5.10-5.11, Wuhan
Note: skipping a few journal entries to write this one, just because I feel like it.
5.10:
After a thoroughly unpromising start (temps in the high 80s and low 90s, lots of humidity and pollution and noise), Wuhan is really looking up. After trying unsuccessfully to contact Zhi Hui last night -- her phone ran out of credit -- we connected this morning, though that didn't really do us any good. There seems to be a particularly resilient language barrier there; or, more precisely, a comprehension barrier. Our conversation went something like this:
"Hello?"
"Hi Zhi Hui, this is [my fake Chinese name]."
"Oh hey! Are you having fun at Wudang Shan?"
"Uh... I did, but I'm in Wuhan now, remember I told you yesterday?"
"Oh yeah! So are you having fun?"
"Sure, it's not bad. You said you were going back to Hangzhou on the late train tonight?"
"Yep! My train leaves at 9pm."
"Cool, well I'm having dinner with some new friends tonight, if you want to join us."
"Oh really? That's great! Well, have a great time... If you need anything, just give me a call, and if you ever go back to Hangzhou we should hang out!"
"Er... All right?"
"Great! Talk to you soon!"
Anyway.
Will and Sadie are a hilarious couple, and very ballsy. They're travelling even lighter than I am, both in terms of personal effects and Chinese language ability, of which they have virtually none. I suspect their Welsh accents probably don't make communication with local Chinese any easier either, so they've had a frustrating time of it, even with the food. They related a story about some barbecued squid-on-a-stick which I'll refrain from repeating; suffice it to say I'll avoid the squid on a stick from now on. I very much doubt I'd be able to deal with many of the difficulties they've borne, or at least not with their good humour. I treated them to a nice dinner and they're on the fast train to Shanghai tonight, so hopefully they'll have a better time of it there, and will be more willing to open up to the incredible street food.
Ma Jing, aka Molly, is also a lot of fun. She's a recent graduate at the nearby fine arts university, and we became friends because the Bank of China staff love Americans for some reason.
Let me explain.
Ma Jing has been trying to exchange a fistful of dollars for about half a year, with no luck because they're a little ragged around the edges, and the bank won't change them. On the other hand, they're much more willing to give Americans the benefit of the doubt.
Since I had a bunch of dollars I had meant to use in Southeast Asia, we hatched a brilliant plan: I would trade her my crisp new bills for her tattered ones, and we'd go down to the bank. I'd pretend I couldn't speak any Chinese and flash my U.S. passport around a lot, acting the part of the dumb American. Ma Jing would change my pristine dollars, I'd blunder my way through exchanging hers, and we'd be golden.
If there's one thing I'm good at, it's playing/being dumb, so that was no problem. Although, the second I wasn't allowed to speak Chinese, the temptation to do so was almost overwhelming. It was a huge challenge not to nod at various things being said to me -- with varying levels of frustration -- by the bank staff, until Ma Jing had a chance to translate for me.
In the end, we strutted out of the bank clutching fat stacks of 100RMB notes, giddily feeling like we'd just robbed the place. The great Wuhan Bank of China heist of '09.
To celebrate, even though she'd engaged to come to dinner with me, Will and Sadie, Ma Jing insisted on treating me to some of her favorite street foods; iced sweet Jasmine tea, and some maddeningly delicious popcorn chicken.
We had some time to kill, so she took me on a tour of her university campus; noting that all the sculpture students we saw were boys, we were also quick to point out that they all seemed to be working on female busts and nudes; constructing their own fashion of sexual equality, I suppose.
5.11:
Sitting at the hostel bar, which happens to double as the front desk, has proven to be a thoroughly worthwhile pursuit. Quite aside from being the shadiest and breeziest place in the hostel, it is by far the friendliest. Ma Jing is working today, as is her brassy friend Yi Ran / Anna, an acquaintance of theirs from a hostel in Beijing (Mia), and the boss, Yang Guang, who happens to be a stunning natural beauty in what appears to be her lower thirties, sporting something of an earth-child look and a warm, flashy personality.
She's very much like a big sister to the staff here, and to the regulars (a group of which I have apparently become an honorary inductee), she's alternately flirty, motherly, and sisterly. Oedipus would have had a stroke within minutes of meeting this woman. Freud could have written volumes.
Business is slow, so we're just all hanging out here away from the heat, chatting with each other and whoever happens by. Ma Jing handed apples out to everyone, which were happily devoured, and I was invited to join them for the staff lunch, which was up there with the best meals I've had here in China. Not necessarily for the food, which was very good, but for the company. Mostly I'm just sitting here absorbing the atmosphere; it's astonishingly familial and casual, and even though I only understand every third word or so, the laughter and smiles are universal, and the good nature radiating from everyone around me precludes the need for literal translation.
I get pulled into the conversation once in a while; someone asks how to say something in English, another says I look a little like a Buddha, to a riot of laughter, and the boss repeatedly offers me a job and a place to stay. In general, I'm just happy to sit here and soak it all in.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, I've decided to stay here a couple extra nights. The staff and boss have invited me to a memorial tomorrow night for last year's earthquake, which will involve lots of readings by local poets. They're trying to persuade me to read an English poem, but I've repeatedly assured them that's a non-starter.
Ma Jing is off to parts unknown tomorrow, and thence to Fenghuang, where I'm meeting her in a couple days. So she'll miss the memorial, which is a shame, but the crowd here is a lot of fun; the boss and staff lend the hostel an air of restless fun, and the whole city seems a brighter place for it. It's a pity the boss's husband isn't here as well, I would have loved to see the interplay between the two.