Our captain eased us into the dock in Big Harbor on the lake at Liujiaxia Gorge, while ferry workers were securing red trucks loaded with pipe under gray uncertain skies. I snapped a quick pic and climbed into the front seat of the car that would bring us back to town. The woman who rode out with me climbed in the back and I was just happy to be away from all my boat mates, away from the arguing, but most of all I was grateful to be rid of the young, nervy, arrogant couple. As we were about to pull away, the back door opened and guess who jumped into the back seat? Yep, you got it, the young, nervy, arrogant couple or YNAC for short. I raised my eyes upward, paraphrasing Al Pacino’s great Godfather lament, “Every time I try to get away, they pull me back in.” I looked with hope to the driver but he just wanted to leave and put the car in gear and drove off. We had barely reached the paved road when the female half of the YNAC began complaining. How do I know this? Complaining sounds the same in any language. Soon, she had managed to upset our friendly complacent driver and he was now shouting back at her. I realized they had most likely come to our car because the rest of the boat mates had thrown them out of the passenger van they had ridden out in. Alas, most days I eat China but other days China eats me. They argued all along the shores of the beautiful lake. They argued through the fertile farm towns. They argued as we rewound our way through the red sandstone hills and were still arguing when I turned and locked her with a look of pure redhead menace, which caused her to shrink back into her seat, but just to make sure she got the point I bore with my eyes straight into her soul, reached right in there and silently promised mayhem if she didn’t shut the hell up. I managed to keep her quiet until we hit the outskirts of town. I had never met anyone with a bigger mouth in any language. I just wanted to get out of the car, away from them, to regain the peace that Bingling Grotto had given me, and hope rose when I recognized that we were on the way to the bus station. Then we were there, but instead of stopping and letting me out, the driver swerved into the driveway, took a quick look around, asked a man standing there something in rapid Chinese, then took off back in the opposite direction. When I protested, he motioned with his hand in a calming gesture and drove along as if searching for something. I was concerned, but he had done nothing to raise my suspicions, so I placed my trust in his hands. On a wide corner, he pulled over and parked. A crowd—of what I learned later were other drivers, was waiting there. So was the family from the boat. One very large, angry driver approached and started yelling at the people in the back seat. Our driver was trying to placate him, but soon gave up, looking at me as if to say, oh boy, here it comes. The family were arguing with other drivers. The YNAC had lost all fear of my menace and were reinvigorated, shrilly surging forth and pointing fingers at everyone, who also pointed right back. The only one nobody was shouting at was me. Using this scrap of information, I concluded it was because I had returned to the boat on time, and that everyone else was wrapped up in something that had provoked all this public anger. At one point, the YNAC got out and stormed away in a huff. Thinking I was rid of them, I involuntarily hit the dashboard with my hand and shouted yes! And for a brief second, everyone shut up and looked at me with curiosity—a silent beautiful pause, then went back to arguing. Our driver got out and hurried after them and soon they were back, which provoked another furious group outburst. I was stupefied. It was as if I had unwittingly bought a ticket to a Chinese in-your-face festival and the performers were doing everything in their power to give me my money’s worth. And while I pride myself on wandering China as if I were deaf and dumb, I knew it was high time I called for help. Peter is a Chinese friend of mine and fellow teacher who speaks really good English and has always shown not only good cheer but a great willingness to help extract me from the troublesome situations I sometimes find myself in. I called him and asked him to talk to the driver and have him explain why he wasn’t taking me to the bus station so I could get the hell out of here and back to Lanzhou, away from all the arguing and jabbing of fingers? The driver listened for a while then recited a soliloquy in rapid Chinese, pausing every now and then while saying the ah ah ah sound that I understood to mean yes, yes, yes, then carefully handed the phone back to me. It seems big trouble was brewing. The owner of the boat—represented by the menacing, milling drivers, had only agreed to wait at the Grotto for an hour and a half and wanted extra money from the YNAC but also from the family as well. Not only that, but waiting for the YNAC had caused everyone to miss the last bus back to Lanzhou. My boat mates were counting on returning on the 20RMB ($3.24 USD) bus but were now faced with getting an expensive hotel room or negotiating with the drivers to take them back to Lanzhou. The negotiations weren’t going very well. But Peter had arranged for me to be driven back to Lanzhou for 120 RMB ($19.43 USD). I told Peter I would agree to this as long as the driver got me some beer and food and I didn’t have to travel with the YNAC. The driver nodded but all around the argument continued, breaking out in furious gesticulating clusters like traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Just when I thought they would be publicly stoned, the couple that had caused all the trouble stormed off into the night. The drivers let them go, but pointed in the direction they had gone in, still upset and complaining, yet I was elated as the driver collected the boat fare and the 100 RMB for the drive to Lanzhou, 10 RMB for food and beer, mimicking that I give the other twenty to the driver who would actually take me and the woman I had ridden in the car out with, back to the city. That woman, smiling stupidly, watched as I fumbled with these arrangements, trying to make sure everything was understood. Then the driver was back with two cans of beer and a package of some kind of sweet bread rolls and hustled us into the cab that would be actually driving us back. Suddenly, as if the actors had all bowed and the tortuously bad theatrical play was over, we escaped on the winding downhill road back to Lanzhou. I was sitting in the front watching the green treeless hills fold into themselves while the woman in the back seat talked to the driver. To be better heard, he turned his head, six inches from my ear, and shouted back at her. I thought surely he couldn’t keep this up, or that they would run out of things to say, but after thirty minutes of this, my ear was so sore I put my finger in it to block him out. I could still hear him. At forty minutes I was ready to kill them both. And so, we rolled downhill, as the sun turned its back on this day and set without the usual theatrics. On the outskirts of Lanzhou, I was ready to jump out into the night and flee, but I talked myself down and endured. The woman in back punctuated everything she said with a giggle. The cab driver had no volume control. They apparently had endless things to talk about. I looked out as the city rose up in residential sky-towers and admitted I had failed the very first test of Being Bingling Grotto. No contest. I was worn out and used up. As wired as a zoo monkey throwing bananas at his reflection. The driver swerved over and pointed to a row of buses. I jumped out eagerly even though I had no clue which bus to take. As I was figuring it out, the woman from the cab came up and said, in perfect English, “Where are you trying to go?” Instead of being grateful, I was angry with her for letting me blunder through the day without once offering to translate. Or maybe I was angry with myself for being so lame in a linguistic sense—either way, we boarded the same bus but I just couldn’t look at her or sit next to her, to me, she was nonexistent. As I exited the bus and walked toward my neighborhood, I began shaking. I was still wet and the temperature had dropped, and at first I thought it was the malignancy of the day prolonging itself but immediately afterwards had a thought that veered in the opposite direction, suggesting that maybe it was the water I had taken with me, longing to be home and shaking itself in sadness, and in my brain, the cracked-faced Buddha, smiled, or maybe even, laughed, while I walked along and pondered it all.
2 Comments
Andy Monaco
7/27/2013 11:24:36 pm
Very funny my friend; thank you for the good laughs.
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Mary
7/31/2013 07:36:56 am
Oh my ee I never expected such an ending. All that arguing was getting to me too!! Thanks for the help of Peter... I was in real dismay when the english speaking began how could she after all you did for her. Oh well lessons learned it made for a very different kind of story, I guess it made you enjoy reaching Lanzhou and your own bed.
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