29. Zaijian (Until we meet again)

After a few days, I was finally on the bus to Guangzhou International Airport, an hour north of the city, passing a sea of industrial buildings on massive motorways and bridges. Smoke billowed out of chimneys, adding to the brown sky, making the sun look like a giant bronze coin held by the pollution. As the traffic on the motorway thinned out, the bus took an exit ramp with the massive glass-walled departure terminal in view.

I passed through border control and went to the international check-in desk behind a set of partition walls, separating the domestic and international areas in the open-plan hanger. I was covered in sweat from walking to the bus and thought a change of shirt would be considerate for the others on the plane and, having packed all my other clothes, went scouring the few duty free shops. Nothing in the shops was affordable, so I was stuck in the t-shirt I had on. I went to one of the two restaurants for something to eat to pass an hour and then was on my way to Singapore. While there on a quick stopover, I was hoping to visit my childhood home at Nee Soon Camp. I was a young boy when the New Zealand Army sent my father, and subsequently my family to Singapore.

I researched how to get to the camp on the internet and after buying a camera for my mother in the city, headed north via the MRT. The trains venture underground from the central city and emerge to open ground as the rails are elevated above ground level at the outer areas of the island. What I could see of northern Singapore from the train was jungle and water, green pastures and housing complexes.

From the MRT station, I had to find a back road to get to the camp situated off the busy Sembawang Road. The footpath from the station led around the back of a set of apartment buildings and I was soon walking along a narrow road with no footpath, surrounded by wild shrubs and trees. A wire-net fence struggled to hold back the jungle and I thought about the possibility of snakes.

A big black dog appeared from one of the numerous agricultural centres and was instantly interested in me, following at a trotting pace. With no footpath to walk on, I had to walk near the deep grass drains on the side of the road, despite concern for snakes and also had to consider the dog. As I rounded a bend, I saw a junction with a busy road in the distance so sprinted a good hundred metres, still watching for snakes. I slowed to look back at the dog, which rounded the bend sprinting too. I hit top gear again, reached Sembawang Road a moment later, and kept going until I was on the other side of the six-lane highway. The dog stopped on his side of the road, levelling an angry bark at me instead of crossing the lanes.

I took a deep breath and headed north, where I found the gates of another military facility called Dieppe Barracks. My mother had suggested I look around in there too, as there were family facilities, such as a recreation hall, that New Zealand Army families had used there. However, the six-foot high fences and gates were draped in barbed wire and the polite young man carrying the fully automatic MP5 rifle was unable to let me in.

I offered him my passport, my camera and joked that I’d allow him to strip and cavity search me. He laughed and said no.

He said Nee Soon Camp wouldn’t let me in either, as I needed a permit attainable from my embassy, but I’d need to be on official business to attain that. My mother had been allowed into the camp to see our old house during the nineties, but security had probably tightened since she’d been there, maybe due to the war on terrorism. I thanked him for his time and continued north.

Nee Soon is now a large array of apartment complexes, a contrast to twenty years earlier when it was a smattering of tin shacks. I arrived after only a few minutes walk up the road and followed the signs towards the MRT station.

At a shop by the station, the shopkeeper said she was going to New Zealand in a few months to visit her sister and we talked about the changes to Nee Soon since I’d lived down the road. As I told her about living at Nee Soon, she laughed and called me an army brat, indicating she’d met a few Kiwi army families.

I headed west via the MRT to the War Memorial from World War Two. When I lived there, the armed forces would go there for ANZAC day commemorations. The sun was glaring down on me as I walked amongst the headstones of Australians and Indians who served and died in the area. There were a few New Zealand names on the wall of the dead and a large number of Australian and Indian casualties and deceased.

I spent the next day looking around Singapore’s sights and window shopping at the many plaza’s scattered around the city. As I walked through a park in the central city, a group of men sat at benches and produced large snakes from baskets, wrapping them around their bodies. A city in which I would be fined for chewing gum, spitting or jaywalking allowed these guys to carry snakes around.

With my face and neck still sunburnt from the outing to Nee Soon and the Memorial, I was at Changi Airport and about to board the overnight flight to New Zealand when a large group of Kiwi accents got my attention. Like a choir of angels singing, the departure lounge audibly glistened while I enjoyed the subjectively heavenly sounds.

The call was made to board, and once we were in the air, it sunk in that I was on my way home. I had reflected often about the trip, to the many people I’d offered advice to in Shanghai, and with Eric and Steve in Guangzhou, yet I never consistently considered any particular moment as character-building or personally life-affirming. Having half a day to myself on the plane, I tried to sum up what China was like and what I’d learned about the world and gained for myself.

The first glaringly obvious thing I concluded was that the issues I had in life at home were issues I dealt with daily in China. The justifications I made for leaving New Zealand were similar to the reasons I gave myself for doing all sorts of things in China, including leaving that country too. I was running and hiding again, and I couldn’t ignore that ironic twist.

I saw many things in China that I would never see in New Zealand, whether they were at home or not, and I concentrated on my own well being first and foremost. I dealt with the disturbing and troubling images of China, such as police brutality and the inhumane treatment of animals, by putting psychological blinkers on. I didn’t let myself care about situations I felt I had no power over, the same way I lived my life at home. Before travelling to China, I pretended to not care about girlfriends, family, friends, and work, and cut away from people and situations repetitively if I thought something was wrong. China had drawn out my overbearing self-absorbed nature to the point that even I saw it.

Seeing the little girl singing and dancing at the train station in Ling Xi was a life-changing event for me. As I watched her, I snapped out of my anger and hate and saw her humanity. She made it alright for me to care about others, whether I could help them or not, and dished out a lesson that circumstances don’t actually effect whether people enjoy life or not. Her example is something I will always aspire to.

It was a message I’d been sent on numerous occasions. A few days after Ling Xi, I’d been walking through the People’s Square in Guangzhou, where people were socialising, dancing and playing sports daily, a similar site to cities all over the country. The people took the time to get out of their homes and enjoy their lives every day. They literally danced in the streets. Much like that little girl, many people in China celebrate their lives when they get the chance, regardless of what they think they have or don’t have.

That message has finally been received. I took out my diary and wrote my final entry, which said:

“If I ever feel like I’m popping balloons on a raging bull’s horns, I will think of that little girl in Ling Xi singing and dancing, and will charge into the arena smiling.”

The flight arrived the next morning to a cold and crisp Christchurch winter’s day. The doors opened to the arrivals hall and my mother saw me and burst into tears. I smiled like I was five years old again and rushed to hug her.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” she asked.