By: Atty. Marlo T. Cristobal
From the Shanghai Pudong International Airport, the final touch down of our September 16 flight from the Philippines, we lost no time as we immediately proceeded past noon directly to the first venue of our tour via about two-hour bus ride to Hangzhou city of China. Here in our bus ride we were introduced into the enviable clean and green environment and eyes’ delighting infrastructures as we passed through a gauntlet of verdant trees and well-paved and smooth roads (that exhibited absolutely nothing of the hallmarks of the regular corruption of Philippine roads) and enchantingly architectured buildings.
But here is what takes the cake in the cause of “clean environment” that can be the envy of the world or the display of people-service governance genius of the Chinese. As a matter of government policy, all motor bikes’ riders are required to silence or muffle the highly irritating or depressing noise of their bikes’ engines. As a result, despite the hordes of motorcycles in Hangzhou and everywhere else that approximate the motor bikes multitude of (North) Vietnam, hardly can you hear an engine roar that serves to forewarn an onrushing motorcycle toward your direction and run you over. I was nearly hit by a noiseless motorcycle as l crossed a street because of a mind under the grip of consciousness of scenes of wayward, rude and unruly motorcycles that haughtily diffuse eardrum-splitting blares all over the streets of our country. I smiled with entertainment and childish amusement watching these motorcycles going around and crisscrossing, fast and furious, but virtually noiseless, like mute people bustled around, doing their business, with not a word or sound uttered.
What a considerate government they have over there to institute an environment that is noise-free and its essentially life-prolonging impact. As a senior citizen, I cry with envy to behold a government that is caring and kind to its people. But what a contrast to behold, l cry with unsurpassed bitterness over our own government unable to measure up to a competent management to instill a simple discipline in a major sector of our society that is characteristically a spectacular of pandemonium of noise and misconduct. But then, what can you expect from a government that is apparently solely preoccupied with an obsession to the bone to rob to the bone its people it swore to serve and to care, and left them nothing but agonizing poverty, and pain and misery to their generations to come, what with the mind-boggling, heart-wrenching magnitude of its robbery that sends Satan wincing in pain and shame, wondering how in hell this government could have surpassed him in wickedness!
We reached Hangzhou’s fabled West Lake, so-called. It is rather a big, yet placid, lake. Its wonder and attraction lies in the big and utterly unconventional boats that it nestles. How unique to see these boats built and designed as the typically classical and traditional Chinese houses. Thus, this lake is an spectacle of literally floating and moving ancestral and old-time Chinese homes. We accessed one such typically ancient looking two- storey Chinese house that turned out to be a boat at the same time and enjoyed the ambiance of a Chinese home and a boat ride for at least 30 minutes. My wife and l went up to the second floor of this house or this boat—or whatever—and enjoyed the scenic and quieting view of the vast lake, seated on chairs at a table beside a window while relishing the unique taste of pure Chinese tea and ice drops (a food contrast definitely) that only stress the similar contrast of the very place we found ourselves in: a boat and house. There in that Chinese imperial-like house (or boat) that exuded the appearance of gentility, we luxuriated those precious moments, feeling for once in our lives, like Chinese Baron and Baroness.
Immediately after we disembarked from the boat, or the house. (or both the boat and the house, for precision’s sake), we proceeded to a place about 500 meters away, a designated spot for tourists to view and enjoy by the lake a panoramic sight of the sunset. For those who are easily excited or moved by loyalty in love affairs or love stories, they may emotionally relate to this place where the story of two lovers serves as as its dominating theme. The real story goes that sometime during the Southern Song Dynasty of China, 1127-1279, two lovers (of course a girl and a boy, just to insulate this pristine affair from the normalized thought of liaison deviation or unorthodox passion for each other of the same sex of our times) who must have passionately or intensely loved each other (otherwise, this love story will not endure the entire history of China), that they decided to end their lives by jumping together into the lake from a bridge of this place called Shuangtou Bridge. They drowned as they wanted. The story further goes that the mother of the girl opposed their marriage. I could only deduct that the mother’s hatred for the boy or the marriage was so intense and irreversible that it drove two lives resignedly or inevitably to death, just as the Filipinos’ (except as l said some countrymen are shamelessly still under the spell of Satan) hatred for inordinately plundering congressmen and leaders is so intense and irreversible that these politicians must do the harakiri fast as a matter of redeeming honor or, the least, as the inevitable fate to resign to. Or face the prospect of being lined up blindfolded before a firing musketry assembled by a people aghast and agonizing!
