And I'm back from China. It was an immense trip, a massive trip, a tremendous trip and trying to put it down for you is daunting. So, White Stripes style, I'm just going to limit myself by dividing my transcriptions in into four broad categories, and see what rises to mind.
All in all, with all the inter-city trains and buses, Ed and I
spent 40 hours in transit. Which is not to include waiting around at trains stations and bus stations and bus stops, or any intra-city travelling like buses or taxis. Which leads me to the first great swoop of good fortune on the trip, Ed and I getting lost from the herd in Xi'an, a city 914 km south of Beijing.
We travelled with Maddie and Klara and met Maddie's brother Alexander in Beijing. The first full day there, on account of big group slowness, we actually accomplished nothing. No time for Great Big Wall, no time for Tianneman Square. I was one frustrated tourist. In Xi'an me and Ed jumped in one taxi and they for another, and luckily, oh so luckily our driver was lying when he said he knew where they hostel was.
With our giant packs Ed and I went in search, and after walking down the length of the street,
we found these children in a decaying courtyard
who explained that the hostel was closed.
Success! We checked into the best hostel in the world (free lockers, Terracotta Warrior Themed Bar, guitars and water and courtyard and birds and western toilets and free flip flops and free beers can you believe it), free of compromise and slow moving, and went to the Big Goose Pagoda, but more on that in a future, Sightseeing post.
The main radio pleasure of the taxi drivers in Xi'an, based on our limited sample, is choral classical music, which added a sense of the epic to a lot of my time in Xi'an.
We took hard seaters for the trains the whole trip,
rows of 2 or 3, often with sweaty cats trying to get edges of seats, or kneeling at our feet , warming our legs in the just bearable heat (that rhyming was all unintentional). People were everywhere, smoking by the toilets, lying on the floor, leaning against everything. Plus no toilet paper. It was near impossible for us to get any train tickets at all, me in a panic on our first night to get us to Xi'an in two days time, biking like the wind from the hostel to the Beijing Train Station some 4 blocks away.
It was a 4 day holiday in China centering around May Day, so Ed and I were often the only "old whiteys"* around the many Chinese tourists.
These hard seaters were terrible, especially when surrounded by old men who were quite unashamed to hork onto the ground at our feet and smack their lips for minutes after finishing their pastries. Old to middle aged men owned the trains, hanging around in the aisles in big gangs, talking loud, staring down old whiteys, and bumping past anyone in their way. They were the kids on the back of the bus. Happily, like smoking or horking, drinking is quite acceptable on the trains, which made those 12 hour overnighters much more bearable. In fact, we did meet some nice people on the trains, including this philosophy student who gave me an apple.
But no doubt, the best ride was Luoyang to Beijing, the night of May 3rd. Although there was only 9 seats in our row (3 vs 2, and 2 vs 2), we had, at the peak, 14 people around, and some curious onlookers enjoying our attempts to speak Mandarin and to shake off the Xi'an dialect we had spent learning the last 3 days. Our tickets were on opposite sides of the aisle, so with our common link we extended the party to both sides. Mostly students around with dapplings of old men, the one beside me never changing his expression from half lidded lucid eyes, and the old man in front of me with the most expressive smile because it would crackle open a thousand wrinkles on his wizened face. He woke me up at 6 am, still far from Beijing, either as a joke or to show me the sun rise. Also, around 3 when he saw me nodding off, he said, for all his buddies to hear, "cup of caffee" which apparently is the funniest thing in the world. Also in front of me was an engineer, and his wife, a pHD engineering candidate, who were great. To my right sharing my seat or standing up was Ping,
a music student who taught me how to make a paper boat, and told me many interesting stories. After a few hours, we all were very comfortable with each other, and even become quite intimate, an incredible thought considering we'll all never see each other again. As a teacher in Japan, I heard a lot about general Chinese dislike of Japan, and when I told Ping, quite truthfully, that I liked China more than Japan, she replied, "Ah, you are handsome and clever!" Which I didn't take too seriously, an instinct confirmed later when she asked how many people were in my family. "Oh, two sisters." "Ah, they are very pretty."
Sitting by Ed was probably the best couple in the world, a man working for the Environment Ministry in China who rubbed his girlfriend's feet, an architect student in Beijing. Despite his contribution to China's awful environmental policies, they were a lot of fun and the kind of couple that I find inspiring.
Finally, on one 5 hour bus trip, our driver honked his screaming horn loud and long as he passed every car on the road. After 2 hours of that madness, I grew comfortable with the rhythm and fell asleep, only to awake to noises of worry and trees directly out the front window. There I clenched my fists to face death in the certain tumble down a mountain side, but luckily it was only a truck carrying trees that we just avoided rear ending.
More soon.
*laowui - a term used by children for old whiteys like me and Ed..."lao + surname" is what you use for buddies who are older, "shao + surname" for buddies who are younger.
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