Reading Murakami en Route to Chengdu
My first glimpse of Chengdu from the plane was of a city shrouded in a grimy, gray cloak of pollution. I immediately started to miss the city I had just left. Lately, Hong Kong has been nothing but sunny, blue skies. No point in comparing though. Visiting Chengdu and seeing it more polluted than Hong Kong doesn't make Hong Kong's own pollution any less of a problem; there may be less of it, but it's still a problem we need to address if we want to live in a city with clear skies most days a year rather than just less than half the time.
As is my custom before boarding a flight, I usually stop by one of the airport bookshops to get my magazine fix. Today, instead of grabbing the latest Vanity Fair, I walked out with a copy of Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. If I hadn't spotted Murakami's book, I probably would have picked up David Sedaris' When You Are Engulfed In Flames. I'm not a serious runner like Murakami. In fact, I only really began to enjoy, or perhaps appreciate is the more accurate word here, running a year ago. But I did find it quite a thrilling experience to run the Nike+ Human Race in Cordoba. I found it intriguing that Murakami picked up running so that he could stay fit as a writer, a sedentary and solitary job. I've never thought of writing as a particularly physical activity, but reading Murakami describe his writing process, I see the parallels between writing and long-distance running. Both require focus and endurance. But most interesting perhaps is his point that to be accomplished at either, one has to almost befriend pain. Murakami quotes a mantra he learned from another runner: Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
Long-distance running is not for everyone, neither is writing. But the lessons he's learnt from both are. "Life is basically unfair," Murakami writes, "But even in a situation that's unfair, I think it's possible to seek out a kind of fairness. Of course, that might take time and effort. And maybe it won't seem to be worth all that. It's up to each individual to decide whether or not it is."
I ponder his point while sitting in Chengdu's Shangri-La hotel. I've always had a certain trepidation about visiting China. Usually, when I travel to new and different places, I'm excited. But with Chengdu, my feelings before this trip were more mixed. When I used to travel to Beijing and Shanghai regularly for work nearly 10 years ago, I always felt an awkwardness meeting Chinese people. First of all, most of the time, they would not assume that I am Chinese. They would guess that I am Japanese, Korean, Philippina...everything except Chinese. Once they realized I was from Hong Kong, they would have a certain "don't think you're better than me, because we're really the same and you just happen to be lucky enough to live in Hong Kong" attitude, which meant that they would purposely make things difficult by telling me that things could only be done a certain way and what I was hoping for just wouldn't work. But as soon as they found out that I was born in the States, there would be a 180 change in attitude. Suddenly, they wanted to be my best friend.
It's been a few years since my last trip to China. A lot has changed since then. Chinese have rallied together this year, helping rescue and rebuilding efforts after the Sichuan earthquake and putting on a great 2008 Olympics. On the way into town from Chengdu airport, I passed by a Mini, Ferrari, Maserati and Bentley dealership. Chengdu has become an affluent Chinese city. So I wonder what my experience this time will be like. For the next couple days, I am here on a recce trip to see what ideas I can come up with for a luxury event outside of Chengdu. Over the weekend, I will be on a Grameen Foundation field trip meeting their microfinance loan recipients. This trip will no doubt highlight socio-economic inequities, but I also hope that the Chinese I meet this time around might have discovered "a kind of fairness" that seemed to have been missing on my previous trips.
The adventure begins...
As is my custom before boarding a flight, I usually stop by one of the airport bookshops to get my magazine fix. Today, instead of grabbing the latest Vanity Fair, I walked out with a copy of Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. If I hadn't spotted Murakami's book, I probably would have picked up David Sedaris' When You Are Engulfed In Flames. I'm not a serious runner like Murakami. In fact, I only really began to enjoy, or perhaps appreciate is the more accurate word here, running a year ago. But I did find it quite a thrilling experience to run the Nike+ Human Race in Cordoba. I found it intriguing that Murakami picked up running so that he could stay fit as a writer, a sedentary and solitary job. I've never thought of writing as a particularly physical activity, but reading Murakami describe his writing process, I see the parallels between writing and long-distance running. Both require focus and endurance. But most interesting perhaps is his point that to be accomplished at either, one has to almost befriend pain. Murakami quotes a mantra he learned from another runner: Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
Long-distance running is not for everyone, neither is writing. But the lessons he's learnt from both are. "Life is basically unfair," Murakami writes, "But even in a situation that's unfair, I think it's possible to seek out a kind of fairness. Of course, that might take time and effort. And maybe it won't seem to be worth all that. It's up to each individual to decide whether or not it is."
I ponder his point while sitting in Chengdu's Shangri-La hotel. I've always had a certain trepidation about visiting China. Usually, when I travel to new and different places, I'm excited. But with Chengdu, my feelings before this trip were more mixed. When I used to travel to Beijing and Shanghai regularly for work nearly 10 years ago, I always felt an awkwardness meeting Chinese people. First of all, most of the time, they would not assume that I am Chinese. They would guess that I am Japanese, Korean, Philippina...everything except Chinese. Once they realized I was from Hong Kong, they would have a certain "don't think you're better than me, because we're really the same and you just happen to be lucky enough to live in Hong Kong" attitude, which meant that they would purposely make things difficult by telling me that things could only be done a certain way and what I was hoping for just wouldn't work. But as soon as they found out that I was born in the States, there would be a 180 change in attitude. Suddenly, they wanted to be my best friend.
It's been a few years since my last trip to China. A lot has changed since then. Chinese have rallied together this year, helping rescue and rebuilding efforts after the Sichuan earthquake and putting on a great 2008 Olympics. On the way into town from Chengdu airport, I passed by a Mini, Ferrari, Maserati and Bentley dealership. Chengdu has become an affluent Chinese city. So I wonder what my experience this time will be like. For the next couple days, I am here on a recce trip to see what ideas I can come up with for a luxury event outside of Chengdu. Over the weekend, I will be on a Grameen Foundation field trip meeting their microfinance loan recipients. This trip will no doubt highlight socio-economic inequities, but I also hope that the Chinese I meet this time around might have discovered "a kind of fairness" that seemed to have been missing on my previous trips.
The adventure begins...
posted by 10000miles at 14:10
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