Century Park Mornings

Casey has been away for 11-12 hours a day and E’s biorhythms are a bit out of whack so the days have been long and strange and crazy but we’ve worked out a nice schedule. E is navigating his way through a serious case of jet lag – awake at 1am, up again at 4am, but it’s actually been a nice bonding experience to steer him through the night so that Casey can sleep. 

I do manage to get out at 5am for a nice long run to Century Park and am angling to start these jaunts even earlier as the temperatures heat up this month and smog begins to blanket the city.  Having said that, I don’t want to give a wholly negative impression of the city. Shanghai is exceptional: the people are incredibly gracious and helpful, perhaps more so because E helps us pierce into the fabric of this child-centric part of Asia.  At the grocery store this morning no less than four women gathered around our shopping cart to teach E a few Mandarin words and then beamed every time he attempted a new syllable.  He is the consummate companion though I’m fully aware of just how vulnerable he is as I ping-pong him around the city, avoiding motorbikes, buses, and trucks. Yesterday we rode the metro out to the airport and he made quick acquaintance with passengers who thought his Dennis the Menace antics hilarious. 

Though I never thought I’d say this (being a night runner) I look forward to the dawn runs at nearby Century Park, a sprawling oasis of green and water and concrete in central Pudong.  At this early hour the aging demographics of a nation come to life. Old men and women practice tai chi in the park, slap their legs to goad circulation, walk or run backwards, sometimes even with their tiny, leashed dogs (who are not walking in reverse- Casey asked).  The city prepares for the performance of the day and no new sights surprise. A motorbike with a pig carcass draped across its rear speeds up Century Avenue passing a woman with a Prada bag.  An elderly groundskeeper crouches near a freshly minced hedge; he smokes a cigarette and nurses a small hardboiled egg. When he spots me he says “Haaaa-looooo!” and salutes with one greasy hand.   How can you not smile?

The air pollution index hit a record 500 in Shanghai a few weeks ago and has been nearing 100 the past few days.  The complex global forces at work make it awkward to cast judgment on what are statistically some of the highest air pollution rates in the world.  The upshot - incredible mass transit, the ban on free plastic bags, a push toward solar that exceeds anything achieved back home – together provide a shaft of light through the oftentimes smoldering air.  It’s tough, in the university classroom setting, to get our students to agree upon the reality, or the extent, of global change.  How nice it would be to depoliticize air and climate issues and talk more about the tangibles – like how to improve human health - in a more amiable and constructive way.

I run back from the gates of Century Park and watch wizened men and women arc arms and legs like delicate anemones rooted in beds of wavy sea grass.  Others pinwheel limbs in deliberate, lazy circles as I pound past them, knees grinding into pavement. They take deep breaths in the soupy morning air. We all need to breathe.