Estate I 'm talking about. After the thing with Ben, I had moved to the Commercial Success Condominium near Chao Yang Park. A whole new tower block with a whole new Neighbourhood Committee. Plus these old men opposite who got up early to practise Beijing opera, sheet music in hand. Yiyiyabloodyyayaya. It was never-ending – a shrill alarm hurrying me towards consciousness. Fuck off!
I turned my sleepy eyes towards the window. There wasn't the slightest indication the sky was blue or the sun was shining. Heavenly Bastard in the Sky, why the hell would I want to get out of bed in a Beijing winter anyway? There was a part of me that thought I should embrace the day, but a bigger part of me just wanted to crawl back into the dark night.
The phone rang. And rang. I lay in bed huddled under the covers and tried to figure out who, at this time, on this morning, could possibly be calling. Not Ben. Ben always called my mobile and, anyway, I knew he'd be watching the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. His recent emails and phone calls had been about nothing but the Boston Red Sox and their baseballing achievements. He didn't seem to realise how remote the Red Sox and the World Series were to me. It wasn't just that they were 18,000 miles away. It was that I didn't even know what a baseball looked like. Was it the size of a ping-pong ball or a volleyball? I had no idea. The Red Sox reminded me of the chasm between Ben and me, between our experiences. The Red Sox made me depressed.
The ring of the phone was unforgiving. It couldn't be my far-away Ben, and it was too early in the morning for Xiaolin to be harassing me. Xiaolin had got hold of the phone number at my flat and would sometimes relieve his lonely evenings by dialling it incessantly. It was as though he was intent only on bringing the phone on my floor to life. But I couldn't think about Xiaolin first thing in the morning. It was stupid to wake up so early just to be pissed off.
The phone went silent for about a minute, then started ringing again.
It occurred to me that maybe it was Huizi. After Ben left, his flatmate Patton and my friend Huizi became the only people I could talk to. Strangely they were both scriptwriters, although that was about all they had in common. Huizi wrote these brilliant films that could never get past the censors, so to make money he wrote TV scripts. This was how we'd met. He'd written some episodes for this show called The Kindest Cop in Town, and had admired the way I threw myself to the ground in my role as 'Scared girl in police chase'. Huizi had great opinions on extras and minor roles. He believed it was the supporting characters that made stories what they are, that gave them their soul and substance. I loved hearing him say that. What Huizi and I didn't agree about was old people. He adored listening to them nattering away in the street. He said he stole the best parts of their conversations and typed them straight into his scripts. I didn't tell Huizi how much I hated those old hens and old cocks. Huizi might steal their conversations, but I felt those old people stole my life. For me, it was old people who were responsible for all the shit things that had happened in China.
Huizi often talked to me about the poet Cha-Haisheng. This Beijing poet had written one of Huizi's favourite poems, called 'Facing the Ocean, the Warmth of Spring is Blossoming'. He told me that Cha-Haisheng committed suicide in 1989 by tying himself to a train track that ran along a mountain pass, beside a section of the Great Wall. Huizi referred to this particular poem so much that I can still recite the first verse off by heart:
From tomorrow, I will be a lucky person
Feed horses, chop wood, travel the world
From tomorrow, I will think of my health and eat more vegetables
I will have a house facing the ocean; the warmth of spring will blossom.
I wanted to be a lucky person too. Feeding horses, chopping wood, travelling the world, thinking only of my
I turned my sleepy eyes towards the window. There wasn't the slightest indication the sky was blue or the sun was shining. Heavenly Bastard in the Sky, why the hell would I want to get out of bed in a Beijing winter anyway? There was a part of me that thought I should embrace the day, but a bigger part of me just wanted to crawl back into the dark night.
The phone rang. And rang. I lay in bed huddled under the covers and tried to figure out who, at this time, on this morning, could possibly be calling. Not Ben. Ben always called my mobile and, anyway, I knew he'd be watching the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. His recent emails and phone calls had been about nothing but the Boston Red Sox and their baseballing achievements. He didn't seem to realise how remote the Red Sox and the World Series were to me. It wasn't just that they were 18,000 miles away. It was that I didn't even know what a baseball looked like. Was it the size of a ping-pong ball or a volleyball? I had no idea. The Red Sox reminded me of the chasm between Ben and me, between our experiences. The Red Sox made me depressed.
The ring of the phone was unforgiving. It couldn't be my far-away Ben, and it was too early in the morning for Xiaolin to be harassing me. Xiaolin had got hold of the phone number at my flat and would sometimes relieve his lonely evenings by dialling it incessantly. It was as though he was intent only on bringing the phone on my floor to life. But I couldn't think about Xiaolin first thing in the morning. It was stupid to wake up so early just to be pissed off.
The phone went silent for about a minute, then started ringing again.
It occurred to me that maybe it was Huizi. After Ben left, his flatmate Patton and my friend Huizi became the only people I could talk to. Strangely they were both scriptwriters, although that was about all they had in common. Huizi wrote these brilliant films that could never get past the censors, so to make money he wrote TV scripts. This was how we'd met. He'd written some episodes for this show called The Kindest Cop in Town, and had admired the way I threw myself to the ground in my role as 'Scared girl in police chase'. Huizi had great opinions on extras and minor roles. He believed it was the supporting characters that made stories what they are, that gave them their soul and substance. I loved hearing him say that. What Huizi and I didn't agree about was old people. He adored listening to them nattering away in the street. He said he stole the best parts of their conversations and typed them straight into his scripts. I didn't tell Huizi how much I hated those old hens and old cocks. Huizi might steal their conversations, but I felt those old people stole my life. For me, it was old people who were responsible for all the shit things that had happened in China.
Huizi often talked to me about the poet Cha-Haisheng. This Beijing poet had written one of Huizi's favourite poems, called 'Facing the Ocean, the Warmth of Spring is Blossoming'. He told me that Cha-Haisheng committed suicide in 1989 by tying himself to a train track that ran along a mountain pass, beside a section of the Great Wall. Huizi referred to this particular poem so much that I can still recite the first verse off by heart:
From tomorrow, I will be a lucky person
Feed horses, chop wood, travel the world
From tomorrow, I will think of my health and eat more vegetables
I will have a house facing the ocean; the warmth of spring will blossom.
I wanted to be a lucky person too. Feeding horses, chopping wood, travelling the world, thinking only of my
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