Ni hau everyone,
Xi’an , ancient capital of China between the Qin and the Tang dynasties was home to Emperor Qin Shihuang’s army of terra-cotta soldiers.
Arriving here was like arriving back in the 20th century with a jolt. We stepped out of our time machine to find ourselves surrounded by sky-scrapers, neon signs, western brand names, clean streets, Japanese cars and department stores.
The only anomaly was the people. They seemed stuck in a fashion time-warp. Lacking the experience to cope with all the choice. The guys all wear golf tops and slacks. For the women, sunglasses, platform soles and mini-skirts are de rigeur, regardless of whether it suited their figures or not.
On the journey from Xining to Xi’an, I was be-friended by two Chinese guys. Zeng Hui, an Economics student from Shaanxi University, had reasonable English and an even better dictionary in the form of a personal organiser. Nie Tian, a self-confident yuppie on annual leave spoke virtually no English but seemed to get along well with Zeng.
After they heard how much I expected to pay for a hotel room they laughed and offered to find me a room for a third of the price. After two hours of traipsing around various hotels and being told that they were all “full”, a Chinese euphemism for “No barbarians allowed”, I was beginning to feel sorry for them. They seemed genuinely baffled by their government’s policy of only allowing foreigners to stay in three star plus hotels.
Sensing my fatigue, Zeng offered to put me up in his flat and have him and Nie move in with the neighbours. I had seen the “flat” already. It was a bare concrete room in a three storey block of them. It had a forty watt bulb, one desk, one chair and a bed like a trestle table; a plank of wood on top of two metal stands. The toilet, although clean, was unlit and three storeys down stairs. I hedged.
“I desperately need a shower”, I answered.
This was only half an excuse. After a journey of 2300 kilometers from Lhasa to Xi’an, comprising one bus and two trains, and lasting over 72 hours, I was having to keep my hands resolutely in my pockets for fear of gassing some poor passerby with the smell from my armpits.
“We have public shower.”
I thought of Chinese public toilets and demurred again.
“We have private bath also.”
“Keyi”, I relented, “but no-one is moving anywhere”.
Besides, I kept telling myself, this will be an adventure. A chance to see a part of China not covered by Tony Wheeler and his cronies.
Of course, I failed to consider that Zeng being a student and Nie being on holiday they had nothing else to do but look after me. They helped me unpack and bought me breakfast. They took me to the barber’s and waited while I had a shave. They stood behind me while I checked my e-mail. They resolutely refused to allow me to pay for anything
and, in short, began to irritate the hell out of me.
Eventually they took me to the public baths and, thankfully, waited in the foyer while one of the attendants led me up a set of stairs, down a tiled corridor and into a small room with a waist high bench and a bath. The walls were covered in plastic sheeting which puzzled me until, while
emptying my pockets into the waste-bin I noticed the used condom packets.
I had been told by other travellers that in China there is only one reason why anyone wants privacy. I half expected some lightly clad woman to come through the door and offer me a massage or something and nearly jumped out of my skin when there was a knock at the door. I hurriedly grabbed a towel and prepared my excuses, but it was only one of the attendants with a message from Nie asking me to wait until they got back.
After my first bath since leaving Stratford, I managed to convince Cheech and Chong that I needed a rest and they left me alone for most of the afternoon. By the evening I had recovered and we went out for a delicious meal of roast pork, rice noodles and mantou (steamed bread). When we had finished the meal, Nie asked me through Zeng if I wanted to go to a disco.
Although I didn’t feel quite up to strutting my stuff in a Chinese Disco, I certainly felt like a few drinks and readily agreed. We took a taxi into the centre of town, to a flash looking high-rise building. Taking the glass lift up to the twelfth floor we exited into a busy lobby. Nie asked a pretty attendant a few questions and then led us through a plush looking restaurant to a bar on a balcony overlooking the city. From our table we had an excellent view of the city smog and of the Hyatt International Hotel across the way. The whole place smelt of money: The waitresses hovered, the menu only advertised foreign beers and the clientele seemed to consist solely of well to-do businessmen and their trophy wives.
By now I had had enough of their paying for everything and had insisted on paying for the drinks. When I saw the prices on the menu I began to regret my insistence. One round was going to cost more than double what the entire meal had cost. After a number of drinks and, countless toasts I had found out that Zeng was intending to emigrate to America after passing his final year at Uni and that Nie was actually an Auditor working for a Government Department in Wuhan: A budding Party member. Suddenly things began to fall into place. His brash attitude and dress, the fawning obedience of everyone serving us, which I had assumed to be the norm in China, stupidly forgetting my previous experiences with Chinese officialdom in which they had been universally abrupt and rude.
After finishing the drinks Nie went to the loo. When he returned he was smiling;
“Now we go disco?”
“Okay,” I laughed nervously, thinking that I could always drink heavily and do my very convincing impression of a wall-flower or at least the male version of one. I tried to pay for the drinks, but the waiter,
claiming he had made a mistake with the bill, gave me almost half the
money back as change. I didn’t bother protesting since it was obviously
something to do with Nie.
One of the waitresses, smiling sweetly, lead us down a wood paneled
corridor to a room at the end. The room looked like small lounge with a bar and a sofa at one end, a large screen TV and video at the other.
“Karaoke”, I groaned inwardly. Zeng and I sat down in the sofa while Nie, by now grinning wildly, helped himself to a drink from the cabinet. As with Michael Palin, it wasn’t until the girls actually filed in; mini-skirts, high heels and make up, that I finally got the picture. In retrospect, I’m forced to admit that my naiveté was staggering and writing this I still can’t believe that I didn’t pick up on any of the obvious clues….
“… and my mother knew she had come to a beautiful country,” Sichuan Province, setting for much of Jung Chang’s Booker prize winning novel. And the capital, Chengdu , home of spicy Sichuan food and tea shops. Whose population is said to mimic the Giant Panda: Sleeping most of the time, eating and drinking the rest. And by common consent, possessor of the biggest “Hello!” factor in China.
Here for another day before going to climb the sacred Buddhist Mountain of Emishan in Southern Sichuan.
