Hong Kong to Changsha
Jul 24, 03:02 AM
I am writing this from an underground internet bar in Changsha – it is dark, dingy, friendly, and filled with cigarette smoke and the sound of online gamers hawking and spitting. My laptop is behaving quirkily at the moment least – the trouble with netbooks is that the build quality is not as high as it might be. What I think has happened is that the internal circuitry has flexed a little, and so the machine is misbehaving. Anyway, I’m hoping it will last the course until I get back from China and can get it looked at.
I arrived early this morning after what was a relatively comfortable night travelling from Hong Kong via Shenzhen. The border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen is remarkably straightforward – you take the MTR from the centre of Hong Kong and then just walk across the border, direct to Shenzhen rail station. It is good to be back here on the mainland and using my Chinese again, but Hong Kong was well worth the visit. On my final full day there, I went to hear Xu Xi at the Hong Kong book festival, as she was talking about writing between Chinese and English. Unfortunately, despite the topic of the talk and the fact that she writes and publishes in English, she spoke only in Chinese; and in Cantonese at that, so I did not have much of a chance even to give my Putonghua a workout. But I enjoyed soaking up the literary air and hearing the few extracts in English that she read. Also on the same day, I met up with the extraordinarily hospitable Xiaosui Xiao, a scholar of rhetoric with an interest in the Zhouyi. We managed to dodge the rain – that started to come down in earnest after I left the book fair, and then took the peak tram up the hill to look over Hong Kong by night – a truly spectacular view, particularly given the bruised and brownish storm clouds and the occasional stray flash of lightning. Here are a couple of photos, the first of the rain and the second of the view from the peak:
I also managed to write another story for the book, which takes me past the half-way mark. This was from hexagram 38, and featured a cart full of ghosts, a fox spirit (there are a few of those in these parts) and other curious happenings. But it’s hard writing on a keyboard that sometimes does not respond at all, and sometimes just repeatedly inputs the last key that you pressed, like thissssssssssssss. Whilst here in Changsha, I plan to see the Mawangdui manuscripts of the Zhouyi (周易) at the Hunan Provincial Museum. Then I’m hoping to head out of the cityfor a few days, perhaps to Heng Shan (衡山) before I travel up to Jinan for more meetings. What I need now, however, is to get in touch with my host here, and to have a shower to wash off the grime of the journey.