by Xiaolu Guo
‘I am glad that you are studying in this city where the Grand Canal of China began. We are proud of you.’
In the lunch box my father had brought, there were buns and cut sugar cane. My father had bad teeth. All his real teeth were gone. He had replaced them with a set of porcelain teeth years before. He gave the sugar cane to me, and ate his bun. The next day, he set out for the railway station. He had to sit on a hard seat for twenty hours to get back to our home town. Perhaps his cancer was already growing in his lungs at that time. We had no idea. Just as I didn’t know that I would land in Brexit Britain rather than a more prosperous Western country.
Now in London, as the cold season approached, the greenness of the algae had become duller. One afternoon, you emerged from inside the boat carrying a newspaper, pointing at a headline.
‘Look at this,’ you said. ‘“Britain is Sinking”.’
‘Oh, how surprising!’
I took a look, and saw the subheading: ‘Sinking, Both Geologically and Economically – Britain on the Way Down’.
On the second page, I read an article about immigration. It said that since the Referendum, more EU citizens had left the UK than had arrived. Well, I didn’t know how this would impact my stay here, and our boat life. I had heard mooring in Germany was free. Could you move this boat across the Channel to get to the other side? Was our Misty strong enough? Or was it just a whimsical, cheaply constructed lower-class craft?
Machine for Living
– I’m not that interested in whether buildings should have ornaments or plain straight lines. I prefer Le Corbusier’s vision: a house is a machine for living.
– A machine for living? Isn’t that a very male way to think of a house – as a machine? For me, to be alive is not to be a machine.
I woke up at the third geng. Listening to you sleeping soundly, I got up and moved over to the table. I switched on the small table lamp. In front of me was a stack of designs you had drawn. I had never tried to look at your landscape designs before. Perhaps I feared I would find them too abstract, too mathematical. And, I felt, there was something totally disconnected between designs and practical environments. I felt I could not trust what was drawn on paper. But now, in the quiet hours, I had some time to kill. Actually they were not real drawings. They were computer-generated drawings, with perfect curves and lines for some buildings that looked like exercises in brutalism. I thought, I hate buildings with perfect curves and lines. It was obvious to me that such designs were not for humans, but for robots. Architects had forgotten the obvious.
I was impatient for you to wake up, so I could point out the errors of your ways. Finally, you stirred. And I had a cup of coffee ready for you. I put the cup under your nose, and remarked:
‘I am not a fan of brutalism. I don’t understand why people think brutalist buildings are fashionable, or cool. Why can’t we admit they are just ugly, cold and barren?’
‘Bullshit. Some are amazing.’ You groaned and sipped your coffee. ‘What about the Barbican Centre? You like that.’
‘But that kind of building is not for living. For shows and exhibitions, yes. So much concrete, so few windows. If you live in a place where you are cut off from light and nature, and regular communication with other humans, it is easy to become lonely and depressed. Don’t you think? Look at these houses around us!’
You raised your eyebrows, and began to tidy up the drawings on the table. I could feel that you were in one of your morning moods and didn’t want to launch into a debate.
‘Tourists always want to go to historic cities with beautiful old buildings and natural landscapes, but never new towns with grey soulless slabs. Tell me, how did contemporary architecture wind up like this?’
You wanted to start your work, and you didn’t want to pursue this conversation. ‘The short answer may be: this type of architecture is produced by contemporary global capitalism. It demands more generic, standard and non-ethnic products.’
But I was not convinced. ‘This cannot fully explain why architects no longer want to design ornaments and to deliver more humanistic styles.’
You finished your coffee and now found some eggs for breakfast. At the same time you reluctantly gave me a brief history lesson in modern architecture:
‘There was an Austrian-Czech architect called Adolf Loos. He lived a hundred years ago. He wrote a famous essay in 1908 called “Ornament and Crime”.’
‘“Ornament and Crime”?’
‘Yes, this architect declared that a lack of ornamentation was a sign of spiritual strength. He introduced plain, stripped-down buildings. He thought ornament on buildings was like a corruption, a feudalistic gesture.’
I was taken aback. I felt irritated by such a statement. It sounded overly political, like some kind of fascist propaganda slogan. Was there any connection between ornament and lack of spiritual strength? The Forbidden City was full of ornaments. No one would dare to say that there was no spiritual strength there. And his name was Adolf Loos? Very strange name, I thought.
‘Isn’t Adolf a very unpopular name? And, Loos? Both bring very unhealthy associations.’
You chuckled. ‘Just a bloody ordinary Austrian German name at that time. Adolf Hitler was only a school student then. No one thought “Adolf” was evil!’
‘Whatever. So what else did this Adolf Loos say in his propaganda essay?’
‘Lots! He explored the idea that the progress of culture is associated with the deletion of ornament from everyday objects, and that it was therefore a crime to force craftsmen and builders to waste their time on ornamentation.’
‘He sounds like a cold-hearted industrialist. A house should be personal and full of character! Don’t we have enough of these boring modern buildings? Even if his theory was right, what’s the difference between forcing craftsmen to make ornaments and forcing them to build those grey sad Bauhauses?’
You thought for a bit, and nodded, only slightly, with your forehead creasing. ‘Well, I’m not that interested in whether buildings should have ornaments or plain straight lines. I prefer Le Corbusier’s vision: a house is a machine for living.
‘A machine for living?’ I considered these words, then asked: ‘Isn’t that a very male way to think of a house – as a machine? For me, to be alive is not to be a machine.’
You now stared at me as if I were a rather dull student who had made another banal remark in class. At that moment, your expression reminded me of my professor, who was an expert at these withering looks.
‘I don’t think you understand Le Corbusier yet. What he meant was a house should have organic functionality.’
Ha! Organic functionality, another empty term from another ‘expert’. It sounded like a glorified compost heap. If a home had organic functionality, where would I put my imagination and my fantasy in this machine? I was sure that you had a different idea of a machine. It was not part of my vocabulary, for describing ways of living.
Later on, when I had some free time, I looked up this Adolf Loos. The article I found said this supposedly great modern architect was convicted as a paedophile in 1928 for abusing girls from poor families from the ages of eight to ten. Oh well, so much for an influential theorist in the development of modernism. His ‘Ornament and Crime’ would have been a better essay if it had been linked to his own crimes, his crimes of pleasure built upon young girls’ misery. I guessed you knew about this part of his life too, but you could separate the man from the theory, whereas I could not.
Fernweh / Distance Pain / Wanderlust
– I can’t find a similar word in English. It’s a German word – Fernweh.
– What does it mean?
– It can be translated as distance pain, an ache or a lust for a place where you want to belong. Do you have this Fernweh, sometimes?
As the days got shorter and colder, we stayed inside more and more. Sometimes you went
to work, and I was left alone to write in the boat. But I would spend time staring at algae on the water. Something was missing in our life, but I was not sure what it was. One evening, you brought back a Chinese takeaway to cheer me up. It tasted awful. Nevertheless we ate it, and talked.
‘I can’t find a similar word in English. It’s a German word – Fernweh.’ You frowned.
‘What does it mean?’
‘It can be translated as distance pain, an ache or a lust for a place where you want to belong. Do you have this Fernweh, sometimes?’
I nodded. Fernweh, an unfamiliar word, but a familiar concept to me.
‘It’s funny we Germans speak of Weh, pain, while the English for Fernweh is wanderlust or travellust. I feel more pain than lust.’
‘Hmm, I feel more lust than pain.’
‘So where is the place that you think about?’
‘Often I dream of living in a tropical land with lush vegetation growing all around me, and I can see the sea or mountains in front of my house. But I tell myself not to indulge in this fantasy too much. It will only make me sad.’
‘Have you been anywhere like that, or even close to your fantasy?’
I thought for a while. Searching for a place outside of China. Sadly, I had visited very few places in the world. Come to think of it, it was a particular location in Australia.
‘Maybe Australia, the country you grew up in.’
‘You mentioned that before. But still, half of Australia is desert. It’s not that great!’
‘Yes, but it was my first trip abroad after college. For some reason the travel agency took us to Cairns, near Port Douglas.’
‘Cairns?’ You chuckled. ‘No one goes there apart from Chinese tourists!’
Ignoring your laugh, I continued: ‘When we stepped out of the plane, I felt that my skin was melting in the hot wind. We were dispatched to a hostel near the beach. There were mango trees everywhere. That was the first time I had ever seen real mango trees in my life. Those mangos were golden-yellow and ripe with a strong sweet smell. The air was heavy with their odour. Next evening, I sat on a porch eating my supper, and saw those big bats flying in between the mango trees . . .’
I could visualise the scene right now: the waves in the distance and the wind. I remembered the wind was so special there, mixed with the scent of ripe fruit and the salty sea.
‘That first night I sat on the porch in our hostel, watching the moon going towards the west. I didn’t feel lonely at all. I had this strange being-at-home feeling. What’s that word again? Fernweh. It almost made me sad. I felt this was my fantasy land. Every hour I spent there was magical, every minute reminded me of a home I had never had.’
You listened to me attentively. Your lips revealing a smile. Perhaps my love for the tropics of north Queensland reminded you of your childhood, and made you too feel a sense of Fernweh?
‘So why didn’t you try to stay there? Or go back there?’
‘Well, I thought it wasn’t real. I was too young, had no purpose in life yet. I stayed in north Queensland for a few more days, before boredom gripped me again.’
I stared at the canal. This was the English water, cold, grey and full of deadly discharge. It was incomparable with the water in Queensland. No mango trees. No giant bats. No tropical fruit smell. Just a few ducks floating by, with their feet trapped in plastic shopping bags.
‘So what about you?’ I asked. ‘Where is your Fernweh?’
‘I sometimes miss the east coast of Australia, even though I left there long ago,’ you murmured, as if just speaking the words east coast of Australia already transported you to that continent. ‘When I first came to Germany, I remember I hated the dull winters which seemed to go on forever, and how we were stuck indoors. And even the snow seemed to be grey. I missed the ocean, the bush, and going surfing during the school holidays.’
The evening wind came, sending shivers onto the water, as well as into our bodies. The coriander I grew on the deck was also shivering. The coriander – I noticed – had grown a lot. Their leaves spread out among weeds. And I heard your voice again:
‘My family used to have a beach house near Melbourne. My dad painted the walls a different colour every two years. I remember he was always fixing something at that house – engines, motorbikes, any rusty machines he had collected . . . And my mother would just wear a swimsuit all day long, even when she was cooking.’ You paused. Then you sighed: ‘But then, we left the place and the ocean altogether, for Europe.’
‘Maybe we should go back to Australia. It’s too cold to be on the boat at this time of the year,’ I said, half serious.
‘Well, my aunt still lives there with her husband. She’d love us to visit.’
We looked at each other, both smiling. Then you started to laugh. You seldom laughed. In my memory you only laughed in a sarcastic way. But this time your laugh was not ironic or sarcastic. It was genuine and innocent.
FIVE
下
DOWN
Surf
– I miss this light, and these waves. I used to be a surfer, but now I don’t remember the last time I was in the water on a board.
– But you told me your knees hurt when you surf.
Queensland in November. It was summertime in this part of the world. The days were very long here. Time seemed to be stretched. The train from Brisbane airport to Cleveland took centuries to arrive. The sunrays painted leaves inky green, black-and-white magpies stood on treetops mysteriously. The train dragged itself along slowly. So few people were on it. A sense of self-abandonment was diluted in the hot air. The train seemed to know there was no reason to hurry, as if there was not much going on at the end of the line.
A burnt forest came into view as the train moved along. The earth was black, like in a horror movie. You stared at the passing scene, pondering something beyond words. For you, it must have been a sentimental but alienating trip: you left this land so long ago. Everything must be familiar but also foreign. Sitting opposite us were a dark girl and a white boy, kissing. I wondered if she was Aboriginal. She was young, perhaps sixteen or seventeen? After a while, the lovers looked a bit bored, and opened a packet of crisps. A void in their eyes.
In the distance, the sea appeared. The real blue foamy sea, without much algae, without the ducklings we had lived with side by side. This was a sea with strong oceanic swells, and occasional dangerous aquatic life.
‘I miss this light,’ you said, ‘and these waves. I used to be a surfer, but now I don’t remember the last time I was in the water on a board.’
‘But you told me your knees hurt when you surf.’
‘That’s bullshit. The reason I don’t do it is that there are no decent waves in Britain. You wouldn’t call them waves. The breaks are too small. The water in Europe is sad. There’s no real blue in it.’
The water in Europe is sad. I thought of what you said. If so, the water in China was even sadder. On our coast there were so many rusted hulks, abandoned factories, beaches crowded with people stripping them of seaweed and shellfish. The sea was grey and churned up like a dirty and crinkled canvas. I wondered what you would say if I took you to China.
Working-class Paradise
– Have you heard Australia is called a working-class paradise?
– A working-class paradise?
– I didn’t understand it when we lived here. But now, I agree with the cliché, if I had to compare it with the working class in Britain or in America.
We arrived at Coochiemudlo Island. It was near Moreton Bay by the Port of Brisbane, in the South Pacific. You told me Coochiemudlo is an Aboriginal name. It means red rocks. ‘It’s very small, only five square kilometres,’ you warned me. I checked it on the map before we left the mainland. It was a tiny dot in the Coral Sea. We might as well go to Fiji or Tonga, I half joked.
The island is close
to the bay, but it felt like an island adrift from the world. There were A-shaped timber houses situated along the hills, and some were buried in the woods. The landscape was beautiful, the air fresh. We came here because this is where your aunt and her husband now lived. Your aunt’s house (you called it a bungalow) sat right next to the water’s edge, with palm trees in the back and bottlebrush bushes growing in the front. When we got closer, I saw a barbecue and beach chairs on the lawn. I imagined spending my days lying on one of those beach chairs, bathing in the sun with the sound of the waves. Would I feel this was something I finally wanted to achieve in life?
‘Have you heard Australia is called a working-class paradise?’
‘A working-class paradise?’
‘Yes. I didn’t understand it when we lived here. But now, I agree with the cliché, if I had to compare it with the working class in Britain or in America.’
I saw what you meant. The barbecue, the warm wind, the blue sky and the white beach. All this promised a pleasant life. The dry bottlebrush flowers and spiky thistles in front of your aunt’s house signified the truth – not elegant but pleasant.
‘This landscape somehow guarantees a decent life – not highbrow, not so sophisticated, but agreeable.’
‘Guarantee?’ A strange word to use, like something from a TV ad.
‘Yes. As long as it is not too crowded, it brings about a certain promise, even though it can be just as problematic as anywhere.’