Cloud Planting

I had no idea that clouds could be planted.

Planting clouds, you would think it’s something from a Dr. Seuss book – but it happens here in the Orient. If the government wants there to be a smog-free day (national holiday, Olympics, Mr. Ed appearance, etc.) the government shoots a rocket containing silver iodine within, which seeds clouds and brings about rain to dissolve the smoggy veil. Too insane to be true.

I bet He is simply giggling (a manly giggle of course) at us ants below thinking we’re somebodies because we plant clouds. Check out Job 38 and be humbled you cloud planters…

Anyway, thanks to my cloud planting friends we had two days of a beautiful blue sky here in the Big B. It was so liberating and refreshing. It wasn’t quite a Utah blue Dad, but it was a fresh smog-less blue. I love Beijing. It is my new home. The food, people, sites, and mission is unbeatable – but the smog is the one grey flaw. It is like a moist colorless sheet that covers your face with suffocating laughter.

Vision – hazy.

Breathing – choppy.

Me – trapped in a loaf of colorlessness.

But, for two days the sun smiled and the blue army of the sky fought the good fight against the forces of the hazy grey legions. And it was glorious. My cloud planting friends planted clouds which rained for two days before the Mid Autumn Festival – a celebration of the full moon. And so, we could see a full moon and few brave stars for two nights. It was liberating.

In the morning, Mike (FOC legend and brother) and I biked to Tiananmen Square – 16ish mile ride round trip. It was the perfect day to saddle up the D’Lorean and pedal like there was no tomorrow. It’s kind of comforting to be living in the Big B, on my bike, with my cell phone in my pocket, in my city; and to see tourists with their back packs resting on their stomachs, sunglasses propped on their skulls, maps blowing in the wind with a look of rushed look on their faces that screams, “I just want to shower, sit down, and have a brew.” It’s kind of nice to not feel rushed, to see the touristy things when I see them – not trying to squeeze them all in within 49.2 hours.

Mike and I stopped by some hutongs: what Beijing used to be – a maze of homes surrounding a courtyard. They are fascinating – kind of like a subdivision but 1/13^th the size. Shrunken mazes of living. Mike told me that Beijing is bulldozing these hutongs faster than you can say, “kung pao chicken.” By razing these living connections to the past in place of high rise apartments – cement towers standing tall but not knowing why.

So as we were exploring this hutong right across the street from the Forbidden City, we bumped into a man who lived there. Mike and him were talking in Mandarin, so I picked up the occasional “kung pao and General Tsao” but other than that I was merely a mute observer. After about 13 minutes, I realized that I was witnessing a witness. And as I looked into the blue sky I thought of the cloud planters, and I thought how much I would rather plant this kind of seed, a seed that lasts, a seed that doesn’t smog over, a seed worth planting a thousand time over.

Thank you cloud planters; but I’d rather plant something more.

- m -