Shanghai at Dawn

“If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”

― E.B. White

Waking up, the first thing I noticed was the wet sound of the pavement outside the open window as cars drove by; I knew immediately it had rained during the night.  Lately, when I travel, I’m always catching the unseasonably rainy week of that particular destination.  You’d think I’d remember to pack an umbrella, but instead I keep forgetting and being forced to buy new umbrellas, meticulously growing a small arsenal of water-resistance in my room in New York.  I like my most recent addition, it’s red with white polkadots and ruffles.  Yesterday coming out of the subway, a street vendor tried to sell me another.  From a purely business standpoint, it takes some very serious balls to try to sell an umbrella to a woman already holding an umbrella.  Laying in bed and listening to the silence between cars, I determined it wasn’t raining anymore, which was good, because I had a bit of walking to do.  My alarm set to wake me up in time for the train to Beijing was not due to go off for a couple more hours.  I laid there a little longer, but ultimately I knew there was no going back to sleep.  The time difference with New York is 12 hours, and a week is not enough to adjust to the jet lag.  Time felt consistently upside down, hazy, dreamlike.

There was some work I could do, but it required internet and the hostel’s wifi was unreliable.  As a general rule, I found internet in China to be unreliable, but I’d found at least one coffee shop in People’s Square that was a little better than most.  So I got up, repacked my bags that had virtually exploded inside my assigned locker, and took off.  People’s Square was not too far from where I was staying, but weighed down by the bulk of all my worldly possessions within 30,000 miles and an amassed pile of product line brochures from the bike expo, I quickly broke a sweat even in the brisk morning air.

Shanghai is a distinctly modern city.  The skyline looks straight out of the Jetsons.  I was expecting a little more ancient Chineseness, but I really didn’t see much of that.  Then again, I didn’t really get to look around too much either, so I might have missed it.  There is a covered outdoor nook right when you enter the long, neon, commercial street extending from People’s Square.  It’s public domain, surrounded by shops, but people go to dance.  I noticed it every time I was in the area, there was always a group out, doing their thing.  Someone had wheeled speakers in an old handcart up against the side of the building, blasting imperial sounding Chinese melodies, and it was a real hit with the 50 and up crowd.  Last night was a sort of line dancing/ballet fusion.  This morning, there was already a sizable group ballroom dancing, mostly coupled off.  There was one woman dancing alone, drifting through the maze of partners like she didn’t even see them.  She was fantastic.  I walked past to the reliable internet place, but it was too early and still closed.  The rain had started back up again and my pack was getting heavy.  I went back to the impromptu dance hall to wait and watch and think about the likelihood of aging, the possibility of partnerships and the utility of mistakes.  I’ve been agonizing over the creeping, cruel feeling that many of the decisions which have caused me the most anxiety are possibly the best ones for me.  All this rain.  How can someone so drawn to risk be simultaneously so investment-averse?

An old man approached me, smiling.
“Hello, did you come to dance?”
“No, I’m just watching.  I’m waiting on the shops to open.”
“Where are you from?”

I said New York and he told me he’d been to the US four times.  His daughter and son-in-law live in New Jersey.  He was an engineer and had been there on business as well.  He couldn’t stop smiling.  I asked him about the dancing, he said he and the others came there every morning, for exercise.

“Guess how old I am!”

I have no idea whether it is offensive (as in western culture) to guess an age incorrectly, but sounded like a question I’d better demure from, so I laughed and said there was absolutely no way I could tell.

“77!  I think you also love to dance.”

Pow!  This small old man has seen my heart!  I admitted that I did, but I preferred salsa.

“Show me, please.”

I told him it wasn’t the right music for it, but he didn’t give up so easily.  Looking around, I realized that it was not the right music for a tango either…but people were still doing it.  Finally, I relented and showed him a few basic steps.  He was ecstatic.  We hung out and talked until the coffee shop opened, and I then I told him I’d go do some work and then be on my way to Beijing.  He asked to see my train ticket, to properly direct me to the station.  Several couples circled around and offered their advice on how to get to the station I already knew the directions to.  Even though it can be tiresome, sometimes it’s faster just to let people get all their help out.  I said thank you and waltzed away to polite applause.

If 77 happens for me, I hope I still have the enthusiasm for a proper distraction, I hope I’m still dancing.  I know you don’t need a partner to look good, but you do have to show up, and it’s harder to do that alone.  I also know that you don’t have to follow the traditional steps for whatever music you’re listening to, but you do have to be directed by something.  Whether or not the dance is physical one is irrelevant, what I mean here is that I hope to retain the capacity to delight in the deep and unrelenting rhythm of the cosmos.  I think a great deal rides on the ability to let go of what it is you think you should be doing in exchange for realizing what you actually aredoing.  Dream on, but remain accountable to yourself.  There is no opportunity in the past, that’s a misconception we waste a lot of misery on….real opportunity is only available now.  Like, right now.

The present is an endlessly challenging thing to see, but it’d be a real shame to miss it.