the sounds of chengdu

every saturday, as you may have guessed, i go into the city to explore. today i took the bus to the jinjiang river, and walked along it until i came to wen shu (which is the chinese name for manjushri, the buddha of wisdom [in chinese, wenshu translates literally to "culture uncle"]) temple. whenever i'm on the bus (in china, or anywhere) i am of two minds about putting my headphones on and pressing play on my 'pod (sorry, but i love alliteration). on the one hand, it is an hour and fifteen minutes on a bus. on the other, do i want to remove myself from the flow of culture? i decided my open-ear headphones allows me to hear enough of what's going on around me to be okay. but it is definitely not an every bus ride thing.



my first surprise when i began to hear strains of an electronically produced "happy birthday" being pumped into the street by what sounded like a giant cell phone. eventually the bus passed the culprit. it was a street cleaner. apparently, if you are walking around in chengdu, and you hear happy birthday, run. it is the warning call of the street sweeper, and a watery and embarassing fate awaits you if you dawdle.

i debarked from the bus and finally began walking along the jinjiang river. soon i was greeted by about 8 raspy notes being played over and over again. i reached a shaded bench and there was a woman practicing her saxophone. it was good she was practicing, if you catch my meaning. i am borrowing a page out of homer-dog's book, and here is a haiku about the incident:

she plays saxophone
not well, but she's practicing

silence would be fine

her playing made me more aware of the sounds around me. the cars rushing by on my right, with the similar, but utterly different water flowing past on my left. birds sung all around, and i passed a group of teenagers, one of whom held a cell phone that was playing tinny pop music for the rest.

i find that this world sometimes uses questionably pleasant things to wake us up from our inner thoughts.