Dreams of Joy - Lisa See [8]
I glance at the map to get my bearings, adjust my suitcase in my hand, make my way through the crowds to the curb, and wait for the bicycles to stop to let me cross. They don’t stop. And there’s no streetlight. All the while I’m being bumped and pushed by the ceaseless flow of pedestrians. I watch others step into the herds of bicycles and daringly cross the street. The next time someone steps off the curb, I follow close behind, hoping I’ll be safe in his wake.
As I head up Nanking Road, I can’t help making comparisons between Shanghai and Chinatown, where most of the people were from Canton, in Kwangtung province in the south of China. My family’s originally from Kwangtung too, but my mother and aunt grew up in Shanghai. They always said the food was sweeter and the clothes were more fashionable in Shanghai. The city was more enchanting—with clubs and dancing, late night strolls along the Bund, and one more thing: laughter. I rarely heard my mother laugh when I was little, but she used to tell stories of giggling with Auntie May in their bedroom, exchanging jokes with handsome young men, and laughing at the sheer joy of being in the exact right place—the Paris of Asia—at the exact right moment—before the Japanese invaded and my grandmother, mother, and aunt had to flee for their lives.
What I’m seeing now certainly isn’t the Shanghai my mother and aunt told me about. I don’t see glamorous women walking along the streets, perusing department store windows for the latest fashions sent from Paris or Rome. I don’t see foreigners who act like they own the place, but Chinese are everywhere. They’re all in a hurry, and there’s nothing stylish about them. The women wear cotton trousers and short-sleeved cotton blouses or plain blue suits. Now that I’m away from the river, the men are better dressed than the dockworkers. They wear gray suits—what my dad derisively called Mao suits. No one looks too thin or too fat. No one looks too rich, and I don’t see any of the beggars or rickshaw pullers that my mother and aunt always complained about.
There’s only one problem. I can’t find the Artists’ Association. Shanghai is a latticework of streets, and soon I’m completely twisted around. I turn down byways and into alleys. I end up in courtyards and dead ends. I ask for directions, but people shove past me or ogle me for the stranger I am. They’re afraid, I think, to talk to someone who looks so out of place. I enter a couple of shops to get help, but everyone says they’ve never heard of the Artists’ Association. When I show them my map, they look at it, shake their heads, and then ungraciously push me out their doors.
After what seems like hours of being rejected, pointedly ignored, or jostled by crowds, I realize I’m totally lost. I’m also starved and woozy from the heat, and I’m starting to get scared. I mean really, really scared, because I’m in an unfamiliar city halfway around the world from anyone who knows me and people are staring at me because I look so alien in my stupid dotted swiss shift and white sandals. What am I doing here?
I’ve got to hold myself together. I really do. Think! I’m going to need a hotel. I’m going to need to return to the Bund for a fresh start. First, though, I need something to eat and drink.
I find my way back to Nanking Road and after a short walk come to a huge park, where I see a couple of vendor carts. I bought a salty cake stuffed with minced pork and chopped greens wrapped in a piece of wax paper. At another cart, I buy tea served in a thick ceramic cup, and then sit on a nearby bench. The cake is delicious. The hot tea makes me sweat even more than I already am, but my mom always claimed that