Day 9
6:28 am 11/25/97 ct (Tues)
2:28 pm 11/24/97 rt (Mon)
We got off the bus just a little bit ago, and we are now waiting for the
boat. The bus wasn't laud, but it was extremely bumpy and I did not get
much sleep. The beds were exactly an inch too short for me as well, which
cause for some interesting positions. But I live through it. =)
Yesterday we must have looked so curiously funny. Dad was carrying around
a hoe, a washboard, and a chair. He likes the everyday sort of thing so
he bought these all from the people used. He also had two stools but they
were packed away. People in the market kept asking Brian how much he paid
for the hoe. I can just imagine next wee all the street venders will be
selling hoes @ some ungodly price, ten times what Brian paid for his.
It is strange to thing that tomorrow we go home. But then again it will
be nice to use my own bathroom (toilet!!!) and shower, to sleep in my own
bed in my room. And to have more company and more varied conversation than
with the same three people again and again.
The town we were in yesterday, Yangshou, is an amazing town. I would love
to get a few friends together, fly to China, and stay in Yangshou for a
week or so. It would be so much fun!
****
8:54 am 11/25/97 ct (Tues)
4:54 pm 11/24/97 rt (mon)
I am content now, because I have figured out which gifts go to which people
as well as have bought some great things for myself, which I usually do
not end up doing. I love the coat I bought. It is so big and warm and
unique. I shall be warm when everyone else will be envious. I also bought
myself little things, but my big splurges were the coat (85 yuen, about
$11 US) and one of those beautiful dresses (110 yuen, about $14 or $15 US).
It felt good to have "so much money" to spend here. Its all
relative, I know, but just the feeling of "being loaded" was great.
And I do not regret anything I purchased. Nor do I regret not buying certain
things.
The only regrets that I have were that I did not have a friend along with
me. Because there are things that I thought and comments I made (or could
have made) that only my friends would have understood. But in tow years
I shall return (I know it!), because I would really enjoy spending an extended
amount of time in Yangshou with good company. It shall not be too expensive
and I don't have to stay for more than a week, so the trip is very plausible.
And if my interest level drops I need only look back over this journal
to remind me of the fun I had.
I do not thing I want to leave here. At least not yet. I have grown so
used to things here. The constant moving around, the sometimes horrid modes
of transport (like that sleeper bus and also the bus that took us to Yangshou,
5 hours of bump bump bump bump - only worse.)
It is fantastic to have each day be new and amazingly different. Less
luggage would be better, easier to move around. Perhaps just the cloths
on our backs and a small shoulder bag to keep a journal, a book, money,
your camera, and a change of underwear. To drift around China for a summer
or two would be fantastic. Pick up the language, the culture,. Oh the
things that you would notice that you never could before. And the people
you would meet, weathered with age and experience.
Like the blind violin player we saw on the street last night. I bet he
has a story or two to tell. Or our bike guide, Li. She must have a million.
And such a life she leads. Actually renting a house because her's (300
years old) finally fell down. And saving up the money (20,000 to 60,000
yuen) to rebuild it. Having three kids, the first two being daughters,
so she had to pay 7,000 yuen when the third, a son (thank god), was born.
Paying to put all her kids through school (no education is free, and it
gets more expensive the higher up you get). Her middle daughter lives @
a school so she can participate in sports (she is a runner), and only comes
home once a month. This is an amazing woman. She has journals that everyone
who had taken a bike tour with her has written in. Many left business cars
and pictures as well. Imagine reading and rereading though those books.
And the very old people with the hunched backs and the sour looks, who
lived though the cultural revolution, who took down the graves of the rich
to build waterways and other useful things. Imagine the stories they must
have. There is so much history and rich rich culture in these little back
street towns, in the faces of the people. The old, weathered, beautiful
faces are storied in themselves. In the beginning I felt sorry for them
because they did not have the simple luxuries that I did. But they are
not like me, should not live like me. They have their own ways, their own
styled, their own storied, their own smiles.
A fantastic place, this China. And I have heard but a whisper echoed through
the canyons of it. Imagine hearing the song, as loud and as powerful as
it gets. Surely a wrong note will be hit. Perhaps more often than not,
but that is part of what makes the song so beautiful.
****
5:25 pm 11/25/97 ct (Tues)
1:25 am 11/25/97 rt (Tues)
Wow. We're back in Hong Kong, and boy is it hot!! Who'd have thought
that the last legs of November had that much heat left in them. Humid,
too. So I can't walk around wearing my new coat. =( Oh well, it will
probably be nice and cold and rainy when we get home. But it is unbelievably
hot!!! Hmmm. . .I want a bagel sandwich. And rootbeer. There's no rootbeer
anywhere here. Fry bread, that's what I'm craving. But we still need to
decide where we want to eat.
This city (Well, it seems more than a city actually) smells really funky.
Walking down the street its always bad, but then you catch whiffs of a
horrible scent emanating form below the streets.
I think that I really do want to go home. While on the boat I suddenly
got really really homesick. I miss all my friends so very much. Just their
companionship, hanging out with them, all the really lame stuff we do together.
They just mean so very much to me. That's why I enjoyed buying things
for them. It made me feel like they were there with me, at least a little
bit. I will be happy to be home.
I also miss reading the paper each morning and reading Newsweek and getting
my mail and checking my e-mail and just knowing what is going on around
me, not just in the world, but with he people around me. I just want to
know, damnit. And I really hate coming home after being gone for a while,
asking what I missed while I was away, and having people say "Oh, nothing."
I want to hear something, even if it is small and stupid. I just want
to know.
It will be great to the back and check my e-mail. I miss my little computers.
Especially Oz's computer. That one is my baby. Just the thought of people
using it (without me supervising, or at least near by), messing up the desktop
and all sorts of things. My poor computer. =(