03: A Déjà Vu at the Rendezvous
(A stuffed retrospective thought on https://www.instagram.com/p/BhZKx4lhXVh/)
On a strangely sunny Sunday, I went to the base of the mountains, with her. We had talked for quite a well of starting to conquer the mountain ranges and ultimately perhaps the ridges of them.
Arriving rather on schedule — we have a tendency to lose ourselves whenever we are in a new place (or rather, just myself) — we started to climb the alpine pathways in front of us. In retrospect, I believed it was quite a remarkable feat to have reached halfway through the ranges without panting or sweating like a skinny youth who has no affect of all sorts to anything. There were pathways all right, grids linking to each other, intertwining along the gradients, with gentle and steep ones criss-crossing one another like the petite scarves you once wore when your mum still used to knit. A shop or two tended to protrude their noses out, an act of defiance towards the ever-binging Hong Kong capitalism; acting as a beacon for the faraway ships that tended to sink themselves deep into the Atlantic, or as a well-built and meticulously sculptured artwork that attracted attentions from uneducated and educated hipsters alike. The shops there formed a community or a coalition of some sort. Shops that delved on the past and present of the famous Bruce Lee; shops that in turn sold tourists his memorabilia, or at least a high quality copy of it; shops that offered the utmost personal customer service by means of warm neighbourly love, or of tailor-made products, or of outgoing Adonises; all of these shops joined forces for one sole purpose with a common theme — to survive through mediums which they are good at. Some of old age were likely to have only one way of doing so, some of younger ages would employ all of their blood, tears, and sweat to try to make it work, yet some unfortunate ones might have already hit their best shot and defeat would be what is waiting behind the corner. Despite their arduous effort to survival, their ardent labour effortlessly showed what their core idiosyncrasy was, embedded deep inside each and every one of them. It was the classic balanced nature between the East and the West.
It was rather alleviating to have a day-off on Thursday. You always get relieved but return to the mind-clattering schedule the day after. Yet it was nevertheless relaxing, knowing there would only be a day more before the weekend.
The rather lovely stroll towards the destination had accentuated our hunger for both coffee and snacks alike. We had finally arrived at the heart of the mountain, the centre of the community of the range, where smells of ink, scented papers, dust from previous centuries and coffee travelled in and out all of us. Communal, yes, and caring, and coffee; culture that not needed to be discussed nor argued upon existed here for nearly three long years. The off-white walls were once painted with memories of old, though in time memories anew would be that of old, covering their predecessors without affect, pathos or sentiment. Yet what decorated these walls of remembrance were at the same time treasures of a near forgotten past. They were stacked above each other: some with angles on the brim that continued onward perpetually, or until they returned to the point where they had started, devouring themselves, trapped in a timeless loop; some with intricate patterns that grouped together at the centre of their surface, rounding themselves up to characters of long lives or of an old age; well, and some were china cups and saucers with modernist blue markings that resembled ancient Chinese sayings — which their derivatives are usually found on people’s skins — but in traditional characters; and teapots that featured a myriad of white chrysanthemums and orange daisies, with a bamboo handle across the top.
Halfway it did pass, yet it would not stay in such a state; so appreciation is what one can muster and foster in the meantime. There is no balance in our world; an ephemeral illusion perhaps if you have felt it before. And even if there was such a thing as equal, it would not belong to us.
