Crossing borders
Nov 1st, 2007 by Michael Max
It finally rained after an accumulated humidity, like the slow build up to a good cry, there was a feeling of relief in hearing the rain fall into my last night of this journey to China.
Arriving early for the Guangzhou to Kowloon train, riding up several levels of escalators, and then through a giant expanse of triangular glass folded into a massive dome I managed to instantly change my ticket to the train due to leave in 15 minutes. There are times when the gods of travel smile.
The train is full of the sound of Cantonese, and as much as I’m on-guard for the pick pockets, the clack and rattle soon enough lulls me into unconsciousness. Already on this trip in China, I’ve woken on a bus with a thief’s hand in my pocket, and had a bag razored while filling out shipping forms in the Yangshuo post office. Somehow the sixth sense has clicked in just in time to keep what is mine, but the vigilance required is a constant drain, the hypnotic click and roll of the train is inescapable, and the eyes of the old man sitting next me carry nothing of the snaky thief glint. I sleep.
I wake to the slowing of the train as we ease through a corridor of cement grey partitions, the colorless stiff line that separates countries, even as the government considers there to be no divide. Soon after the cell phone goes dead, the written script changes to the eye pleasing full form characters, and strangely, suddenly there are palm trees.
Hong Kong truly an international hub of trade with its extensive harbor and soaring monuments to commerce. The buildings tower up up up like thin elegant sails. They are the kind of structures that could easily inspire a young man to dream up a life of architecture. The airport is a collage of noodle soups, Ben and Jerry’s, neck hung roasted duck and Starbucks. The lines of East and West now blurred into a global culture as distances are shrunk by jet transport, fiber optic, and instant communication. What a privilege it is to see this larger world beyond the borders of American life, to see how the world revolves on multiple axis.
In a few hours, I’ll be back in Taiwan. The feeling in my belly is like that of going home, of going to a place where the smells and movement of life are of a comforting familiarity.