The Trashman Gets Busted

Today the Trashman got busted. Let me explain.

The Trashman is the eighty year-old guy who lives next door to me. Every time I see him on the stairs or in front of the building I say, "There goes the Trashman" or in Chinese "你好，垃圾人”.

The Trashman's day consists of dozens, if not hundreds, of short trips to the collection of trash bins in the center of our apartment complex. As a matter of fact, I can always be sure that if I am taking out my trash, he is either there fishing for trash or on his way back (with his arms full of trash) to his apartment.

In the beginning, I thought this was strange. The front door of the Trashman's apartment is usually open. When I have friends over, they get a look at the Trashman's kitchen. It is packed with--you guessed it--trash. They ask me, "How can he live like that?" and say "He must be a little crazy."

I am used to the Trashman. Despite his habit, you could say he is a sweet old man. Every morning, I do taiji in front of our building, and almost every morning, the Trashman walks by, his hands full of his catch for the morning, and he smiles at me, like the Buddha of Trash.

The Trashman's operation is multifaceted. He uses a corner of the garden in front of our building as a station where he dumps trash and sorts through it. At least he doesn't want to dump those rotting fish innards and papaya rinds on his kitchen floor. The other day, I was doing taiji and suddenly smelled something terrible. Sure enough, the Trashman was in his corner, cracking open a new shipment. It definitely affected my qi.

The Trashman has always had an operation on the bottom landing of our building. He has a small stool and he sorts through all his wares there. A little pile of plastic bottles, paper, all kinds of shit. Usually, it is hard to walk out of the building. But, he politely steps aside so I can get through.

In the mornings, when I am cooking my breakfast, I look through the window and see him bringing his haul in. I realize that everyone has their routine, their work, their livelihood--something that keeps them going everyday. Some might say that the work of the advertising executive is unnecessary, that it is "Vanity, all vanity" as one famous dude in the Ecclesiastes once said.

Yet, perhaps in whatever we find that keeps our interest, maybe there is something holy. Maybe it keeps us going, looking forward to the next day. It keeps us curious, young, keeps that spark in our eyes. Michael Jordan would spend hours and hours on layups and jumpshots. The Trashman has his own practice.

Sometimes I find myself wondering, "What kind of stories does the Trashman have?"

Up until last month, there hasn't been much of a smell. Only a little inconvenience because the Trashman's annex at the bottom of our building has gradually gotten larger. And if he wants to keep his kitchen knee deep in trash, what business is that of mine?

But recently, there has been a smell. And I have wondered why no one has said anything.

I thought, well, this is China. The rules are different here. I figure no one has said anything because, perhaps, people think this is normal. You know, all that suffering for the past sixty years and that Cultural Revolution--peoples' thresholds are different here.

It's true, China is opening up. But while you can build skyscrapers and shopping centers like Xintiandi, it takes a little more time for peoples' thinking to change. Think, "another generation."

Any foreigner living here knows what I am talking about. In the beginning, it's a bit apalling, but you get used to it. People spitting. Parents holding their kids while they pee in a corner of the subway station. A guy sitting across from me in the school cafeteria from me shoveling down his food with chopsticks, directly from his plate into his mouth.

It doesn't really phase me anymore, especially since I have made friends here and see the good that exists here, the humanity.

So, the smell isn't that bad, this sorting through the trash is probably keeping this sweet old guy alive, and besides, I think, he is doing a hell of a recycling job. Save the earth!

This morning, though, while doing taiji, two official-looking dudes and a lady descend on the Trashman and start lightly scolding him in Shanghainese (actually, to tell you the truth, I can't honestly tell you if they were scolding him, because everything said in Shanghainese sounds like a scolding). But I think they are telling him, "Look, guy, you can't do this."

Suddenly a woman yells from her window high in the building across from us. In a few minutes, she's down talking to the dudes and the lady, telling them something obviously related to the Trashman. They all look at the rags that the Trashman has hung on the tree across from our apartment (I forgot to tell you about the trash-hanging operation). A bamboo pole with about fifteen small white rages hanging from balances on two trees. Sometimes, the Trashman dries newspapers.

People walk by and linger. I want to put in my word, so I grab one of the dudes and tell him, "I am his neighbor. I just want to tell you that if I leave, no foreigner seeing all that trash in the front of our building will want to rent my apartment, and my landlord will be very upset."

The dude is very nice and says they are trying to take care of the problem. He tells me that someone else in the building complained of the smell and the trash on the landing. I go back to doing my taiji, away from the group of people who have assembled in front of my apartment. It looks cathartic.

The nice old lady who doesn't speak Mandarin (only Shanghainese) in the next building over sees me doing my taiji and she starts talking to me in what sounds like very heavily accented Mandarin, only some of which I can understand. She says, "He is crazy, he is crazy!" (“病了病了！”） and "I always see you doing taiji every morning--good job!".

There's an older man, let's call him Da Ye, about sixty, in our building who is always talking to the Trashman. He comes back and see the ruckus and starts arguing (again, it's Shanghainese, so for all I know, he was reciting Tang love poetry). I know that he is the Trashman's friend. I assume that in a very Confucian way, he is doing his best to honor the elderly and honor his neighbor. He helps the old man clean up.

Later today, I return home and see Da Ye and the Trashman doing more cleanup. I feel relieved and hope there won't be so much trashing lying around and I won't have to smell some of those smells. I see them bring back an old, battered suitcase from the trash bins. I go out to get dinner and see the big suitcase in the Trashman's kitchen.

Somehow, I don't think that Buddha smile has left the Trashman's face. He hasn't really said a word today, as usual. He just smiles at people. I figure tomorrow morning, he will be at it again, running a tighter, leaner operation, but nevertheless, still in business.

You got to keep on going.