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English Version 12
Sunday 13.04.08
Xin Zhou
I wake up hearing the landlord tapping on the next door saying something.
A sleepy grunt is the answer, then he sounds more angry. Later I know
what he was saying: If you’re not up before half an hour you won’t have
any breakfast. Breakfast is included it shows. This I understand when he
tells me to remove the bun I’m just about to swallow.
I walk behind him and we leave for the corner where breakfast is being
sold. He asks me what I want (I’m sure) but because of languages
difficulties he orders for me. And I shan’t miss anything. First tofu
soup. It’s not exactly what I need this time of the day if ever, but you
have to eat what they eat where you’re travelling. Then a bowl of rice
gruel. Both with a taste of soya. There’s a jar with something greenish
you can add as you like on the table. And a couple of other things,
chili paste, I think. You just use your own spoon, so I don’t do that.
I’m not sure about the place. The floor is so filthy, but it’s often
like that, the more cheap places, where no one sweeps the floor every 5
minutes, which they do many places, cause the Chinese soil it. You can’t
help it when you don’t have it all on your own plate, like we do, but
have to take a little from one plate and a little from the other. Then
comes a pancake, have I described them before? Sometimes they’re coated
with fat and a mixture of spices, but this is without. Besides a round
flat oil fried bread thing with vegetables and 2 “frog-snappers” (Danish
pastry). No, they are not, but they’re a little alike just fried in oil.
I start from one end and I can’t eat it all, but I eat as much as I can.
It’s not until the evening, when I write I come to think about yogurt
and A-38 and müsli and how good that tastes. But calories? I must have
had enough!
Before I leave the town the same way I came the day before, I go up the
main street to take a photo of their pagoda.
When I came yesterday I took a shower and washed my underwear and socks.
It has become one of my rituals. In this way I only need 2 sets, and
then there would be room for another pair of trousers. The one I’ve got
has got a dusty look – but that’s fashion?
Then comes a horrible day. Even it’s Sunday the drivers are on the road.
Not only is the part from where I arrived yesterday bad but the
continuation is one road town after the other, which means garages,
eating places, small shops etc. The areas aren’t plastered, it’s plain
earth. Lots of earth!
And the lorries goes in and out. Is it dusty?
In between there’s some open land until the next road town.
And the road is bad, and within long there’s a headwind blowing. The
road follows the railway and I’m passed by infinite trains one way or
the other. It’s a change from the lorries. At the passing of Yuan Ping
there are enormous factories and coal areas. Some buildings looking like
cooling towers are found out to be blast furnaces when a sign says: Xi
Mei Steel.
The monotony and the ugliness is broken by some mountains emerging in
the east – and the clouds come up from the west – rain again?
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| If the cars don't pollute - the train does | A friend in Xin Zhou |
There’s a puncture coming up or has the rear wheel just been loosing
air? I havn’t pumped it the whole trip. It’s getting pumped and it’s not
until the evening it’s revealed that it’s a puncture. The hole must be
very small.
Not until 8 km before Xin Zhou the miserable G108 is replaced by a wide
boulevard suitable for a big city like this. Constructions everywhere.
It’s the new China coming up. A big mere tasteless building on the other
side is an international hotel. With presumerably international rates. I
go on towards the centre. These Chinese cities are easy finding your way
in. If you just enter by the main street, and you normally do, you
easily find out when you’ve reached the centre.
I ask for lüguan as usual, and as usual I have to ask 8 times because I
don’t understand if it IS on the left side, or if I have to TURN to the
left first to find it.
I am welcomed by the entire family and the middle daughter turns into
the main character: she can speak English. She’s actually studying at
university and is good.
As there won’t be hot water in my room until after 8 p.m. I am offered a
shower in some common shower room. With 6-8 Chinese. I never find out
what it is exactly but there is hot water. There’s a plate beneath the
shower with a spring. When you step on it and push it downwards the
water is turned on. Very clever, because when you move away again the
plate goes up and the water is turned off.
After having washed away most of the dust at least from my body, I go on
talking to Xu Jiayuan which is the name of the daughter. Another Chinese
who like to practice English and a Danish tourist who wants someone to
talk to and information – and this girl is not playing games.
We go for a long walk round the city for the next hours. Among other
things at her university, where she stays in a room with 7 other girls.
Unfortunately she remembers there’s to be some exam the next day so no
strangers are allowed – so I never see it from the inside.
I ask, if I can take her out for dinner and we end up, after a big
discussion including the whole family about where to go and what to eat,
at what my budget regards as an expensive restaurant, but she has to
have something in return for her kindness. We have 3 dishes and a bowl
of rice.
The first is a speciality: fish tails. I don’t find out what kind of
fish it is, but probably trout or carp. It includes the bones and
everything, that’s how they do it here.
You get it all at the same time and you mix it as you like.
The second dish is the most delicious and one should be able to get it
everywhere. A little like Gong Bao Ji Ding, which is my favourite
Chinese dish until now.
The third are fried pieces of chicken. They’re fried with bones and
everything, sp you have to spit out the bones. A bit weird I think.
I enjoy her company so much after not having spoken to anybody since
Beijing. I ask her about the cultural revolution, when she by herself
speaks about chairman Mao, and she says that it all happened for him to
preserve power (exactly my words) and that it was a waste of time (she
doesn’t say human lives though). Surprisingly clear and clever talk by a
Chinese, I think.
I have got her mail address and am going to try sending her a mail. It
should be possible inside of China, but maybe not outside.
I have to enter the search engine they use here, called baidu.cn.
With this one most browsers start here. Then I have to search for wang
yi 163, which is a chat room, I think, and then she has an alias there.
Now it’s 10.45 p.m. and a horrible day had a nice ending anyway. And
tomorrow I have to mend a tube. I’m worrying about my tyres. She didn’t
think I could get a tyre for a MTB here in the city – and it’s rather
big.
She didn’t think I could withdraw money with my visa card here – and
THAT I think is right.
Tomorrow at 8 o’clock there’ll be a special breakfast for me downstairs,
but it’s not included in the 60 RMB my room including shower costs.
86.67 km