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"Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell."
-- Emily Dickinson
Now it's time for parting again. I would have never expected since the day I got here in Toronto that it was going to be such a difficult time to farewell till I met and befriended with these precious souls.
My English friend Teresa was kind enough to invite me to see a contemporary dance performance at a theater in Harborfront a couple of days ago. The 6 dancers were from Italy, Spain, Germany and Japan, but based in Amsterdam, Holland. The movement was amazing, very articulate and expressive. However, there was not much warm feedback from the audience -- people just applauded mildly and disappeared right away. I asked Teresa to wait with me at the staff exit to greet the dancers, as people always did in Beijing. What a pity, the only people who waited to greet the artists touring Canada were not from Canada, but from China and England. We were lucky to talk to all the dancers, separately. Most of them could hardly speak English. The Spanish woman dancer who could speak some English was happy to talk to us, saying they were particularly excited about their China tour in Guangzhou, where they met the most passionate audience. Finally, the choreographer, director and leading dancer, the Italian born Emio Greco came out with three other guys. He was exceedingly happy to see us waiting for one hour just to greet him. He was excited about going to Beijing with his troupe in September for a workshop there.
On Mother's Day, I had brunch with a whole bunch of people from Canada, England and Nigeria, at a French restaurant on Augusta Street. The Mother's Day seemed to be a great event here. Teresa was expecting a DVD player from her daughter Chioma as a present, and Riel, a 28 year old Canadian woman, gave her mother a glass vase that she particularly made for Mother's Day. Met Lucinda, a quiet and elegant woman originally from Alberta, who studied western medicine in her early days, then turned to a research on Jung in Austria, but finally developed an interest in Buddhism and Chinese medicine. Now she is a Qigong practioner, owning her own meditation-for-health club with some 90 members. She is one of the few Canadians who truly walk beyond this world. Most people live in the three dimensional space, while people like Lucinda and I are in the fourth. From the visible to the invisible, from the "rational" to the "irrational", she is soaring in a kingdom of food for the soul, while everyone else here is getting entangled with mortgage, down payment, property, loans, house renovation and money...as they talk about everyday.
After the delicious brunch, we decided to head for a cinema to watch a Chinese flick that got a top review according to the local newspaper. Chioma's boyfriend, a half English and half Nigerian guy called Raymond drove all of us to a cinema on the Carlton street to see _The World_ by a Chinese movie director Jia Zhangke. Chioma was kind enough to treat us. The story was set in the theme park in southern Beijing, a park of scale reproductions of famous sceneries of all of the world, where several common men and women struggle to live and to love. Teresa and Chioma thoroughly enjoyed it. But I felt that except for it was set in the World Park, there wa nothing original in the movie.
Then Teresa taught me how to see more movies with one ticket since there were 9 theaters showing different movies, each unique. We went straight to another theater, looking as confident and calm as we could when passing by the staff by chance. Since Chioma and her boyfriend Raymond highly recommended _Kungfu Hustle_, we decided to take their kind advice, though I knew it would not be my cup of tea. As a result, we sat in the theater for almost 2 hours to just make one laughter. The whole movie was not giving any meaningful message. In a word, it was a stupid movie. I was surprised it could attract more people than any other movies, and Teresa was suprised that Raymond could have recommended this movie to us.
Then we slipped into the next theater ready to see the German production _Downfall_, which was about the last stage of Hitler during World War II. This is a must-see, and I believe it is worth seeing twice. An older woman, probably in her 80s, asked us what time the movie would start. She was from former Soviet Union, and probably had a difficult time at Stalin's time, and therefore escaped to Canada. Knowing she was Russian, I spoke some Russian with her, which made her so happy and surprised.
The following day I went to meet a poet at his condo in that bleak Mississauga. On the subway to Kipling, I was observing this Canadian woman who picked her nose for a while, then wiped her finger on a tissue, then took out some peanuts from her bag and chewed them with the finger that just picked her nose. I was wonderfing if she was enjoying any special flavor of her peanuts.
I finally went to Niagara Falls by the Safeway Tour bus. I paid 25 dollars for the bus transportation. Upon our arrival, everyone on the bus was given a 20 dollar coupon for gambling at the casino. I had never gambled before. Out of curiosity, I went into the casino, got my Player's Card at the Player's Advantage, then changed the coupon for a 20 dollar bill. I observed some gamblers for a while, but just couldn't figure out what they were doing -- all seemed so complicated to me. So I asked a pretty black waitress standing next to me to teach me how to use the slot machine. It was so simple, actually. I inserted my Player's Card, then the 20 dollar bill, then pressed the buttons, while the machine showed how many credits I had for each session. After sometime of rising and falling, the slot machine suddenly played cheerful music, which attracted lots of people around to look at me. I was very lucky to make 48.75 dollars!
I felt that I was almost addicted to the game. But hell, my priority was to see the Falls, not gambling! And I'm no greedy person; 48.75 dollars just covered the transportation fee. I would not need any more!
So I pushed Cash Out button to get the ticket, went to the Cashier to get my money, then went to the Niagara Falls by cable car. It was spectacular, but since I had seen lots of world wonders, I didn't understand why they made such a fuss about it. I went to the shopping center to buy some drink, while a group of fat and out-of-shape people were lining up to buy icecream, which seemes more spectacular than the Falls. At the gift shop, where I was planning to buy some souvenirs for my friends in Beijing, almost everything was labled "Made in China". Disappointed, I went back to the Casino by the cable car, walking about and looking around and waiting for the bus to come.
Getting out of the bus at Chinatown on Spadina Street, I walked to the Beijing couple's grocery store, where I was going to meet Philip, a Canadian man with Dutch parents who would hopefully date my cousin Kitty in Beijing. He was a very tall man, about 6'4", a bit shy, and seemed strait-laced. His parents moved from Holland to Canada in 1950s. Although he speaks Dutch and has been to Holland many times to track his roots, I can't imagine he has anything to do with that liberal country. And yet I was amazed how familar he was with Beijing. Having been to Beijing many times, he was in Beijing just 5 weeks ago, and is going to Beijing again in 6 weeks. He could name a whole bunch of Chinese actresses, and sounded like a sinologist when talking about all things Chinese. Teresa joined us for the dinner later, and spoke highly of him after a short conversation with him. Together with us were the Beijing couple I'd been staying with, and another Beijing couple who had been here for a month, ready to give birth to a baby.
Philip showed his generousity by paying the bill for the expensive Chinese dinner for 7 people, which cost about nearly 200 dollars, while in Beijing it could be as cheap as 10 dollars. Teresa and I were just ready to make contribution, but he said "next time". He asked for my Beijing phone numbers, and I promised him I would take him to one of the hottest restaurants/clubs in Beijing.
Everyone left so early, leaving me and Teresa continuing our primarily political conversation till 11:30PM. We moved on to a cafe on Queen Street West, and talked until 4:00AM.
While we were chatting excitedly at the restaurant, a white woman was trying to steal her bag. Coming from outside, the thief walked quickly towards us, looking straight ahead. As she walked by us she tried to pull away the bag hanging on the chair where Teresa was sitting right behind Teresa, assuming we were not paying any attention. But we caught her in the act -- I saw it and Teresa felt it. The woman was very embarrassed, just saying "oh, that's your bag", then put the bag back and went straight to the cashier ver quickly. We didn't figure out she was a thief until the waitresses told us she was also trying to steal money from the cashier when there was no one working there at that moment. The thief left quickly and rushed away riding her bike before Teresa and I realized we should have gone after her. What a bold and audacious thief! This is so outrageous!
On the way back to Spadina, we were stopped by one after another homeless street person asking us for 25 cents. Teresa said that in summer one could hardly move here due to the large number of street people. In winter, some treet people sleep on the street without a blanket. When it snows, they just sleep in the snow. The church close their door to them. No one takes care of them.
While we were waiting for the streetcar, a man and a woman shouted out of ferocious roadrage, which really scared me. I thought that someone was going to shoot someone, but fortunately, here only the cops carry guns. The streetcar never came. Teresa had to take a cab. It was almost 4:00AM. There were a good number of empty taxis desparately looking for business. Behind us the woman who sold hot dogs had been standing by her stall for the whole day to make a living. Many taxi drivers are doctors from India, Pakistan, Iran, Mexico or East Europe, but due to the lack of "Canadian experience" they can't work as doctors here, but drive taxis to survive. And medical treatment here is awful due to the lack of doctors and nurses. People tend to wait 4 to 10 hours at emergency. Not long ago a 26 year old Canadian woman died at the emergency of a hospital in Toronto simply because she waited way too long with no prompt treatment.
