Mr Chen and his wife live in a shack on the roof of the adjacent building with
their pidgeons. I can see them from my kitchen windows. Sometimes they wave
and mutter “lao wai” to one another when they see me cooking breakfast. They
breed racing pidgeons but sell the slow ones to bird restaurants on nearby Anda Lu
which is almost like pidgeon street around here. Going to work, I sometimes pass
Mr Chen hobbling along with a cage full of worried yet ambivalent looking birds,
unknowlingly on their way to the pot. The Chens also eat their own pidgeons.
I have seen them inviting their selected guests to dinner. Mrs Chen begins by
petting a victim affectionately while cooing at it like a hospitalized relative
just prior to wringing its neck. Pidgeons seem so oblivious to their surroundings
sometimes; as if life is a meaningless chain of event for them.
One day the Chens were releasing birds to fly a race. Mrs. Chen was noting
down departure times. The birds flew a pattern like pilots fly standard circuits
at airfields. The group circled left overhead twice, chattering contendedly as
pidgeons do, then vectored off on a bearing to some destination known only
to them and, I assume, the Chens. Three hours later the group returned looking
very pleased with themselves. You could almost see the smiles of sheer delight
and pride on their little beaks. Pidgeons seem to know they are the kings of
aerial navigational in the avian world.
Pilots and pidgeons are similar in many ways. We stick to rules, have great
navigational skills, talk to each other in the air and manage flights as efficiently
and safely as possible. But we sometimes experience sudden endings like in the
dream I had recently where I performed a very poor forced landing in a clapped
out Cessna on Anda Lu. I, however, still live to fly whereas the Chen’s less racy
pidgeons die to fry. I guess neither pidgeons nor pilots should should ever
become too oblivious to their surroundings. No one should, for that matter!
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