The Blue Eyed Ghost of Shuangliu, China

Yes my dear friend it is true, or at least as true as can possibly be for he has returned to the beginning - and this is where his small tale begins.

Rickshaw bells and heavy groaning green and purple pedicabs propelled by thick legged men prowl through humid traffic air. No one sees him but everyone stares at the ghost. The majority are oblivious to his existence.

He walks along a broken cracked sidewalk past men hammering their work. They are building an 6-story high extension at the high school. Cement mixers, scaffolding made of bamboo, emaciated men haul crumbling red bricks, immigrants sing in the rain. Dancing along their future. The developer drives a shiny black Benz.

Streets are congested with yellow bulldozers, lorries loaded with dirt and salvaged steel pig iron, ‘City Boat’ blaring bus horns, small red cabs, - tired students trudging to lessons inside cold cramped cement caverns where teachers arrive late, leave early, smashing wooden sticks on desks to get their attention - men pedal carts of large blue plastic barrels full of leftover restaurant slop for village pigs and emotionally abused children splash water on their dreams.

He passes brown faced women in dirty white aprons chopping vegetables with sharp cleavers on scarred wood. Single girls mop cement passageways from dawn to dusk.

Dutiful daughters sweep floors or laconically stare at deaf dumb blind televisions stacked on bags of rice, boxes of detergent, hairline fractured straw mattress bedding.

This is the entertainment capital of the world !

He passes tables of retired pensioners slapping white marble mahjong pieces into tight manicured rows of strategies as orange vested street cleaning women whisking ornate hard handled bamboo brushes paint the city’s rising dust in their wide eyed wonder.

He speaks the language of silence and this comforts them. His inability to articulate his passion and suffering is only because, like you, he is a witness to this absurd reality in humanity’s garden.

He’s been here before. He trusted you to understand. The meaning of meaning was obscured by clouds of anger, fear, desire, jealousy, ignorance and attachment and you waved him away.

You cast him into deep crystal water where he replenished his spirit reflecting another glorious revolution.