The final versions that will be in the Saipan Tribune
Jaime in Hong Kong
Dusting off the Yearthat Was
It started yesterday, the white puffs flurrying down likefeathers from medieval angels molting from the stratosphere. It was not much but enough to make myfoothold on the icy ground a bit shaky while I carried the potted plants frommy classroom after my last class session. The school shuts off the radiator on the last day of the semester untilthe spring semester opens. That’s eightweeks in the cold that even the sturdy spider plants could not possibly endure.
I carried my plants in one of those oversized shopping bagsthat boutiques like to provide. I liveonly about four blocks from my classroom so I did not bother to bring plasticor towel to cover the plants. But afterfifteen minutes outside in between warm rooms, the plants resembled weeklongleeks in the fridge, or newly harvested kelp from the icy waters, alldesperately crying out to be cooked and consumed, or be thrown away. After two more trips, half of my study/livingroom now looks like a solarium of the Chicago botanical garden.
This dusting-off exercise in our mind is not, however, ourwilting in the Dong Bei cold, a consequence of retirement from the formalteaching service. Rather, it rehearses mymarkings and turning points of the past year.
I am a historical figure, by upbringing and choice. I love history – the facts-based reminiscing ofthe past so that the future does not come as too much of a scare nor a surprise. I no longer live the present with fear of theunknown, cowed and resigned; history gives me the confidence to live each daylike it was the only day of the rest of my life! At every moment, I encounter the past,present, and the future, all at once!
But my gray matter is accustomed to the rhythm of a 365-daytrip of the planet around the sun so I dance with the crowd in Gregorian patternsand come now to the completion of another Gaia revolution around Sol.
I made two trips to Honolulu this year to visit 93-year oldmother diagnosed to be frail of bones to require 24/7 attention at a medicalfacility. My fealty was made moreintense by her mothering smile even in the midst of her frailty. She reminded me of the longevity that isprogrammed in my genes that I abused with tar and nicotine in my youthful lungs,so I am prudent in my life’s covenant. Ilopped off almost a decade from my statistical staying power.
This year, I lived too much at the edge of hoping againsthope, and adjusted my radar accordingly. Wayward was a word applied to describe personal fidelity in relationships(playful is my term), and though my monastic mendicare these past years understood that being solitary is not alonely journey, I pined too much for a certain company though much more in theromance of the imagination rather than in the plane of earthy reality. I have since distanced myself from the cuffand cusp of illusion.
Aging got dramatically demonstrated as the jowl of a secondchin and the sag of a previously firm and rounded heine became more pronounced. I experienced loss of breath while navigating four flights to my classroom. It had become a federal effort to reach downand sock my feet warm in the cold. Myhair now blooms like Jack Nickolson's electrified mane on a bad hair day!
My residence does have an elevator, which thankfully assistsmy knees. I live on the eleventh floor, butsome of my students reside in dorms that are above ten floors without elevators.Just imagining how they strive up and down the stairs daily exhausts myfaculties. So this year, I shifted tothe last scheduled 17-year retirement phase of my life’s odyssey. I no longer protest when a young thing offersme her seat on the bus!
The University delivered the coup d'grace when it decided to no longer hire teachers over 65years old. Approaching the sunset of myyears, I signed loan papers on a dwelling with my host family; I get the use ofa room on a first floor three-bedroom apartment near the University, at a fifthof cost. This will be home base to treksto Irkutsk and Tashkent in the next few years. Friends and family can also visit me should they travel to my northeastcorner of China.
As the snow flurries drifted down this morning on my way to mylast day in class, I ran into one of the grounds’ maintenance men sweeping thesnow off one of the walkways. Equippedwith dried twigs attached to a pole, a homemade broom, he thoroughly swept thewhite cover off the red-bricked pathway.
I stopped to catch his attention, looked him in the eyes, andsaid ‘thank you’ in the only Zhongwen I can decently pronounce. He was surprised that I would bother, and recognizingme as the foreign teacher who does not speak the language, he broke into atoothless but winsome smile.
I turned around and before entering the building, took adeep breath, cast a broad look around me including another glance on the bent butproud worker, and to no one in particular, uttered, xie xie! For his life andmine this past year, I wrapped it up in Peace! Equanimity and tranquility to all.
Facing the Year thatWill Be
As all moving forward entails, one often engages in theactivity of deconstruction to clear the debris from previous engagements. So we do so on this sunny day off Kowloon Bayin the now Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, called Xianggang in Mandarin, and Hoeng Gong Zai in Cantonese.
We are bit early for a 50th year anniversary of an Augustlanding in Kowloon in 1965. I justturned 20 when I waved my mother goodbye while she stood on Manila SouthHarbor's wharf while I sailed out on board SS President Wilson for a 20-dayjourney to San Francisco across the Pacific, on to a three-year theology stintin Kentucky. Kowloon was first stop andmy first viewing of Sinoland, then we overnighted in famed Yokohama lights thatoffered a rail trip to Ginza. A fewwaves later, we got lei'd without getting Maui'd in Honolulu, and a fewfoghorns later, I rose early at dawn to weather the bay's morning mist for aview of the Golden Gate bridge.
HK's Victoria Peak then was shrouded on low-lying cloudswhile Kowloon teamed with coolies pulling their rickshaws, the livingembodiment of many Hollywood views. Ican now add Susie Wong of Wan chaibut at the time, our prurient interest was not whetted yet. We just barely crossed over from the terrainof innocence, if not the blissful world of ignorance.
But yesterday is best left to John Lennon's lyrics. Tomorrow is where I focus my gaze. A colleague from Canada decided to do acouple of touring days in HK headed for Pea Eye. I am the designated guide. I was forthright about HK's tongue primarilyCantonese (not that I have any Mandarin comprehension to brag about) but I amthe local security blanket and I am only too willing to play the role.
I booked a leisurely 36-hour train ride from Shenyangearlier before retirement was hurriedly announced so I reluctantly cancelledafter shifting quickly to the hassle mode. My colleague would not take"no" for an answer. A planeticket showed up in my email so now I am basking on Kowloon's sunshine for acouple of days.
We will skip the seat with the view on famed double-deckerbuses. World class city HK is nodifferent from London, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo and New York. It is the Year-that-Will-Be of 2014 thatgrabs my attention and pulls my mind before I watch the night's fireworksholding a mai tai listening to thetwitter of Ilonggo and Iloko sounds. Mytourist was Davao raised.
The awe and wonder about tomorrow (that's my next 17 years)is its openness. One is free to decideto give it form and shape without feeling determined by the lingering luggageof the past. Given our sudden transitionstate, this reality has gotten more stark than usual. I am in fact wobbly on the dance floor oftransparent nothingness sans thefamiliar lingering steam of choices previously made. I used the term tabula rasa before but I did not fully understand its existentialmeaning until now.
There is the matter of economic tyranny of which retirementis supposed to be salve, a balsam and a balm, an appeasing cream andlotion. We know of but do not share theanxiety of its anticipation nor the despair that characterizes itsuncertainties; I just hunker down to chart a new course in the direction of anunknown but unsurprisingly welcoming future.
I cosigned a hefty bank loan back in Shenyang to pay for adwelling under construction scheduled to be turned over in June/July and to behabitable for October occupancy. Manyfriends quake with regrets over the limits imposed by similar situations. I explore its possibilities. That is what's so inviting about tomorrow.
Having been Atlantic, Gulf, Pacific, and midland prairiefocused in the last 50-years, I now bellow "westward ho" from China'snortheast, like the way American wagon train pioneers used to holler. There is that inviting boat ride from Dalianvia NoKor Chongjin port to Vladivostok, then traverse on a trans Siberian trainride through the Far East's khrebets viaMongolian Ulan Ude and interracial Irkutsk onward to Europe's Moscow and St.Petersburg before grabbing a 15-30 day Euro pass from Scandinavia to southinland heading Turkey and Greece, across the southern shores of theMediterranean back up north of Atlantic coast EU that can easily terminate inthe British Isles, spending a day or two at each stop. Or, the trek to Kasgar and Tashkent! The good thing about dreaming is that it isfree, and one can always change one's mind!
How to pay for the gig? Yo, you still in that rot!
Many are stuck in their recriminations against the past andfearful acquiescence to the fashionable modes of the future, manipulated andpromoted by the guys and dolls who inhabit the penthouses of HK's skyline andtheir cousins in other world cities. Weshall refrain from sashaying to their tune!
For now, it is the din of nitrate bangers (HK-banned buttell that to the Chinese) initially meant to tame wild dragons (the ChiangJiang/Yangtze and the Huanghe/Yellow mighty rivers are depicted as dragons)that will accompany our vigil tonight. My guest brought a familiar Glenfiddich of the Scottish highland. Two downs from a three-finger tumbler will dome just right. Happy New Year!
