麻辣校园

                              Plan and Change

We Chinese often quote such a saying: a plan cannot cope with changes.

This is specially true in my city, in my community: by the entrance the day a two-storeyed building for rent was erected was exactly the time it was ordered to be pulled down with a red ruthless Chinese character on its shiny yellow wall in a red dramatic circle “Demolish”. However, by some special relation and invisible persuasion, the new building survived the autumn, winter, spring with a number of businesses having moved in and paid some rent, but not the summer when in scorching sunlight, some heroic machines threw its powerful arms around, touching the brand new palace into rubble and ruin, with its noise and scene reminding you of nothing but that horrible earthquake.

Like an earthquake, those small, once noisy and flourishing shops, restaurants by the roadsides, at the intersections suddenly disappeared, with their remains in debris, and big machines working energetically.

“A big change in a year, a fundamental change in three years”---this is a goal set by the municipal authority, and I have no objection to it.

This capital city of the province used to be a village, and still featured in one way or the other, for those small roadside/intersection shops and restaurants made the city more a Scorborough Fair, a super free market rather than a metropolis. That’s why the new governor and new mayor vowed to usher in a striking change.

So they plan to change, and change to plan.

Every time when I ride along the streets or walk on pavements, I hate those little ditches, different in depth, various in width, irregular in design---scars left over by different departments---you completed the road or pavement, I planed to cut it open to lay down a water supply line, some drainage pipes, or a gas pipeline, a new fiber communication system---oh, dear me!

There are too many cuts in the city’s belly---only because of different plans, and different changes, and those who masterminded them differently, and indifferently.

Someone smartly suggested a so-called “Zip Plan”: you don’t have to cut or stitch a belly frequently, all you have to do is to cut the belly once and stitch it with a “Zip”, it is well done and for good. But I doubt the “Zip Plan” because different departments may plan different zips.

Talking about plan and change, I can’t help but think of one of my friends with whom I designed a perfect plan, but this friend abruptly changed the plan without informing me in advance, which may, I suppose, leave a stitch or scar on the friendship.

Oh, forget it! After all, to change a plan, or plan a change is not an easy thing.

(July 6, 2008)