A Portable Life

A full moon rises over the silent sand dunes and dutifully sheds its reflective light on the landscape before me. The desert heat has yielded to the night air and a balmy breeze wraps me in cool comfort. My bare feet break the sandy surface as I climb the backbone of the nearest dune. China’s Tengger Desert tests the depths of the horizon in front of me and the night sky calculates infinity above. I reach the top and breathe deep, trying to capture this moment in my lungs. The immediate emptiness of my surroundings draws a smile across my sunburnt face as I drift to the chaos I left behind.

Back in Beijing the mechanical melee doesn’t rest. The traffic food chain distills those on foot into agile animals, capable of darting through metallic predators that cough black smoke and push their way down the busy streets. Travel in this city is an intimate dance with the moving masses and as the human swell pushes, there is no time to cradle a map. You go with the movement of the buses, the bicycles, the Xiali taxi cabs, the serpentine underground or you don’t go at all.

An army of cranes attempts to sate the city’s appetite for steel and glass and concrete but the hunger only grows as Beijing swells symmetrically from its Forbidden nucleus. A steady stream of migrant workers arrives through the Beijing train station, ready to work with their hands, ready to shape a place that seems to change every night. They are strapped with the standard-issue plastic sack-cum-suitcase, monogrammed in the dirt of hard travel with their portable lives packed tightly inside. These men are not ready for Beijing and it is clear across their faces as they attempt to navigate their first set of moving stairs.

This is pre-Olympic Beijing, proud and expecting, pregnant with the rush of money, attention and growth. Everyone here is looking for something better and my students, who have wagered a small fortune on English classes, are no different. They are retired soldiers, double PhDs and entrepreneurs and as we talk, they teach me. They teach me about the cultural canyon between themselves and their grandparents, about the voracious consumption that has replaced conservative spending, to drink burning báijiu and how to make the perfect steamed dumpling. They teach me to be a better public speaker and in return, no question or conversation is off limits during class.

I wasn’t ready for Beijing when I arrived alone. Now, after six months of living and working in this foreign city, I can see that the people here are not so different than I. I am a migrant worker, looking for opportunity in an unknown and overwhelming city. I am a student, learning the Chinese culture, language and life.

As the cicadas rise to take their place on the desert stage, I take this moment to enjoy a small break from the concert of chaos back in my temporary home.