Saturday 18 August 2007

25 News from Beijing

The sun sets over the Lake, littered with all kind of craft, heading to a meeting point I can not
discern. Its 20.34 dutch time and a naval review has been organized this night. The ships will be
all in full light and will pass my window in the first darkness.
I am on my own and thinking of Beijing where everybody important (a few) and non important( 17 million) are sleeping now, most of them I mean. But the city will be be fully lighted I know, till the sun will rise in the morning.
Tankers will start to spray the roads against the dust. Groups of people practising Tai Chi and Yoga in the parks or on the grassy sides of the streets. The majority of the 1.5 milion cars start hitting the traffic jams. Bicycles and carrierbikes. On the pavements the pretty pretty ladies of all ages unfold their parasols. Soon the offices will be filled and inside temperature will rise up to
27 degrees- nearly every office obeys the order that the airco sticks at that point. Not lower! But
27 degrees C always is better than the 35 or so outside.
Or is it raining? And is a thunderstorm passing by, cleaning the air and making mirrors out of the otherwise dusty surface of the tarmac.
Or did it rain yesterday and is the air transparant like glass?
I wonder. I will ask Tonio asap as soon I get him on the phone. Or Dong Yan or Chris Jiang the
freshly engaged CEO of SchoutenChina. The last two last week were our guest in Holland: getting to know Schouten&Nelissen, together refining the businessplan for the coming period, famiiliarize with the Dutch colleagues. Yesterday we waved them goodbye from Schiphol. It
felt and feels like a farewell, even if thats not reality.
But my thougths are with them and shifting my mind to Beijing seems the only way to cope with the nasty feeling associated with separation.

July 15 I left Riversides. 1100 hs. Hot. But I felt good and so I strolled to the tabacconist
called Juan Yan Chao Shi. I like the owner, an elegant 40+ woman, always smiling with gleaming eyes whenever I enter her shop. In moments of solitude I even think she is beautiful. But not today. She seems to hide and does not offer me the gift of her smile. Her face worn. What does
she hide for? Not for me of course (sorry) but what else? What sadness is overwhelming her? Or
did she get ill because of the heat? Or tired of nasty discussions with a husband I never saw?
I paid my cigars and left before I could answer those questions. Maybe I have to learn Chinese
so I can ask her.
Fully loaded with 10 cigars I crosses the road untill I reached the corner of Hong Yan Lu and
Nan Xinyan Zhong Lu. On the pavement there is a small platform surrounding a huge
leaning tree. Shadow.
A small man greeted me.
I said" Hallo, may I sit down?"
He nodded. I sat on the concrete edge.
I lit a cigar.
He offered me a small plastic baby stool.
"Thank you," I said. In Chinese I think.
I offered him a cigar.
"Thank you," he said and I said Buketsji meaning "My pleasure".
He studied at my gorgeous body and smiled. From behind his back he produced a bigger chair.
I set fire into his cigar.
And so we sat along side each other, peacefully smoking, observing the traffic. Taming time
and chasing it into the Corral called the "here-and-now".

Outside on the Lake the parade of boats advances. I am in Beijijng.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hehe, to learn some more Chinese, you can try this: Chinese audio lessons for beginners.

Anonymous said...

Great work.