Day 14,
October 1
Yesterday was the first day of the year that felt like Fall to me. It was cool enough that I wore sweatpants outside on my bus-ride/walk to the Foreign Language book store on Fuzhou road, near People’s Square. I bought The Human Stain by Philip Roth, determined to read the Great American novelists I heard about growing up, but never actually read. I read the first 20 pages at a Coco’s Curry a block away from the bookstore. The floor was a black and white checkerboard. It felt slightly too fancy to be a chain I’d been to three or four other locations of. I ordered black tea, to go with the checkerboard floor, and veggie curry with a spiciness quotient of 4 out of 5. The curry was spicy enough that I couldn’t really appreciate the black tea flavor, mixed with lemon. When it’s a choice I can make, I usually drink green tea. The flowery flavor of black tea makes me think of my office, back in Wisconsin, coming early so that I can have that early morning feeling of tranquility. There were always running out of green tea, but had four or five varieties of black tea. I drank it out of little paper cups that oozed out a flavor of melted glue. Since quitting, I’ve had black tea maybe three times. It’s not that I don’t like it — it’s the exact opposite in fact. I want to cherish the flavor. The first autumnal-feeling day of the year (it was the day after Mid-Autumn festival — I have no idea what the official beginning of Fall is in China,) felt like as good a time as any to sip tiny amounts of it, as the warmth of the tea sent searing pain up my tongue nerves thanks to all the 4/5 spicy curry I’d eaten.
When I got home I read another 50 pages of the Human Stain. When I woke up this morning I read 30. The Fall feeling was still inside of me. I went out for a run while Xiaoxi was still asleep. The sun was out — the first bright day in forever, but it wasn’t hot — further corroborating my suspicions of Fall. There was a cool breeze blowing the entire time. I found myself compelled to following Kaixuan road south farther than I’d ever followed it before. Kaixuan (which mean “Triumphant return”) road run beneath line 3 of the subway, which goes to Shanghai South Rail Station. On the way back, I ended up taking a detour on Nanning road, which was empty of pedestrians or cars. It was just before noon when I went out to run, but it felt like 7am on a Sunday morning. Massive construction projects were on other side of me. Somehow the high rise apartment buildings there felt different from the high rises near either of the places I live. Nanning road ended at a tunnel only open to bikes and pedestrians. I ran through it, and on the other side ended up on a path next to a small river. This took me back to Kaixuan road.
This was my first time seeing Shanghai South Rail Station. It felt like the rail station in Jinan, with a massive outdoor plaza around it, rather than Shanghai Station, which melds into the city, or Hongqiao Station, which feels like a belongs to car world rather than our everyday people world. I wanted to go back. I still want to go back. But it’s already after 5 now. I came home, showered, read some stuff on my computer, ate a big bowl of noodles, and somehow it’s already after 5. If I leave for the station now, it’ll be dark when I get there. The sun rises so early in Shanghai, yet I get up so late. It never feels like there’s enough time to do anything.
I suppose the change of seasons fills me with confidence. I want to stop being worried every time I talk with strangers that they’ll think my Chinese is terrible. My Chinese is fine. What does me in is the terror I feel every time I meet someone new. When I’m in a room with people I don’t know, I get the feeling that they’re all terrified I’m going to speak English to them. They see me approaching, they see me open my mouth, and they’re far too scared to realize that every word I said was in Chinese. I always have to repeat my first sentence, but never my second, third, fourth or so on. What does it matter that I have to repeat myself? But I always feel so needlessly hurt by it. I feel like someone outside of society. Other than a few weirdos who have accepted me, I feel like an inconvenience to everyone. But standing out there in the bright sunshine and cooling breeze, I want to be friends with everyone. I want to stop making everything so complicated.