Dreams of Joy - Lisa See [52]
When my bus arrives, I jam myself in with other workers—most of us dressed in monotonous blue and gray, with only the rare splash of red or yellow in the form of a scarf wrapped around a neck or a kerchief covering hair. The bus pulls back into a sea of thousands upon thousands of people on Eternal brand bicycles. We make our way through Hongkew, over the Garden Bridge, and onto the Bund. I get off at my stop and hurry to my place of employment. It’s important not to be late for the work of socialist construction.
I sign in with my boss, pick up my basket and other tools, and head back out to the Bund. I now know why the once-grand Western-style buildings are strung with nets. It’s to catch people who try to commit suicide. I avert my eyes and gaze out to the Whangpoo. Every morning and every evening I watch the comings and goings of the vessels that ply the river. Twenty years ago, May and I left China by fishing boat, but that would be impossible now. Inspection ships can stop any craft on the river or at sea, and the docked naval ships make me nervous too.
All right then, on to work. I’m one tiny cog in the big machine the Communists call ground cleaning. If everything works perfectly, then soon all that was perceived to be Western, “sinful and corrupt,” or individualistic, unique, and beautiful will be eradicated. Today I’ve been assigned to what was once the French Concession. All the old names—the French Concession, the International Settlement, even the Old Chinese City—have disappeared. It’s just Shanghai now. I’ll spend the next ten hours patrolling streets and alleyways, collecting scraps of paper that have fallen to the ground, or ripping old posters and advertisements from the walls of houses and shops.
They say that returning to your native land is like coming back to your mother, but I don’t see it that way at all. Doing this job has allowed me to see the changes that have happened in my home city—from the most intimate details of daily life to the larger impact of communism on what was once the Paris of Asia. I see sweepers, garbage vans, and people like me—scavengers of every sort—and yet every day there is new paper and other trash to be found. It’s as though people are afraid to throw it all out at once. I’ve stumbled upon old labels and wrapping paper for products and companies that no longer exist in the city—Flaubert’s Furs, Lion Brand tooth powder, and British American Tobacco. I’ve peeled old political announcements and notices off walls and doors. I’ve found long-discarded love letters, temple offerings, and photographs. I’ve even picked up wedding couplets that have fallen from overflowing trash bins and onto the street. Many times I’ve wondered, as I stuff the couplets into my basket, if marriage in the New Society is just something to be thrown away with no regard to custom, tradition, love, or good wishes. Today I find a bill of sale from a scale factory. Farther along, loose sheets of Overseas Banking Company stationery scuff along the street like dust motes.
Around ten, I arrive at an open-air, government-owned market. The morning rush is over, and the area outside the market is heaped with discarded cabbage leaves, bad fruit, and fish scales and guts. A garbage truck stops and picks up