such a moribund and morose state of mind the last things I need to see is some fucking assholes pile of shit on the sidewalk while I am going to get a hamburger.
4:35 PM - 10/26/2005 -
I keep noticing your blog
I guess the reason I notice your blog is because you are an American living in China, I am a Canadian living in Taiwan. I haven't been to China yet but you make it sound quite dismal. I quite like it here in Taiwan - the air can be quite polluted, but the city we live in is (by Asian standards) pretty clean. There is a Canadian bar that is just down the street - its mostly Canadians that live here - in my building alone there are probably about 20 or 30 Canadians - that is why they call this district "Little Canada". Our neighborhood has many quaint coffee shops, retaurants, and European style bakeries - you should maybe come to Taiwan to get a more posative view of the Chinese.
groovedaddy - 2:57 PM - 10/27/2005
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