For three weeks I had been teaching an evening English course at the Engineering College in Xiangtan. The last evening, after class we went to a small restaurant and talked and sang Karaoke for several hours. On leaving at 11:30, I caught an in-town bus to the center of Xiangtan. Gazing out the window I was struck again by the fact I was in a foreign country.
Most of the stores were shut up with iron grills across the openings, though the Karaoke bars were lit with small rows of Christmas lights. The streets are almost totally unlit by streetlights. As the sidewalks tend to be bumpy, uneven and dark, most of the people out at night walked in the street. Laughter caught my ear and glancing ahead I saw a small group of people sitting at colored plastic tables on the sidewalk. The evening being cool and space inside a premium, the little cafe had enveloped the sidewalk as well. The girls were young and pretty, dressed in slim, sheath-like silk dresses of beautiful colors; the young men wore polyester pants and white shirts, open at the neck.
We passed a poor person on the street. I couldn't tell if the person was male or female. S/he was bent over under the weight of a shoulder pole, carrying large bags of bottles and other collected treasures; the clothes a uniform grey, the bags a lighter off-white.
Several people turned down a narrow street; an old woman carried a chicken upside down by its feet, wings occasionally flapping wearily. Another younger woman had several bags and the inevitable umbrella clutched in her hand. A man carried a small infant in his arms, whose head jerked periodically against his shoulder when the way became rough. A young family was heading home for dinner and bed at last, disappearing into the dark lane.
The bus arrived at a traffic circle. In the center were a fountain and a statue. Several people were wading in the fountain, talking quietly in the semi-dark. Off to one side was a small clump of trees. Other people were sleeping on the ground under the trees in the shadows, or sitting or lying alone on the few benches scattered about. Across the street from the circle was a large grassy level area. This was still populated by scattered groups of young people, sitting and talking or laughing. The faint strains of a Chinese pop song drifted in through the window.
A lighted window of a shop attracted my eye. Seated in the center of a blaze of light a young man was having his hair cut by a slim woman. It was a small beauty shop. If a customer wanted a midnight trim it was fine with her; business was business whatever the time. She very professionally brushed off the back of his neck and showed him the results of her work with a hand mirror.
The bus pulled over and a young man helped a lady into the bus. She was pretty, but made up heavily. The sheath she wore was tight and the top shimmered with sequins. She wore 4-inch foam-bottomed platform shoes, the tops shiny patent leather, the bottoms, spotless white blocks. She paid her fare, 1-1/2 yuan, and sat down across from me.
Soon the bus came to the bridge over the Xiang River. One side is being repaired so all the traffic has to cross on the right half of the bridge. Bicycles carrying weary workers were making their way slowly home. Others were piled high with the pitiful collections of plastic toys, shoes, or hair decorations that provided their owners with a meager living by selling along the sidewalk. All weaved slowly through the jammed mass of people and cars using the bridge.
The sound of striking metal attracted my attention to the far side of the bus. The pavement on that side of the bridge has been lowered by almost a foot. Sitting on the concrete, with chisels and small sledge hammers in hand, scattered over many meters, half a dozen men were still at work, breaking up the cement inch by inch. The sound was rhythmical and slow; ping -- ping -- ping, minute after minute, hour after hour. Another man swept the resulting small piles of rubble up with a bamboo broom into larger piles to be carried off on more shoulder poles. The bus moved on and the pings slowly faded into the distance.
At the end of the bridge the bus stopped, and the girl with the high shoes dismounted and disappeared off the side of the bridge into the dark shadows of the unlit streets.
A flash of bright light drew my eyes again to the far side of the bus. Several stories above the ground, the light again flared. The flash illumined the figures of several workers, perched high on the side of a building, partly hidden by a screen of mesh netting and bamboo poles. They were welding something on the side of the building under construction, the only light the flare of their welding torches. When does their day end?
The bus slowed and rounded the final corner. The street-cleaning lady was still pushing her heavy cart and wielding her bamboo broom along the miles of pavement. A few people shoved past her after leaving the bus. She was no more than a street post or parked bicycle to them; merely another obstacle to maneuver around on their way home to bed. I dismounted too, giving the lady a smile and saying hen hao (very good) as I passed. Her seamed tired face lit up with a wide smile and she nodded her head in thanks and continued with her endless task of cleaning up others' careless disposal of trash. The night wore on. I flagged down a taxi for the rest of my journey home and left behind the city to its people and its life.
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