My Hikes

When the sixth tout asked to sell a watch I raised my voice. He was taken aback and stepped aside, but after I had taken some ten steps he hurled at my back a concentrate of all the English he could muster for the occasion: “fucking!” I forgave him easily after ten minutes over a cappuccino in a cafe where even the chair on which I sat was antique and was price-tagged for sale. Near where I’d just walked, on Hauai Hai touts were once selling their fakes easily in an informally designated fake market, and now that it is pulled down, those who have only known to sell fakes must find other ways to sell, for, even now, they can only sell fakes.

Sinan Street is for history. They closed off the entrance to Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s former residence to allow a long convoy of vehicles inside. So I went to Zhou En Lai’s former residence first, which they say was his residence in name only, but his key comrades and other comrades who dealt with the foreign diplomats and the press and traveling comrades from across China all lived there. No one came down and around to see his black car, which was registered 00070 when it served him, a lovely beast with a bursting snout and hollow (dimpled?) cheeks. It had an antenna for the radio stuck on its brow, bent back, and my mind’s eye remembers it as like hair slicked back. Not all may call a Buick a beast; I don’t know cars like many people do.

The Buick is restored by Repair Factory Number Three of General Motors, Shanghai. Inside the house, which is (of course) a museum, there is a picture exposing the fact that America abetted in KMT’s works to widen the civil war. Anyway, learning a little of the affairs of the Europeans in Shanghai’s Concessions, the thought floated across my mind that the Maoists did a damn good thing in uniting their nation and restoring its dignity. I won’t say more; politics is not my forte. Anyone can whittle me to the ground in a political debate.

So when I went back to Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s former residence my respect for the founding fathers had risen enough for me to be moved by the man’s staggering achievement. My grief for the Last Emperor (which has stayed with me from when I watched the movie) melted somewhat, seeing the simple life Sun Yat-sen lived in that house. But, writing now, the beauty of Mrs. Sun Yat-sen (her picture, at a table with a book), the grace in her letters, and her flowing elegant handwriting, they are the remembrances from the visit, and I’m retiring with the sweet impression of a couple who lived a good life.