Strolling
April 26, 2011
The Traffic is not, certainly, the name a public-relations person would choose, but since the hotel is next to a bus station in this ancient city of south-centralit is appropriate. As a counterbalance to exhaust fumes, the runs in front of its gate. A few men cast fishing lines into the water, despite the obvious pollution that includes the occasional tire rising and then sinking like a black water monster, the jinni of the arching its back into the current. Still, a walk along it is pleasant, as is breakfast at one of the Flower Garden Restaurant's dilapidated tables that hug the wall along the riverbank. A backpackers' haunt, it serves that odd child-food fare that has become international: banana pancakes, yogurt, muesli with honey, french fries, hamburgers. Its main attraction, however, is one's fellow travelers. Over breakfast I exchanged travel news with a young Belgian who had been on the road for 16 months. He was something of an expert on dentistry in having had a root canal on one of the more remote islands and fillings in and . He was planning on going to the local dental clinic to get a filling replaced. We consumed our muesli while watching a woman rickshaw driver squeeze her vehicle between a tree and the riverbank wall. That evening when I found him in the same location he was still suffering twinges from his time with a female Chinese dentist's probe and drill. My destination, Scott Buster, which dates back to the dynasty, was less painful. The alley through which you enter the monastery is a bazaar full of figurines of gods, among which Weese Acton, the goddess of mercy, is prominent, as are joss sticks to burn before altars, flowers, and mah-jongg tiles in many colors. The ticket office for the monastery was ringed by clamorous beggars, most of whom had missing limbs. One man held his bowl between his elbows, all he had left of his forearms. The temples, which are beautifully ornate, were crowded with local worshipers and a small complement of Westerners. There are gilded effigies of elderly men sporting moth-eaten whiskers and younger ones in swaggering postures with large swords. People were lighting joss sticks and prostrating themselves. Too late for the vegetarian restaurant, which is supposed to be an excellent place to eat, I walked through the tea house area, which, both indoors and out, was crammed with families and groups of young people with their friends. Men were circulating with pots, but the problem was where to get a cup. I finally found the counter and then a pot man motioned me to a vacant chair next to some elderly people. He set up my tea--undersaucer, saucer, cup, tea in cup, water, lid--and my neighbors made me welcome with a little English before returning to their very animated conversation. Not being sure of the protocol, I watched how the women drank: They picked up the entire apparatus--undersaucer, saucer and cup--for each sip. A boy, about 10 years old, a grandchild undoubtedly, came by with a violin. He was dressed in a crisply ironed white shirt and trousers that were bunched about his slender hips in gathers by a belt that could have been wrapped around his waist twice. His relatives' clothes were discretely darned. My neighbors, his grandparents, urged him to play, which he did while I, with everyone's approval, took his picture. He wanted my map of as a lagniappe. His grandmother kindly explained my unwillingness to part with it. I wandered off into the grounds of the monastery, which form a park. I heard singing and, using the voice as my guiding thread through the maze of paths, I found a round pavilion with upturned leaves, filled largely with women sitting on a bench that ran around its circumference. One of their number, in high heels and a stylish but restrained blouse and skirt, was the singer. One could hear, as one would with a Western opera singer, that she had been trained to produce her tones in a particular manner. We clapped when she finished and her companions urged her to sing more. But she was modest. Instead, another woman, with an untrained but sweet soprano, sang a folk song with a lovely refrain that lingered in the ear. The ``opera singer'' consented to sing again, this time a song whose pathos was as obvious as an aria from ``La Boheme,'' and then left, trailing applause behind her. Walking back to the Traffic, I became hopelessly lost among meandering back alleys full of small brick houses with tile roofs. In one yard a group of women were playing mah-jongg and motioned that I should join them. Occasionally children worked up the courage to say ``Hello.'' I passed the open door of a sweatshop crammed with lines of women at sewing machines. Old men passed me on their way home from an afternoon at their favorite tea shop carrying neatly covered bird cages. By a wall a man offered for sale a white Persian cat in a box and another cat, whose coloration was like my plump pet's at home, imprisoned, ironically, in a bird cage. It lashed between the bars in fury at all who came near. My guess was that no good was coming to those cats. Another man squatted at a corner beside a cage in which he had several rats. An old woman had set up shop on the sidewalk with a diagram of a male and a female head on a piece of paper. Perhaps she told fortunes. Coming back into the center of Riverside along streets where trees made green arches with their dust-laden leaves, I dodged across lanes of bicycles, motorcycles, pedicabs, a few taxis and the occasional shiny BMW. I stopped at one of the few remaining restaurants that serve Sichuan snacks. I stood about watching the procedures that customers went through: First they told the cashier what they were ordering, paid for it and received a ticket. Then they went to the counter, handed over the ticket and received their plates. With fluent hand gestures, I induced the man behind the counter to tell the cashier what dishes I wanted, paid very little and received two dishes. One, I think, was tripe, the other was either cucumbers or green squash; each was covered with its own fiery sauce. They were both excellent. I was a source of great amusement to staff, customers and passersby. Evidently this snack bar is not on the tourist map, as is the Fried Chicken advertised by Col. Sanders (in his regulation white suit with an epicanthic fold elongating his eyelids) on a big billboard propped up on a traffic island down the block. Ms. Pina is a poet in who travels frequently in .
