#cudoziemka

[cudoziemkawszangraju]

[cudoziemkawszangraju]

[cudoziemkawszangraju]

One more tree to think of whenever people investigate "But what about your roots?” or claim “Everything has to be rooted in a single place."

[cudoziemkawszangraju]

A Shanghai kind of Friday. First a picture from a friend - an exquisite design of the Chinese characters on a beautiful chair. Then as I was going out - the old knife sharpener with his sweet song right at my door. Old neighbour at the gate trying to offer me a nice, blue discarded chair on wheels, convincing me in every possible way that I need it for my desk and that it's very comfortable. Very short line at the Park Hotel bakery. A view of damaged plaited armchairs, which suddenly made me recall long afternoons and all the fun we had as children in the Polish consulate, playing in the garden and inside the unused buildings full of decaying furniture. A seven hours meeting with friends, involving watching a brilliant documentary, great food, drinks, debate why after learning Polish and Russian Chinese actually appears as an OK language, and inspiring stories from around the world. A request from a friend to help with a paper about Art Deco in graphic media in Shanghai. A photo from another friend and yet another part of the world, depicting Song dynasty boats with tall swings from which one could jump into the water (making me more proud than ever that my Chinese surname stands for this dynasty). When Youtube plays for me randomly Katie Melua and she is singing "If you were a sailboat, I would sail you...", I intuitively and joyfully finish it with "to the edge". That's not the right guess, but why would I ever hope for the shore, if so many amazing people are on the high seas too? And what if today Shanghai simply revealed to me what its name really stands for?

[cudoziemkawszangraju]

Welcome to my world. 

After a week of a fight with landlord that Internet really needs to be fixed, especially that Spring Festival is really over, he finally arrives with his friend and they begin ritual switching cables with tragic faces. 

Upon leaving they tell me I should keep the bathroom window open to have better signal from the staircase. I explode and say “Isn’t that a unique Chinese approach to the issue of Internet in the 21st century in one of the world biggest cities? Is that how this country is supposed to take over the world?”. 

Then I calm down, come back to my desk, hoping to focus on some readings related to China’s increasing power, and class preparations for Monday. Of course by then the Internet doesn’t work anymore. Moreover one of the lane neighbours gets into his occasional DJ mood and plays for all of us at full volume “Santa Claus is coming to town”, “Some hearts never mend” and “I just called to say I love you”. 

I wish I could play “I’m going slightly mad” in return. 

[cudoziemkawszangraju]

I’ve made myself a cup of coffee and thought I want a small gift for my birthday from myself. I decided it could be writing a short blog post after so many months of silence.

But how to write suddenly about the Temporary Place on Earth, if it’s already almost exactly half year since I decided most unexpectedly to move into an old lane, into a tiny attic with wooden beams supporting the roof?  How to go beyond all the random notes I’ve taken on the side while avoiding any distractions and remaining focused on my Other Writing?

Perhaps the only possible way is to tell the story of the three dreams I’ve had since August, which seem to reveal a lot about the spirit of this Place, but also about me over these months of fights in silence.

1 I live in the suburbs of Shanghai in an old colonial palace with an inner lane. It’s a beautiful sunny afternoon. Suddenly one of the neighbors walks into my living room and makes herself there at home. She washes her hair with ashes. Her boyfriend comes to talk to her. Gradually my whole little house fills up with people. And they all feel at home here. I go mad. I try to fight with them. I ask if from now on it will be always like this. I ask why they never came before and of course I know the answer. Earlier I would immediately request them all to leave, but now my attitude is already very different. I simply try to understand what is, in anthropological terms, going on in my own house. What am I misunderstanding, which notions related to inner space, home, rented apartment and privacy I misinterpret or use in Eurocentric way. The space is constantly expanding and accumulating all these people. They smoke, talk on the stairs, walk along the arcades. Chinese and foreigners. They look at me with compassion. I look at myself with compassion. I know landlord is not going to give me money back. After I got the July rent back, he made me sign I won’t claim financial compensation if circumstances are beyond his control. I think of my Mother. She was right when she said ‘It’s true you do things similar to other people, but somehow it’s only you going always to the edge.’ I know I’m too exhausted to move anywhere else, to pack again and look for a new place. And yet I try to scream out ‘I can’t work in a place like this! It’s worse than a coffee place and I can’t even write in a coffee place.’ They say I can’t have the view only for myself and take me out through added wings of the palace and winding staircases to the terrace on the roof. It turns out it’s possible to watch sunset over tropical forest hills from there. Somebody says with the most annoying laugh of a foreigner joking over misunderstood things ‘Regime is not over here and we can’t have anything entirely for our own.’ They say people need sea and take me to a gorgeous pier. I didn’t know it exists when I was moving into my place. Waves are great and I think I could swim here in the mornings. Eventually deep in my heart I know that I will stay at this place. I know I will learn many things here, also from those annoying people. I just want to make sure nobody went into my bedroom and stole my passport or money. I know after all I will find a way to write here and clean this place. Why would I give up on these sunsets over the sea? Suddenly I’m very scared: ‘What will my guests from Europe say?’ But I tell myself I’ll find a way to make them learn to accept it as well.

I wake up to a bicycle ring outside the window with a feeling of slight relief. I’m in my room, almost entirely on my own in this lane which doesn’t belong to any palace. I feel sorry that all these new dissertation pages which I’ve written in the dream are gone.

2 I’ve moved again. This time into a shared apartment which turns out to be an old colonial villa. Actually it turns out it’s not a villa, but rather an old hunting chateau with a huge lawn. I’m surprised, so far I didn’t know that Shanghai had any of these. At the same time I’m not really surprised. I tell to myself ‘Just another layer of the city. Perhaps one of the rich foreigners moved to Shanghai from such chateau and made his architect recreate the space he missed for him.’ I’m making careful choices about interior design. I decide to leave old-fashioned lace curtains to mark my connection to Europe and to place a Javanese batik as a tablecloth on the dining table. Suddenly I realize that this house is actually a tram. It moves across the city and people can board other cars. I am staggered for a moment, but then I tell myself it doesn’t matter. ‘I mostly write at home anyway, what does it matter which part of the town I’m in?’

3 I’ve moved to a new place in a lane. My bedroom and my study are in different parts of the lane. Only one of them has bathroom attached. Children run through one of my rooms and forget their toys. These are old beautiful toys, made by skillful craftsmen, so I enjoy collecting them from the floor. I try to figure out what I should do about shoes to navigate smoothly between these two rooms and don’t get the dirt and water from the lane inside. Yes, clean soles are only thing that bothers me in my new home consisting of two separated places.

[cudoziemkawszangraju]

Enjoying coffee on my lane terrace for the first time since renovation started one month ago. Neighbour on one side (hanging his washed clothes on a long bamboo stick over my head): "You must be happy." I don't now how to answer, because deep in my heart I'm preparing for the fight over financial compensation with my landlord, but at the same time I've loved this morning summer sun of Asia on my skin since I was a girl. Neighbour from the other side "For sure she doesn't understand Chinese". "Well, I do. If I didn't I wouldn't end up in this lane". First neighbour "See, unlike you she does understand what I say!" Then he smiles at me familiarly and says "I'm Shanghainese, he's not, he doesn't understand a single word of what I'm saying. There are so many waidi ren in this lane". Finding myself unexpectedly on the Shanghai dialect side certainly makes me happy!

[cudoziemkawszangraju]

Cats on the bamboo scaffoldings, Cantonese pop from neighbor's freshly painted window, beautiful story of "adopting and being adopted by a City" and less than 24 hours until the end of this extremely challenging semester. My lane, my path.