My Time in the Elevator

(I don't have any good photos from the elevator, so I thought I'd put this one in instead. The photo is of my boss's aunt, a tiny, energetic lady of 71 and former star of Beijing stage and screen. I met her when she visited during the National Holiday week, and she treated us to a few numbers, including "Edelweiss," "Unchained Melody" by the Righteous Brothers, and some songs from Soviet Russia. Her husband, a retired pharmaceuticals chemist, is in the background.)

My apartment is on the 23rd floor of a humongous apartment complex. Everyone has to ride two elevators to get up or down. We ride down to the sixth floor, then get off and walk across a veranda that is in fact the roof of a large shopping mall, and then ride a second elevator down to the first floor. All in all it makes for a lot of elevator time and elevator-centered relationships.

The inside of an elevator tends to be an awkward space for most people, and in the case of the Chinese, having a large (by Chinese standards,) white male who may or may not understand Chinese standing there also in the elevator tends to exacerbate the tension. In most cases it's not so bad. People just glance nervously and exercise whatever little tics they have. Little kids duck behind their parents legs; young women look embarassed; middle age women look frightened. It's the younger guys who have it the worst - cool guys in their teens or early twenties who are used to being the coolest person in sight, or at least pretty clear on who is the coolest person in sight, and who now suddenly have to contend with a total unknown. I remember one guy, about my age or a little younger, in a leather jacket, tan slacks and a button-down shirt opened at the top of his chest. I was already in the elevator when he got on. He pushed the 'close door' button and started shifting from side to side and fidgeting with his cigarette (a paper sign prohibiting smoking in the elevators is pasted up on the wall, but many people do not heed it, and many of those who do simply stomp out their butts on the floor of the elevator.) We had to ride up quite a few floors together, and with perhaps five seconds to go until his stop, this man actually began clawing at the serrated, plastic brand identification placard (Guangzhou Hitachi) on the elevator wall. He scratched and scratched at it, which produced a sort of low whine, and he turned his head over his shoulder, in my direction, but not actually looking at me. I felt a little nervous myself.

The other day I got on the elevator as a woman on the outside carried on an argument of some kind with a man already standing inside. They were speaking in thick Sichuanese, so I couldn't make any of it out, but there was a bunch of stuff, small furniture and the like, outside of the elevator, so I took it they were quarreling over some work he had done or was supposed to do for her. His clothes were gray and worn, and his thumbnail was grown out in the style of those who want to show that they are not manual laborers (this is most commonly done, as I understand it, by the children of farmers or other manual laborers.) After I got on, I held the door open, as I figured they would want to put the stuff in, but the man gestured me away.

"Mei shi, mei shi," he said to me as the woman continued pestering him. "Don't worry, it's nothing."

The women was still talking as the doors glided to a close, and then the man and I rode down together two floors, he saying "Mei shi" a few more times as we descended. The elevator stopped on the third floor, where there was someone holding a mattress and some other large furniture. The man's tone picked up vehemence. "Mei shi! Mei shi!" he assured me, waving his hand prohibitively at the furniture as he nodded at me and pushed the 'close door' button. I got off at the first floor, and the man looked satisfied because I hadn't had to wait for very long. It was dreamlike, as if I had encountered some guardian who, upon meeting me, preferred me to his other wards and saw me safely on my way.

I love riding the elevator with babies or dogs. Babies and dogs do not kn0w that I am a foreigner. I can pat either of them as I please, which is both fun and an effective way to establish rapport with whoever is their guardian.

One time I rode the elevator with an unattended dog. The dog was hanging around outside the elevators when I showed up. No owner appeared, and, looking around, I saw none. When the elevator came I got on, and the dog, a small, mostly white, muscular mutt, got on with me. The doors closed and he began to growl and bare teeth. We rode on up together, the dog continuing its low-throated rumble and occasionally taking a few steps this way or that. Then the doors opened on the 23rd floor, and the dog preceeded me out. He went off to sniff things, and I to my apartment. It was an unprecedented and oddly satisfying experience for me.