by Larik Sonfar

Created on: May 18, 2008

Life seemed an eternity of blitz and chaos in Hang Zhou, China. I stood overwhelmed as I took in the city around me. The fatigue of cramped travel, the pent up package of unopened emotions boiling in my stomach, it was enough. For a moment, I felt like I had crossed the threshold of insanity. No more could I deflect the bustle of the environment with my insufficient concentration and the happenings of the city poured into my receptors like an overturned pot of soup. I could see the entities of the present with clarity rivaling that of the past. In that moment, no single detail escaped my detection. Every little smell, each prickle on my arm, I simultaneously absorbed them all.

What seconds ago had been a painting of paradise in my mind was now replaced by a harsh vision of reality. That which stood before me was not a soothing flow of the ocean tide, but a clustered intersection piled with heaps of waste, and masses of people. Road lanes were packed with cars to the centimeter. There wasn't a single square unit of space put to waste by the Chinese drivers. Every tailpipe gave its all in pounding its polluting gas emissions into the already crestfallen sky. The consequences were more than evident. What had been nobly proclaimed by the weatherman as a "bright and sunny day" was in truth a gut wrenching shade of oily brown.

Hostile honking rampaged through the muddied airwaves. Drivers competed with each other for the crown of rudest expression. Throats roared in warfare and sent forth their legions of curses and insults in a ferocious contest for the right to turn left. My eardrums pounded with the excess noise; there was no escape.

As always is the case in Chinese metropolitans, alluring aromas of oriental cuisine bathed the city in its irresistible flavor. Pork, chicken, duck, beef, and an indecipherable mix of foodstuffs released a wave of saliva into my longing mouth. Having got my hands on a roll of mutton, I ripped a chuck of meat dripping with sauce from its perch and heaved it into my mouth. Spicy, but not enough to burn. Crunchy, but not so much to be hard. This was what being a carnivore was all about.

In such a place, touching buildings and storefronts was all but a request for disease. I took care to avoid doing so. But one thing no amount of skillful sidestepping could help me bypass was the air. Thick and humid, it rubbed itself against me on all sides. Its moist feel pressed into my body and threatened me with suffocation. The polluted mash that dominated the air in Hang Zhou seemed to seep under my skin and into my being.

I shivered, and the moment ended. The traffic burst away like a mad herd of buffalo, and attractive aromas of food swirled together with the odor of muck. I left, but the one flash of omniscience stayed with me, even to this day.

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