[Phoenix Pen Club] Tintin: Impression of "Baltimore"

[Phoenix Pen Club] Tintin: Impression of "Baltimore" Phoenix City Tintin In my mind, "Sleepless Man in Seattle"...

Phoenix Tintin

In my mind, the most shining scene in "Sleepless in Seattle" is not the meeting between the hero and heroine at the end of the film, but the two little stars far away on the map. Fate can be so far away.

Needless to say, one star is in Seattle on the West Coast; and the other, less known one, is in Baltimore on the East Coast.

The plane arriving at 4pm made me miss the bird's-eye view of Baltimore at night, but the humidity that hit my face still reminded me of the distance between here and the ocean. Baltimore's airport is obviously undergoing renovations. At first glance, the messy building materials are reminiscent of Beijing's West Railway Station. Sitting on the slow light rail, while looking for the name of the destination station, I looked at the East Coast star from the window. The first few stops were still far from the city center, and only a few scattered huts could be seen in the thick green. The trees here grow very "wild", with various branches twisted together wildly, giving it a weird feeling like something in Gong Qijun's movies.

The sound of the wheels and rails suddenly became hollow, and the train ran onto a bridge across the sea while turning. Looking from above, the sea water is not clear, but a turbid dark blue. There are still several abandoned bridge piers standing in the water. Perhaps it was too expensive and laborious to dismantle them, so they were left to wait for the erosion of time. Two steamboats passed each other head to tail, and a deep white line was carved into the sea.

The buildings, or city, appeared in front of us. Although the main buildings of some major banks are still beautiful, many more are old or even abandoned buildings. The glass windows of some old buildings are all broken, and from a distance, they look like a naked street kid standing on the street. What is gratifying is that the entire city is filled with a brick-red tone, which still complements the dark blue sea here.

The instructor invited us to dinner in the evening. I've always stayed away from seafood, but the theme this time was unfortunately Baltimore's famous blue crab. This restaurant is called "Little Italy", but the noise of the people around it has an American bar style. A large amount of pepper paste is applied to the steamed crab, which makes people think that it has just been caught and has not been cleaned. After struggling with the hard crab shell, my hands were already covered with pepper wounds - eating them in my mouth made me feel pain in my heart. I couldn't help but wonder how the ladies and maids in Xue Qin's novels used their delicate hands to show off the "black and yellow skin".

After spending the night in the hotel, it started to rain the next day. The rain was not heavy, but the wind was not light, which was just right for pedestrians to change the direction of their umbrellas. It was the lunch break of the academic conference and the rain had almost stopped. I went looking for a nearby place to fill my stomach, but ended up going further and further away until I reached Inner Harbor. This place is more like a lake than a seaside - there are no flying seagulls in the sky, but a few ducks and drink cans rippling in the water with the wind. Even though it was overcast, the sky was surprisingly bright. On a dark green bench by the roadside, a beggar was dressed in a strange and dazzling red, with his deep-set eye sockets and messy hair creating an impressionistic picture. A fire truck roared past, a group of middle school children came running happily, a mother slowly pushed two blond children, two tall black men were running, and a "Sea Taxi" ferry was moored with its whistle blowing. For some reason, there is still a sense of tranquility here, and even the sound of the heavy raindrops hitting the sea surface is clearly audible.

Meetings, hotels, my life is repeating itself every day in just one week, but I am re-reading Baltimore every day. It is old yet fresh, gloomy yet sentimental, noisy yet tranquil, lonely yet joyful. Here is a star in the night sky. Although it is not bright, its sparkle tells of its existence. When the plane left Baltimore far away, looking at the clouds covering the sky at night through the string window, I suddenly knew that some things could be so out of reach. (Written on July 2, 2005)