Freedom
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
The building had four stories. In a narrow street in Baoji, west of Xi'an, the damp shell of a structure housed backpackers on its top three floors. The dorms exuded marijuana, travel must and provided many visitors with a fresh case of athletes' foot or worse. The occupants sat, huddled in the subzero temperatures playing cards and sharing a bong, partly for warmth, partly just to negate the feelings of loneliness and despair Baoji seemed to extract from twenty-something global travelers. Of the twelve around the knee-high table, two wore everything they owned, another her sleeping bag on top of that. Little was said.
Downstairs was a bar and tattoo parlour. The bar was little more than a high counter hiding a half-dozen glasses and various bottles of Russian vodka and huaungjiu. Two locals sat sipping, smoking and spitting on the floor. A single bulb lit the room; more cellar than drinking house.
The tattoo parlour was silently alive. The master-tattooist had his client reclined on a massage table, a mural of ink flowing shoulder to shoulder. The scene depicted a man hunting on horseback with bow and arrow, birds of prey circled above and carp below. No prey was evident. The master-tattooist, using a bamboo cane with the client's name etched in the handle, delicately inked the area of focus, blotting the blood as he went.
Behind the massage table, an entire wall of bamboo needles sat expectantly. Each had the name of their target, smoothly, forcefully marked in the cane. Some had recent blood, dried and brown on the shaft. The tips had each been cleaned in tub of surgical spirit on the floor.
While the master-tattooist finished up a section of the mural, the woman chose her tattoo. When the time came, she sat calmly in the chair, and he went to work.
When I met her, she was concerned about her baby. At twenty weeks pregnant her newly-diagnosed Hepatitis was making things very scary; her eyes fearful above pale, yellow-hewn cheeks. This isn't my life, they said. Now a teacher, she'd traveled the world and was settled, all ready for white-picket fences, V8s and 2.4 children. This wasn't how pregnancy was supposed to be. Lovely, warm, new life. Not unveiling a life-changing illness. Not the chance of a very sick baby. None of that.
She showed me the culprit, the tattoo. The small Chinese character, no bigger than the head of a spoon.
"What does it mean?"
"Freedom."
Downstairs was a bar and tattoo parlour. The bar was little more than a high counter hiding a half-dozen glasses and various bottles of Russian vodka and huaungjiu. Two locals sat sipping, smoking and spitting on the floor. A single bulb lit the room; more cellar than drinking house.
The tattoo parlour was silently alive. The master-tattooist had his client reclined on a massage table, a mural of ink flowing shoulder to shoulder. The scene depicted a man hunting on horseback with bow and arrow, birds of prey circled above and carp below. No prey was evident. The master-tattooist, using a bamboo cane with the client's name etched in the handle, delicately inked the area of focus, blotting the blood as he went.
Behind the massage table, an entire wall of bamboo needles sat expectantly. Each had the name of their target, smoothly, forcefully marked in the cane. Some had recent blood, dried and brown on the shaft. The tips had each been cleaned in tub of surgical spirit on the floor.
While the master-tattooist finished up a section of the mural, the woman chose her tattoo. When the time came, she sat calmly in the chair, and he went to work.
When I met her, she was concerned about her baby. At twenty weeks pregnant her newly-diagnosed Hepatitis was making things very scary; her eyes fearful above pale, yellow-hewn cheeks. This isn't my life, they said. Now a teacher, she'd traveled the world and was settled, all ready for white-picket fences, V8s and 2.4 children. This wasn't how pregnancy was supposed to be. Lovely, warm, new life. Not unveiling a life-changing illness. Not the chance of a very sick baby. None of that.
She showed me the culprit, the tattoo. The small Chinese character, no bigger than the head of a spoon.
"What does it mean?"
"Freedom."
Beautifully written, I was touched enough to bother to pop out of my RSS reader to come comment... I enjoy your writing immensely.
That was really great, so descriptive and evocative it actually felt like i was there, im currently in a lecture and its draagging, was a great escape as such :)
I agree, lovely writing. I hope your patient's baby was healthy... what a price to pay for such a small souvenir.
-Aurora
facebook.com/aurora.mditv