We are staying at the Tianlong Grand Hotel, a three star establishment on a busy avenue. I can't give you an address because all the pamphlets are in Mandarin, the clerks don't speak English and guests sitting in the lobby are openly staring at me while smoking their cigarettes. Juana tells me that I am probably the first white person they have ever come across - other than those they have seen on TV. Qianjiang has a population of a hundred and twenty-thousand people. The director of the school of Tourism thought the hotel's location would be more practical for me so that I could just walk about town.
We are assigned room 5650. We head up to the fifth floor and walk down the corridor. I notice that if I reach my hand and hop, that I can touch the ceiling. I'm 5'4.'' A quick swipe of the key card and, surprise, we stumble upon a pair of Chinese men. You guessed it, smoking. Thankfully, clothed. They gasp. We gasp and quickly retreat into the hall wondering what has just happened. I am just grateful that the situation was not reversed and that I am the one who shocked them. So we return to the lobby and attempt to extract an explanation from the front desk lady. She looks at us as if we are stupid, I can tell this by her tone and I don't need to understand Mandarin because her condescension is so not subtle. 56507 = sixth floor, room 507. Ok, we aren't so bright. Our mistake. But how does this explain the fact that we were able to enter the wrong room, one floor below us?
Spacious, decorated in earth tones and olive colored lame, with the prerequisite kettle in the bathroom to boil the water, yes! Wherever you go in the country, this is the key to your health while traveling. Boil all water that crosses your lips, even when brushing your teeth. Thankfully, although the view is of the conference center parking lot, it is more quiet than had we been fronted on the main drag. And it's free!
Cherry is calling and texting me from Beijing with an address she has pulled from her files and she is dictating directions to this person's home based on memory. Cross the main bridge and take the first left along the river, or is it the second... go three kilometers down the road until you come to a fruit market... follow the market until you come to an alley... zigzag left, zigzag right... look for a courtyard... and so on. I transcribe the instructions trying to visualize what she is saying. Juana keeps repeating the Chinese address in Mandarin and thinks the grammar is off. The clerks have never heard of the street... Meanwhile, we have to set up the appointment to take photographs of a young burn victim so that Cherry can send pictures to the surgeon in Australia but we can't get a hold of her she has no telephone. We find another number to call in case of emergency and it is that of the girl's father who is working in Guangzhou with her mother. He excitedly takes our call and promises to have his daughter in our lobby by 9am the next morning. Which, if all works acording to plan, will leave me two hours plus to get to the Foster mother's place (assuming directions are correct.) We are not sure this is going to happen. What is certain though is that we don't want the babysitters around when we are documenting the burns and I don't want them with me when I go looking for the foster mother lady. We hatch a plan to have our guides pick us up at noon to take us to lunch and then the train station for a return back to Chongqing.
Pauline meets us on a street corner a few blocks from the hotel. The streets are filled with people and children. Groups of them, clearly belonging to one family. I am confused about this. Is there not a one child policy in effect? Pauline explains that the Tujia minority (originally from Thailand or thereabout, I believe) are allowed as many as three children. She leads us down restaurant row - which mostly consists of outdoor kitchens with tarps spread overhead to shield diners from the elements. My olfactory sense is on overdrive. I swear that my nostrils are numb from trying to decipher and identify the perfume of smoke, sludge and Sichuan peppers, or is it Qianjiang bacon? We snake our way past carnival type games spread out over the sidewalk and past rows of shoe shiners.
We look to Pauline for dining guidance but she is at a loss since she never goes out to eat, preferring her own cooking to anything else she might want. We settle on the most formal of settings, a restaurant with actual walls and a lot of steam billowing out of it. I like it because of the promise of beer. At this point I feel like a leaf carried by a stream headed for some rapids. I have no clue as to how much dining luck I have left . I know that I just need my stomach to hold out for another seventy-two hours and then I can explode when I get back to Los Angeles. At least, I'll be home.
I gently beg not to be served food that is too spicy. The Sichuan pepper has a taste all to its own and usually makes my tongue thick and numb. I am told that this pepper leaches the moisture out of the body. Translation: it has some arthritis combatting properties that these mountain folks appreciate. The dishes are all sealed in thick plastic wrap and they serve me water tea. Translation: hot water. Good for digestion. The meal is delicious. As much as I profess to be nervous about the dining conditions, the noodle dishes and breaded ribs and mystery soup are memorable. Everyone else loses weight when they travel here but not me, no sir. Those extra five pounds I won't be able to shake when I get home will be my lasting souvenir. That is, if my stomach holds out. What a dilemma.
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Don't ask me what this is. It was spicy and delicious.
At the end of the meal a shoe shiner approaches me for a shoe shine. Juana and Pauline quickly waive her off but I ask her to stay. My boots are disgusting. They are covered in mud, construction dust (the air is thick with it) and who knows what else. In any case my friends groan when she plants herself in front of me and starts to clean them. I defend myself. I tell Juana that here is a woman who is trying to survive and the skill she has to put food on the table is to shine my shoes. This isn't about a superior-inferior complex, this is about me needing the service and her being able to provide it. She is not begging. She isn't asking for something for nothing. Juana thanks me for my perspective. The shoe shiner looks up at me and smiles. I smile back at her and thank her in Mandarin, to which she responds, "Love your life." "Excuse, me?" She repeats it. "Love your life!" You speak English? She nods. "Love your life, love yourself." I am stunned. Juana is stunned. Pauline is stunned. We go on to find out that she loved studying English in high school until her parents could no longer afford to pay for her schooling and she was forced to go to work to help support her family. She conjugates a few verbs for us, sharing what she remembers of the language, always smiling and laughing and proud while diners have gathered around us to listen to her. She points to my boots showing me that she is done. They look fantastic. I feel like a kid with a new pair of shoes who can't stop looking at them. She asks for four yuen. I give her six. She gives me two back. I tell her to keep it. The job was worth 3 yuen a boot, at least. She laughs and heads off in search of her next client. Juana looks at me and smiles. What a trip. This almost feels like and old "Touched by an Angel" episode.
How could my shoe shiner possibly know that "Love your life, love yourself," has been my mantra for the last two years and that I try to wake up every day with the goal of being conscious and grateful for the things that I have, for my kids, for my friends, for my life, for this amazing trip.
Is - loving it all
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