Read the City (Beijing Through the Eyes of Masters)

Author: Liu Yida
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: The streets are filled with a different kind of people. At first, I noticed the national flags hanging under every household eaves, reminding me it was a festival. I asked someone in the shop and learned it was related to respecting teachers, and that a grand ceremony to commemorate Confucius was being held on this day after eight years. The entire country would hold this solemn ceremony on the same day. I recalled the large and desolate Confucius Temple in Suzhou's Pingjiang Prefecture. Would those dozens of robust Japanese military horses kept in the temple's corridors be temporarily led out by the guards, allowing the elderly teachers in Suzhou, who had served for twenty years and were now emaciated, to pay their respects at the temple without being emotionally fragile enough to feel bitter about using classrooms as stables for horses? The military horses could be temporarily led out, but how would the countless unidentified bats in the main hall be handled? Confucius Temples in other places likely used corridors to house horses as well, and the one in Qufu might be even worse. This only shows that while teachers were respected in rituals in places like Beijing and Nanjing, teachers elsewhere were still struggling to survive among military horses and bats, and it's easy to imagine how difficult their lives were. I began to stroll through the streets of Beijing. I wanted to find some small insects or creatures that had a different will, expressed through their strange shapes, mottled colors, or flying, singing, resting, and eating habits. However, I had no satisfying results. There were many people instead—on cars, tricycles, rickshaws, and bicycles. The streets were wide and clean, and the people on the vehicles seemed unconcerned about colliding with each other. But many looked the same at a glance—sleep-deprived and malnourished. The well-fed special characters, including great figures and butchers, shared a similar demeanor. They had lived for generations in a state of lack of confidence, purpose, and ideals, and their facial features, unused properly, showed signs of fatigue or degeneration. The other type was slickness—the oily, opportunistic, and hypocritical behavior typical of merchants, petty officials, and detectives, who feigned simplicity and humility. He might be thinking of some days from a certain village named Sanlang, or planning how to use past activities with someone who had land or islands to participate in cultural activities again, perhaps even receiving some new special permission.