This was supposed to be a bumper trip, Beijing and Shanghai all in one. It ended up being just one day in Beijing. I got a fever/food poisoning and decided to call it a day and drag my sorry self back home to Jinan. That meant I couldn't visit my Chinese friend from Uni, and I missed out on Couchsurfing with a really cool girl in Shanghai. Strangely though, the school schedule had changed so that instead of just missing 2 hours of teaching, I would have missed an entire weekend of teaching, if I had done the entire trip. On top of that my school couldn't find a replacement anyway, so my sickness was a blessing in disguise.
Allow me to dissect for you my short trip anyway.
I had finished my long work day on Sunday and was ready to head for the train station. I was planning on taking the night train and getting a seat chair to save money. At the last minute my school principal talked me into getting the fast train the following morning. After a bit of deliberatio I decided she was right. Then., at the crucial posint when I would either turn left and go home or turn right and go to the train station, I turned right. I already had everything with me - sleeping bag, clothes etc. that if I went home I would have lost the momentum I had been generating in my mind all day.
If I'm honest I wasn't in the mood to travel/sightsee. All I want is to get to living my life doing something I am truly passionate about. I don't want to fill my time doing other things, even if it is travelling. But my Beijing leg was really to get my passport from the embassy (if travelling was what excited me I woldn't have had the feeling when I got to Beijing of 'What the hell am I doing here?', now I understand what my brother was getting at when he and I travelled to petra in Jordan. He was like 'Amira, what the hell are we doing here?).
I missed the first bus stop for the bus that would take me to the train station (BRT 5 if any of you care) and unbeknownst to me, I had to walk for half an hour before the next bus stop came along. Walking in Jinan is like playing Russian Roulette, in every breath of air you may or may not be breathing deadly particles. Most likely situation is that you are.
When I got to the train station I bought the first, cheapest ticket to Beijing. When I read the time of the ticket and my seat and carriage number I was very happy. I felt like it was a lucky sign - 23.07 was the time of the train (my birthday and month), I was in seat 91 (my birth year) and carriage 7 (my birth month). The train was later delayed to 23.32 (another play on my favourite number, 23). I almost skipped away from the ticket office, I was that happy, surely something interesting will happen on this trip, I thought. (Just to save you from the disappointment of an anti-climax, nothing earth-shattering emerged from this trip, except perhaps my discovery that when I cover my ears I am infinitely happy in stressful, people-filled situations. This combined with my obsession of twirling my hair led me to self-diagnose as autistic for a few hours after I returned from my trip.)
Next I needed to find a chair to place my weary self onto. I chose a chair that was directly under a powerful light, so that I could read my Kindle if the need arose. The waiting room was heaving with people. It turns out that I sat next to one of the most delightful women I've met in China to date. She was exactly like my Egyptian auntie, Safaa. So full of happiness, optimism and energy, but in the innocent child-like way. She kept nudging me playfully.
In the 90 minutes I sat next to her, I learnt more Chinese than in the 3 months I've been here. Immersion is definitely the way to go, and if my life takes me to a non-English speaking country in the future, I will definitely stay in a homestay.
There were 2 awkward moments though. The first was when she kept repeating one question that I just couldn't make sense of. 'You homo? You homo'. Hmm... me homo? What does she mean? She had asked me if I was alone in Jinan, I said yes. Could she really be asking me about my sexual orientation? I continued to play dumb but then things got icy. She stopped smiling, as did her friend/acquaintance behind her. Think Amira think! Surely, she couldn't be asking me that.
Finally I found out that what she meant was 'Do you miss your family?', I can't remember exactly how I found out that she meant this, but it helped us get through that difficult part in our blossoming relationship.
The second awkward moment was when she typed in the word 'xiang' into her phone, as if I knew all the Chinese words and all I needed from her was to type in a word and I'd automatically understand the meaning. Anyway, I thought I'd make a joke that would blow her socks off. I remember how xiang was the first part of the word for banana (xiang jiao) and so I proceeded to hunt for the blackening bananas in my bag. She thought I was hunting for my Ipod with its dictionary app. When I triumphantly pulled out a banana I was not met with the rip-roaring laughter I had imagined, but with a blank, confused expression. Obviously not everyone thinks it's funny how often Chinese syllables are repeated.
At one point a teenage girl sat between me and this woman that was filling me with so much postive energy, to translate for us. I was distraught. I don't want anyone translating, I just want this woman and her energy. I think the girl could tell I didn't want her there (I think I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep), she was made to feel suitable awkward and voila, I open my eyes and she's gone, Happy Woman is sat in her place. Phew, order has been restored.
The time had come for us to part ways. She gave me her number and told me to call her when I returned to Jinan. We said to each 'It was nice to meet you' and we left. A man sitting opposite us called out 'Thank you' to me as I left, this made me smile all the way to the train. I'm glad I made a few of his waiting hours more enjoyable, even if I did ignore him, as I have a habit of doing with all strange men.
Allow me to dissect for you my short trip anyway.
I had finished my long work day on Sunday and was ready to head for the train station. I was planning on taking the night train and getting a seat chair to save money. At the last minute my school principal talked me into getting the fast train the following morning. After a bit of deliberatio I decided she was right. Then., at the crucial posint when I would either turn left and go home or turn right and go to the train station, I turned right. I already had everything with me - sleeping bag, clothes etc. that if I went home I would have lost the momentum I had been generating in my mind all day.
If I'm honest I wasn't in the mood to travel/sightsee. All I want is to get to living my life doing something I am truly passionate about. I don't want to fill my time doing other things, even if it is travelling. But my Beijing leg was really to get my passport from the embassy (if travelling was what excited me I woldn't have had the feeling when I got to Beijing of 'What the hell am I doing here?', now I understand what my brother was getting at when he and I travelled to petra in Jordan. He was like 'Amira, what the hell are we doing here?).
I missed the first bus stop for the bus that would take me to the train station (BRT 5 if any of you care) and unbeknownst to me, I had to walk for half an hour before the next bus stop came along. Walking in Jinan is like playing Russian Roulette, in every breath of air you may or may not be breathing deadly particles. Most likely situation is that you are.
When I got to the train station I bought the first, cheapest ticket to Beijing. When I read the time of the ticket and my seat and carriage number I was very happy. I felt like it was a lucky sign - 23.07 was the time of the train (my birthday and month), I was in seat 91 (my birth year) and carriage 7 (my birth month). The train was later delayed to 23.32 (another play on my favourite number, 23). I almost skipped away from the ticket office, I was that happy, surely something interesting will happen on this trip, I thought. (Just to save you from the disappointment of an anti-climax, nothing earth-shattering emerged from this trip, except perhaps my discovery that when I cover my ears I am infinitely happy in stressful, people-filled situations. This combined with my obsession of twirling my hair led me to self-diagnose as autistic for a few hours after I returned from my trip.)
Next I needed to find a chair to place my weary self onto. I chose a chair that was directly under a powerful light, so that I could read my Kindle if the need arose. The waiting room was heaving with people. It turns out that I sat next to one of the most delightful women I've met in China to date. She was exactly like my Egyptian auntie, Safaa. So full of happiness, optimism and energy, but in the innocent child-like way. She kept nudging me playfully.
In the 90 minutes I sat next to her, I learnt more Chinese than in the 3 months I've been here. Immersion is definitely the way to go, and if my life takes me to a non-English speaking country in the future, I will definitely stay in a homestay.
There were 2 awkward moments though. The first was when she kept repeating one question that I just couldn't make sense of. 'You homo? You homo'. Hmm... me homo? What does she mean? She had asked me if I was alone in Jinan, I said yes. Could she really be asking me about my sexual orientation? I continued to play dumb but then things got icy. She stopped smiling, as did her friend/acquaintance behind her. Think Amira think! Surely, she couldn't be asking me that.
Finally I found out that what she meant was 'Do you miss your family?', I can't remember exactly how I found out that she meant this, but it helped us get through that difficult part in our blossoming relationship.
The second awkward moment was when she typed in the word 'xiang' into her phone, as if I knew all the Chinese words and all I needed from her was to type in a word and I'd automatically understand the meaning. Anyway, I thought I'd make a joke that would blow her socks off. I remember how xiang was the first part of the word for banana (xiang jiao) and so I proceeded to hunt for the blackening bananas in my bag. She thought I was hunting for my Ipod with its dictionary app. When I triumphantly pulled out a banana I was not met with the rip-roaring laughter I had imagined, but with a blank, confused expression. Obviously not everyone thinks it's funny how often Chinese syllables are repeated.
At one point a teenage girl sat between me and this woman that was filling me with so much postive energy, to translate for us. I was distraught. I don't want anyone translating, I just want this woman and her energy. I think the girl could tell I didn't want her there (I think I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep), she was made to feel suitable awkward and voila, I open my eyes and she's gone, Happy Woman is sat in her place. Phew, order has been restored.
 |
| Happy Woman is on the left |
No comments:
Post a Comment