Journey of the Guitar - Chapter 1 Going Home

Chapter 1

        Year 2000

I became who I am today in 1977. I still remembered the place and what had happened. It was the White Crane Hotel at the bank of the yellow Pearl River, on the top floor, where Brian played his guitar. It was the music too, hypnotized me at that instant like a potion and that night, I drank the magic.

”You are what you ate, Lina!” my mother, Mama used to say. I couldn’t quite understand it then. Nothing I knew I had become a walking proof of her wisdom ever since.

Sitting in front of my computer in an apartment in Brooklyn, New York’s bluest borough, my finger lingered on the mouse circulating the "submit" button. “You are what you ate.” I lingered on Mama’s voice too. Brian had a better way put it. “You are your own making, like a wine, you won’t get its real taste till the end.” I thought this was the same truth but more poetic. How two people sharing the same belief could be so different from each other? I shook my head. When I clicked the mouse later that night, and the computer flashed "Print Itinerary ", it was two in the morning. Only later that I found out, I just booked a ticket to my past, the one that I avoided like an allergen. But the truth was that the allergen lived in you, around you and eventually became you.

       ***

The captain’s voice rang through the cabin of the Boeing 747. “It is now nine o’clock September 14, 2000 local time. Local temperature is twenty- seven centigrade, and humidity is eighty-five percent...” The announcement faded into the buzzing of the engines.  I sat up and tried to shake the fog out of my head but I couldn’t. Outside of the plane, the landing gears roared from their release. I buckled up and returned my seat for landing while I kept telling myself this trip was not about Brian. At least this was what I told my mother over the phone. As the plane got close to my hometown I was not sure if I could convince myself anymore. 

 The sun blazed above a haze hanging low like a mosquito net on the horizon of Guangzhou. From the distance, the Pearl River dappled like a careless stroke across Guangzhou, the most southern city of China, divided the city into its northern and southern section. 

I tried to close my eyes and not to let the view outside disturb me. My heart was racing with the approaching plane and the seat cushion felt like it was filled with pebbles. I reached into the side pocket of my handbag and pulled out Brian’s picture. He was sitting by a pool under a thick banyan tree whose leaves had faded into yellow as the picture aged. We were young and rebellious then and were madly in love. Water dripped from his thick black hair and landed on his broad shoulders, enhanced the color of the olive. I could still smell the chlorine under his skin that had become part of his scent. Behind him, several kids popped their heads above the water, smiling. It was in a late summer afternoon, someone was taking pictures for the swimming program he coached that day for a school newspaper. Brian later got the negative and made a copy. He handed to me with a letter the moment before he stepped behind the barbwire separating China mainland from Hong Kong where at that time, still a common wealth of the Great Britain. From there, he boarded a plane to San Francisco. "My dear Lina, I hope you understand why I leave. I wish you the best luck and, mostly, love in your life," the letter said. I was only able to read the first two sentences and I crumpled it into a ball in my palm. The wind was strong that day. It tossed the Union Jack onto the Hong Kong sky and slapped it against the pole. Brian caught up with the crowd and disappeared into the sea of people.

I put away the picture. Outside, as the plane descended, it met with strong turbulence. I could almost feel the strong wind hitting the side of the plane. I hadn’t thought of the flags for a long time over these years and now, they all came back to me too fast too clearly. Brian should be in the reunion. I hoped he was still in China. “To re-assess life,” he told me two months ago before he left.  

The plane taxied to a brand new terminal where streams of people filed into the new concourse from all directions. It was mid morning. My feet were as heavy as my head. I followed the sign to the baggage claim.

The minute I pulled my baggage out of the gate, a middle-aged man approached me. “Where are you going Miss? I have a car outside with air condition. I charge less than anyone else? ”

“No, thank you. I will manage,” I said and turned away.

“Trust me. I only want to make some extra while waiting for my boss to finish his day-long meeting.” He approached me from the other side. At that time, a taxi pulled up the curb. I felt a sudden relief after I threw my luggage to the trunk and shut the door to the chaos. I looked at my watch. I wanted to call Maggie and Peter telling them I had arrived but it was too late at ten o’clock at night New York time. I could imagine Maggie had just read him a story and he was sound asleep and snuggled with his blanket and snorted like a puppy. This boy! I smiled, he snorted since he was two. I found it unusual but cute. Maggie was such a good friend and I could thank her enough.

 “Which bridge, Miss?” The taxi driver said dryly to the mirror above him, interrupting my moment of serenade.

“The one that crosses the Pearl River to the southern section.”

He squinted and his eyes became two thick lines. “They all do, Miss. Are you paying bridge toll?”

“Yes.”

He had a country accent like the one from the upper counties. “Wangpo Bridge, thirty Yuen toll, but closer to get there. Haizhu Bridge no toll but cars travelled like donkey carts, construction and traffic. Tianhe Bridge twenty Yuen, traffic is unpredictable if there’s a convention at the City Center.” He turned down the Hong Kong pop from his stereo.”Which bridge?”

“I …I don’t know. Here, my address.” I handed him my mom’s address.

He grunted as he looked at it. “You don’t know how to get home? Where are you from?” He didn’t sound surprised.

 “Far away,” I said. Mama had warned me that I shouldn’t tell the taxi driver that I came from New York for he would take me for a ride to Hunan and charged me times the fare.

“I see you are those lost people.” He won’t let me off.

“What did you say?”

“You, like a Bok Choy got plucked out of the soil and planted in the wrong sand,” he said, showing the gap of his front teeth. “Can I smoke?”

“I prefer not to?”

“Then I have to park and take a break.”

“All right. Smoke, but please keep the window open.”

 He lit up a cigarette that smelt like cheap perfume, blew a circle outside of the window and continued. “You are from America, aren’t you? a golden mountain auntie. I pick up your people every week.  You got that lost look on your tanned face. See, women here stay away from the sun to keep their skin white. See them walking with umbrellas under the sun? Tanned face make you look like a farmhand. See me? I used to work in the farm. Once you are in the sun you couldn’t rub the tan off even with a hundred Baihua soap.” Like the rest of his people, they believed we all were from San Francisco if we were from America, a place we still mined gold deep in the dirt.

I fixed my eyes on a piece of discarded newspaper on the sidewalk and didn’t want to continue the conversation. He gunned the engine and took us onto the highway. We passed a forest of glass buildings which I didn’t know and I had no recollection. Between the gaps and behind the buildings stood the old city. Its uniform five-story apartment buildings had browned by years of coal burning and defaced by illegal additions of balconies, barbwire and satellite dishes. Laundry lines flew their colors like flags of many nations.

I smelt the river. Its same freshness came upon me like when Mama dumped a basket of sun-dried laundry before me. “Fold it Lina!” My heart elated as I saw the towers of the suspension bridge. I didn't know why I thought of the Golden Gate Bridge for this bridge had no resemblance. It was my first stop to America many years ago. Back then, Mama had warned me if you’re going to seek Brian, you should not go to America at all. I went anyway. I went to New York. I told her later it was a mechanical problem of my plane that had delayed my layover in San Francisco from forty minutes to two weeks but I didn’t say I had also done more than seeing Brian. I adjusted my seatbelt in the taxi and cranked my neck as we approached the bridge. Then the car stopped.

The driver turned to me half smiled. He put up three twig-like fingers above the passenger seat. “Thirty Yuen.” His country accent started to irritate me.

 I put three Yuen bills in his hand as he lined up for the crossing. Outside in front of an old hotel by the riverbank, workers were moving boxes to two trucks. On the first floor of the building, the red awnings had faded to dark pink and managed to sustain their old glory above the windows. Weeds overtook the azaleas and the rose garden and became fixture with the lone statute, a stone artifact of a girl bathing in a dry fountain. Her arm holding the long dress was broken but her hand was still on the long dress that covered her from waist down.

“Stupid trucks, holding the traffic,” the taxi driver snorted tossing his cigarette butt on the sidewalk.

The marble columns of the entry had turned ivory. Above, I caught a glimpse of the sign. Its tarnished golden characters were broken but didn’t fail to convey the message.  “White Crane Hotel.” I rolled down the window.

“Yeah, yeah, big deal when you were here. The first Hong Kong hotel in the city, tallest in the country. Yayaya, not any more. New one is coming after they tear it down.” The driver stepped on the gas. The cab sped pass the hotel, cut a lane and came to another stop.

I could see the way the tear down the hotel. They stuffed dynamite inside and pushed the button. The molding, the garden, the medallion crumpled into a pile leaving its glory and my memory into the dust and scattered a new layer of on the landfill. Where is my camera? I reached the bottom of my bag.

“No!” Even my last picture came out blurry as the car moved.

The driver turned to me. “What’s wrong? Got to get into the lane? Too many people not enough roads. Haiya, you will get used to it.” He flapped his hand as to dismiss a black fly.

 “That White Crane Hotel. Such a good hotel. They have a very good band there playing in the restaurant on the top floor.” How could I tell a stranger that Brian played in the band the night we met?  Looking up at the balconies on the top floor, I could still hear him singing with the guitar. “Yesterday” was the song he sang. The sun glared on my eyes and I felt the tightening of my throat.

I must have said that word. The driver glanced at the mirror confused. “Yesterday?  Don’t understand your people. Always like old stuff. That building was there before I came to the city. Never heard of any band there. Good bands don’t play there. They make more money at fancier hotels.” I decided to keep quiet the rest of the trip. It was not fair to spill my nostalgia to a stranger. Country bums swarming my city. What do they know?

 
(To be continued)