Look at the title. “The Pulse of the Neighborhood.” Read it again.
“The Pulse of the Neighborhood.”
Everything with a pulse ends, one way or another; just like a living being, neighborhoods thrive and dry over time. Cities see a rise and fall, and then rebirth as new habitants move in.
Such is the way of life.
The Pulse of the Neighborhood
I often climb to the rooftop of my house, peering at the far-away mountain ranges or contentedly counting the stars. There’s an odd, giddy feeling standing up there, which I’d attributed to the heights; nothing protected me from a 10-floor fall, and braving that sure was euphoric.
But what the community security guard told me today, after he saw my silhouette from up there, made me rethink it.
“Some say, when this place goes to sleep, it leaves something behind,” he told me when I climbed down from the maintenance ladder. “That’s what my father told me before he retired, anyway. That the land shows you its breath, and it shows you the night.”
Some years ago, another kid, like me, came up every so often. He’d gaze at the stars, lose himself in the seamless inky sky, and just lie down on his back for a while.
“He often shared his findings with my father,” he told me. “My father was the security guard as well, and when the boy came down in the dead of the night, he’d be the only one around to listen.”
The sky was beautiful here, and I didn’t need that tale to convince me. I had seen for myself the glistening lights among the heavens; no amount of light pollution could detract from their beauty. But the guard told me that there was more.
One day, not long after he’d settled down, the boy noticed an abnormal silence. True, the population had been slowly trickling out for the past several years, but there was still a certain bit of life on the roads. Not now, though. He sat up quickly—there were no car horns, no traffic lights blinking, not even a breeze. Looking down, he saw empty streets, shuttered storefronts, and…nothing else.
The serenity was absolute.
“Hello?” he called out. His call echoed through the valleys of alleys, but he heard no response.
As he stood up, something floated into his ears. A soft tune, some might even call it a melody.
No. He listened more intently: it was a breath. He could feel a pulse.
With a start, he realized that this was a heartbeat, and one of something that encompassed him—something more than him. It felt soothing, like home; tired, not unlike his grandparents settling in for the night. And within the singsong beats, a hint of resignation was breaking through.
There was a tap on his shoulder. Reflexively he whirled around—and found himself face to face with an old lady in a silk dress smiling faintly, an upturned mouth further creasing her already wrinkled features.
“The nightscape is beautiful from up here, isn’t it, son?”
Every time he came up onto the roof, his eyes had been glued to the clouds. He’d never paid attention to the world below, and now that he did, he shared the sentiment. In the dark, the lit roads shimmered like a galaxy of its own caliber.
“You know, you people around here have never been content with looking down.” The woman sighed as she sat, crossing her legs and motioning for him to join her. “You’re either looking up, or across the oceans, or ahead, or to the left and right. But never at your feet, even though it’s the only thing you’ve been on top of all your life.”
The boy looked at his feet in shame, at a loss for words. Her statement rang true.
He looked up, but the surroundings were different. He found himself standing among rice fields at the crack of dawn, with the woman looking decades younger. The sun slowly rose, and the crops started harvesting themselves. Shacks, then cottages, then brick buildings were slowly erected by invisible hands. By noon, bricks had been reduced to rubble, and concrete was spiraling out of the ground. The sun continued its indifferent arc, and the architecture kept on morphing in their own pace.
And as this happened, the woman aged. Her smile never wavered, but the scars of time showed themselves. As the day progressed into night and even modern apartments fell into dilapidation, she thinned, paled…
And the two of them snapped back to reality. That’s when it clicked.
“The heartbeat is yours,” he whispered. “You are…”
“Everything,” she smiled. “I am the land, the wind, the music, the people. All of you.”
“And you’re fading.” It wasn’t a question.
“Not fading. Just tired. As you come, I wake, and as you leave, I tire until the time comes to retire until the next dawn.”
He still looked uncertain.
She patted his hand reassuringly. “The sun has set, my child. There is nothing left for either of us in this day, and we both know it. I’m just here to breathe in the last hours, and since you were here to join me, I decided to tell you my story. Our story. It would be nice to show someone the pulse of this neighborhood just before the lights go out.”
He nodded. He’d seen their story, he’d seen her whole day.
“Is this where we say goodbye?” he asked, gesturing at the streets below, still devoid of life.
The old lady stood up and shrugged. “It’s almost my bedtime. But kids like you, you’re restless. The night is still young elsewhere.” He cast another glance downwards, and felt a breeze caress his cheek. When he looked up, the lady was gone and he was all alone on the rooftop.
As he slowly climbed down, a car horn sounded from far below.
“He told my father about that encounter that night, right after he came down,” the security guard told me. “And when he was done, he didn’t walk home. He just kept going down the street. My father called out to him, of course, but he just looked back and smiled. ‘She needs her rest tonight,’ he said, ‘and she told me it’s fine to go.’ Nobody saw him, nor his family, again.”
I just nodded. I didn’t tell him, but I could feel the pulse, too.
The land was slowly dancing into the night, and I knew that soon, just like the boy, it would be time for me to leave her in her slumber.
The Story Behind the Story
It’s true: my neighborhood is at its sundown. It had grown from an easily overflooded rice paddy to a small community, then from a small community into one of the most affluent areas in Taipei. Yet now, it is undeniably in recession.
Locals call the neighborhood Tianmu, which literally translates into “Sky Mother”—this has a lot to do with its way to riches. In early days, it was mostly fertile farmland; the name of my middle school, Lanya, stems from a local term for mud. Any wealth one accumulated was practically wholly dependent on the sky, the weather, and the divine.
Over decades, through reforms and renovations, houses were erected, and it slowly modernized into one of the most expensive sectors in the city. Tianmu went from working class into almost a strictly residential area. The quality of life was said to be some of the best in town—“even the air smelled sophisticated.”
But this development came at a price. As the economic boom wore itself out, the population increase stalled. What few stores there were among the fancy apartments slowly shuttered themselves as rent stayed up but paying customers diminished.
We’d over-expanded, so to speak. The oversaturated bubble, while it didn’t burst, still led to an increasingly ailing economy.
The root of this recession is twofold: one, the high cost of living, and two, record-low birth rates.
As stated, Tienmu is—was—one of the most expensive residential areas. But the same reason it has maintained its cosmopolitan status is also acting as a filter now, driving new blood away while the old wither within, and stores are forced to jack up prices to remain profitable and counteract the ever decreasing flow of patrons, leading to a vicious cycle.
The birth rate isn’t helping either. I am quite literally among the last generation here, as the slightly older youth have left either for lower prices or more job opportunities. At night, there is rarely a peep; the majority of its inhabitants are at the age where retreating to their beds by nine is commonplace.
The community is at its sundown. Bit by bit, the population is ticking down; year by year, the average age rises as another batch of young blood leaves.
We will bounce back one day, yes; it’s only natural that the economy goes through cycles, and the night is never permanent. But for now, I know one other thing with certainty.
Sooner or later, I will join the rest of my generation, and bid this neighborhood a tearful goodbye.