Foxtrotting in Shanghai -- 2
All seas are connected, as is said.
My nostrils were inundated with a damp fishy fog, the moment I walked past the swivelling door and landed on the terrace. I took two deep breaths, affirming that I was not in Tsukiji or any wet market in Shanghai. It was near dusk. Gray clouds hung over the buildings on the opposite side. Farther down the harbor, they descended so low almost touching the horizon. Time to unload the catch maybe? I wonder. Invariably at 6, sea gulls carry out their daily routine. Every day at the same time, they do so in a big circle, pressing down over the courthouse, squeaking and laughing.
The air was so saturated one can almost imbibe the juice out of it. Every time I come out of the pool, my senses are sharpened, as if cholorine has bleached my body, nose, mouth, ears, in and out. So when I plunge back into this world, like a newborn, it insults my senses so vehemently that I would almost burst into a big cry, so much as I could imagine the very first time it occurred in Shanghai nearly 4 decades ago. What was yours like, do you remember?
Shanghai, a city to the sea, as its name suggests. However, since the economic center is so far into the land and its sea is not gifted with sandy beaches or tropical plantation, I theorized, until recently nobody goes up to the sea for recreational purposes. Like most, those my age won't walk on a beach until they travel somewhere far south to places, like Hainan, HK, Thailand, Guam, or Okinawa. The first time I saw its sea, at Jinshan's marshes, at 6, any fabrications of blue ocean, golden beaches, green palm trees were shattered. To a six-year-old, this reality was perhaps a little too harsh. Since then, I often wondered about lyrics heard in a popular folk song, 'Sea, my home', which contains the following: 'The sea is my home. Born on the seaside, brought up in the sea'. (《大海啊，故乡》“大海就是我故乡，海边出生，海里成长。”) What a tough life it must have been, the 6-year-old me wondered. At any rate, how could one ever grow up in the sea? One day, the answer that I came up with was 'by swimming'.
Swimming, the mode of movement closest to flying. When the cloud floats back, as I float on the back, rocking gently side to side, as if in a hammock, the world melts away. The most memorable moments of my college life are nothing but the swimming club I joined the moment my college life began. Those lonely nights in the pool dotted lonely nights in the library. As I scull, kick and glide, the only thing audible is my own breath, long and deep. In those years, I would have an early quick dinner on campus and got my gears ready. Then I would catch a local bus right outside campus for the Hong Kou pool, run by the eponymous statdium, known for its soccer field. In about 30 minutes, I would be in a district, which would otherwise never have greeted me. Now as I looked back, the water was room temperature, to the best. I would always shower in cold to ready myself. Swimming classes in my younger days prepared me for the water and the breaststroke basics, but I was not able to go more than 5 meters because I always fumbled at breathing. It was the club seniors on the varsity team, those tall and handsome girls from the Jounalism Department, who taught me the drills. How I envied them, to be honest. Once it was said, in their team practice, one was heard singing, while swimming laps. Perhaps, ultimately, this is the way to go, to be living in the sea?
