The colour splashed across the street ahead looks like the result of someone dropping hundreds of cans of paint from a very great height. Shrill shouts and loud costumes demand my attention; the smoky smell of celebration mingles with restaurant aromas, thrilling the tiny hairs in my unaccustomed nostrils. Rows of crispy bronze whole chickens dangle in the windows; fat red lanterns are suspended in the air like jellyfish. Shop signs bearing different symbols poke into my peripheral vision, jostling for wall space like trees for light and shimmering in the mid-afternoon haze. The sound of firecrackers clips rude holes in the air and every shop front teems with children loudly waving sparklers. Fortune cookies break to reveal promises for the coming year.
It’s early afternoon, and Chinese New Year in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
Mere minutes ago I was in the commercial Union Square: it’s like going from everyday black and white before stumbling upon a brilliant disharmony of noise in which every colour is high-definition. Here dwells the largest population of Chinese people outside of Asia, and I am awed by the hubbub of Eastern culture thriving within this Western city. Confetti floats past me, and the crowd parts for a huge, somewhat ominous concertina dragon meandering up the street to the rhythm of drums and dancing.
I wind through the pulsating street past the parade, following first my nose, then my ears, until I am drawn to an old Chinese man on the corner, right at the heart of the bustling district. He sits, limbs twisted around a raised stool like the roots of an overgrown tree; above is head is a battered umbrella for all weathers, below him a flat and faded cushion. On this he perches. His world belongs to another time; the tiny, gleaming eyes framed by his round walnut face leak wisdom and experience. But what is most intriguing about this living anachronism is the instrument in his hands, the thin high notes of which I had heard as they laced through the air towards me. He informs me I broken English that this is an erhu.
“I play all my life. Classical training. Very hard.”
He does not stop playing. A sprinkling of tourists has settled on the corner to watch him. The erhu is like an ersatz violin which has lost two of its strings, its spindly base propped upright on the old man’s crooked knee. It almost seems like an extension of his gnarled body. Through jerky yet somehow elegant movements of his wrists, the old man produces a grating rendition of a traditional children’s song, nodding contentedly the whole time. He receives some scattered applause and several high-fives from children passing by; he is evidently well-loved here.
“I live here all my life!” he says to me with a nod around him, as his audience disperses.
“You’ve never left the city?” I ask, reiterating.
“No.” He bequeaths me a gummy grin. “The city. It never leave me.”
- - - - - - - - - -
Ten days later, I am towelling my hair after a shower when I am stopped short by the faint smell of firecracker smoke. My eyes glaze with kaleidoscopic memories; suddenly I am craving crispy fried chicken, and anticipation leaps in my throat.
I think of the old man’s words. I just can’t seem to get Chinatown out of my mind.
