I'm just now flying back from
China. I traveled for two weeks: I flew in two Tuesdays ago, and I return today, Tuesday April the 8th. At least in some time zones, including that of China. (Yes, China only has one time zone. Thought-provoking?)
These two weeks were the result of expectations I built last year to visit my friends, an unused Chinese visa I got in Bangkok two months ago, and my impetuous (if I may say so) will to fulfill my intention of travel during a marvelously convenient transition period of time, before I begin working at Google, just under two weeks from now.
What was I doing in Life before? Well, what am I doing now? It's a constant oncoming stream of moments, this Life, so how would I claim to conclude a single ultimate feeling and purpose at any particular point in it? But I do claim to enjoy it.
It's been months since I've told Echo that I would visit her in Suzhou. I was living at "El Rincón Trujillo", in New Mexico, eating oatmeal every morning, watering the potato plants, weeding the chile saplings, and harvesting the sweet peas. Echo was the sole contact I had decided to keep in my "new life", and we were planning on going to Nepal for several weeks to teach English as volunteers, and I hoped to share that experience together with her, full-on, and our joyous relationship, both friendly and sexual, would be reborn. I handwrote her a letter describing my intentions towards her, and saying I wanted to experience life together with her. Hopeful moments, those. But her later messages did not spark with her initial excitement, she shortened her volunteering time to one week, and I ventured to guess that she was not that interested in having me as company in her trip to Nepal. And so I didn't go, but she was very clear when she said that she would still like to have me visit some other time in Suzhou. So I made a note of it, and went my own way.
And then I intended to travel to China from Thailand by land, and I had plans and schedules, and I obtained my Chinese visa in Bangkok. But as things go, my family summoned me at that moment, so I went back to Guatemala ASAP, and stayed there, as presential and logistical support.
And then Google hires me. And I think about my unused Chinese visa, set to expire sometime in May, and I make up my mind to take one last trip to China before focusing on my new job. Two weeks of travel, followed by two weeks of settling into Mountain View and preparing for life at Google. So the usual happened. Booked a flight, packed my bags, and I landed in Shanghai only days later.
Two weeks, two friends, and two cities to visit. Suzhou is half an hour away from Shanghai by train, and to Qingdao it would be about 6 hours. Or 90 minutes, as the 747 flies. I landed in Shanghai after 10PM, and because the Shanghai subway and the inter-city trains stop running at some time, Echo reserved a car to drive me directly to Suzhou that very night. It was 400RMB, but it got me straight to Echo, where she happily greeted me, and took me to her apartment, where I crashed for the next few days.
I was happy to see our friendship was as joyous as ever. She was amazing as a hostess this time around as she was as a guest back in the US. She spent most of her time taking me out or asking her roommate, Gallon, to show me around. Three full days I stayed with her - Thursday through Sunday, and now that I think of it, we did quite a lot in that time. The first day, she had her interview in the morning, so Gallon took me out for breakfast, and then we did little the rest of the day. On Thursday, she took me out and showed me her university, we walked out to "Reading Lake", and had lunch at a Veggie Cafe called Lotus Cafe. Later on, she took me out to see downtown Suzhou - we walked down Shantang Road, just beside the river. It was a beautiful spring day - sun shining, soft breeze blowing, and flower trees blooming by the riverside. Further down the road we found a bustling market, with sweet snacks, meat snacks, milk tea, jewelry, and such knicknacks. The highlight of that market was a wallet with a clear engraving:
"iPhone", and the clear logo of Apple Corporation right on it. I found the implications of that engraving, both for the manufacturer and for the people who buy it, very amusing.
The third day was pretty wondrous - she had made reservations for us to get a foot massage at a very classy, french-looking Spa. We walked into a building, with corridors that looked like a hotel's, and entered a room with three beds in it. We lay down in two of them, and then two Chinese-formally dressed ladies came in with buckets of hot water, told us to put out feet in, and began massaging our back and shoulders. Then they gave us foot massages, and then we just lay down there for a while, drinking tea, eating cookies, and chatting about anything. That is one thing I noticed - our conversation topics had dwindled a little, compared to how we talked before. I felt there was an unspoken line of prudence between us, since now she had a boyfriend, and I had made up my mind to remain friends only.
Later on, she took me to Jinji Lake, and we went on a boat cruise around the whole lake. The whole lake was surrounded by colorfully lit buildings and fancy restaurants upon artificial islands, with abundant trees and pedestrian areas. Also, there was a very
fancy cinema that looked like a full-blown stadium along the shore, and I took a particular note of how extravagant it was.
After the boat ride, Echo and I walked to the main plaza by the lake to check out the musical fountains! I don't know how often the show ran, but she knew that the concert was occurring soon, so we waited for them, then saw them happen. The music was most often traditional Chinese with modern vocals, and the fountains numbered in the hundreds, and some of them rose up to at least ten meters. Although it was quite a show, we left before it ended because we were pretty hungry, and we ate at a Persian-like restaurant, with hummus, falafel, and everything. Our talks were always amicable, but during that dinner I felt some awkwardness show up. Overall, though, I was very glad to spend some time with her, and know that we still trust each other as much as we once did.
Saturday night, we worked together on her application for a graduate scholarship for Penn State, and then the next morning, we wrote on a letter together - for the dean of Penn State, trying to find financial help for her entry into graduate school. Later that day, we hugged goodbye, then she walked me to the bus stop, where she explicitly told me not to hug her again. We waved goodbye as I took the bus up to the Railway station, where I bought my ticket to Shanghai.
My stay in Shanghai was short but sufficient. Curiously, I found I had less interest in exploring the city itself, than I had had, for example, in 2009. It was just a big city, with lots of people and buildings, and signs and traffic lights and businesses set up in their own way. I booked a bed at Captain Hostel, next to the riverside, for two nights, until Tuesday.
The first thing I did after arriving at downtown Shanghai was get scammed. A girl approached me with a camera, and asked me to take a picture of her and of two of her friends, with a random building as the background. I was a little puzzled by this, but took a picture anyway. And then they began asking me "Where are you from? What are you doing, traveling in Shanghai? Are you in alone? Where are you going now?" etc, etc. I was happy for her strong interest in me, and she told me she was going to some kind of Tea Performance event. I walked together with the three of them. The outgoing girl introduced herself as "Selena", and the others as "Jack" and "Annie". I walked several blocks with them, fairly enthralled by the constant questions and stories coming from Selena, which included Portland, Harbin, and her apparent interest in me. Like Scarlet later said, I was just "being a guy". They took me to a door that led to a cramped indoors, and then a small room with no windows, and a table richly dressed with tea implements - teapot, tea leaves, tiny cups, tiny filters, plus other ornamental Chinese stuff.
They showed me a menu with tea prices, per person, and though the prices seemed exorbitant (for tea), any objections that popped into my mind were temporarily drowned by Selena's oncoming questions and stories. A colorfully-dressed woman came in, and began making the first cup of tea. She passed out a few very aromatic tea leaves, and we (the supposed group of customers) all smelled them in turn. So we had some tea with the first tea leaves, probably about three of the tiny little porcelain cups. But my suspicions, although quite confirmed by that tine, seemed to suddenly become sharper, and I decided to end it right there. I told them I was going to leave, and did so despite many "friendly" objections from "Selena" and "Jack". I paid what I supposedly owed - 30RMB for "room usage" and 49 for the first set of tea, I didn't ask for my 1RMB change, I took my bags, and walked out. So I lost 80RMB right there and then. They looked genuinely disappointed though - it must not be uncommon for the scammed to lose 150-200 after getting there - the time that their distractions had bought had the lady already making the second set of tea.
I found a long way to my hostel, and after checking in to my 405D bed, I lay down and spent all afternoon playing the French version of Quest for Glory III. It was fun and somewhat educational, and then I just went to sleep. I think my body was happy to rest that night.
The next morning, I left the hostel at 11AM to explore the city. And so I did... I went and walked around. I went out and saw the "classic" Shanghai view from the Bund near my hostel, then I walked through the pedestrian street of Nanjing Road, then to the
People's Park, then to
another park that had the Shanghai Museum in it, then I found the underground shopping center right underneath. And walking in there, I found an arcade! An asian arcade, mind you, so they had all these rhythmic games, where one has to dance or to hit buttons to the rhythm of the music. And I had a blast! I think I spent just around 20RMB, and I had so much fun! The first game I played was one with the Kinect, where one simply copies what the dancer on the screen is doing. And they are not just "left, right, left, left, up, up, down" movements - they are
actual dance moves! Corny hip-hop dance movements, but rich nonetheless. Jump here, extend left leg while punching with the right arm, then the opposite, jump, jump, sliiiiiide arm clockwise, crouch, jump, jump... very fun!
And then I played a game with 16 square buttons that light up with "Touch me", which was just about OK. And then I played a game with 8 buttons around in a circle, where the buttons to push are shown by little colorful circles that emerge from the center of the screen, and travel to the edge with some rhythm. Like the arrows in DDR traveled upwards, these circles traveled from the center to the edge. That was quite fun too!
So then... what'd I do in Shanghai? Well, I took the subway to what I thought was Century Park, where I would get off and just walk all around, looking at Chinese people relax or something. As it turned out, I traveled to Century Avenue instead, and after about 10 minutes of trying to find the park, I realized my mistake, and decided to walk around for a while anyway. I found a sidewalk 30-40 meters wide, and took a few pictures, focusing on all the long poles with clothes hanging from them, stretching out from an apartment building's window. And then I saw from a distance this one man who seemed to be sweeping the sidewalk, and I took a picture of him. When I approached him, though, I saw what he was really doing. He had a brush on his hand, with a pole long enough to reach the ground, and a bucket with water on the other. And close by him were
elegantly-written Chinese characters, which he was writing in a straight line. And a few meters back, only bits and pieces of characters he had written only minutes ago, gradually soaked up by the sun. I found the whole concept of writing with water on a sidewalk, as he was doing, beautiful. He didn't speak English nor I Chinese, but he motioned to me to write as he was doing. I happily took the brush, and wrote "Time takes all", with what I thought was some stylish handwriting, on a piece of unused sidewalk. He laughed at something, I gave the brush back, and then he walked away. That's what I did at the Century Avenue stop.
It was already afternoon by then, so I decided to pick a random subway station, check it out for a little while, and then head on back. I picked ShangNan station, south of downtown. Once there, I walked around and just found stores and street merchants. A particular sock merchant drew my attention, since I had only taken one pair of dirty socks to China with me, but I walked away to check out other stores first.
I went into one grocery store, and I found interesting how empty it was. There was just one cashier available, and the whole store seemed almost desolate, although the product was all properly set up and ready to buy. I just found it unusual on a Monday afternoon. I walked around one big block in the area, along which I just found small convenience stores, and at one point, a bunch of chinese men playing cards and betting money on the streets. I couldn't understand anything they were saying, and though they threw suspicious looks at me, and clearly wanted me to leave, I stood there for a while just watching them bet and play excitedly. It was a fast game too - they were placing bets several times a minute. Then I just walked away. I found the sock merchant again, and bought three pairs from him - two for 5RMB each and one for 2.50. I thought it was a pretty good deal, and they feel soft and comfortable so far.
My next subway stop was the "second downtown" of Shanghai, in Echo's terms. The area is on the other side of the HuangPu river, and is full of buildings that I had seen from the Bund that very morning. That point of the city holds an impressive view of its landmark buildings - the
Oriental TV tower, a bunch of
shiny straight buildings all around, the Apple Store, and most conveniently, a
raised circular pedestrian walkway from which to see all the pretty buildings in Shanghai. I walked for over an hour in that area, starting from dusk, and went back when it was already dark. I took pictures by the dozen, including the fairly novel stitched "Globe" pictures available on my Nexus, all the time taking care to maintain a working battery level. I also saw a bunch of people who seemed latin american, so I went up to them and asked them where they were from. They were all purposely ignoring me at first, but I insisted, and they finally told me they were from Mexico. I told them I was from Guatemala, and began talking to them in Spanish. They told me they were ignoring me because they thought I wanted to sell them something, but I told them I wasn't, and tried to strike up a conversation. They weren't willing though, and they still seemed mistrustful, so I just walked away, feeling a bit rejected.
I returned to the other side of the river and came up on East Nanjing Road station. Once on the street, tons of people approached me, all of them offering me "lady massages". I was so very not interested in them, but their persistence was astounding and annoying. One of them followed me into the Apple Store, and I walked off, intending to make them understand that I was not interested. But I came out of the Apple Store, and a woman came up to me, with the same intention. Instead of walking away, I answered each of her questions and requests truthfully. "You want lady massage? Special massage?". "No thank you, I'm not interested". "Very good, we have very good ladies, come see, very pretty". "I'm not interested at all". "Why you not want lady massage?". "Simply because I'm not. Do you want to come to my hotel?" "Yes, they go to your hotel too, come and see". "No no, do YOU want to come with me to my hostel?" "Me? Oh no, I'm too old! The other ladies are young and pretty, you come see!" "No thank you, but so, are YOU interested in coming to my hotel?" "No". "See, in the same way, I'M not interested in having a lady massage. Do you get that?" "Yes, but maybe you come see and you change your mind". "Well, maybe you come to my hotel and you can change your mind". "No, I can't, I'm working, and my boss is looking". "Oh well then, I'm off". "But where are you going?" "I'm going to check out the Bund at night - see what it looks like". "So you no want lady massage?" "No, I'm going to see the sights. You can walk with me if you like, though". "Oh, ok. We can walk and talk, and maybe you change your mind". "Ok, let's go".
So we walked out to the Bund, and we just talked. She told me about how she had gotten her job - she had moved to Shanghai, but it was hard to find a job, so she had only found this one, as "lady massage" saleswoman, I imagine. I told her what I knew about Chinese (which was basically numbers), and she showed me what she knew in Spanish (which was also numbers). She told me how she had not received a college education, since the family had focused its efforts on educating her younger brother, who was now in college. She took a couple of pictures of me at the Bund, and then we walked across a
bright red bridge, and on some streets. Then she said "lady massage is right there, do you want to come take a look?" Slightly amused at how she'd guided me to that place anyway, I told her I didn't want any kind of massage that night. She insisted, saying that if only I arrived at the place, she would still get credit, since her job was just to get customers there, not to keep them. So I went, and we entered this little place through this little door, a reminder of the place with the "Tea Performance". But the environment was different. It was a warm, almost moist environment, and it smelled like vice. A girl or two lounged on the lobby couch with skimpy clothes, and a woman equipped with watermelon-sized breasts, and dressed as a nurse with a shiny, plastic outfit, made me think of the situation these women lived every day. They began offering me to stay, to come into a room, to look at the girls, but I was repulsed enough already. I said goodbye to the girl that brought me there, "Lily", and walked out to the same bridge we had walked on before. That was the end of that night. I reached my hostel, looked up train schedules, played more Quest for Glory III, and went to sleep.
The next morning I
woke up at around 5, as I intended to catch the first train out to Suzhou. I missed the first subway that morning, and when I got to the train station (at about 7AM), all tickets were sold out for the economy class trains to Qingdao, except the one leaving at 4:30PM (and arriving at 11PM). In the scrambled, untidy state of mind I was in, though, I bought that ticket, not even realizing that I wouldn't get to see Scarlet that night if I took that train. So I decided to change, and I went through the train ticket line at least 3 more times, attempting first to change it, then to cancel it, and then to cancel it again. The business class ticket was 818RMB and the economy one was 518RMB, but by the time I had decided to pay up the extra 300RMB, the second train of the day had already left, and I could not reach Qingdao in time that night by train anyway. So I found a Costa Coffee, bought a fruit salad, and booked the most convenient flight I found. It was lucky that the Hongqiao airport was right next to the Hongqiao railway station - I had but to walk a few hundred meters to check in for my flight. I canceled my ticket and got an 80% refund for it, took my flight, and reached the downtown area of Qingdao at around 6PM. I found my hostel, checked in, washed up, and then surprised Scarlet by showing up near her apartment and texting her that I was there already (I had already told her that I'd be seeing her only until the following day). I said that it was my April Fool's day prank to her for that day, since it just happened to be April 1st that day. She excitedly got ready, came down, and we walked the nocturnal Qingdao for about an hour before saying goodbye at the same corner we had met at.
The next few days were fun. My hostel, Big Brother Guesthouse, gave me a full room for the same price I was staying in a dorm bed at Captain Hostel for, and I allowed myself to spend some leisure time. I was in Qingdao from Tuesday night until Sunday night, and I saw Scarlet every evening and night, and we either just walked around and talked our purpose-in-life, how-did-we-meet, how-Life-is-awesome, what-are-you-up-to, and what-do-you-want-in-Life conversations. Similar to the ones we've had through email, but the feeling seemed more meaningful in person. She always chose different places to eat at - once we dined at a Vietnamese place, another at a fruit juice place, on her birthday's eve I decided we should go to Canvas Cafe (which claimed to offer international cuisine), we went to a couple of food courts, a little place called Cafe Bachata, another one called Top Rice... we ate very variedly. Meals were not always inexpensive, but I was happy to celebrate our fairly rare meet-up and her birthday free from money concerns.
Saturday evening was excellent because Scarlet taught me a pole dance class! Yes, it sounds girly, but it's some GREAT workout! I found my right shoulder stretching more than it usually does during the warm-up, and I was happy. She taught me the basics: graceful walking, the "Eagle", the "Venus", the forward spin, and the backspin. She has been practicing it for only two months, but she seems like a total sexy pro when she does it (at least for those basic moves). I didn't bring special workout clothes, so I was practicing only in a gray shirt and underwear. And I had to exercise some mental self-control to be able to look at her doing all those showy feminine moves without popping up my underwear (and bring up obvious ideas that would interrupt the class and her comfort with me). It was only us two in the class, so it was really fun, since I didn't mind her seeing me a) be an inexperienced dancer, and b) do all kinds of girly moves like walking gracefully, pulling myself towards the pole, or brushing my hand with my body. It was great workout in any case! My ankles were sore afterwards, and the next day, most of my torso and core muscles felt a little worn. After the 90-120 minutes of class, we walked out into the night market, and just looked over all the merchandise available. I was amused to find a "leather" bag marked with
"Jeep", similar to the "iPhone" wallet I found in Suzhou. That night we walked all the way back to my hotel (which I had to change because my other didn't have any rooms available for later days), and we watched the latest episode of The Big Bang Theory. We didn't have any internet in my room, so right afterwards Scarlet left, and we agreed to meet up the following day after her pole dancing class, at around 3:30PM.
Our last day together, on Sunday, we just met up, had late lunch at Marina City, then we went to Top Rice and Cafe Bachata, and even spent an hour or two where we just sat down together at a table and didn't talk that much, but just
kept each other company. I guess conversation topics don't always spring out like a bursting waterfall, like they do at first, but we enjoyed being there with each other, and we waited until 8PM, when she took me to take the Airport Express bus, and we hugged goodbye right before I ran out to grab it. She seems to be well-off on her Path of Life, and I was very glad to see her developing as she is.
That night I arrived at Pudong Airport after midnight, after all trains from the airport had stopped. I spent a few hours at the airport, torn sleeping, playing Quest for Glory III, buying snacks at Family Mart, and learning some Chinese by reading the signs at the airport. I did a little bit of all four, and at 7AM, I took the subway to Shanghai Railway Station, determined to take an early train and meet up with Echo in Suzhou one last time before leaving. And so I did. I took the 10AM train, arrived at 10:30'ish, got to Wen Jing plaza at 11:30'ish, and we met at around noon. We took a bus to Lotus Cafe, and we just talked and hung out together. She suggested what food I should get, and as always, her choices were simply excellent. After lunch we just walked and walked through the city, and we reached the same plaza where we had seem the musical fountains the other night. We sat down together and saw the kites fly above us, as we talked about those topics that good friends talk about when they are about to say goodbye. Memories, hopes, visions, and some teasing, mostly. We then took a cab to a cool commercial center, and we had dinner at Secret Recipe, a restaurant where the brownie+icecream and the mushroom soup selected by Echo were, as always, extraordinarily delicious. Mixing the soup with Nasi Lemak was also very tasty.
That night we had an emotional goodbye. Echo feels in a struggling point in her Life - looking forward to a doctorate program in the US, but still with insufficient funds to carry it on. She's hopeful but a little lost at the moment, plus, I think that the current friction with her boyfriend has her feeling vulnerable. We hugged goodbye in an underground garage, and I could really tell she needed a hug. I held her for as long as she hugged me, which was easily a minute or two. Her touch was endearing, and she really leaned herself into it, showing that she needed comforting, and she kissed my neck a little. And I knew then she really wanted to feel loved, but I just kept holding her tight. As much as I care for her dearly, I now take care of my own feelings better than before. She walked me to the subway station, and then off I went back to Shanghai.
Back in Shanghai, I walked on NanJing road slowly as I made my way back to the hostel. After patiently rejecting several "lady massage" salespeople on the road, I saw a man playing one of those chinese violins, wirelessly hooked up to a small amplifier that was also playing recorded drums from a USB dongle. He was GREAT - I heard him play fast, energetic pieces that reminded me of Lindsey Stirling, and then he went on to play slower Chinese traditional music. I enjoyed it all, and sat down there for about 20 minutes, during which about twenty Shanghai service people passed by with large hoses, soap water, and floor brushes, sweeping up the entire street all at once. At the end of his performance, he stored his instrument and was packing up, and tried to talk to me in Chinese. I told him I had no idea what he was saying, but he was very cool, and he gave me a CD with his recorded pieces. At first I thought he was selling it to me, as he said "shi ti". I asked "shi ti?", not knowing what that meant. But after a while observing what he did, I realized he was giving it to me. I thanked him sincerely, and then left for my hostel to get a quick night's rest.
Then in the morning I took a subway, a MagLev (which though very fast, is much less impressive than it would seem) to the airport, waited around for a few hours, then caught my flights back to Incheon and San Francisco. And that's what my two weeks back in China were like.
