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Tianjin in Seven Parts
I.
Tianjin
is a city of smoke and water. There is a grey cloud of - dust? soot from the factories? no stars
greet you at night, no clouds streak the sky with their pale scatterings of vapor.
It is a city of lakes that lie, because Tianjin is a desert city, and no rain
falls onto the dry dust of the streets and the blanket of haze that smothers even the brightest sunshine.
Everything is grey.
Tianjin is
a city of water and smoke. There are cold lakes, deep pools like mirrors that
reflect even the quiet in your eyes as you stare out over the vast stillness.
There are no ripples on the water, just as there is no water in the air.
Everything is grey. The lakes are dark and murky. Everything is grey.
II.
I came
expecting snow, expecting cold. I got the second part of it. The November chill
has seeped into my sore bones and my dry cracking skin. The cold greets my face
with a kiss as I step out of the hotel into the grey morning. There is a
blankness to the cold, unlike the gunmetal feeling of a city winter or the
fresh pine of a forest. There is nothingness, the smell of smoke, gray dust in
your nose.
The
tallest landmark in the city is the Tianjin TV Tower, a concrete spire sitting
in the middle of a dark pool where fountains strike up a water show every
night. The Saturday I came in and tasted the first cold of Northern China, I
walked to the TV tower enjoying the numbness of my ears and the deep deep
silence that the wool cap over them brings.
I had
hoped my footsteps would crunch with a new fall of hard snow. There is nothing
like snow ungranted. I still look out my window each morning and feel the
disappointment well up from a place behind my stomach into my chest. It’s
amazing how much space nothingness takes up. It’s too much to fill in with mere
words and noise. Noise from Ryan Stiles and Colin Mochrie drawing laughter from
thin air on the TV. Words that don’t come, that dry up in the hungry air before
I speak them.
That
Saturday I walked hard and long, loving the numbness of the city, the way it
drew me in with the sparse beauty of the winter. I had yet to see the dust, the
lines of people’s faces, the way the air did not move.
Illusions,
when seen, die quickly.
III.
Jayce
stays here in the same way that I stay in Guangzhou; on a foreign posting. His
apartment is a far cry from the one I stay in down south. His is a room full of
windows, that open out to a spectacular view of the TV tower and a private lake
and park. He hasn’t had the chance to get into the park yet, but all the same
it’s there for the taking. His breathtaking view extends to the TV tower and a
small grove of trees on an island in the center of the lake. On a clear day you
can see the sunrise. Lately there haven’t been very many clear days. On Sunday
I visited his apartment and we spent the morning taking pictures of ourselves
in winter clothes doing silly poses for a Flash game we would call
“Snoooowww!!”. In the game Jayce throws cartoon-heavy stuff from the top of the
TV tower down onto me and I try to dodge while catching snowflakes. In the
afternoon we take a bus to the city center and spend the day taking pictures of
passersby with his digital camera. People here have never seen a digital
camera; when they see you, they come up to you with an inquisitive smile and
ask you what you’re doing. Since we can’t speak Mandarin, we gesture our way to
a polite exit. In the evening Jayce and sit outside and it must be 5 degrees or
less, and we watch a kid play with an RC motorbike and talk about a movie we
would like to make about our working lives. We have plans, me and Jayce. We
have futures spun out of words; the difference between him and every other
friend I have in the world is, we sometimes make those futures come true.