...as in the sound made when experiencing technical difficulties. I think Tuesday in my frustration, I removed my memory card from the wonder that is Windows without first ejecting it. As a result, all my photos are gone. There is a ray of hope in that I took some pictures on the bus ride from Guilin to Yangshuo that show up on my camera, but not on my thumb drive. So maybe an index file is corrupted? I'm going to my other Pro Duo memory stick, on which I had backed up the first two day's photos.
The homesickess began on my last day in Tangkou, with nothing really to do. I think part of it is just getting used to the lack of lights and heat in the daytime. Saves energy, but on dreary days it weighs.
I got out of the cable car down from Huangshan. The guidebook said minibuses run to Tangkou for 10 yuan. Now if I only knew what a minibus looked like. I walk up to a mini-van parked in a waiting area with an open door and a few people in it. "Ni3men qu4 Tang1kou3 ma?" "Qu4." So I hop in. Later I'm thinking, "I don't think this is a minibus." But the folks were nice. One guy asks me a question the length of a Chinese treatise (for me, this means more than four words). I say my standard "I only speak a little." He says something else equally long that I have to apologize at. Another guy gets it though, and starts asking simple questions...well, at least topical ones. He says, "*******piao4liang********?" The only word I catch is "pretty," we're leaving a scenic mountain, and so I say, "Hen3 piao4liang" and people smile. I then add, "Hen3 leung3" and make a shivering motion and people chuckle.
They let me off in Tangkou and point the way to the Bank of China (my landmark, in that I can pronounce it in Mandarin). I start walking down the main non-tourist street, passing farmers selling streetside, then a market, and just day-to-day life in a small town. It's nice to just stroll. Even nicer to be warmer. I walk under a bridge/overpass, and my gut says I should be up there on the crossing road (there's a stairwell), but I continue on a little longer, figuring I can always backtrack. A little further down, happen to glance down a side alley and see the internet bar I had went to before. I actually read the sign! At last.
After lunch, I just sit and read in Mr. Hu's restaurant. I don't feel like going out and looking for another cold, unlighted place. I am being unkind - just writing that reminds me of my moodiness. So I'm sitting and reading, and I look across the way and see a local couple sitting in their first floor business area, just reading the paper and drinking tea. They have their coats on too. And that resets me. This is just fine. It's different, but just fine, and I will enjoy my afternoon like the locals, having a pleasant read and enjoying scalding tea.
As I read, I hear some kids laughing. Kindergarten must have let out. Cute, little rosy-cheeked four year-old girls walk by in that stompity-stomp way kids do dressed in brightly-colored puffy coats. Later, Mr. Hu suggests some activites for the afternoon. I inform him of my pulled hamstring. He suggests a foot massage. Halleluah! That hit the spot. There's just something about being surrounded by several young women, their conversation and laughter, laughing (good-naturedly I believe) at my Mandarin. The woman actually giving me the massage has a good vibe. She repeatedly but gently corrects my attempts, speaking slowly but without talking down to me. Even though we didn't have any deep exchanges, I no longer feel alone. One of the young women takes my backpack (they don't seem common in the area), and struts a little, saying "Wo shi Meiguoren" (I'm an American) in an endearing, playful way, and we laugh.
I catch the 6:40 am bus and get to Hangzhou airport at 12:30 pm. I wouldn't have made the noon flight. My flight, however, is not until 10 pm. I enter a Chinese fast food restaurant with Bruce Lee as the logo. They have two vegetable side-dishes. II get both with rice and a soy milk. am immensely pleased by my ability to do this. I read for a bit and then leave to check in my bag.
In deciphering the departures board, I realize you can't just check-in whenever. You have to wait until your flight shows up at a counter, which appears to be about 2 hours before the flight. I have six hours to kill, and looking around the lobby, there are too few seats by about a factor of three. I quickly switch into Chinese-"scare allocation resource"-mode, see an opening, and make a break for it. I say "Chinese" but I've actually gone into the same mode trying to get a table at Pete's Tea & Coffee in LA on a Sunday morning. The more things change...
My flight is delayed, but eventually leaves. It's a 737-700, fine, but the climb and descent rates are about three times the average in the US - we rocket into the sky, pulling nearly two gees and then on descent we drop like a rock - my ears popping every few seconds. There are mountains around both airports, so that may have accounted for it. It also accounted for my brief prayer as we hit a wet runway in the rain and the thrust-reversers thundered.
I catch a cab to the hotel I reserved the day before online. I spluged a little. But still at 178 yuan, it's a deal. I walk into reception and discover they advertise the room for 598 yuan. There's no way in hell I would have thought to bargain down that far. This http://www.ctrip.com/ website is something else.
I sleep in. It had been a 22-hour day. I catch a cab to a Buddhist temple with an associated vegetarian restaurant. Excellent. I take a little while to meditate in the temple. This is just a temple, no hawking, no tourist trade. There is a shop for religious paraphenalia, and I did stop there to ask directions of a monk. She was good looking, even bald. In Mandarin, I ask where the restaurat is, she points around the corner, I say thanks, and she says you're welcome. I give her a big smile as our eyes meet for a while. I'm probably going to hell for that, but it's these little connections that matter all the more when so little can be said. It happened in Hangzhou too. I was working on a computer that faced the street. A woman on the back of motorbike started passing as I looked up, and our eyes met. We both looked away, but as she was about to leave my field of view, I looked at her again just as she looked back. It's kind of timeless, that moment, and hard to describe: quiet, right, no demands. Makes you understand the saying that the eyes are the window to the soul.
Then, of course, I had my learning experiece of the day. I get dropped off at, well near, the bus station, and as I'm looking around where to go, a guy goes, "Yangshuo?" I say yes, thinking he has a minibus. I really need to break these relationships off when I realize I'm the only one giving : ) As I'm following him to yet another bus, I realize he is a middleman. I overpay by about a factor of four (I'm guessing) as he hails a bus for me. These family-run buses ply the main routes looking for passengers before heading out. I could have stood around myself and flagged one down. But here's the thing I realized as I obsessed about it for five minutes: it's arbitrage. There is a large discrepancy in information, not just of where to catch the bus, but how much it should be. This applies across China as well since there is so much internal migration. Hence, haggling. A similar situation arises on freeways in LA: no one drives by the same rules. I've seen cars merge, cross five lanes of traffic, and drive five mph under the speed limit in the number one lane. In Chicago, you would be run-off the road. But in LA, there are just so many cultures merging (ha!), that such disarray is unavoidable. And though something like 90% of the Chinese population is Han Chinese, backgrounds are nonetheless widely diverse.
After obsessing for a little while, I breathe easy: I have been here so many times before. Whatever, he got me for five bucks. But it did prepare me for this: as I get off the bus in Yangshuo, I am immediately besiged by a guy trying to get me to take a look at his hostel. Great deal. Just look at the rooms. No thank you, Wo yijing ding le (I've already booked a room). But you haven't paid. Just take a look. Why not. For Pete's sake. Having bought a new car and helped a friend do the same, I realize he is not playing by the rules, and so neither will I. Any answer to a question will just prompt a new angle of attack. So I stop answering and just keep walking. This repeats three other times. Upon reaching my hotel, I realize I need to apply reverse-social engineering. Next time I will say I'm meeting a friend.
It's a nice room with a view and the most comfortable bed I've encoutered so far. The mattresses have been very, very...VERY...firm. I'm okay with it, it's kind of like savassana during yoga, which also feels good as long as you lay flat on your back. Having settled in, the guidebook recommends a show of lights and song. I go. It's fantastic. The moutains themselves are lit up, lots of beautiful signing (I got a CD), a little dance. What a great day. Well, almost. I hit Lotus Vegetarian Restaurat. Ahhh. Wood, grey brick, excellent jasmine tea, and reasonable prices. And not to be too metro (too late), I loved the table setting, understated glazes, unadorned but fine wooden chopsticks. It's funny: since Yangshuo is all about tourism, many folks speak English. At dinner, I feel like I'm cheating. And observe: I am unhappy when I can't communicate, and I'm unhappy when I can communicate. Some part of me just really wants to be unhappy.
Walking home, I decline a few offers of sex massages (apparently single males are prime targets), but accept a shoe shine. I tip her, and get a brilliant smile. All these little human connections: I seem to be noticing them more. Tomorrow I am going kayaking down the Li River, and then maybe a bike tour in the afternoon. It's nice to be on vacation! Good night,
Dan
PS Hopefully, posting pictures will resume tomorrow. Yangshuo is absolutely awesome, the mountains mystical.
The homesickess began on my last day in Tangkou, with nothing really to do. I think part of it is just getting used to the lack of lights and heat in the daytime. Saves energy, but on dreary days it weighs.
I got out of the cable car down from Huangshan. The guidebook said minibuses run to Tangkou for 10 yuan. Now if I only knew what a minibus looked like. I walk up to a mini-van parked in a waiting area with an open door and a few people in it. "Ni3men qu4 Tang1kou3 ma?" "Qu4." So I hop in. Later I'm thinking, "I don't think this is a minibus." But the folks were nice. One guy asks me a question the length of a Chinese treatise (for me, this means more than four words). I say my standard "I only speak a little." He says something else equally long that I have to apologize at. Another guy gets it though, and starts asking simple questions...well, at least topical ones. He says, "*******piao4liang********?" The only word I catch is "pretty," we're leaving a scenic mountain, and so I say, "Hen3 piao4liang" and people smile. I then add, "Hen3 leung3" and make a shivering motion and people chuckle.
They let me off in Tangkou and point the way to the Bank of China (my landmark, in that I can pronounce it in Mandarin). I start walking down the main non-tourist street, passing farmers selling streetside, then a market, and just day-to-day life in a small town. It's nice to just stroll. Even nicer to be warmer. I walk under a bridge/overpass, and my gut says I should be up there on the crossing road (there's a stairwell), but I continue on a little longer, figuring I can always backtrack. A little further down, happen to glance down a side alley and see the internet bar I had went to before. I actually read the sign! At last.
After lunch, I just sit and read in Mr. Hu's restaurant. I don't feel like going out and looking for another cold, unlighted place. I am being unkind - just writing that reminds me of my moodiness. So I'm sitting and reading, and I look across the way and see a local couple sitting in their first floor business area, just reading the paper and drinking tea. They have their coats on too. And that resets me. This is just fine. It's different, but just fine, and I will enjoy my afternoon like the locals, having a pleasant read and enjoying scalding tea.
As I read, I hear some kids laughing. Kindergarten must have let out. Cute, little rosy-cheeked four year-old girls walk by in that stompity-stomp way kids do dressed in brightly-colored puffy coats. Later, Mr. Hu suggests some activites for the afternoon. I inform him of my pulled hamstring. He suggests a foot massage. Halleluah! That hit the spot. There's just something about being surrounded by several young women, their conversation and laughter, laughing (good-naturedly I believe) at my Mandarin. The woman actually giving me the massage has a good vibe. She repeatedly but gently corrects my attempts, speaking slowly but without talking down to me. Even though we didn't have any deep exchanges, I no longer feel alone. One of the young women takes my backpack (they don't seem common in the area), and struts a little, saying "Wo shi Meiguoren" (I'm an American) in an endearing, playful way, and we laugh.
I catch the 6:40 am bus and get to Hangzhou airport at 12:30 pm. I wouldn't have made the noon flight. My flight, however, is not until 10 pm. I enter a Chinese fast food restaurant with Bruce Lee as the logo. They have two vegetable side-dishes. II get both with rice and a soy milk. am immensely pleased by my ability to do this. I read for a bit and then leave to check in my bag.
In deciphering the departures board, I realize you can't just check-in whenever. You have to wait until your flight shows up at a counter, which appears to be about 2 hours before the flight. I have six hours to kill, and looking around the lobby, there are too few seats by about a factor of three. I quickly switch into Chinese-"scare allocation resource"-mode, see an opening, and make a break for it. I say "Chinese" but I've actually gone into the same mode trying to get a table at Pete's Tea & Coffee in LA on a Sunday morning. The more things change...
My flight is delayed, but eventually leaves. It's a 737-700, fine, but the climb and descent rates are about three times the average in the US - we rocket into the sky, pulling nearly two gees and then on descent we drop like a rock - my ears popping every few seconds. There are mountains around both airports, so that may have accounted for it. It also accounted for my brief prayer as we hit a wet runway in the rain and the thrust-reversers thundered.
I catch a cab to the hotel I reserved the day before online. I spluged a little. But still at 178 yuan, it's a deal. I walk into reception and discover they advertise the room for 598 yuan. There's no way in hell I would have thought to bargain down that far. This http://www.ctrip.com/ website is something else.
I sleep in. It had been a 22-hour day. I catch a cab to a Buddhist temple with an associated vegetarian restaurant. Excellent. I take a little while to meditate in the temple. This is just a temple, no hawking, no tourist trade. There is a shop for religious paraphenalia, and I did stop there to ask directions of a monk. She was good looking, even bald. In Mandarin, I ask where the restaurat is, she points around the corner, I say thanks, and she says you're welcome. I give her a big smile as our eyes meet for a while. I'm probably going to hell for that, but it's these little connections that matter all the more when so little can be said. It happened in Hangzhou too. I was working on a computer that faced the street. A woman on the back of motorbike started passing as I looked up, and our eyes met. We both looked away, but as she was about to leave my field of view, I looked at her again just as she looked back. It's kind of timeless, that moment, and hard to describe: quiet, right, no demands. Makes you understand the saying that the eyes are the window to the soul.
Then, of course, I had my learning experiece of the day. I get dropped off at, well near, the bus station, and as I'm looking around where to go, a guy goes, "Yangshuo?" I say yes, thinking he has a minibus. I really need to break these relationships off when I realize I'm the only one giving : ) As I'm following him to yet another bus, I realize he is a middleman. I overpay by about a factor of four (I'm guessing) as he hails a bus for me. These family-run buses ply the main routes looking for passengers before heading out. I could have stood around myself and flagged one down. But here's the thing I realized as I obsessed about it for five minutes: it's arbitrage. There is a large discrepancy in information, not just of where to catch the bus, but how much it should be. This applies across China as well since there is so much internal migration. Hence, haggling. A similar situation arises on freeways in LA: no one drives by the same rules. I've seen cars merge, cross five lanes of traffic, and drive five mph under the speed limit in the number one lane. In Chicago, you would be run-off the road. But in LA, there are just so many cultures merging (ha!), that such disarray is unavoidable. And though something like 90% of the Chinese population is Han Chinese, backgrounds are nonetheless widely diverse.
After obsessing for a little while, I breathe easy: I have been here so many times before. Whatever, he got me for five bucks. But it did prepare me for this: as I get off the bus in Yangshuo, I am immediately besiged by a guy trying to get me to take a look at his hostel. Great deal. Just look at the rooms. No thank you, Wo yijing ding le (I've already booked a room). But you haven't paid. Just take a look. Why not. For Pete's sake. Having bought a new car and helped a friend do the same, I realize he is not playing by the rules, and so neither will I. Any answer to a question will just prompt a new angle of attack. So I stop answering and just keep walking. This repeats three other times. Upon reaching my hotel, I realize I need to apply reverse-social engineering. Next time I will say I'm meeting a friend.
It's a nice room with a view and the most comfortable bed I've encoutered so far. The mattresses have been very, very...VERY...firm. I'm okay with it, it's kind of like savassana during yoga, which also feels good as long as you lay flat on your back. Having settled in, the guidebook recommends a show of lights and song. I go. It's fantastic. The moutains themselves are lit up, lots of beautiful signing (I got a CD), a little dance. What a great day. Well, almost. I hit Lotus Vegetarian Restaurat. Ahhh. Wood, grey brick, excellent jasmine tea, and reasonable prices. And not to be too metro (too late), I loved the table setting, understated glazes, unadorned but fine wooden chopsticks. It's funny: since Yangshuo is all about tourism, many folks speak English. At dinner, I feel like I'm cheating. And observe: I am unhappy when I can't communicate, and I'm unhappy when I can communicate. Some part of me just really wants to be unhappy.
Walking home, I decline a few offers of sex massages (apparently single males are prime targets), but accept a shoe shine. I tip her, and get a brilliant smile. All these little human connections: I seem to be noticing them more. Tomorrow I am going kayaking down the Li River, and then maybe a bike tour in the afternoon. It's nice to be on vacation! Good night,
Dan
PS Hopefully, posting pictures will resume tomorrow. Yangshuo is absolutely awesome, the mountains mystical.
Don't worry too much about your memory card. That happened to me too....while in Asian in fact. You can get cheap (maybe free?) programs that will recover the data for you. Anyway, sounds like a great trip so far. Bumps along the way are all part of the deal. I'm really enjoying the blog (a way for me to escape from work) so keep it up!
ReplyDeleteThis has been a wonderful day for you..the plane ride(hilarious!); the haggling, the massage, and I love the "scarce allocation mode"! You want to be happy, trust me..just be there now! What an awesome experience you are having! Don't you have to pinch yourself once in awhile to see if all is really true and this is realy happening to you? God Speed, Love Mom
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