Making Friends with China

I'm in the south of China in Guilin in Guangxi province. If I were Vietnamese, I could hop on a train and cross the border to Hanoi in about ten hours. However, I'm not Vietnamese, so I have other dreams.

I've just gotten off the plane from Shanghai and am sitting not too far from the baggage claim area of the Guilin airport in an internet "business center" where you can check your email for about 75 cents an hour. There aren't any businessmen here, just a few high school students fooling around on the net. One girl is yapping away in her mainland Chinese accent with her tongxue (classmates) on an instant messenging program.

After working hard to save money for my trip in the past month, I feel like I am coming alive again as I begin to explore this new place. I was happy to be in the States--to see my family on the East coast, to see my friends in Berkeley. To feel how much my psyche is changing living in Chinese culture. To see the things about American culture that I am finding stranger and stranger the more I live here in Asia. But it's good to be on the road again here in Asia, speaking Chinese, working toward my dream, whatever that may be.

I am in the middle of something. Something that feels much larger than me. I am reminded of the words of Seung Sahn, the Korean Zen master. "Don't know, only don't know." Westerners (and I think most people) have a tough time with this. We always want to know what comes next. For now, I am okay with "don't know". It's fun to be curious, to live with mystery, to listen to the present as it unfolds. "Dancing with the moment as she flies," a famous poet once said.

This morning, I woke up in Shanghai in my friend's high-rise apartment which looks out directly on the modern Pudong skyline. Next to the famous Jinmao building (which sure looks like Taipei's 101 to me), they are building an even taller structure, the World Finance Building, which will be 90 storeys and 460m, in case you were wondering.

After showering and preparing my pack for my trip to Yangshuo, I head out for my first day in China. I go to the bank and while waiting for my number to be called, one of the managers asks whether everything is all right. I explain to her what I need and she kindly helps me at the bank teller's window. The bank teller is smiling as we walk away and talk more. I tell her that today is my first day in China and that she is my first friend. Our meeting is yuan fen, she says. Meant to be.

It's a good way to start the day.

Across the street from the bank is Yuyuan Gardens, where I will get some breakfast. This is a beautiful compound full of classical Chinese pavilions where you can buy all manner of Chinese gifts, from marble chops to calligraphy brushes and scarfs to knockoff watches and luggage. There are salespeople walking around hawking their wares. When they see me, a foreigner, they say "watchey, luggitch?" And I really appreciate how just as soon as I said "bu yao" they stop and smile. And most importantly, continue on in their search for another waiguoren.

I ask one of the hawkers where I can get some food and he points me around the corner with a smile. I get some carrot dumpings and a cup of wulong tea at a little stall and began to talk to the laobanniang (the owner). Fortunately, everyone here understands my Chinese and everyone is pretty complimentary. I guess they're all used to a lot of Danish retirees. (These compliments are good encouragement, but as my friend Michael says, if one day you are not complimented, you know you are getting really good.)

There's a McDonald's nearby and I tell her that I don't eat McDonald's, that I prefer more traditional, natural food. She admits that she doesn't like it either. She explains that it's mostly a place for foreigners and young kids.

I tell her it's my first day here and that she is my second friend in China. It's time for me to be on my way and I thank her for the good and authentic food.

Now, time to get a card for my cellphone. These are the things you do when you land in a new place. I go to the China Mobile shop around the corner and get a phone number here in China. I have to tell you that life is a lot easier (and much more fun) because I can speak basic Chinese. I get my card and phone number, noticing that mobile phone numbers in China are eleven digits long. It's a big country.

I need some tea and I need to charge my phone, so I go to one of the many tea shops in Yuyuan Gardens. The shopkeeper is friendly and asks me to sit down for some wulong tea. I tell him a little about my story, that I've studied Chinese, and that I want to study more Chinese Medicine here. He is happy to let me charge my phone while we chat.

He brings out his wife, who tells me she was a rash that itches and won't go away. She is not more than thirty, and very friendly. As if I am her doctor, she starts pulling up her pantslegs to show me the red marks near her knees. I look at her tongue and feel her pulse and tell her what I think is going on. But then I tell her that I'm not such an experienced doctor and that she should find one nearby who specializes in dermatology.

The laoban gives me his card and says that I will be a good doctor in a few years and that he would like to visit me in my clinic. He's got some good tea and some fine-looking teapots, and so I make a note to go back there when I return to Shanghai in about a week.

After an overpriced lunch in Yuyuan gardens, I get on a taxi to Hongqiao airport, check in, and all of us passengers board a bus which takes us to our plane. Behind me is a young couple. The husband is on the phone and I start talking to his wife. In the next fifteen minutes, I discover some more of that yuan fen as I find my fifth and sixth friends here in China.

I am lucky. And hopefully, I'll be lucky enough to lose count of my friends in China in the next few days.