Thousands of Years of Dust

by Claudia Varney (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

A leap into the unknown China

“The world is so big,” my dad would say wistfully, spinning the globe next to my bed. Before I went to sleep I used to squint my eyes shut, letting it spin and spin, and point a finger on a random spot as it stopped. And I would look at the cities underneath and wonder- what would it be like to go there, to truly discover how big the world could be? Growing up, I felt like a little fish leaving my small pond for bigger pools. I remember how the places that once seemed so large and intimidating- the playgrounds, high schools and offices- suddenly shrank to fit as I grew. But in Beijing everything is even bigger. There are freeways that are not five, but fifty lanes wide. The metro system is the largest in the world, sprawling over some 700 kilometres of track. For a city of 20 million people, it’s surprising how far you can get with just a bike. I pedalled faster, dodging the traffic, the honking, the electric scooters. Passing by the buses and the crowds, and the noises and the smells. It took me two days and some tough negotiation in broken Mandarin to get together a bike, a face mask for the air pollution, and a sim card. I spent the following weeks getting lost. Today, I found myself exploring the miles of maze-like hutongs by bike. The Chinese new year decorations were still up, the red banners and paper lanterns hanging over ancient stone doorways. Beijing is a city of contradiction and chaos, of sparkling skyscrapers and winding back alleys, of imperial palaces and thousands of years of dust. Breathing through a mask while biking isn’t so easy, especially on a day like this when the air is so thick, with the wind picking up and the sky swiftly turning orange. The spring sandstorms have come early. The winds were throwing sand mercilessly in my eyes as I cycled, pulling down lanterns and shaking roof tiles loose in their fury. It’s as if the entire city were shuddering, holding its breath, just waiting. Waiting for the sky to finish howling, waiting for the winds to blow all the dust from the Gobi desert through Beijing. It was getting difficult to see, let alone to know where I was. I squinted my eyes against the wind. All I wished for was a hand to wipe the skies blue, to see the sun for the first time in weeks. It’s hard to know where you are when even the sky isn’t the right colour. When the sights and smells are so profoundly foreign, so unidentifiable, they evade your memory bank. And when the faces you pass ogle and stare. It all can make one feel incredibly small. When does a place cease to be just a dot on a map, and grow into an entire world you can touch and smell and taste? I could almost feel my globe spinning beneath my fingers, the sky churning above, the dust whirling all around me, wiping the cobblestones clean, wiping all the dust from Beijing. I may be small, but I have seen that the world is big. I continued through the labyrinth of dirt-paved back alleys, hopelessly lost. Turning a corner, I could make out the drum tower rising over the curved hutong rooftops. Finally, with this landmark, I knew where I was. This is exactly what I didn’t want. In that moment, I realised that I preferred to be lost. Squinting, I could make out another small alley across the road, leading in a new direction yet to be explored. I crossed the main street and dove back in, pedalling slower now, feeling my eyes water, my cheeks run hot under my face mask, feeling my laboured breathing, my legs starting to burn from the day’s adventures. I wanted to spin like a top with the wind, to lose myself in a map with no edges, directionless, discovering. A small fish in a big world. The world is my oyster, and this is my open sea. I am not scared. I readjust my face mask and dip my toes back in.