Shag carpet
Between the front gate of the university and my apartment is a vast expanse of lawn. A narrow sidewalk cuts through it diagonally, from one corner to the other. This being a forestry university, and a friend of the environment, eco-friendly lawn signs are posted.
One of the signs says, in the bad English translation, "Cherish the wood grass, share the green;" another reads, "The green, the true love, in all softness and warmness;" the other reads, "Please keep your feet off the green, green grass."
I walk the sidewalk that cuts across the lawn every night, as it's the only route home. During the winter, this was a placid walk, all alone in the silent night, under a brilliant starlit sky, as bats swooped overhead and crickets chirped.
Since spring arrived a month ago, my walk is no longer solitary, and often not quite silent. Scattered throughout the lawn are spring lovers, with at best five feet between them, squirming in the grass as they get their evening exercise on what, at night, is nothing more than a gigantic shag carpet.
The sight of them puzzles me. There's no cover on the lawn of any kind -- no trees to shield them from view, no noises to drown out theirs', nowhere to run, or hide, should an unwanted visitor arrive.
But this is China, and when you have 15 roommates, as every first-year student does, and limited space, and you're accustomed to days-long train rides packed together in tiny, airless spaces with hundreds of strangers, and hormones rage as if you're a teenager, which you are, a five-foot swath of lawn beneath a brilliant starlit sky is luxurious, a bastion of privacy, never mind the neighbors.
What's more puzzling, though, is the sight of these sessions given the university's recent declaration of martial law against hand-holders. When I think about it, though, the lovers are abiding closely by the posted rules: they certainly are sharing the green, their very presence testifies both to the green's softness and to its warmness, and they dutifully
are keeping their feet off the green, green grass.
