China Reflection

Morning

“I stayed up all night praying.  Didn’t sleep at all,” Paul says to me when we meet in the hotel lobby in the morning.  He seems wide awake and full of energy.

“You prayed all night?”  I ask him.

“All night,” he says.  “And you know what…” he pauses, “a miracle happened…My friend asked me to pray for her.  She’s been having some trouble recently, and asked me to pray for her.  I did.  And something good happened.”

I’m glad that Paul is so full of light and energy today.  He is like a box of Rice Krispies with his ’snap,crackle, and pop’ attitude.  I don’t have time to find out what the “good thing” is that happened to Paul’s friend.  Jacky and Amanda walk into the lobby to greet me.  The students are waiting for me.  I don’t know where I’m going.

The teacher

We get into the Jesusmobile and drive through the town.  It’s not a huge town, but there’s really no such thing as a tiny village anymore.  There are thousands of people here, and the towns and areas that used to be grasslands are being mined for the coal that lies beneath the surface.  Amanda’s parents’ grassland where they previously took their sheep to graze has been purchased by the government so that it can be mined.  This is progress.

We take a right underneath a dusty bridge and head past the restaurant where we’ll be eating lunch later.  I’m told that we’ll have fish from the Yellow River, which runs beside the town.  But first thing’s first…time for me to be a teacher again.

When we pull up to the school, nothing particular stands out to me about the building at first.  It has 3 stories stacked on top of one another.  I hear the voices of kids chanting and repeating what teachers are saying.  There’s a courtyard in front of the school with dry, flat, colorless landscaping.  It seems utterly ordinary.  There is a propaganda poster in front of the school that reads, “Dedication today will lead to tomorrow’s success.”  This is just what I was hoping for…an ordinary, typical, Chinese elementary school.

The school’s principal comes out to greet us as we pull out in front of the office building.  Amanda used to be a teacher at this school.  They greet one another, and then introduce Paul, Jacky, and myself.  Luckily, the students are in class now; otherwise, I’m sure I’d be mobbed by a crowd.  Our coming here is a big event.  The principal leads us into her office.  As we walk through the hallway on the way to the office, I notice an unusal amount of calligraphy displays on the wall.  She reminds me that Wuhai is famous for its calligraphers.  Apparently, there’s a calligraphy museum located in the center of town.  After entering the principal’s office, we sit down on the huge couch while she pours tea for us.  As she picks up the gigantic red thermos, she explains what’s to come:

“So, we thought we’d combine a few classes together into one large auditorium for you to teach them.  This way, more students will get to talk with you at a time,” she says.  The water trickles out of the thermos as steam rises from the cups.

“Ok.  About how many students will I be talking with this morning?” I ask her, anticipating the number that will come out of her lips.

“About 200 or so,” she says.  200…not a bad number.  I have an idea of the lesson that I will give to the students.  I have a stock, “first day lesson,” that seems to work well for kids the first time we meet.  It involves writing one’s name vertically, and then saying introducing something interesting about oneself from each of the letters.  So, my name, “J-e-f-f-r-e-y” and introduction might go something like this:

J: I lived in Japan for one year.

E: I used to be an English teacher.

F: I have 6 people in my Family.

F: I lived in France when I was 2.

…and on and on.  I’m certain that whenever I do this activitity with students that not all of them understand what I’m saying; however, understanding is not the point.  The point is to get them interested in English as something that can be fun and useful.  The point is to get them speaking with each other.  After I finish doing my own name, I model introducing myself to a student or another teacher, and then tell them that they should try and do the same introduction with their name and at least 3 friends.  In a class of 200 students, there are sure to be some students who understand just about everything that I am saying.  They spread the word, the class gets active, the world comes together…everyone is happy and doing something.  This approach is a lot different from the Chinese approach of rote memorization and drilling vocabulary into students.  I’m not about to do that on a one-time visit to a school.  I want as much interaction as possible, so I take my own approach to teaching.  I know it’s not perfect, but it’s active, and it appeals to the students…and it’s fun!  Learning a language should be fun.  That’s what I’ve always thought, anyway.

I don’t tell them any of my plan for the activity.  We just talk for a while, all in Chinese, about the students and the school, etc.  Amanda and the principal catch up with one another.  After we empty our glasses, it’s time to go upstairs and put on the teaching show for the youth of China.

The principal leads us out of her office and out the front doorway of the school.  We walk across the parking lot and square that’s in front of the school.  Our objective is to get to the building across the square.  It’s not a long way to go, but…I’ve already been discovered.  The students start running over to look at me.

“FOREIGNER!  FOREIGNER!”  I’m not sure which of the kids is yelling this, but it’s the first word that I hear.

“Hello?  How are you?”

“What’s my name?”

“Where are you from?”

“Who’s he?”

“FOREIGNER! FOREIGNER!”

I smile through it all and soak it up.  It’s time to be a rock star again.  The kids chase me, but I keep my pace slow and steady.  If I started running now I’d never escape them all.  The principal doesn’t even seem to notice them.  She leads the way up the stairs of the dusty building that we enter.  It’s dusty not because of its oldness, but rather because of its newness.  It seems like it was just finished the day before.  The odors of sawdust and construction fill the building and blow in and out with the breeze.  We walk up the stairs to the second floor.  Just before we reach the top of the stairs, the principal turns to us and says good luck.  There they are…200 children sitting quietly waiting for me.  My audience, my fans.  It’s good to be a teacher.

Class Dismissed

When I start off, there are two girls who sit in front of the class who ask if it’s ok to give me a hug. 

“Of course, why not?”  They hug me.  I worry for a second that every single child will want a hug now, but it doesn’t happen.  The class starts out slowly, and the students are relatively attentive, listening to me when I talk.  In a class this big, there are always one or two students who stick out and can answer the tougher quetions.  Anyone can be king for a day, anyone can entertain a class of Inner Mongolians for one or two periods.  The “newness” effect stays with the kids for about the same amount of time that it takes for the class to run its course.  I go though my self-introduction and then have the kids do their own introductions with each other.  The part of the class where they talk with one another is always my favorite part.  I roam around the room to help people think of words that begin with the letters in their names so that they can complete the activity.  There’s sort of a controlled chaos atmosphere in the classroom, but most of the kids are taking part in the task at hand, asking me questions, speaking with their classmates, etc.

After the teaching part of the class finishes, the students ask me to sing them a song.  I tell the I’ll sing one for them if they first sing one for me.  They discuss with each other, some of them yell out songs names.  Finally, the same two girls who gave me a hug when I walked into the room offer to lead the class in a song.  It’s a revolutionary song.  I don’t understand all of the words, but I can tell that it’s a song that goes well with marching.  The kids sing in unison, yelling the song out in orders, more like a drill seargant barking at soldiers.  I sing them “God Bless My Underwear,” sung to the tune of “God Bless America.”  It’s one of my favorite songs to sing when put in this situation.  It’s just the right length for a song, and no one will get the joke except for me. 

Lunch

“You must be so tired,” the principal says to me after finishing up with the second round of kids. 

“Serving the people invigorates me!” I say, throwing back some propaganda as a joke.  I’m actually not tired at all.  It’s been a long time since I was a “teacher.”  I used to do this sort of thing everyday.  It’s like pulling a comfortable couch out of the attic to sit on for a while, dusty, but still familiar.

After finishing the two classes, taking pictures, and, yes, signing autographs, the principal tells us she would like to take us out to lunch.  Joining us for lunch will be another English teacher, the school’s music teacher, and the physical education teacher.  They are already waiting for us at the restaurant, so we’ve no time to waste.

The restaurant is around the corner from the school, and I’m once again reminded that we’ll be eating fish directly from the Yellow River.  Amanda, Jacky, and I get back in the Jesusmobile after saying goodbye to the kids who are now also on their lunch break.

We pull up to a dusty courtyard where one of the meanest and ugliest dogs greets us as we get out of the car.  Jacky laughs.

“Crazy dog,” he says.

The dog continues to bark at me.  I feel an urge to throw something at it or taunt it.  It’s neck is tied to the end of a chain which is connected to the tree in the center of the courtyard.  We have a staring contest for a few seconds.  The mutt barks at me, unable to jump on me and do whatever it is he wants to do.  I stamp my foot down, causing the dust to unsettle, and the dog runs back a few steps in fear, still yapping his yap.  I’m getting hungry.

“Jeffrey…come on in,” Amanda yells to me, coming out of a hanging curtain meant to keep flies out of the room in which we’ll be eating.  She ushers me into the room, which is already filled with the other guests for the lunch.  The music teacher is the first one to shake my hand.  He has a huge belly, and his face reminds me of Santa Clause without the beard.  He wears a shirt with horizontal stripes on it, eccentuating his belly.  Beside him is the physical education teacher.  Also stocky in structure, he is built like a firehydrant.  There is another young girl standing next to Amanda.  She is quiet like a mouse and I ask her if she is also one of Amanda’s old students.  Giggling, Amanda tells me that she is the school’s other English teacher.  She looks so young, 15 or 16 years old I would have guessed. 

I remember this part of the meal because at this time we have not yet opened the grain alcohol.  There is a salad and the fish has already arrived, fried and crispy.  I like it when they prepare fish this way in China because  I don’t have to worry about the bones.  When I eat a crispy fried fish whole, I can just crunch the bones up in my teeth.  This makes the consuming of the fish much more convenient and much less dangerous.  We sit around the round table, waiting for the rest of the dishes to arrive.  I sit facing the door, as is Chinese custom when there is a guest.  The food arrives dish by dish…and then comes the grain alcohol.  Oh no…another spiral into madness.  The time is only just past noon.   At the same time the bottle arrives through the door, my heart leaps out of my body and walks out the door.  I know that we will finish this bottle off.  I’m already anticipating getting that first taste out of my mouth–that first sip of toilet water.  After that, the grain alcohol just feels hot and I don’t notice the taste so much.  Soon I’ll start to like it.

“Cccccrrraaak.” The music teacher twists open the bottle of grain alcohol.  Now it’s just us…teachers and children and foreigners around the table.  The food is in piled up, and the silence commences.  The physical education instructor pours glasses of the grain alcohol for all the adults at the table.  I can’t get away from this glass.  I have to drink with each person.  Inside I’m holding my breath; outside I try to keep a semblance of calm.  I’ve usually don’t get out of hand with this stuff, but I definitely have let it get the better of me and my friends in the past.  When I first came to China I wasn’t familiar the alcohol (called baijiu) has bested me from time to time.  I remember abandonding my friend in a barbershop after losing a bout with baijiu.  Brandon Pusey had come to visit me from the US after we traveled in Vietnam for a while.  We spent some winter weeks in Yichun in Jiangxi Province and decided to have a night of darts, baijiu, and peanuts in my apartment.  After finishing up the bottle, he decided he needed to go out in the cold and get a haircut.

“Don’t leave me in the barbershop, Jeffrey…you have to tell them how to cut it.”  I can still remember his cries of “No….Wait” as I left him giggling in the barber’s chair when I abandoned him.  He returned to my apartment with a shaved head.

Baijiu 1: Foreigners 0

The meal commences with a toast given by the physical education teacher. 

“Welcome to our school!  Welcome to Wuhai!  We always appreciate visitors and hope you can return in the future!”  He reaches his glass to me and lowers to a level lower than my own glass.  The alcohol looks like water.

Clink!  Down the hatch with the first toast.  My throat is on fire.  I’m going to eat too much this meal.  I can feel it already.  The conversations start to mix with each other after the first toast, and everyone relaxes a little bit, their faces already beginning to flush.  It’s at meals like this one where I can really take in the drinking culture.  People don’t just drink casually.  No one drinks alone.  Everyone is always toasting with someone else.  To drink by oneself is self-destructive…because the next toast is only seconds away from the previous one.

“What do you think of Wuhai?” the music instructor asks me.

“Amanda tells us that you are in the tourism industry.  I have a friend in the US.  I can’t remember which city, though…New Jersey?” the principal is asking me or telling me.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.  This fish is awesome.  Man, look at the music instructor’s belly!  How did he fit it into that shirt?

The music instructor seems to be reading my mind.  He rises for another toast.  Clink!  Down the hatch.  Not so painful anymore.  That teacher is so quiet.  She’s not really a teacher is she?  So young. 

“Jacky…what do you think about this meal?  Pretty good, huh?”

The principal stands up to toast Amanda and myself.

“Today was a wonderful day for Wuhai…for our school…an international day!  Ha ha ha.  Amanda, you’re always bringing good fortune back to us.  We miss you at our school, but we’re glad that you could bring Jeffrey back with you.  Jeffrey….welcome to Wuhai, and thanks for an excellent class!”

Clink!  Down the hatch.  Butter.

The toasts are coming in droves now.  We probably drink 4 more.  The stuff is strong, and it’s sloshing around in my belly.  I suddenly miss the crazy dog in the courtyard.  I continue to stuff my face with the food, but nothing can overcome the taste of the baijiu that is running through me.  Luckily, I know that the end is coming…until.

“A song!  A song!  Sing a song!”

It’s come to that point of the meal where people start to request singing.  This always seems to happen when out for a celebration…but I’m ok with it.  I like singing.  So I decide to bless them with a song that I wrote in high school about a super hero I created, called “Slash-Eyeball.”  It’s an utterly immature and ludicrous song, nonsensical in meaning.  I purposely slur the words and make them unintelligable so that none of the people who can speak English are able to understand the lyrics.  Although they can’t understand the words, the listeners beat on the table with their chopsticks, keeping in time to the rather groovy melody that I created more than a decade earlier.  Afterwards, the erupt in applause.  My song is followed by the music teacher and the physical education teacher.  One of them sings an Inner Mongolian song, the other a song I happen to like called “Camel’s Bell.”  By now, everyone’s faces are flushed, the room is heated with our sweat, and those who are smokers have lit up.  There are bones on the table and Mongolian tunes in the air.  There’s not one hint of the grey hair…and yet, he returns in the evening.

Zoo

After a rest in the afternoon, I head out with Jacky on his electric bicycle to visit a nearby park.  In the park there is an abandoned zoo with depressed monkeys, a forlorn bear, and lathargic birds.  We walk around the park talking about this and that.  Just as I suspected, Jacky’s father, Jesus/Paul has dabbled in quite a few things throughout the years.  He was a policeman, a bookstore owner, a bible salesman, and a fur trader.  All of these things add up to whatever it is he does now.  Jacky and I walk from the cages as the grey sky looms over us.  We stare at a bear, it’s uneven patches of unhealthy fur aching to be fed with nature.

“Do you think money or life is more important?” Jacky asks me.

“Well…you need money to live…in most places.  But money isn’t life.  I don’t know.  Money can’t buy everything.”  I say. 

“Are you rich?” Jacky asks me point-blank.

I’m a little bowled over by this question and don’t know how to answer.  “Well, I’m lucky…I’ve never really had to worry about money that much.  I’m not poor, that’s for sure.  I’m not rolling in money, though.  Comfortable,” I say.

We walk over to the birds and continue the jutted conversation of a 29 year old American and a teenaged kid from Inner Mongolia.

“Why did you want to become a Christian?” I ask Jacky.

He looks at the birds and tosses a little pebble into the cage.  “My dad says that we can’t trust people.  We just have to trust Jesus.  What he says is the truth.  People will always lie to you, but Jesus won’t lie to us.”

Creepy.  Can’t help thinking it.  But if he and his father are happy with this belief, then I am happy for them.  He gets a phone call.  It’s Paul.  We have to go back to the hotel.  Dinner is coming.

Hua Er

Paul takes us to a Peking Duck restaurant for dinner.

“I thought you’d like this.  I know you’re going back to Beijing tomorrow, but I like Peking duck anyway. ”

“Of course.  Thanks.”

I’m told that we’ll wait to eat for a bit, as there are other guests who are coming.  We’re ushered upstairs to a private room, and luckily there’s no baijiu waiting for us.  In the private room is a guy whose name is Frank.  He tells me that he’s also a Christian and that he’s met this famous pastor who preaches to the TV mega-revivals that I always flipped through when I was a kid looking for cartoons on Saturdays and Sundays.  He’s been to the US and visited many churches there as well…even to Virginia.  Seems like a friendly enough guy.

After a few minutes of waiting, the other four guests arrive.  There is a couple with their small child.  The man, David, is also a Christian and training to be a pastor.  He is with his wife and daughter.  All 3 of them are Christians.  They’ve brought with them Lily, one of the thinnest and most delicate Chinese girls I’ve ever seen.  Her hair is in wavy curls that cascade in a waterfall over her shoulders onto her orange dress.  She is also an English teacher, but is not a Christian…not yet.

As they arrive, the food does as well.  Paul orders beers instead of baijiu.  Before we start eating, we join hands so that David can lead us in a prayer.  Lily…innocent Lily…looks around and then looks down with everyone else as David prays.

“Jesus…we thank you for this food and for bringing us friends from near and afar.  We give grace to you for this meal and for this day.  Amen.”

Lily asks,”Is that how it is?  Every meal?  Each prayer is like that?”  Her eyes are wide and curious like a deer’s.  I have the feeling that she is on the path to being converted.

The meal is good.  It’s a mixture of Beijing duck and some dishes that I’ve never had before…there’s a mashed potato dish that is new to me that is excellent, with some cilantro in it as well.  Frank talks with me more about Christianity and China.

“It’s getting more and more here.  The young people have nothing to believe in anymore,” he says.  “You know, I just felt so welcome when I went back to the States.  The people in the Church community were so friendly to me.  It was different there of course…I mean, not so much to do, but it definitely felt…well, it was amazing to go to these sermons where everyone was praying together…really something…why did you come to Inner Mongolia anyway?” he asks me, changing the subject.

“Well, I originally wasn’t going to come here.  I was going to Ningxia at first.  And on the train I met Amanda.  When she got off the train I told her that I would come back and meet her in Wuhai…I wanted to see it for myself.”

“Why didn’t you take the airplane to Yinchuan?  Much faster,” Paul says.

“If I had taken the airplane I never would have met Amanda,” I laugh.  Good answer.

“But why did you go to Ningxia?” Frank asks again.

“Well…it’s kind of a strange reason…” I tell them about the grey hair and Beihai park and my unfulfilled quest to hear hua er. 

“Hua er?” Paul asks.  “You know…Lily can sing Hua Er.  Would you like to hear it?”  Silence.  It’s going to happen.  She’s going to sing hua er.

“I would love to hear Hua Er,” I say.  “Can you sing something?” I ask Lily.

“Ah…I only know a little bit,” she says modestly.  “But I can try to remember.”  She stands up, her hands at her side.  Her orange dress is frozen in the light.  The lights themselves seem to dim.  No one speaks.  The room is waiting for her to sing.  This is the reason I came on my trip…to hear this song…to fulfill the Grey Hair’s prophesy.  Lily looks off into space and seems to be focusing on a point in the wall behind our heads.  The door beside that we entered in from opens up and in floats the Grey Hair.   The Grey Hair is also accompanied by a face.  The face is a bit paler than the faces of other Chinese faces that I am familiar with.  On the eyes of the face is a pair of large square-rimmed brown glasses.  The hair on the face’s head is also grey flecked with black.  The mouth is a friendly mouth, widening into a grin.  Underneath the face are all the other things that should go along with it…a body, arms, legs, shoes, shirt, pants, etc.  But…I can’t take my eyes off of the long, grey, hair.  It haunts me, waving back and forth in the wind like a snake’s tongue.  The Grey Hair turns its head ever slowly as Lily begins to break the silence with her breathing…he is enchanted by her dress, her hair, her innocence.  All of us sit there, waiting–the Christian family, Frank, Amanda, Jacky, Jesus, and me.  We all wait for Lily to sing the Grey Hair’s song.  We wait.  She sings.

Amanda is not alone when I arrive at the Wuhai station.  She is accompanied by the spirit of Jesus Christ embodied in the form of a Chinese man in his late 30s.  His English name is simply “Paul.”  He has eyes that seem glazed over and possessed with purity.  They are the kind of eyes that emit crazed hope, like someone who has been stranded on a deserted island for far too long but is sure that if we just keep on digging in the sand we’ll tunnel a path to freedom.  There are smile lines around the eyes.  The smile lines and tucked in shirt tell me that Paul was not always Jesus.  He used to be up to frisky business…maybe in the government?  Maybe a salesman?  He seems like the kind of guy who has had many fingers in as many pies at one time or another.  There’s something about Paul, about the Jesus-y quality of his voice that makes me a little bit wary.  I keep a bead on it at all times while I’m in his presence.  Standing beside Paul is his son, whose English name is Jacky.  I had a boss named Jacky when I was in Nanjing.  My students called him “the butcher.”  This Jacky is just a kid of about 14 years old.  He is gangly and going through the growth spurt that happens to all boys of this age.  The three of  us get into the back of Paul’s car.

“I thought you might want to have some kebabs,” Paul says.  It’s after 10:30 at night already, but I’m game.

Jesus’ car is not fancy.  It reminds me of the kind of car that a college kid would buy just to get around.  As we drive through Wuhai’s streets lined on both sides by tall street lights, I notice that there are hardly any cars driving on the road. 

“What’s this town famous for?” I ask Paul.

“Jacky, do you want to answer that question?” Paul asks Jacky in English.

“Um…coal…and calligraphy,” Jacky answers after thinking for a couple of seconds.

“Amanda told me about your Chinese name.  That it means you like to study.  I really think you must have AMAZING Chinese,” Paul tells me.  “How do you study it?  What’s your method?”

“Well, I just try to speak it as much as possible and…”

“Oh, he carries a little notebook around with him all the time to write down word he’s never heard,” Amanda cuts me off.  “Jeffrey, show Jacky your notebook.”

I pull out my little notebook that I really do carry around with me wherever I go.  This is my favorite notebook.  It was given to me by Lynn, probably my best friend and co-founder of Chinareflection.  She gave me my previous notebook as well.  In both notebooks she wrote dedications on the first page…words of inspiration to keep me studying…to keep me on the right path.  The first notebook would open up like a fan or scroll…almost like an accordian with the pages folded on top of each other.  I used it so much that it fell apart.  This second notebook is just a small, regular, brown notebook.  The only thing that differs from this notebook and other notebooks is that it has a homemade touch.  On the outside of the notebook is a little cloth sleeve that protects its cover and keeps it from falling apart.  Lynn sowed this together by hand.  My notebook has character.  It is my Bible.  I take it wherever I go.  At meal times I sit on it, putting it underneath my right buttock.  Eating and drinking with friends or new acquaintances is the best time to learn a language because people talk freely and will usually say whatever is on one’s mind.  When we eat, we are at our most relaxed and most social.  I have to keep my notebook prepared for any chance I have that may pass if I am not listening carefully.  It rests underneath my buttock, ready to hatch open with new ideas and words at any time.

We arrive at an outdoor restaurant.  The ground is strewn with discarded kebab sticks.  Paul orders a bunch of them, too many.  He also orders a kind of lamb stew and some beers as well.  It’s far more than I want to eat.  I hardly touch any of the lamb sticks.  Just not that hungry at this time of day.  Jacky, however, inhales the kebabs with just the kind of voracity that I would expect from the son of Jesus.  Over beers we talk.

“So, Jeffrey, an amazing coincidence about today…” Amanda starts.  “I told Paul that you are from Virginia.  He was talking about going there.  Also, my American friends just left today for Viriginia.”

“Really?  Where do you want to go in Virginia?” I ask Paul.  I grab a kebab.  May as well help myself.

“Do you know Rocky Mount, Virginia?”  he asks.

“Never heard of it,” I say.

“There’s a Bible college there called Blue Ridge School of the Prophets.  Have you heard of it?” he asks.

“I don’t know…I’ll have to look it up.  Why do you want to go to Bible college?” 

“Well, I’m not 100 percent sure.”  when Paul says “sure” his ’s’ whistles a little bit.  It sounds smooth, like he’s trying to hypnotize me.  “If I feel the call from Jesus Christ…if I think it is my mission to go there, then I’ll try to go.”

“Oh. Ok…What got you interested in Christianity, anyway?”  My kebab is finished.  Jacky is eating the cubes of mutton like a madman.

“Some American teachers came here to Wuhai, and they started to talk to us about religion.  It just appealed to me.  I just know it’s true.  That Jesus is there for me.  And in China, there are more and more Chinese starting to believe in Christianity.  It’s becoming better and better.  Without this…without religion or something to believe in, it’s just money…are you Christian, Jeffrey?”

“Uh…no…I guess I’m Jewish…but I don’t believe.”  Such a strange answer.  I’ll have to spit this one out someday.

“I think America is losing it’s religion.  China is starting to gain some.  But it’s really the young people that are starting to believe.  They need it.”  He puts his right hand on the back of his son’s neck.  “I don’t know…maybe I’ll go to Rocky Mount with Jacky if I do go.”

I later learn that Rocky Mount is only about an hour away from my home near Roanoke, Virginia.  I imagine that there are some pretty deeply religious people up there in the mountains.  A place so close to home that I had to come all the way to Wuhai, Inner Mongolia to discover it.

After a few minutes, they tell me what the general plan is for the next day.  We’ll go to a “country school” in the morning where I’ll “teach” a class, or maybe two classes of students.  I know to some extent what it is that I will do, but I’m still excited by the fact that I’ll be faced by complete strangers the next day…strangers ready to listen and hang on to my every word.  They’ll look up at me and I’ll be a star.  It sounds small-minded to chase such an environment, but I know that I’ll be a star.  I’ve learned to accept and transcend this star status when I go to these small places in China.  It would never happen like this in the States.  I can’t imagine a Chinese person traveling to a community and receiving the same reception that I am lucky enough to receive in China.  Save the odd English teacher, this town does not see any Westerners.  I can be a bridge for these kids, if only for a day.  I know that I’ll just be the “white face,” but I still like doing it.  Maybe one of the kids that I’ll talk to the next day will truly want to listen to what I have to say.  Maybe they won’t just look at me as “the foreigner.”  Maybe one of the hundreds of kids that I meet will want to travel abroad after he/she meets me.  It’s just a small kernel of hope, but it’s still a kernel.

Jacky polishes off the kebabs that are left, throwing the sticks down on the table and the ground.  We get back in the Jesus’ mobile and Paul takes me to the hotel where I’ll be staying for the night.  I have no idea in which direction we are traveling but feel completely safe in the car with these people whom I’ve only known collectively for less than a day. 

“In the morning we’ll meet you for breakfast,” Paul says as we check into the hotel.  The hotel is about 15 stories high.  There’s not much activity in the lobby, and I’m sure I’m the only foreigner to be staying here at the time.

“You need to get some rest,” Amanda says.  “You’ll need you’re energy for tomorrow.”

Devil Monkey sits outside of the bus station.  He wears the same camaflouge outfit that I saw him in the first time that I encountered him on the streets of Zhongwei.  One of his monkeys rests on his shoulder while the other two sit on the ground, their heads perked up.  It seems that we’re traveling the same route.  I decide to break the ice and have a chat.  Take the Devil out of the Monkey and put the man back in the suit.

“Where are you from?”  I ask him.

“Henan.”

“Ah, I know Henan.  I’ve been to Jiao Zuo.  It’s a nice town,” I say, making conversation.

“You’re Chinese isn’t bad.  How long have you been here?”

“4 years.  How long have you been doing your monkey act for?”

The monkey on his shoulder hops off and walks around on the ground.  Two of Devil Monkey’s friends, co-workers?, sit on the ground.  One of them pets the oldest of the 3 monkeys.

“I’ve been doing this for a few years now.  Going from town to town.  Not a bad way to see the country, eh?”  he asks.

“Not bad.  Where you headed today?”

“Back to Yinchuan.  From there, not sure where I’ll go yet.”  He scratches his head.

“How often do you get back home?”  I ask him.

“About once a year, during the Spring Festival.”  He pauses.  “What are you doing here, anyway?  Hai Yuan isn’t much.”

“I just took a week off of work.  I work in a travel agency.  Came here to hear Hua Er.  Do you know this kind of singing?” I ask.

“No, never heard of it.  Hua Er.  Nope…hey…do they have guys like me in the States?”  he asks.

“Haven’t seen many guys walking around with monkeys.  Probably not allowed.  Some people might have a problem with you pulling these monkeys around.  But if you want to give it a shot, you can call the travel agency I work with.  Why not?” I say, joking.

“Too far for me.  I wouldn’t know anything about the States.  You’ve got a black president now, right?”

“Yep.  That’s right.  Obama.”  I look at my watch.  The bus’ll be coming soon.

“Hey, I’ve gotta’ get going.  Good luck, man,” I say.

“Good luck,” he answers.

Return to Zhongwei

When I get on the bus, there are seats enough for everyone.  Across the aisle from my seat is an old Hui Man with a long beard.  He and his wife both cover their heads, his with a white cap, she with a kind of scarf.  He has a bad cough.  His sunglasses are flat, huge, and round.  They are the kind that reflect everything projected towards them.  He has a bad cough and chews on his lip.

During the ride, the young guy sitting next to me pulls out a cigarette and starts to fumble with it in his hand.  I know that he wants to smoke it, but he doesn’t take his lighter out yet.  He’s sitting so close to me, so if he starts smoking, the smoke will blow into my face.  The bus stops and the old couple gets off at a small crossroads between two villages.  One girl boards the bus and sits in the seat next to the window where the old man was sitting.  They guy next to me continues to fumble with his cigarette.  I really don’t want smoke in my face on a bus.

“You’re not really going to smoke that are you?”  I say with a smile.

“Uh…yeah…what?” He’s uncertain.  Did I say that?

“I have an allergy to cigarette smoke.  Sorry.”  I make this line up, hoping that he’ll catch on.

“Oh, ok.”  He puts the cigarette in his breast pocket.  Success…or so I think.  A couple of minutes later, he moves across the very narrow aisle and sits next to the girl, pulls out the cigarette and lights up.  He’s only about a foot further away from me now.  The smoke comes into my face.

I look away from the man out the window and remember my promise to Mrs. Xie the night before.  I’m supposed to send her daughter a message on my phone.  Looking up her number, I type a message in Chinese that reads:

“Hi, last night I met your mother in Hai Yuan.  I’m from America.  She’s so hospitable.”

A couple of minutes later, her daughter replies to me:

“Sorry, you must be mistaken.  My mother doesn’t know any Americans.”

Of course she doesn’t believe me.  The likelihood of an American traveling to Hai Yuan is very slim, not to mention the likelihood of an American being inside of her house talking with her mother.  I decide to send another message.  This time I write in Chinese and in English, and I mention her mother’s full name, telling her that I met her mother by chance the evening before.  This message is sure to convince her.  The response I get is not what I expect:

“Who are you?  Why are you in  Hai Yuan?  And how do you casually know my mother?  Don’t tell me that you just ‘bumped into her’ cause I won’t believe you.  Who told you my mother’s name!?”

After seeing this message I’m reminded of the evening before when her mother believed that I thought she was trying to trick me when she told me her age.  Something’s up with this family…sometime, somewhere, someone did something to them that made them lose their trust in people.  There is spite and hurt in her message, like a trapped animal.  I can’t believe that she is so guarded and suspicious.  It never occurred to me.

The next message I send back is in English:

“If you don’t believe me, that’s ok.  But I really did meet your mother, and she is very nice.  You can ask her.  If I am ever back in Hai Yuan again, I hope to see her once more.  Good luck with your studies.”

A few minutes later the reply comes.  She starts to ease up on the defensive and believe me, telling me she has a test coming up soon.  There is still a tinge of shock and awe that an American was in her house the evening before.  It’s a good thing I left a photo with her mother.

Lunch

By the time we arrive in Zhongwei, my stomach is growling.  I take a bus from the station back to the center of town near where I stayed the night before going to Hai Yuan.  On the bus, a young Chinese couple eyes me from time to time.  Both of them have friendly faces, both are wearing round spectacles.  The man approaches me, moving past a lady holding onto the back of a seat to support herself.

“Are you from America?” he asks me.

“Yes.  What about you?”  I ask.

“China,” he laughs.  “From Lanzhou in Gansu Province.”  Lanzhou is a place I’ve always wanted to visit.  One of the best Chinese teachers I’ve ever had is from there.  She currently studies in Boston, MA, one of the only students of mine that I taught in Yichun to make it for further study in the U.S.

“Are you a Christian?”  he asks me.

“No…I guess I’m Jewish…but I don’t believe in God.”  I’m never sure how to express this correctly.  I like affiliating myself with Judaism, but at the same time I know that I am a non-believer, “an infidel,” as Luther Burbank would say.  However, I can be Jewish if I want to…my mother is Jewish (also an infidel?–I’ll have to ask her), and my father’s father was Jewish (my father is a dyed-in-the-wool atheist).  Yesterday I was Hui.  Today I’m a Jew.  That’s the way the way the world is.

“We’re both Christians,” he says.

“Are there lots of Christians in Lanzhou?” I ask him.

“There are a lot who go to our church.  Maybe 200 or so whenever we go.”

“How many churches are there in Lanzhou?” I ask.  I’m really curious about this sort of thing.  Unfortunately, the couple needs to get off the bus at the next stop.  Possibly this conversation is the one that leads me to Gansu at some point in the future.  Another grey hair.

After the couple exits the bus, I ride for another 5 minutes until we arrive at the drum tower.  Walking past the drum tower, I find a side street and a small restaurant to have my lunch at.  Ordering a small bowl of noodles, I decide to sit outside, as the restaurant itself is too hot.  Next to the umbrella that I sit under, there is a small drink cooler.  No one else sits outside on the street, although there are other tables.  After my noodles come, I start to slurp them down in silence.  A guy approaches the front of the restaurant and opens up the cooler to purchase a drink.  He pulls out a bottle of water and waits for the waitress inside to come out so that he can pay.  I look up at him.

“That’ll be 2 RMB,” I say with a smile.

He reaches into his pocket, pulls out 2 RMB and gives it to me directly.  After that he turns and walks away, opening up his bottle of water.  I look back inside the restaurant to see if the waitress has noticed.  She has her back to me and is fanning herself with a menu.  I could pocket this 2 RMB easily but decide to inform the waitress of what just happened.  I call out to her.

“Hey, water is 2 RMB, right?”  I ask.

“Uh-huh.  You can pull one out of the cooler.”  She says, not getting up.

I stand up and walk over to her.  “No, a guy just bought a bottle.  Here’s your money.”  I give it to her.  She laughs as she takes the money, and I can’t help cracking a smile, either.

To Wuhai

After lunch it’s on to Inner Mongolia, specifically, Wuhai.  I don’t know anything about Wuhai except for the fact that my hero, Amanda, lives there.  I’m going there specifically to see her and her town…no other reason.  In the afternoon, I wait for the train at the Zhongwei station and buy some food for the ride.  I’ll eat on the train, as it’s arrival time is late in the evening, after 10pm.  I don’t want to eat too much, so I just buy some canned porridge, some bread, and some fruit.  The pack of people lined up to get on the train stand in a large clump around the exit of the station.  It’s the kind of clump one can find anywhere at any station in China.  The train will be delayed for a few minutes.  I put my baggies of snacks down, along with my backpack.  I’m ready to go.  Taking out my phone, I send a message to Amanda and tell her that I’m on the platform waiting for the train.

“Ok.  We will meet you when you arrive.  Have safe journey.”

“We?”…