On-Course Conversations
Let me tell you about my new friend Li Yung of Yangshuo, Guangxi Province.
Where should we happen to meet but in the Guilin bus station! While I was trying to find which line to get into in order to buy bus tickets, Li was all too happy to help a confused foreigner without even being asked. Somehow he could intuit the likelihood that I was also traveling to his hometown.
Although we had only met for a moment, after interpreting the “might as well be hieroglyphics” ticket the counter had given me, Li offered to help carry one of my bags as we made our way to the next bus to Yangshuo. Amazing! The Chinese Tourism Board wasn’t kidding!
On the way to Yangshuo we talked a good thirty minutes or more, alternating between English and Mandarin. My friend Li is 35, married and works teaching two classes of English in a junior high school. The school has 1,500 students or so. His classes have between 35 and 45 students. He knows a Canadian couple who teach English in a private school.
He is Zhuangzhuren, the minority people that are the majority in Guangxi (Zhuang Autonomous Region). He likes reading Chinese newspapers, but doesn’t read too much English literature. He really liked the movie Titanic (for some reason). He has two sisters and a brother.
He has an expensive cell phone but his clothes are much worn. He went to college in Guilin. He went to Beijing for one-week in 1998. The train took 28 hours. He saw the Temple of Heaven, Chairman Mao’s and the Tiananmen Shabangabang.
Did I take a train or plane? Plane. How long? Three hours. How much? ~120 USD. Do I think Beijing is expensive?
He has a marvelous idea that comes twenty minutes into the conversation. His friend has accommodations. Eighty yuan a night (~10 USD). Maybe if I stayed there, we could meet and do a language exchange. One hour English. “Yi ge xiaoshi zhongwen.”
What do I say to Li at this point? Ah, I’m sorry my friend Li, but I told a white lie. I told you that my friend had recommended me a place to stay in Yangshuo, but alas that acquaintance had forgot where she stayed and so could not tell me where to stay. I was really going to look in the tourist guide for a guide to prices and then just walk randomly into a hotel that looked accommodating to a cheapskate like me. I told you to give me the place’s name so I could investigate it if my first option failed and that I would tell them that you had sent me. That was also a lie. I honestly had no intention of even considering your suggestion since it was almost twice the amount I saw in the guidebook, despite your “local expertise.”
Li, you strangely clammed up after that. You watched the slapstick comedy on the tube. You drifted into a nap as we passed scenes of rural China that echo in the heart of every brush painting.
I sensed a rift in our friendship and it troubled me deeply, this friendship with the lifespan of a “moskeeter.”
Then you said: “We’re here.” We arrived in your hometown, and then you were the old Li of two hours before. I had not to fear. Maybe you just needed a rest from a long day visiting your old school chums.
But then we got off the bus, and then right off you suggested again that I could follow you to your friend’s guest house. Ah, but you forced my hand, and so I grappled in my luggage to find a piece of paper and pen to write down the information.
As I was writing your name, I realized I should thank you. Although I couldn’t really explain it, and I doubt it would be interesting from your perspective of trying to make ends meet in a challenging financial situation.
You see, Li, I usually just deflect automatically any “hullos” out of my force-of-bad-habit. But I realized that I’m still curious about people despite my multifarious ways of short-circuiting the satisfaction of my curiosity. So for once, I decided to forego the direct route and just see where the conversation would go.
Even if my toxic cynicism isn’t allayed a whit, maybe one of these days I'll be surprised. In any case, it's the only way to learn about people. And I need a helluvalot more field research.
Where should we happen to meet but in the Guilin bus station! While I was trying to find which line to get into in order to buy bus tickets, Li was all too happy to help a confused foreigner without even being asked. Somehow he could intuit the likelihood that I was also traveling to his hometown.
Although we had only met for a moment, after interpreting the “might as well be hieroglyphics” ticket the counter had given me, Li offered to help carry one of my bags as we made our way to the next bus to Yangshuo. Amazing! The Chinese Tourism Board wasn’t kidding!
On the way to Yangshuo we talked a good thirty minutes or more, alternating between English and Mandarin. My friend Li is 35, married and works teaching two classes of English in a junior high school. The school has 1,500 students or so. His classes have between 35 and 45 students. He knows a Canadian couple who teach English in a private school.
He is Zhuangzhuren, the minority people that are the majority in Guangxi (Zhuang Autonomous Region). He likes reading Chinese newspapers, but doesn’t read too much English literature. He really liked the movie Titanic (for some reason). He has two sisters and a brother.
He has an expensive cell phone but his clothes are much worn. He went to college in Guilin. He went to Beijing for one-week in 1998. The train took 28 hours. He saw the Temple of Heaven, Chairman Mao’s and the Tiananmen Shabangabang.
Did I take a train or plane? Plane. How long? Three hours. How much? ~120 USD. Do I think Beijing is expensive?
He has a marvelous idea that comes twenty minutes into the conversation. His friend has accommodations. Eighty yuan a night (~10 USD). Maybe if I stayed there, we could meet and do a language exchange. One hour English. “Yi ge xiaoshi zhongwen.”
What do I say to Li at this point? Ah, I’m sorry my friend Li, but I told a white lie. I told you that my friend had recommended me a place to stay in Yangshuo, but alas that acquaintance had forgot where she stayed and so could not tell me where to stay. I was really going to look in the tourist guide for a guide to prices and then just walk randomly into a hotel that looked accommodating to a cheapskate like me. I told you to give me the place’s name so I could investigate it if my first option failed and that I would tell them that you had sent me. That was also a lie. I honestly had no intention of even considering your suggestion since it was almost twice the amount I saw in the guidebook, despite your “local expertise.”
Li, you strangely clammed up after that. You watched the slapstick comedy on the tube. You drifted into a nap as we passed scenes of rural China that echo in the heart of every brush painting.
I sensed a rift in our friendship and it troubled me deeply, this friendship with the lifespan of a “moskeeter.”
Then you said: “We’re here.” We arrived in your hometown, and then you were the old Li of two hours before. I had not to fear. Maybe you just needed a rest from a long day visiting your old school chums.
But then we got off the bus, and then right off you suggested again that I could follow you to your friend’s guest house. Ah, but you forced my hand, and so I grappled in my luggage to find a piece of paper and pen to write down the information.
As I was writing your name, I realized I should thank you. Although I couldn’t really explain it, and I doubt it would be interesting from your perspective of trying to make ends meet in a challenging financial situation.
You see, Li, I usually just deflect automatically any “hullos” out of my force-of-bad-habit. But I realized that I’m still curious about people despite my multifarious ways of short-circuiting the satisfaction of my curiosity. So for once, I decided to forego the direct route and just see where the conversation would go.
Even if my toxic cynicism isn’t allayed a whit, maybe one of these days I'll be surprised. In any case, it's the only way to learn about people. And I need a helluvalot more field research.
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