Roam, roam around

A young man came to me when I stopped my car for the red light. He asked, “Are you all right? Are you in need of anything?” I was confused. Why would one come up to a stranger at the traffic lights to ask such questions?

Before I could respond, Mr. Marvin Crenshaw, who was giving me a tour in South Dallas, immediately replied for me, “no, we are all right. We don’t need anything.” When I drove on with the green lights, Marvin explained to me that the young man actually asked me if I’d buy drug from him! Wow, I learned something.

And I learned more when I asked Marvin if it would be o.k. for him to show me around the neighborhood on some evening. He told me it would be fine. However, a non-black woman making her appearance in south Dallas would mean she would be either “soliciting” or looking for drug! And here “soliciting” means prostitution! So I am learning to be street smart.

Anyhow, my going back to the neighborhood has caught some attention and I am greeted with more “be careful” and “be safe.” I noticed some young men whisper to each other’s ears when I showed up. Maybe my cameras have made them nervous. Their eyes were fixed on me when I walked past them. They were stiff when I greeted them with a smile. Yet there were people who didn’t have problems with my cameras. Those who hanged around at Wah-Wah, a Chinese restaurant with a good reputation, were fine with my cameras, for example.  Wah-Wah is a very interesting place and its owner, a Taiwanese woman called Wah-Wah, is a character full of stories. She speaks with an African-American accent. The way she interacted with the local black people, who seemed to adore and respect her, fascinated me. I will go back to Wah-Wah.

And despite all the rough stuff and tough people, I found a fairytale-like picture in the heart of the neighborhood.

I took all the warnings and sayings about south Dallas for granted until this evening, when I drove up and down Malcolm X Blvd. I stopped and parked my car outside a grocery store, where a group of young men were hanging around. “Take my pictures!” They each said and posed so their pictures taken. I took their pictures, to be polite and more – to be safe, as I already felt something unusual in them. Soon they lost interest in my cameras and moved towards my car while I went inside the store to ask about the neighborhood.

The owners of the store were all all behind a counter fended by bulletproof glass. I immediately sense the potential danger of this place, but I wanted to know who those young men were and why they were there. All the answers I got was “don’t ask, don’t come with your cameras. I don’t know why, but don’t!” They seemed stunned by my ignorance. (Honestly, I sometimes like this kind of ignorance, which often serves as my protector. “Forgive my ignorance, but…” I’d say, and I’d be pardoned.

Right at this moment, I guess I’d better leave and look for something else. I stepped out into the beautiful sunset and saw that group of young men were tussling “playfully” by my car, two even jumped over it and kicked it “by accident.” I kind of knew that was some kind of “test” for me. If I got angry or upset about that, I could have got into a really bad situation. I made myself ignore what they did, walked towards my car calmly, opened the door, got in, locked it and drove away. I passed the test, I guess.

A few blocks west, I spotted a man in a hat and bright gray suit – in the setting sunlight. He didn’t ask me to take his pictures, so I asked if I could take his pictures. He granted me his permission and gave me his name: Al Richard. He was very ambiguous about where he lived. All he said was he didn’t live there and he was just visiting. Just visiting. He didn’t like to be connected this neighborhood, it seemed.

Marvin Crenshaw, Charles Hillman and Horace Beal, who claimed themselves to be activists, were watching me as I tried to make a photo of Al Richards. They shouted “how are you” at me, when I turned to them, three black men in a red truck. They told me to go home before it got dark and not to take pictures of people particularly when it started to get dark. “They would think you are a cop,” they warned. Another warning. Yet at the same time, Marvin said, most of the people here are good people. “It’s just the media that give the public a bad impression about this place,” Marvin commented. Maybe he was right. Maybe next time, I should hang out with Marvin (who lives in this neighborhood) and see how he interacts with the people in south Dallas and find out the good side of south Dallas.

I drove a long way down and around South Hampton Rd. Not really a productive drive. And when I got home, I was exhausted. So exhausted cancelled my plan to go to a party and another plan to shoot some evening images down in the south.

有时候，面对四五十岁的人，尤其是美国人，看着他们的眼睛，她发觉三十多岁的她其实比他们老。

有时候，她看着比她年幼的人，尤其是亚洲人，她发现自己比他们幼稚多了。

It’s my day off. I should have started working on my friend’s website, as I have promised. But I turn on my music -  out of habit.

Tschaikovsky’s Rococo Variations flows in the quiet morning air of my bedroom. I got this album 15 years ago and still love it dearly. Yes, I love it dearly. Really most of Tschaikovsky’s stuff, and Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, Smetana, Bach, Mozart, Satie, Debussy, Chopin…But I haven’t really sat down to listen to them for a while. I have been moving a lot, jumping a lot. I have been too busy and it was a luxury to spend some time just listening to music. I turn on my music often, but it is often a background sound, in which I work on my laptop. I sometimes ignore it. Quite rude, just like an old person is talking to you and you ignore him/her. On this quiet morning, it suddenly occurrs to me that I should just sit down and listen.

The Variations flow on. My mind starts to roam. I decide to do the website a little later. I pick up Ellen Gilchist’s “Falling Through Space” and sit myself in the couch, with a cup of rich coffee made with a French Press. Gilchrist makes me laugh. She makes me think. I love her wits and wisdom. She is now reading Eilot:

Footballs echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened…

Isn’t this touching? I see that image of myself as a timid child in the 1980s in China. So much was going on then; so much has happened; so much is happening; and you don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. No, you never know…

I sometimes can’t believe I end up living in the U.S. now. I don’t know where I will be five months from now. Which country? What will I be doing? Life is a mystery. You never know what is going to happen in life, who you are going to meet, who you are going to become. A small incident could trigger a totally different path in your life. That incident could be someone making a very, very, very minor mistake in her work one day. She/He makes that mistake because she/He is very sick. Poor thing. And you don’t really know that person. But yes, it is true that someone you never know could affect your future, your fate, your destiny because she is not feeling very well that day, that moment. It is not her/his fault because she/he doesn’t mean to change your future. It is just your fate.

Yes, fate. The Chinese say it is my fate that I now live abroad. It is my fate that I don’t’ feel all right to return to my homeland. How can I when they block my website? How can I when they beat my cousin and force my cousin-in-law into a sterilization operation? How can I when my relatives try to file a report about the officials’ violence, but cannot make it happen? They say we need to report to the police if we want the officials’ violence exposed in news media. That happened only two days ago. I am still shocked. My sister’s description of the event makes me chill. Several men were beating my cousin at his own home, his old mother and young children crying helplessly. I talked to my Chinese journalist friend about it. Can we report it somewhere else, via bigger news media? But I am afraid my cousin and my friend may be retaliated. I am out of their reach, but not my family or my friends. And what would happen to me when I have to return home for good? Fear… Roosevelt once said the only thing we need to fear is fear itself. True as it may be, I have to tell you, Mr. Roosevelt, fear is still expanding in my life. I still fear something other than fear itself.

Maybe it’s my own fault, as my other cousin often says. It’s my own fault to give up my teaching job at that college. Every one admired me for that job. My students adored me because they thought I knew everything. Now my former students have become experienced teachers, but I am an intern photographer struggling to find a job, struggling to survive in a foreign land. With those heavy cameras and lenses hanging from my shoulders and around my waist, I roam in the sun, I run in the rain and snow, I climb and I crouch. No difference than a peasant worker, a despised image in contrast to my old image as a decent college teacher in an elegant long skirt. It’s your own fault, my cousin says. My parents agree with him. Well, I guess this is just my fate. I don’t regret it at all. But I do feel sad sometimes.

Now swimming in the air are the notes from Tschaikovsky’s 1812…I should just stop my fingers, close my eyes and roam toward another scene…

Several more hours in Oak Cliff today. Yes, Oak Cliff, where An American flag and a Mexican one fly in the wind “shoulder by shoulder” as if they were good friends, where party stores are filled by colorful and “happy” Pinatas, where a pedestrian dawdling in the harsh sunlight sometimes makes you feel you are in Mexico, not US. I actually found a bus station on Jefferson that provides bus services to Mexico – $100 for a round trip, making me feel “I should take advantage of this and go to Mexico.” And I still think so.

Met more interesting people, artists of different kinds. Daniel Padilla does abstract and thousand-dollar artwork. Willie Lewis charged his clients $6 for doing a pencil drawing of two brothers. When I declined to have my portrait drawn, he said, “how about two dollars?” Steve Cruz was painting a mural on 7th Street. It was part of a project called “The 7th Street Murals,” organized by Cruz and painted by several Oak Cliff artists. Cruz hopes to attract more people to bike and walk along 7th street, which is next to Davis St. and goes across Bishop Ave. He has a side hope: More may stop by the galleries in the neighborhood, one of which is his. Whichever hope is bigger, people are glad he and his peers are doing this. They came to thank him.

And there is Wendi Medling, who claimed that her gift shop was the only pure fair trade shop in Dallas area. In her display window stands a buddha with a price label. I couldn’t help but wonder, who will buy a buddha? Does buddha only bless his future owner in America? How would the Buddhists in Asia think about this?

And the birds…They are music notes standing in the score made of electric lines. They are musical visually as well as audibly.

Oh, yes, I met that Michael H.E. again. He recognized me. He looked at me as if I were from another planet. He might have thought, “why does this small woman with two big cameras come again?”  But he couldn’t say anything. He could hardly speak English.

Another long walk. This time along Jefferson Boulevard in Oak Cliff, a neighborhood just a few miles south of downtown Dallas. It reminds me of South Federal Boulevard in Denver. It is obviously very Mexican, thus colorful. People are friendly.  They greeted me with warm smiles and kind warnings: be safe. Many businesses there are closed early around 5 p.m. for safty reasons, I heard. This is quite different from Federal Boulevard in Denver. I think I will go back there.

Georgina E. Jasso, 2, looked out of a window. I waved my camera to the man standing by her, asking if I could take her pictures. He nodded. Before I took the second picture of the girl, he grabbed her out of the restaurant and tried to pose her. I was a little disappointed while at the same time very thankful for his friendliness. I guess parents always like to pose their kids in front of a camera. Fortunately, Georgina seemed very independent and she just ignored her dad.

He was at the bus stop when I first saw him. Two hours later,  when I walked back toward my car, he was still there. Obviously he was not waiting for a bus. The bus stop is a shelter for him.  He called himself Michael H. E. But he really couldn’t spell his last name and he was a little annoyed because I kept asking if he could spell his name for me.

(All images in this post copyrighted by DMN.)

Took a long walk this afternoon, finally. Finally not hopping from one spot to another in a car, not passing places like a heartless or lost bird. It was a real walk, a long one, which made me get to know the place a little bit, talk to people a little bit. And it was a walk in warm late afternoon light and fresh spring air.

Windows always fascinate me. They carry a lot of meanings, at least to me. I’ve taken many pictures of windows. Here is another one. Well, it’s really the shadow of a motel window with the blinds, or the shadow of the blinds.

I asked him why dressing like this – if you call that a dress, or outfit…whatever, he answered, “Why not?! It’s a nice day.”

Well, if you want to make a name, maybe you just need to take off your clothes…