1 post tagged “china”

The sun had grown cold that day as fog wafted into the city early in the morning. Their boat was to dock a few miles outside of Shanghai, where they would have some lunch. The boat carried mostly American children whose parents sat inside the cabin, quiet and tired from all of the touring they've endured in the past week.

Their kids were eager to find marine life outside on the biting cold deck, neglecting the plethora of plant life, islands, gorges, and spectacular views that surrounded them. The sun was now completely blocked out by clouds and threatening precipitation. Still, the children all kept staring into the water. Every once in a while, Song Yang, their tour guide would hear one or two of them make giddy commentary about seeing a huge koi or little turtle shuffle about within eyesight. Suddenly, after a half hour of sailing, the children saw something in the water just beyond the ferry's starboard. Through the curdling foam, a plate-sized fin cut the water and submerged. One of the kids pointed and shrieked eagerly at a white fish the size of a human that appeared for only a few seconds and then vanished into the green depths of the river. Everyone who was on the front of the deck saw it as clear as a ray of light in the dark.

"Beiji!" shouted the tour guide. Song Yang dug through her backpack right away to find her cell phone. She called her companion tour guide Zhu Ge. All the children turned their attention from the water to her spontaneous behavior as she yelled frantically and excitedly into the receiver. "Wei? Wei?!" The phone lost its signal in the middle of her conversation. She decided to let the kids in on the commotion. "Beiji was the Goddess of the Yangzte River for many centuries. She had become formally declared extinct in 2006. No one could find her. We've found her!"

"What is she?" asked one of the children.

"She is in the form of a white dolphin and has a long, elegant nose."

All of the kids appeared to be in a dream-state, enchanted at this news about a goddess of the river. They all turned themselves back to get a good view from the front of the boat, but could not see as well as before. The fog had grown as thick as heavy smoke and their eyes diverted to things they were able to see clearly. After mintues, only the hands in front of their faces were visible. The fog was beginning to grapple with their breathing.

Song Yang gripped a rail at the edge of the boat, feeling dizzy and trying not to succumb to unconsciousness so as to be of complete assistance to her very young brood of passengers. She could have thought that they were all evaporating into tiny molecules, each of them slowly disappearing. Her eyes fluttered open to see gray gray fog. She did not know how long she had them closed. She calmly asked everyone to hold hands and count the numbers she had taught them in Mandarin. They only thing to be heard was the rippling water and children's uniform voices.

The fog dissipated in all directions as they approached number 25. It disappeared into the wide river, illuminating it. The fog was sucked into the sky, making it blue. And it fled into the mountains, turning them lush. Never had any of them seen a world that was so alive. Suddenly there were chirps and splashes, sounds of wildlife that were dormant before the fog. Song Yang felt awakened, aware that this reality was different, therefore acknowledging that a separate reality could co-exist with the diurnal and mundane experiences that everyone was used to. She wondered why it had to happen this way, while she was working, teaching little students on this very boat. For long minutes, they were suspended in time. They lost the idea of time altogether, of who they were, of where they were. All they knew for certain was what surrounded them: in the willows, the peach blossoms, the wind, the mountains, the squirrels, the birds, the turtles, the fish, the beiji.

The fog slowly came out of hiding, creeping upon them and ending their waking dream. The sky became as it had appeared when they boarded, the sun only a glowing white disc through the clouds. The boat docked as the captain appeared from inside, followed by the children's parents, visibly unaffected. The children and their guide were the last ones off the boat.

"I wonder if that is what the world would be like if we stopped throwing trash wherever we wanted." pondered a student.

Surprised at the child's unordinary aptitude, Song Yang laughed and said, "Many possibilities would give us that world. Let's go have some wufan."