Erika wrote this: “ . . . just ready to live sensations only our soul understands.” I rode the train to Beijing standing between the cars in solitude, watching the fields, the villages, and the ordinary, unassuming Chinese life sweep by, my soul alive and bursting, yet every now and then a roving Chinese passenger would pause trying to figure out what I was taking such joy in, scratching their collective heads wondering what in the hell I was looking so raptly at. On Chinese trains, most passengers drew the curtains, closing off the mostly rural landscape flowing by in all its magnificence, as if it were dull and dreary and best left avoided. But here was this laowai (foreigner) finding such gratifying interest in it. Why? It endlessly perturbed them. Meanwhile, I was surfing the planet, set free, to ponder, to pause, to appreciate. I was a mite on a speeding train, viewing the incredible landscape, the repetition, the snapshot images that appeared and imprinted, then disappeared like a fading ghost, replaced by other fascinations as I perpetually wondered how can anyone not look? And therein lay the puzzle of my own peculiar existence. Why do so many not look? I have always felt secure in the notion that I am a great traveler, but I have to admit, initially, Beijing beat me. I couldn’t fathom it. I walked around the neighborhood by the West train station, trying to find a vacancy in a hotel but was instead treated like a clueless idiot that anyone could take advantage of. They all were saying—no budget rooms available, but plenty of high-priced rooms for you, my ignorant friend. It seemed to be so entertaining for them to take advantage of a foreigner . . . “And may I suggest my English speaking cousin,” (who will rip you off on all the sightseeing tours) etcetera, etcetera. I scanned the flat horizon and all I could see was confusion; I didn’t know where I was or where I wanted to go. It was summer in Beijing, everyone moving, open season on the laowai and everyone else; make sure you bring a fat wallet. Through Peter (yes, the same Peter who rescued me before) I got a cab to Tiananmen Square. After checking out the prices at some overpriced, weary hotels, a pedal taxi driver agreed to take me to a hotel that was clean and reasonably priced. He had the look of a hustler, and that I understood; he would deliver, but it would cost me. He actually turned out to be too lazy to pedal me there and called his assistant--who was a live wire, and who had a greeting or a complaint about everyone we swerved around as we made our way through the aromatic and crowded hutongs hidden from the proper and accepted view of metropolitan Beijing, that were, of course, of immense interest to me, so crowded and stinky with everyday life. The driver swerved, braked, swore, as we zoomed our way through maze-like alleys I could never find my way out of. The driver seemed to take delight in this and maneuvered his way deeper into the hutong. At one point, he stopped and looked at me—and I got it. Assuming a boxer’s posture I said, “Whatever, try your best, but I’m going to fight you. Completely. Understand?” After a searching look, he pretended to be joking and pedaled on. Maybe he was; you never know. We ended up at an overpriced hotel that was clean, and I settled for that. Having just read Kipling’s ‘The Man Who would be King’ I had a softness in my heart for rogues and misfits, so I let them pull the ruse about having no change (maybe the oldest one in the book), pocketing my 50 Yuan note for the agreed upon 30 Yuan fare. Having been completely turned around by my ride through the hutong, I had absolutely no idea where I was. The hotel gave me a map and marked in Chinese, ‘You are here,’ but it was meaningless. Beijing sprawled on, faceless. I wrote in my notebook—Beijing is a dream of a city wondering what it will look like when it wakes up. Beijing is China on Disneyland steroids. Beijing is a remade concrete dream too cold to be touched. Modern Beijing probably looked great on architectural mockups but it is too sterile and spread out to ever be grasped. And so on. I was freaked. I panicked. I wrote bad texts. The bed in my room was like sleeping on a bag of bones. Or maybe a bag of bones mixed with sheetrock. Wrapped in Motor City steel. Manufactured by ‘Uglyrest.’ I survived the night with sincere regrets and set out in the morning with just one mission: to find a soft bed regardless of the price. I checked out the ever-present offerings of overpriced mediocrity, and then, before I threw up my hands and settled, looked into a place that the previous night had promised to have a room available the next day. And here is where this story makes a dramatic turnaround. Elvis Plays Beijing Part 2
3 Comments
Bad text
8/16/2013 01:18:39 am
is deleted from the memory
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Erika María
8/17/2013 09:50:22 am
... even if the immediate soul sensation is traffic, ordinary lifes, city, bag of bones... Beijing can be an antidote for any quiet mind, it would be for mine...a sterile dream with a sense of surprise!
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Mary
8/28/2013 01:59:20 am
You need beautyrest after the the bag of bones uglyrest. Bejing I hope turns out to have something interesting and exciting for you. It is so imense - seems intriging may also be surprising. Can't wait to read the dramatic turnaround!! Mary
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