Bai Yun (White Cloud) Airport arrival, Guangzhou (Canton). Taxi exits southern Sung landscape into six-lane highway, cabby turning radio to sentimental Hong Kong ballad. A large billboard advertising western food products, white doctor holding a Chinese baby.
Having entered the city proper, we cut directly across its north-south axis to reach the river. An Egyptian hieroglyph looms above the face of a sandstone building. We mount an overhead highway, peer into the third-story windows of yellow-stuccoed middle-class tenements; we descend into an ordinary avenue, ads alongside it technically primitive, above the doorways of its shops, old-fashioned Chinese characters. Cyclists and pedestrians in salmon, parsley, orange circulate, a tolerant air about them. The radio shifts to traditional song, as we move through an older section of town. Suddenly the roadway narrows. After several turns in quick succession we arrive at our hotel.
Wavelet-dappled Pearl River viewed from nine stories above. On the opposite bank: a small naval station, a ferry boarding passengers. Down the channel a substantial barge is making its way; arising behind it, multi-colored apartment buildings, each unit painted by its owner in a different pastel. Newer towers encroach upon the older dwellings, rise to a higher level, surmounted by large signs in garish colors. Further south stretch clusters of new buildings, a pair of smokes tacks, More distant factories, all obscured by the smog. Directly below, a leafy, if not luxuriant, foliage, borders the boulevard. A coast guard cutter, skiff in tow, makes its way upriver, past the large characters of advertisements for San Miguel Beer, Asia Drinks. The ferry, packed with passengers, turns to make its crossing. Further downriver a tug pulls three barges filled with sand; slowly the entourage, passed by smaller skiffs, in turn passes our hotel window. From the stern of the last barge, in blue shirt, black shorts, a slightly overweight woman dips a red plastic pail into the dirty water.
We descend hotel elevator, stopping floor by floor: law agency, corporation, trading company. We let off passengers as well as take them on. Out into the boulevard, we promenade under a high arcade, hung with dark red, gold-fluted lanterns a-sway in the vacant space above. Turning the corner, we head back north through the commercial district. A maroon bicycle with a green plastic basket passes. Across the way a casual crowd, massing out into the street, gathers to read stock quotations flashed from a neon sign.
People before a bakery, anticipating pleasure, discuss what they might buy. In the window sits a cake, an animated rooster atop it, a thick red crest on his head, beneath him a chocolate tree stump. A red-lipped yellow fish floats on the surface of a stream, out of which spring two red roses, surrounded by green leaves.
It is 10:00 am. We stroll up an alleyway, taking our places behind two cooks, as they stand shoulder-to-shoulder to chop their vegetables for the midday meal. Photographic views of Holland paper the walls of the restaurant within. A red-and-white-checkered barber pole turns at the entrance to a beauty shop; inside the door a beautician sharpens her scissors. At an outdoor pipe shop a boy lifts an enormous wrench, then puts it down, waiting as his elders decide what to do with a heavy piece of machinery. On the sidewalk next door, as he get his hair cut, a man reads the morning paper. The barber, in grey shorts, bare from the waist up, a black sash drawn about his midriff, dangles a cigarette from his lips, its ash half an inch long. In broad-brimmed bamboo hat, a smudged sooty shirt, a man stops his tricycle to deliver charcoal briquettes.
We pass through an archway into a plaza to confront “The Stone Church,” a Roman Catholic cathedral, one of whose lunettes has been replaced by an automatic clock. We wander on through a residential district, past apartment buildings of much older construction. Lines of wash are hung across the narrow streets. Two little sisters in identical white tennis shirts, olive shorts and yellow plastic shoes stop at a stall to buy vinaigretted vegetables, their mother engaging other customers in voluble conversation.
It is 10:30. Two little boys in shorts and baseball caps happily imitate the goose-step. In the open corner drugstore sit two older girls, one at the abacus, one leafing through ledgers. We pass a gift shop, whose shelves are full of Chinese junks carved in jade; small cats in ceramic; tiny wooden pianos; a bronze windmill. At the stall next door, a display of Japanese trading cards. Across the street on Ionic columns rises a stately architrave, above which a second floor, broken out and refitted with galvanized panels, laundry strung across its balcony. Higher still, behind an original balustrade, a balcony has been bricked in, steel-framed windows piercing the new wall, their frames painted a pale green.
Ahead of us a young man pushes a hand cart noisily down an alleyway, its hard wheels bouncing over the cobblestone surface. Along the oily but well swept sidewalk pass middle-aged housewives, shopping, their children tagging along. Older people have also joined the flow. We have entered a shoe district, women’s flats in pastels, men’s lace-ups all in black and shiny. At the corner on stools sit four shoe repairmen, the needles of their stitching machines at ready.
We cross Da De Lu (Great Virtue Road) and enter a completely new scene. Five young women, all in white skirts and magenta blouses, argue in a lively way, as they await customers in their small department store. We move along a shaded boulevard, where the trees are of widely different sizes and ages. We proceed on to the banner, medallion and flag production district. A large maroon ceremonial banner with lemony fringe supports gold characters, their surfaces embossed. A huge flatbed truck, its armatures jostling, thunders past, only to abut the backed-up traffic ahead. On down the avenue some distance, through the haze, a satellite dish atop it, rises a new fifteen-story tower. We pass an ancient pair of street-side stoves notched into a brick wall, a white ceramic facing above them. We pass shops selling plastic seat covers, light fixtures, international flags, many boxes stacked before them, all as yet unopened.
As we perambulate the streets of Guangzhou, turning this way and that to escape what we have already seen, we see it again.
At Guifu Lu watermelons are piled at curbside, bordered by flattened stacks of the cardboard boxes in which they have arrived; atop one, a pink mug of tea, a brown umbrella. The attendant offers us two slices, sweet and mild. As we take seats at curbside, two cyclists collide in the street, right themselves and begin to gesticulate. One is a man in his late thirties, the other a boy of twenty. The argument grows heated; the man grabs the boy by the neck. Gradually both parties cool down, resorting to hand gestures to detail the paths of their bikes in their respective reconstructions of the incident. By now quite a crowd has assembled. In the street, motorcyclists dismount, bicyclists pausing at curbside, some still seated on their bikes. A blue truck honks for the arguing parties to vacate the lane. Two other watermelon eaters commentate the scene, holding aloft in arrested postures their half eaten crescents.
We move on through an area heavily draped in the vines of the banyan tree. The curb is lined with late-model Japanese cars. At the end of the avenue, under a high overpass, appears the face of the Marlboro man, an American cowboy advertising cigarettes, his saddle resting on his shoulder. We reach the intersection of Beijing Lu and Janan Lu, site of the commercial tower topped with satellite dish noted earlier. Across the way a billboard advertises four bottles of French brandy: the first, unopened; the second, two-thirds full; the next, two-thirds empty; the last, only a few drops remaining.
We pause at a street-side display of perhaps a hundred cicadas, all imprisoned in small openwork bamboo cages. A boy in dark glasses, his tee shirt sleeves cut off, revs past on a three-wheel cycle; his girl friend rides in the side car, her tee shirt reading “The Outskirts.” A man in bright blue shorts, a yellow tee shirt, the numeral “3” stenciled in blue, asks if we know which way we are going. We pass a dental clinic open to the sidewalk, two nurses seated idly on a bench within, as a dentist cleans a patient’s teeth, the latter reclined in the fourth and innermost of the chairs.
On our way back to the river we stop for lunch at a sidewalk restaurant. The hostess expresses dismay that we want only half a chicken and a pot of tea. As we await our order, the poultry supplier appears, bearing a plastic-reinforced bag, out of which he draws half a dozen live chickens, feeding them one at a time into cages that border the entrance to the restaurant. Upstreet another delivery is in progress: a large electric motor painted battleship grey. The woman who receives it lifts it off an orange hand truck operated by another woman. Quickly a crowd surrounds them to offer advice.
The manager of the restaurant, a man from Sichuan, also sits outside at a table; before him: a register book, a pocket calculator, a spindle, a tin can full of pencils. In the street a city employee, in grey pin-striped white trousers, sweeps her way past, pushing detritus out into the lane of oncoming traffic, only to gather it up again and deftly return it to the curb. A woman in her thirties, having finished her morning shopping, takes a seat at the next table. In eighteen-inch-high letters her tee shirt reads “INFO.”
Meal finished, we resume our stroll, past a series of older houses, marked in white paint with the character for “tear down.” Next we traverse a block already torn down, in the midst of which a tall building is rising. Arrived at the river, we pass a quarrelling couple seated at curbside, we four all observed by a homeless man using a concrete block for his pillow. We pass a concrete bench that has been overturned. In the next bench sits a man resting a single leg across the fender of his bicycle. In the next lies a man asleep on his back, his arm over his eyes.
We approach a heavily pylonned bridge in two iron cantilever sections, the rest all constructed of concrete. Gracefully it traverses the flood. Nearby, on a bench otherwise empty are flung a man’s clothes: his shirt, his pants, his underwear. Another concrete bench has been overturned. Further along sits a woman tapping a fan in her palm, her leg crossed, one shoe off. Seated next to her is a man smoking a cigarette, his leg crossed too.
Single rusted barges continue to putter upstream. Opposite an excursion boat tied at the river’s side stands a little park, an heroic figure in weathered bronze pressing his chest forward, grasping an enormous hammer by its haft, its steel head resting on a rock. As we reach Guangzhou Second Light Industrial Sales Department, the neighborhood begins to improve. The street turns shadier, the sidewalk cleaner. As we reach The People’s Construction Bank of China, we cross the street into the precinct of our hotel. In the arcade overhead loom the dark red, gold-fluted, dusty lanterns.
Early evening cityscape over Pearl River, its eddying surface, grey on muddy brown, streaked by the light of neon signs on the opposite bank. Sky in pale grey-blue skeins against overhead vacuity, scumbled toward a smooth horizon, as a stack directly opposite emits a faint effluvium into the mix. To the south, a single electric light glows intensely in the smoky blue-grey ambiance that defines, or fails to define, the city. An empty barge labors up the river, its cargo hold occupied by two planks strung across metal horses, as farther up, a pair of river ferries slowly exchange places, one now touching the farther, one having just slid out from the near, shore.
Against a solid red ground three Chinese characters in white bulbs come on one at a time; the red ground is wiped clean, reinserted, the whole switched off; at last the three characters come on together to respell the word. Below, in the street, the honking of 6:45 pm traffic. A single loaded barge makes its way downriver, dominating the channel, where the waters reflect the blue of the sky above, the grey atmosphere, the lights, yellow and red, of a second sign.
A singular tug, older-fashioned, its paint peeling, its color only dimly discernible in the waning light, makes its way downstream, coal in two small piles mounding its half-filled cargo hold. Off the stern a flag flutters, its colors only vaguely pink, only vaguely blue. Temporarily both ferry boats sit at rest, the last of the passengers exiting from each. The blurred movement of a few white shirts indicates the next wave of commuters. As the streetlights come on, the foliage along the opposite bank masses into an underlit ridge, single trees losing their individual identities.
A passenger ship moves downriver at a quicker pace, its wake feathering out to reach both shores. As dusk falls, the lights of the automobiles on the boulevard begin to attract notice, small white headlights, an occasional dot of taillight red. As another coal barge makes its way past, one of the ferries exits from the near shore. Off its port, a column of illumination from a neon sign above streaks the surface of the stream; off its starboard, a second column. Against a rust-infiltrated beige-grey ground, a round buttery-faced moon observes the scene below.
Author and companion seated in the fifth-story Da Tong Restaurant, its ceiling alcoves outlined in blue neon tubes. At the center of each recess a platform supports a lotus-petalled, cloudy-crystal chandelier. In the middle of the hall stand four immense lacquered pillars, long- legged cranes serving as finials. High-backed, blue-cushioned chairs encircle the tables. At the end of the space, across a waterfall in bas relief, descends a real waterfall.
It is 7:30. Head hostess and young waiter, both in maroon pants and orange jackets, compete to help with selection of typical Cantonese dishes: a braised duck, sweet and sour spareribs, dumplings with mushrooms, a salty soup.
It is after 8:00. Little girls in their frilly party frocks enter, skipping ahead of their parents, as the restaurant begins to fill. On a mirror behind author and companion are the two characters for great (da) and union (tong), collapsed upon one another, enclosed within a stylized pair of wheat stalks.
Exiting from restaurant into crowded street, we turn into Renmin Lu, a dimly-lit avenue full of confused activity. Neon signs within the colonnade burn green and red. Beneath the arcade sit stalls selling pornographic books. Slowly a barber pole revolves in lemon, lime and raspberry stripes. As we pass a small meat market, an argument breaks out, threatening to become physical.
We have entered into a district of formal clothing shops, one announcing a sale of men’s suits, displayed in plastic bags. An emporium selling costumes for bride and groom advertises in English: ”One and One.” It is 9:00 pm. Many shops are closing, their gratings clattering shut amidst much brio on the part of their owners.
We traverse a passageway lacking illumination, the arcade filled with people waiting for buses. Vehicular traffic has also thinned. Three men, exhausted from labor, sit on a door-stoop smoking. At the next corner, beside a garbage dump, seated in tattered upholstered furniture, is a family group. Overhead a bus rumbles by, strap-hangers gazing down upon the scene.
We pass through a block of stores that are mostly closed, though in one renovation is underway. Three bare-waisted carpenters are sanding, the smell of lacquer heavy in the air. In the arcade stands a table, atop it a bottle of clear liquor, an opened pack of cigarettes. Four other workers, seated about the table, are resting, their mouths agape with amusement and pleasure, as they observe author at his work.
We have reached the intersection of Daxin Lu, where workers are squatting on their haunches by a petrol dump, the smell of gasoline heavy in the air. At curbside a white green-lettered umbrella announces ”Salem Salem Salem,” the American brand of cigarette. Restaurant patrons linger at an about-to-close establishment, their elbows on salmon-colored, threadbare tablecloths
Ahead of us strolls a happy couple, he skinny, keys at his belt, a brown satchel in hand, she in a long black skirt that skims her high-heeled shoes. Within the arcade a homeless woman has already fallen asleep. Ahead, at a desk, under a single bulb, a dignified older woman attends a large digital phone, its buttons the size of American quarters. Beside her a younger woman, her daughter, swings a granddaughter back and forth in her cradling arms.
We pass by the open doors of a hospital, bikes crowding the sidewalk, two, three ranks deep. We pass the open doors of a department store, women seated on the steps leading up to its entrance, other customers just arriving at 9:30 to make last-minute purchases. Across the street, atop boxes of merchandise, sit three young men playing a game of Chinese chess under a yellow streetlight.
We pass a bar called “Asia Corner,” its black plastic dancers outlined in white neon. Abruptly multi-story buildings begin to arise. We pass a large new Karaoke club, whose hostess, dressed like a fairy princess, stands outdoors behind a reception lectern talking into a portable phone.
We have reached the intersection of Zhongshan Lu and turn right into its arcade. A fruit stand is still open, its large display including cigarettes as well. A single eerie bulb illuminates the underside of the large leaves of elephant ear plants branching over the sidewalk. At the corner varieties of brewed tea, grouped into family classifications, are for sale in aluminum-lidded glasses. Behind them, on a stove, sit four large pots, their blackened spigots licked from beneath by flames.
The scene darkens. It is past 10:00 o’clock. At the next intersection, under a red and white umbrella, two people are making late calls, one a young woman already dressed in pajamas, the other a gaunt older man, awaiting his turn. In the shadowy street the face of a cyclist is suddenly lit up by his own cigarette lighter. Obscurely an eight-year-old boy, his grandson no doubt, follows behind on another bike.
Though it is only 10:30 the town has almost shut down. We hail a cab for our return, its interior reeking of smoke, on its dash a pair of dark glasses. As ahead of us another taxi’s trunk flaps open, we turn into the boulevard alongside the river.
*
6:30 am sunrise over Pearl River, through tree branch, through bridge, through haze enveloping recently quenched neon signs. Author takes seat on bench. A jogger jogs past, a bus rumbling behind him. A barge crests the flood. From behind the branch the sun emerges to stare at author. Author sneezes. Having tied her green plastic bag on the railing along the river’s esplanade, an energetic woman runs in place.
Author arises to head on downriver, arriving quickly at a platform, four yards square, that juts out into the water, occupied by three early morning exercisers: a man of 70, a woman of 80, a woman of 35. A white buoy sways on the surface of the water, apparently creating eddies by its motion. The sun, a foot above the clearing horizon, dapples its liquid gold over the darkened, shadowed shore, the surrounding surface a tan-tinged molten blue. Platelets in the near ground open and close.
Downriver the central section of the cantilever bridge frames a mounting barge, whose black silhouette lumbers forward, escaping the frame. As it comes alongside, through its cabin window the gleam of rising sun is visible. Attention to the orb’s illumination makes it difficult for author to see in the shade. As the yellow-white, red-tinged sunlight continues its assault, he sequesters himself behind a large tree. A descending barge nestles in among its branches, as a double-decked ferry returns upriver, its catamaran-like prow slicing the tide. Through the arch of the foliage one section of the cantilever bridge appears; behind it, in rosy grey, the double towers of a 1940s office building.
Author onward. Nine early-morning exercising ladies, their handbags slung over the pillars supporting the railing, stand in two tiers, four in front, five behind, as they do their tai-ji in accompaniment to a tape-recorded voice. An old-fashioned barge, two blue barrels in plastic atop its deck, sputters loudly, as it makes its way down the channel, husband at the wheel, wife on a plank projecting over the stern. The opposite shore, under the sun, reads as a colorless smudge.
Author takes seat on bench to observe both the water ahead and the traffic behind him. For the moment no boats are discernible. Though river and vehicular traffic are moving eastward, in between them pedestrians are passing one another in opposite directions. A youthful white barge hums downriver past a grey older barge mounting the tide. The sun’s rays too mount against the tide. Lifting itself over the branch of a massive broad-leafed tree, the sun re-emerges, shining brightly. Two sweepers gracefully clear the path ahead.
Author arises to descend to the ferry station, whose yellow and light blue facade advertises commercial products. Against a ground striped vertically in blue and white its gold characters reflect light off the leaves of the tree. People pass through the landing portal, ascend a walkway, enter the deck of the white ship, its side banded in yellow, its interior painted green. On the rear deck sits a chair facing upriver. An attendant squats within it, facing toward the open sea. In his hands, wrapped around the chair back, is a book. His forearm and face catch the rays of the sun, his watch sparkling with its brilliant unanswerable glare.