running in China

I am running in China. I am running and it is hot and humid and I am soaked in my own sweat. Today’s sun is new and I am running a few paces behind an old man who might be twice my age. I smell garbage and diesel fuel exhaust, then I watch the cracked sidewalks to prevent a twisted ankle, then I hear the sounds of high-rise tower construction and taste the grit in the air. I spit into the meter-square plot of dirt that surrounds one of the many trees in this northeast city and hurtle away from a man who is welding something not entirely a meter away from my course and me.
I am running behind a man who is unknown to me but it doesn’t feel that way. I lengthen my stride and start to enjoy the naturally induced euphoria of my long run. Now it is typical of me for my mind to wander thru thoughts and passions. Every life I’ve never lived but hoped for, every person I’ve never known but inspired. These moments live and die like the mosquitoes that occasionally buzz around my ears when I stop for a traffic light at an intersection.
Among these mosquitoes are the words I speak to the man behind whom I run. I do not introduce myself but acknowledge that he represents the world’s largest population and longest uninterrupted culture, and that I represent the foreigner who will come to China in numbers as vast as the stars in space to shape and influence China in ways not seen in 5000 years. I say that, at this moment, together we are the world’s desktop icon for “change.exe.”
I say that I am running behind him, but only now, and that I should inquire as to whether I’m to follow along or to pass the torch, but I’m sure that I’m to do both. The man and I are racing ahead wildly and with great enthusiasm. We do not run from anything but what we leave behind us moves quickly out of sight. I am sober and drunk with excitement. Dreams flash like the welder’s torch. Today’s sun is young but very bright. I am running in China.