Tunxi/Huang Shan Shi

The last several days have been among the most happily contented that I can readily remember. Xue Ping, Michael, Jing Yun, and You Lun have proven to be extraordinarily pleasant company, and I will admit that travelling with a white guy greatly increases the leeway that the locals afford me.

Xue Ping has made an especial impact on me; I'm not sure why. She has a seemingly boundless energy, and a relentless joviality that would be wearying in anyone else. She is one of those rare individuals who seems to only occupy one of two states of being: asleep, or having fun. But there is an underlying core of steely strength that makes itself known when needed, which makes me fear for the possibility of her one day deciding that it might be fun to take over the world.

I suppose she reminds me a bit of Jess -- strangely enough, Jessica is her English name -- or at least, what I imagine she must have been like, among her friends and before the cancer finally slowed her down. Xue Ping has the same quality of pulling everyone headlong into her wake as she chases the next adventure, about which I have heard so much from Jess's friends.

I'm not sure why I've gotten along with Michael so well. Certainly we've been useful to each other, but I believe there is a mutual liking between us that arose when we first met. He has some qualities that I can recognize in most of my friends; a relaxed cheerfulness, a kind of ... not exactly passivity, really, but more a pacifism... a willingness to go with the flow, as it were. As gleaned from our conversations last night, it seems he is haunted by many of the same demons I am, which perforce endears him to me even more.

Jing Yun is almost the yin to Xue Ping's yang, if you'll excuse me the overly Oriental expression. She is extraordinarily sweet, demure, and lovely, but there's the occasional gleam in her eye or a turn of phrase that belies a sharp mind and a sometimes wicked sense of humour. The fact she is so singularly without ambition or direction, again, only endears her to me that much more.

If we were family, as we joke we are, Xue Ping would doubtless be the eldest sibling, the prankster and slightly unstable dominating figure that gets us into and out of all sorts of trouble. Mike and I would be the bumbling half-wit middle brothers, and Jing Yun would be the sweet little sister of whom we are all fiercely overprotective.

You Lun -- I cannot seem to remember her Dutch name -- is something of an unknown quantity at this point. Certainly she is great company and a lot of fun, but of all of us, she seems to be the most outwardly cynical. Of course, on such short acquaintance these impressions are always amplified by a few misplaced or misunderstood comments.

As a Dutch girl who's spent the last few years studying at Beijing University and several years in the States, she is almost certainly the most well-traveled of any of us, so it is likely that I am the overly naive, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed creature captivated with wonder at every ordinary thing around me, rather than the reverse.

I will surely trip to keep in contact with everyone I've met here -- I'm to join You Lun in Hangzhou in a few days, at any rate -- but I'm afraid my natural loneliness and need for emotional connection is binding me to these friendships far too powerfully. I am already feeling apprehensive about leaving Tunxi, and I know I will have a soft spot for this little corner of China for a long time to come.

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9pm:
Xiao Bai (Mike) still hasn't come back from the mountain... Xue Ping and I are getting worried. She's working the graveyard shift tonight, so I'll be up late worrying with her, until Mike gets home.

Odd, how easily that word came to mind.

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9:40pm:
Whew. He called to say he spent the whole day climbing down off the mountain, and decided to stay at a hotel in Tangkou rather than fork over the 150 yuan for a cab ride back to Tunxi.

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[ About Huang Shan (the mountain); we climbed it yesterday, spent the night at Bai Yun (White Cloud) hotel at the top, when I started to feel shaky and feverish, with super-sensitive skin and severe head and back pain. We did a short loop this morning, after which I elected to take the cable car back down, and Mike went on his happy way. Pics and a more detailed post to come later. ]

Shanghai Train K8418 to Huang Shan Shi

I have my own sleeper compartment it appears, which is simultaneously something of a relief and a disappointment.

On the one hand, it would have been nice to share the compartment with some Chinese students, or an old sage monk who could reveal to me the secrets of inner peace. Or, I must reluctantly admit, some Swedish bikini model on holiday.

On the other hand, it appears that none of the inhabitants of this train car fit any of those descriptions.

There is a friendly French family of three from Marseilles, whom I befriended at the station; the father, Jean, reads more Chinese than I do, having taken classes for 3 years in preparation for his trip. There's an elderly French couple that speaks no English, who looked at me very sourly indeed when I accidentaly occupied their seat.

They were much more cheerful when I brought Jean's wife over to ask for my biscuits back, which I'd accidentally left behind. There's a dapper older Chinese gentleman in a grey tweed suit and trilby -- I could not invent that if I wanted to -- who gave me a very familiar gaping stare as I asked if he'd seen my biscuits, in my trademark broken Chinese.

And aside from a British guy with what I must assume is his Shanghainese girlfriend, that's about it.

All in all, I suppose I'll be happy to have my own little cave from which to enjoy the views; assuming they're not all of industrial wasteland.

Shanghai Train Station (Shanghai Zhan)

True to my roots -- my father is also an inveterately paranoid traveler -- I have arrived at Shanghai Train Station a good 3 hours before my train is due to leave.

This is, nevertheless, something of watershed moment for me. I am leaving my "intro to China" city, a.k.a Shanghai, for destinations farther afield. Short of Hong Kong, Shanghai could be said to be the most Westernized of Chinese cities. They're used to foreigners here, which has been of invaluable help. Most signs are duplicated in English, most people speak a word or two of English, and the service industry is used to foreigners. The much-lamented contradiction of my appearance compared to my language skills were a source of mild embarrassment, but no real difficulty.

In truth, the hardest thing I had to do in Shanghai was buy a pair of jeans. Even when I had to find a hiking supply store, there were wifi hotspots aplenty to help me find one, and an English speaking concierge to help me figure out how to get there.

Resources such as these will be in far shorter supply where I'm heading. I was starting to demoralize myself with this inevitability a few hours ago, but now that I'm actually on the move, my mood is one of happy anticipation. Tinged with some apprehension, certainly, but I suppose that's just healthy.

Still, I am left wondering if it's possible to be a little homesick for a place you've only been for five days. At any rate, it's certain I'll miss Shanghai a little. I'll miss saying "Xujiahui," because it took me so long to figure out how. I'll miss having breakfast in the shadow of the Xujiahui Cathedral, munching away at a container of potstickers and sipping a bag of sweet soy milk while tai chi students step and sway, step and turn, with glacial precision, like a massively stoned ballet. I'll miss Joe and Lily, my almost-friends of the fourth floor, who will certainly be strangers again, if I see them in July.

Most of my time in Shanghai was marked by crushing jetlag, but as a result, I saw the back streets of Shanghai for four mornings straight as the city awoke, the morning mists chased away by the rising steam from food stalls, and the shouts of children pursuing each other to school.

As far as jetlagged mornings go, I have known few better.

The girl behind the counter regards us with a mock-stern look as we trudge up to the door, sweating under our packs. She does a little Bruce Lee shuffle and bounce, thumbs her nose at us, and beckons us over if we dare.

Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to Jessica, as she introduces herself to my new white friend, Xu May, as she informs me after it arises that my Chinese is not what it should be, or Xu Xue Ping, as she tells us over dinner that night.

She's a receptionist at the Old Street Youth Hostel in Huang Shan Shi, aka Tunxi, and she's appointed herself our guardian. She gives us both new Chinese names... Xu Xue Feng for me and Xu Xue Bai (nicknamed Xiao Bai... Little Whitey is one meaning, but also a diminutive for a famous T'ang poet) for my friend Mike, adopting us into her family, whose influence, she assures us, is far-reaching and formidable.

There's a brief power struggle when her friend Christine, aka Liu Jing Yun, says that her family's in need of some reinforcement too, so Jessica gracefully cedes Mike to appease her. We then proceed to spend half the evening mocking them for the various deficiencies of that pesky Liu family -- they can't hold their beer, they wear jackets out to dinner even though everything's still hot and sticky from the day's lingering heat, and look at those weird beer glasses they drink from!

It's midnight before Jessica and Christine parade us back through town to the hostel, where we tipsily split an orange and head off to bed.

I was planning on bypassing Tunxi altogether, moving on to the mountain as soon as possible. Now it looks like I'll be here for a few days. It'll be too rainy to climb the mountains today, the girls are happy to show us around, the hostel is more convenient if marginally less comfy, and unspeakably more lively and fun than the Shanghai Marriott, and I'm finally starting to feel like I've begun my trip in earnest.

Still haven't had to use a squat toilet yet, though.

Ooookay, here we go again. You can do this. Maybe this one won't be so bad.

The waitress glides up to my table, and drops a menu in front of me with a cheerful smile. Then she stands there and waits, pen and pad in hand. I hesitate, and she asks me a question, her Chinese accent too unfamiliar and her delivery too rapid-fire for me to assimilate.

"Uh... Give me a minute," I say in English.

This was not, by all indications, the expected response. I am the subject of a blank stare for a few moments, then her head turns to the side a bit as she calls for reinforcements, her eyes never leaving mine.

Another waitress slips across to us, conferences with her colleague in a low murmur, and turns to gape helpfully in support.

At about this point I start to gradually ease in the Chinese, to help them deal with this new reality. I've quickly learned not to start off in Chinese, since it's far more embarrassing when my vocabulary deserts me mid-stream, leaving me marooned on some distant planet.

Sadly, this effort is not about to raise myself in their estimation.

I point at a picture on the menu, and ask what it is.

Four eyes glance at the menu, then back to me. Hesitantly, the first waitress responds, and an enlightening cultural exchange follows.

"That's pork."
"I see."
"With garlic greens and chilies."
"Ah."
"Would you like that?"
"Ermm... Okay, what's this?"
"That's also pork. It has vegetables."
"Ah. Truly? I'll have that, then. Also, a beer and one bowl of white rice."

I've ventured too far with that last sally, and here comes another flurry of Chinese, too fast for me to follow. Back to English:

"Uh... What?"

Aaaand...

Yes, welcome back to the staring.

This latest exchange seems to have cemented some kind of pact between us though. It is now our tacit agreement that I will continue to act like I should be wearing a foam helmet at all times, and they will proceed accordingly.

For the duration of the meal then, I am offered such delights as "Chopsticks. Okay? These are CHOPSTICKS," and a nice glass of "Tea. T-E-A." When I have gathered the strength of will to ask for the check, I am told that they are owed forty-three yuan, and when I'm fumbling around for my cash, they are happy to illustrate this with a series of raised fingers.

Occasionally, I volunteer that I'm from the States, which is generally greeted with a kind of condescending indulgence, as if to a child who insists he is from outer space despite an obvious lack of antennae and tentacles.

So I imagine my most lasting legacy in Shanghai will be as a short-lived story, passed between hotel and restaurant staff, about that guy who looks Chinese but doesn't speak Chinese.

It can't be that bad, you may be thinking.

I wish, but no... I have independent confirmation, from the closest thing to a friend I've made in Shanghai so far. Today, Lily -- the girl who works in the business center of my hotel -- was delighted to be able to tell me about her friend who works in the gym, who had regaled her that very morning with a story about a Chinese guy who insisted on speaking English to him.

Well. This certainly bodes well for me, when I head into the more rural areas tomorrow.