(Ningbo, China, part 1)
by Nitsa Anastasiades
The toilet blocked yesterday. We got a staff member from work to explain to the engineer that, yes, it is unblocked now, but it is tissue which it doesn’t take. After half an hour on the phone with her: ‘Hode hode, aha ah ah …’ and more Chinese, she explained to me after that the system doesn’t allow for much paper and most should be put in the bin beside the loo. Oh, no! I thought, remembering Greece and Cyprus, where this rule pertains in most establishments, and most ignore it. Twenty first century …no? Still, I keep my beady eye on it.
We’re home because of yesterday’s typhoon warning. The air is cooler this morning, fresher with less humidity. Wind traverses through the trees down in our community gardens and the lily pond leaves beyond the pagodas ripple. I saw a man, interestingly, on the bridge through our kitchen window in bright red trainers, matching umbrella and a fresh white t shirt, strolling across through the whispering sheets of diagonal mist. He met a man at the end of the bridge, who, lower down by the river, was fishing, peacefully – no umbrella. It seems, for some, in China, life carries on, windows banging, black clouds or not. He’s staring now at the water.
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