Travelogue 3

[July 12, 2009.]I went on a subway for the first time today. It was nice, a lot better than the buses. Two things happened on the subway which I think are significant. The first was when a couple boarded at one of the stops to walk about the car, holding out a bag for people to drop money in. I thought they were just a regular pair of homeless people until I realized both the woman (who was holding the bag) and the man had had most of their hands amputated and their faces marred from burn scars. The bag passed under my nose, revealing a few wads of crumpled bills, and the woman repeated her mournful phrase. I shook my head sadly, I had no money, all that were in my backpack were water and some food I'd have for lunch. The couple left through another door, the doors closed, and the subway roared off again. I widened my eyes, trying to make a larger space for the tears. Was it a land mine? Did their house catch fire? I wondered where they lived now. Probably no one would hire them, not even to work in a back room....

The second thing that happened on the subway was when I heard the music from an advertisement they were showing on the one of the tv screens, a halting, tinkling bell part, the melody obscured by the noise of the engine. As the train slowed, the music became more discernible, with violins setting in, and I eventually recognized it as one of the songs from Amélie! I couldn't really say what the ad had been about, but I loved hearing that song so much, and in such an unexpected place, too. It was tinkling through my head the rest of the day.

Today we went to the Temple of Heaven. Slightly less people than the last two places I went to, and hardly any ice-cream vendors - the only ones there were were selling them from stalls. But there were actually these long stretches where there were no people at all, in the paths through the cypresses and Chinese junipers; it was so nice. There were also less shops, I think. I mean, at the Summer Palace there was even a shop in the bathrooms. Yikes.

We were lined up today to use the sinks in the bathrooms, and I tried to see if the soap dispenser was working, when the girl next to me (she must have heard me speaking English) asked whether or not the soap dispenser had any soap in it. I was surprised at first how strong her accent was (British? Irish? Welsh? Not any of them, and yet almost like a combination?) and said there was, but it only came out in really tiny spurts. She said, 'That's annoying' and I agreed.

That paragraph was rather pointless, now that I think of it. And yet...

At one point, we came to rest at one of the stone bench-lined courtyards that were sprinkled throughout the place (it was actually a pretty big place, there were actually lots of temples, not just one, and also the Circular Mound, which was used during the winter solstice, as opposed to - well, anyway) and I took off my shoes and socks because the shoes were hurting my feet and I realized I'd never been barefoot in a public place before. When we came to another one later on, I did the same, and once more to walk a few steps in the grass that the trees were growing in (it was so lush and green).

At a third of one these courts, there was a man playing the accordion (whom I later realized was blind) and a group of older women farther on blasting a techno beat from a boombox and moving awkwardly (yet smilingly) about to the music. The accordion player was, funnily, in time with the techno beat for quite a bit. (At almost every single one of these courtyards is some kind of music or karaoke or dancing.) In between these two was a man and a woman playing hacky-sack. They were both really good, but the woman was the better of the two. Their feet thwacked out a third kind of beat, and the cicadas were hissing loudly overhead - so much sound and music.

We were planning on leaving when we passed a last courtyard where particularly loud music issued. It was full of people dancing to the music, smiling and bobbing up and down and in each others' arms, and I looked at this and wished so badly to join. Just then, the song ended, and a new one started, one in 3/4 time, a waltz. My grandmother, who knew how to ballroom dance, grabbed my hands and we went out onto the floor. I was laughing so hard at first, I didn't think I would actually do this, and I looked at my feet for most of the dance since I didn't want to mess up since I think dancing waltzes can be extremely unpredictable; and I did mess up really badly twice. It was no matter, though.

The song ended and a faster one began. I thought we'd leave, but we stayed and danced awkwardly and smilingly to the fast song. I was sure I looked like an idiot stamping and bouncing around in my hat and backpack, but there was this sense of liberation from being in another country - I was probably never going to see any of them again; and so I was never going to have another moment exactly like this again. We left after that song, though I felt as if I could have stayed and everyone could have stayed and danced til after midnight. A moment that never ended.
September 17th, 2009 at 05:17am