Arriving Hangzhou
Our flight from Beijing was delayed more than two hours in that creeping fashion that forces you to stay near the gate because they could announce the flight at any time. The screens still showed an estimated on-time departure even when that would require time travel to accomplish. Since this, too, was a gate from which we would be bussed to a plane sitting on the tarmac we were further jerked around confused by the constant arrival of buses outside our gate. A bus would idle for a while, convincing us our transport was surely imminent, and then it would drive away, quickly and empty. Our only clue in these cases that the bus was not really for us was the gate agent's lack of response to it being there. She just stayed in her seat, her head on the desk.
When we at last arrived in Hangzhou, it was after dark. I was disappointed on the drive from the airport to our hotel that I couldn't see much. I wanted to have a first impression to remember, something metaphorical even (I know, that is asking a lot). I had no idea if the outlines and shadows I saw were brand-new or crumbling and prematurely decrepit.
Is it
On our drive from the Hangzhou airport, it was impossible not to compare this city with our immediate environs in Beijing. The new construction everywhere, and we pass mile on mile of ambitious construction of skyscrapers and developments of giant villas, houses for one family that are nearly as large as a standard Beijing walk-up apartment building. This does not feel like the crumbling, compartmentalized Beijing I just left. The endless blur of development that we drive past reminds me we are definitely in South China again, with its exciting possibilities and optimism that money can change everything. It's hard to fight that feeling myself at times, and I call myself a Christian.
or is it
On our drive from the Hangzhou airport to our hotel, it was impossible not to notice the deterioration that has already reached this city. I hoped for a vacation from the shabbiness that surrounds us in our part of Beijing, but I am watching out the car window instead at a steady stream of once-ambitious commercial projects that now show signs of neglect. There was promise here once, perhaps, though the over extension of that promise created a veneer of economic progress too thin to last. Will Hangzhou forever be referred to as once-great, I wonder. It was at one time the largest city in the world, the first to have over a million inhabitants---eight hundred years ago. I am beginning to think that Hangzhou will always be talked about in the past tense, as its greatness exists in some time before, either in history or a more recent time.
Okay, so my imagination is given over to hyperbole. And Hangzhou remains a mystery to me at this point, outside, of course, what we've read. Our hotel is near the famous West Lake, so the kids and I will be heading out there soon, especially to find breakfast. In the meantime, then, I am compulsively taking pictures. I do this anyway, but Randy caught me taking a picture of cars in the airport parking lot, and wondered why that was significant. I don't know, I had to tell him, but if I take enough pictures, I think to myself, I might be able to piece this puzzle together. I have no idea if what I am seeing on any give day is significant or not, so I take a picture to file for later reference. It is almost like having my own pensieve.
When we at last arrived in Hangzhou, it was after dark. I was disappointed on the drive from the airport to our hotel that I couldn't see much. I wanted to have a first impression to remember, something metaphorical even (I know, that is asking a lot). I had no idea if the outlines and shadows I saw were brand-new or crumbling and prematurely decrepit.
Is it
On our drive from the Hangzhou airport, it was impossible not to compare this city with our immediate environs in Beijing. The new construction everywhere, and we pass mile on mile of ambitious construction of skyscrapers and developments of giant villas, houses for one family that are nearly as large as a standard Beijing walk-up apartment building. This does not feel like the crumbling, compartmentalized Beijing I just left. The endless blur of development that we drive past reminds me we are definitely in South China again, with its exciting possibilities and optimism that money can change everything. It's hard to fight that feeling myself at times, and I call myself a Christian.
or is it
On our drive from the Hangzhou airport to our hotel, it was impossible not to notice the deterioration that has already reached this city. I hoped for a vacation from the shabbiness that surrounds us in our part of Beijing, but I am watching out the car window instead at a steady stream of once-ambitious commercial projects that now show signs of neglect. There was promise here once, perhaps, though the over extension of that promise created a veneer of economic progress too thin to last. Will Hangzhou forever be referred to as once-great, I wonder. It was at one time the largest city in the world, the first to have over a million inhabitants---eight hundred years ago. I am beginning to think that Hangzhou will always be talked about in the past tense, as its greatness exists in some time before, either in history or a more recent time.
Okay, so my imagination is given over to hyperbole. And Hangzhou remains a mystery to me at this point, outside, of course, what we've read. Our hotel is near the famous West Lake, so the kids and I will be heading out there soon, especially to find breakfast. In the meantime, then, I am compulsively taking pictures. I do this anyway, but Randy caught me taking a picture of cars in the airport parking lot, and wondered why that was significant. I don't know, I had to tell him, but if I take enough pictures, I think to myself, I might be able to piece this puzzle together. I have no idea if what I am seeing on any give day is significant or not, so I take a picture to file for later reference. It is almost like having my own pensieve.
Comments
This: "I don't know, I had to tell him, but if I take enough pictures, I think to myself, I might be able to piece this puzzle together. I have no idea if what I am seeing on any give day is significant or not, so I take a picture to file for later reference."
I find myself stumbling across a picture I took four years ago, just a random view of the street in spring as I was taking Bella for a walk and now it has all sorts of significance I had no way of knowing back then. We don't live there anymore and so now that is our old neighborhood and those pictures chronicle a part of our life that is gone.
I know that's different than your compulsive documenting, that it's a different sort of picture puzzle you are piecing together and yet I see myself using the camera in similar ways, snapping picture after picture in hopes of capturing... something... I'm not sure what I'm trying to understand or keep from slipping away but I love the pensieve image.