I've traveled a little bit in my day. I wouldn't call myself a world traveler, having never been out of the Western Hemisphere until recently, but I CAN say this...I know enough Spanish to get by south of the border. I totally dig the culture of the Carribbean. I love Frisco, and New Orleans, parts of Texas aren't too bad. New Mexico is beautiful if you look at it right. Chicago had great pizza. You never beat a good Rockie Dog at Coors Field. Its been a very sheltered sort of travel.
There's something about new places that change you, though. I don't care if its a river 25 miles from home you never swam in or a mountain you never climbed before. Its an experience that leaves you changed. Even if its in some teeny, tiny way.
There's something about every new adventure in life that grabs you by the throat, and if you're lucky, the heart.
Even in familiar places there always seems to be a tree you failed to notice, or a person you haven't met yet. And, the beauty and wonder of getting lost in a place is that you never know what is going to happen. Except when you're on vacation, or in search of an adventure, then the unknown doesn't seem to haunt you. You hunt it like a jealous spouse that just found her lover's car at the bar-floozies house by stalking her on Google Earth.
I'm a control freak and a creature of habit. I park in the same parking spot EVERYDAY...if that red Honda is in my spot when I get to work, it ruins my day. Seriously. I'm screwed up seven ways from Sunday.
This bitches ducks walk in a row, in the same order, every day. Consistency is security, and as messed up as it is, I've found myself in unstable places, just for consistency's sake.
I leave the house before 4:55 because if I don't, it doesn't give me time to get a soda before the train hits, and I can't sit and wait and have to drive two blocks to the underpass...on a good day I cuss, on a bad one, it about sends me into a nervous breakdown. The coaster on the desk goes two pen lengths from the printer, and if you dare touch my zen sand art, that in a stressed out moment--caused by something like noticing I ironed my pants wrong and have double pleats and now can't stand it if anyone looks, or maybe I was out of facial scrub--which I painstakingly spent a half hour calming down by making the lines perfect in that liitle garden on the file cabinet, I'll be pretty sure I'm gonna need medication.
I'm crazy like that. For example, other people's hair FREAKS me out. Some guy on the bus in China passed out next to me and his hair kept touching me. I washed everything on my body at least five times. Throw me in a muddy puddle to catch frogs, though, and I don't seem to care about contracting a brain sucking amoeba.
I get it. I'm weird.
This shy girl from Podunk, Idaho, the one scared to say three words for 20 years of her life, had a mid-life at 25, spent a few years drunk dragging a snowboard across 7 Western states, met some really cool people, and one day just decided to put it away, get her shit together, and not look back. Somewhere along the way, I realized I had vocal chords and a mouth, and sometimes, my brain doesn't do a very good job of filtering and I know it would probably be better if the pendulum swung a little further back to the shyer side.
But, for a while, its been pretty mellow. I have my routine. So, whatever it was that made me decide China was the place to go--I mean REALLY! Unknown people have always kind of freaked me out (I get that from half of my relatives, most of whom have never been out of the shadow of the Big Butte)--I have no clue. I just always wanted to go, and sometimes, I just get a wild hair up my ass and decide to do crazy shit. Like bungee jump when I'm absolutely terrified of heights, or drive in rush hour through the south side of Chicago (that was a big one; I grew up in a town without a stop light or a four way stop), or hit Market Street in the middle of the night just because Jack Kerouac did it, or go balls to the wall off the Head Wall on a powder day and break my wrist.
It doesn't always end well. Most of the time, it does...aside from some broken limbs and that dread lock fiasco that ruined my hair for a while. Or the black hair...that one was bad too. Aunt Beryl told me she wouldn't be caught dead on the shitter at the ranch with hair like that.
So, why I ever decided to run away 5,000 miles across the planet, travel around with my sister, in a country I can't even begin to speak the language or even read a single character of the written language with one and a half BILLION people, still makes me wonder. But, I did it, and I was excited. Terrified, but excited.
There is something about throwing yourself to the wind, being at the mercy of others, and just letting what happens, happen. Sometimes, a girls needs a new perspective...on everything.
It took me three days on my little trip to finally get into that mind frame, and it was all brought about by a tiny little girl in Beijing and brought to fruition by another little girl that chased us for a block in Xi'an. Well, them and everything that happened in between and before I left.
I was eating a duck brain in a fancy-schmancy peking duck restaurant in Beijing. A little girl at a table full of about 15 family members was waving at us in between shots of soda with her grandma. Every one else at their table was shouting "Gambe!" and downing beers. It really made the Irish look weak. We would wave at her and she would look at her Nan, shout "Gambe," and her and the grannie would take a shot of soda. Grannie would pinch her face like it was the nastiest moon shine ever, blow out like it burned, and they'd laugh and laugh. Then she'd wave and smile.
Nik and I couldn't say enough in Chinese to even order food or talk to a cab driver. We had to point at the menu and say "Chigga" which means this, because we just couldn't say "Nigga" which means "that", without Mom and Dad haunting our subconscience. But, Nikki was saying something to me as I was folding a duck taco, and i looked over and saw the little girl standing by her elbow. Her whole family had cameras at the ready. She stuck her hand out and gave Nikki five. The restaurant erupted into cheers and the flashes were blinding. I don't think I have ever smiled that hard in all of my life. She looked at us and said, "Welcome to China!" Then threw up peace signs and so did Nikki. Even more pictures and applause.
I think the thing that amazed me most, is here we were, in the middle of the country, unable to communicate anything except, "I would like a bottle of beer," and "hello," and everyone was telling us welcome. We're the only people around with light skin and hair, and they are fascinated and friendly. When they left, they all came by our table and said goodbye...in English.
As I was laying in bed that night, I started thinking about the last three days, and the three before I left. How crazy life gets sometimes, and how scared we sometimes are to let it happen. I thought of all the times I've heard people rant, "Its America, we speak English." And how they frown on anything foreign or different, instead of realizing our similarities. How we expect everyone to be like us. We have big egos, us in the West, when we could really learn a lot.
We're all thrown into this great big place and expected to survive and learn as we go. I've become a firm believer that everyone should feel vulnerable, should, at some point, depend on the kindness of others to get you through. I think everyone should know what it feels like to be a minority...to feel utterly and completely lost only to discover there are good and kind people wherever you go.
And, it wasn't China that made me feel lost. Its been life for the last two years. Knowing you are some place in life you always wanted to be, but it just doesn't feel right, and you can't put a finger on it, or describe it, or give it words or meaning. It just builds up in a steaming volcano of misery, getting ready to explode.
We climbed the Great Wall the next day, and I was accosted into pictures with a Grandma and Grandpa that knew about as much English as I do Chinese, less in fact. They were so excited to see us. They grabbed us as we descended the wall, with looks of awe and complete and utter excitement to see us. They chattered very fast in Chinese, and showed us their camera. We posed for pictures, and that Grannie, she just held my hand and smiled the biggest smile I have ever seen in all of my life and patted my arm, constantly, for about 7 pictures. All I could do was laugh right along with them.I felt so different, but it wasn't a bad different. Of all the places I've traveled outside of the states, I've never met better ambassadors for a country than I have in China, and I never felt more welcome...despite the stares.
We boarded the train for Xi'an the next evening, and I don't even have words to describe what it was like. We couldn't move, at all. More people in one train car than the whole county I grew up in. I wish that were an exaggeration, because its just something you have to experience, I could describe it, but it is completely unbelievable unless you were there. Nikki and I, thinking we had won the freaking lottery scoring those train tickets, only to be thrown into the middle of complete and utter chaos. We honestly thought, in seven stops, people would get off....they just kept getting on. And, at the end, they were pulling bicycles out of the crevices of the train.
We sat across from a man and his son who spoke a little bit of English. In China, they call the U.S., 'The Beautiful Country." I told him, yes, it is beautiful and changed my camera card to show him pictures of the Salmon River, The Lost River Valley, a rodeo in Dubois. He pulled out his laptop and we watched "Transformers" and "Fast and the Furious"...with Chinese subtitles. "American Movies," He said all excited when he put them in. I noticed it finally got quiet and looked up to about 50 people gathered around us watching and smiling.
Before this, Nikki and I had been more than slightly freaked out. We tried to upgrade and the conductor shot us down like a flaming Hindenburg. I tried to go to the bathroom, took one look at it and decided no more water. Then I just decided I had to laugh at the craziness of it all. Me and my sister. Here. In this place. Alone. Not even sure at first if we were on the right damn train. Then I imagined my mother trying to use that bathroom and I laughed until I cried. People hacking up loogies and spitting on the floor. Kids in the train station defecating on the floor. The noise...all of it. And I would just get lost in a hilarity of tears. Happy tears. This is life. REAL life. How REAL people live, and I wouldn't change that experience for the world.
This nice man, at the end of the trip, handed me his business card, and said, "Welcome to Xi'an. I'm a man of integrity. If you get in trouble or need help, my number is there." You could tell he was sincere, and he looked at both of us, and I saw worry.
He had a right to worry. There isn't even a sign in pinyin, once you get to Xi'an. We had the lady at the hotel in Beijing write the address for the hotel in Xi'an on a piece of paper so we could get a cab. There was no hope of a cab. So we walked. For about an hour. Got followed for a long ways by a guy who we finally had to turn around and give the evil eye to. People here stared even worse than any other place. They would be walking down the street, look up in shock and point. Stand and stair.
We got on the bus the next morning to go see the terra cotta warriors. There were only a few seats left, and a group of teenagers sat near us. The boy nearest the aisle started talking to me, but it soon became obvious the girl next to me spoke better English. They asked where were going, seemed thrilled I knew who Chairman Mao was and that I knew of the Long March. The young man kept asking me if I knew someone, but I couldn't get the name. He put it in his phone, and showed me the translation. "Do you know Jesus?" it said, and he showed me the cross around his neck.
"Yes, I know Jesus." I said. "I usually wear one, too." He gave me a huge grin. They all seem to smile so big, once they have a reason.
We found ourselves walking again. Another little girl looked up, and yellled, "HELLLLOOOO!" at us. We smiled and said, "Hello," back. She giggled and laughed and hooped and hollered and starting skipping down the street. I'm smiling again, in awe. I don't know that I have ever seen someone so happy to see me, let alone a stranger.
A block later she came running up behind us, jumped in front and made us stop. She was out of breath, having chased us a ways. She gave us a great big smile and said, "Welcome to China!!"
In these three days, I discovered the happiest and most memorable moments in life happen when you have no idea what is going to happen next. You see poverty and desperation, but people are happy. You find good people, with good hearts, when you feel most vulnerable.
Perhaps its feeling vulnerable that awakens the senses to the kindness that really lies all around us. Maybe its just knowing, no matter how hard you try, you can't control what life brings you, so you see what is great in the tiniest moments. You discover that happiness lies, not in what you have, or the security you think you have, but in tiny smiles, great moments in humanity when others reach out and truly are happy to see you. Its letting go, skipping down the street, running in the rain.
Its showing kindness to people who owe you nothing, have nothing to give you but a smile and the consolation that no matter where you are, how lost you feel, they can make you feel special. Its letting go, and letting life happen.
I wonder if they see the poverty in me...the poverty of a judgemental soul, the poverty of never being able to live in the moment, and maybe, just maybe, this is they're offering to a different kind of beggar walking the street.
We all have a lot to learn about being ambassadors for humanity...after all, no matter how much we deny it, we are...citizens of the same world.
No comments:
Post a Comment