I was waiting for my buddy Paul in the Baoji train station and as the minutes ticked by I was thinking how it’s not like him to be late, then also realized I was suffering from traveler’s dementia where you are always feeling that you are waiting in the wrong place, at the wrong gate, on the wrong street, existing in a shadow world apart from how the local people see it. Eventually, just as nonchalant waiting was dissolving into looking around and weighing my options, Paul came trotting up, out of breath. Responding to a call from his girlfriend at 6 A.M. he had been to Xian to take care of some urgency, then raced back to Baoji on a high-speed train that arrived the same time as my train did, but at a different station on the other side of the city. He explained all this as we drove the short distance to his apartment, and once there, displayed the bright treasures procured in Xian: three different kinds of cheeses, cigars, bread, and real British tea imported from the U.K. We immediately started hacking at a wheel of Brie while catching up, waiting for the tea to steep; the cigars would be for tomorrow night. Ah . . . to take this much delight in cheese requires being deprived of it. Describing China as the land of no cheese is right on the money. Sure, you can get it in the big cities, but everywhere else it’s a challenge, and if you do manage to find it, it will most likely be a bland tasteless, chemical equivalent meant to satisfy the uninitiated. You can forget about the sharp bite of real Vermont cheddar or the crumbly mouth burst of Rogue Creamery’s Smokey Blue Cheese. It all leads to a condition I call homeFOODsickness. Most expats suffer from this more than anything else. It comes on you suddenly, completely, and it usually causes you to crave things you were never even in the habit of eating back home. Hot dogs with yellow mustard. Cheeseburgers with ketchup and pickle. Potatoes and gravy. Bacon omelets with home fries. The cravings are as unique as the individuals are. I had one friend who sheepishly admitted to craving SPAM. The other thing most expats suffer from is not being able to speak freely in their mother tongue. To be casually and completely understood without having to stop the flow of a story and explain everything. Anyone who knows me is laughing right now . . . imagining me patiently stopping to explain everything. But at the moment I was eating real cheese and tomorrow I would be seated around a table able to speak freely without explaining. We started out the morning with Brit tea, bread and more cheese. Then, a quick cab ride into the city center, where we fixed upon the The Memorial Temple to lord Zhou, hanging like a cloud to the north. At the entrance, an enthusiastic, smiling seller of 8-treasure tea summoned us and we watched the complex process as he manipulated his giant teapot to render his magic into a paper cup. The taste was something like drops of honeyed-pearls and fortified us for the climbing of the stairs to the temple. Inside, it was old trees climbing above terra cotta roofs, orange corn stacked against ancient walls, razor-clawed dragons emerging, wizards holding a red cloth in their right hand and a snake’s jaw in their right, breast feeding goddesses and roofs ornamented with roosters and dragons and mythic symbolic figures outlined against a blue sky. A little stunned, we climbed higher, amazed at how quickly the city turned rural. A maze of pathways led us to an intersection that offered us this: Paul had to attend a school function and so I wandered the back alleys of Baoji taking pictures of meat, and music, and the ancient past etched into modern faces. The alleys reeked of metal, spices, raw meat, fruit, vegetables, plastic, cooking oil, desperation, happiness, pride, unstuck in time, freewheeling, floating above like kites of expectation, hope, and eventual salvation. I wandered in quiet joy, encouraged by frequent smiles. As darkness set in I ran out of alleys and settled in to the Sky Bar, where I was told an English Holden’s Dragon Blood beer would cost 38 Yuan (approx six dollars) though it would actually cost twice as much, but the view was agreeable and I watched the last night of the old year take hold of this unknown city. Wondering what that was, we climbed higher, past a locked stupa to a point overlooking the city where we were told the Midget World Scenic Spots was really a hyperactive description of an ordinary park. But that was okay, because we were high above the city and high above ourselves, enjoying each little detail in this brightly lit day, looking forward to the coming evening that would usher us into a brand new year. The plan was to meet at a Pizza Hut, of which I was heartily opposed, and as the clock ticked, none of the expats I was to meet were arriving. Paul was late and so was everyone else. Then suddenly Jordan, James and Misty arrived, and we ditched the idea of the Pizza Hut, favoring a local spot that served western food. Soon thereafter, Paul arrived, with Zoe and Cindy and Fred. The gang was assembled and we tried to decipher the menu. And here, I’d like to interject how the homeFOODsickness comes into play. We all ordered steak, except the Zoe and Cindy—who are Chinese, because somehow it was expected among the expats--who were from Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and New Jersey, that steak was a New Year’s custom, and even though I can’t remember the last time I have eaten steak, I happily joined in. Too bad the steak was thin, tough, and totally unremarkable. As we made our way to the bar, someone suggested we top off the unsatisfying steak with some MacDonald’s cheeseburgers. Usually, given a choice, I would never eat there, and they don’t even exist where I now live, but I was still hungry, so I relented. At Mac-WAH-nald's, I ordered two cheeseburgers and I was stunned; never before have cheeseburgers ever tasted so good. It was the theory of homeFOODsickness, proven: Depravation x unavailability x unchallenged memories of comfort = reckless acceptance of food mediocrity. I concluded it was the stubborn resonance of advertising rising and reasserting itself. How many times had they made me crave this crap? How many times had I been subliminally sold on the notion that junk food is happiness? That Coca-cola is life? That buying is the opposite of dying? That lying in advertising is not really lying but good competition, right? This repetitive, jingly nonsense, sinks in your brain, compressed like dinosaur swamps, covered over and dies, consciously tuned out, yet always available by media fracking. I sighed and finished the last bite. Crumpled the waxed paper and threw it in the trash. A new year was rising, and I was going to rise with it. This, I was sure of. In Chinese it read: 我正要随之上升 Part 3 of New Year’s Eve in Baoji will follow.
2 Comments
Mary
2/25/2015 06:26:26 am
Happy Chinese New Year EE!! That cheese looks like to die for and I am not a big cheese person (I actually could live without it) but that is a great picture of cheese looks delicious. Your New Years sounded like fun so far looking forward to reading more. It has been sub zero frozen here this February like I have never seen or felt before. Just really brutal keeps snowing, freezing and snowing artic blasts of flash frozen weather. All we do is eat comfort food that you miss because it is so cold. It tastes so good and I would miss it too as you say homeFOODsickness. Food does taste great here!!! Miss you.
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Erika María
3/4/2015 04:18:21 pm
Always in love with all these sacred sites venerated by people´s heartfelt devotion. Happy Chinese New Year dear poet! I love your story.
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