The Smell of Smoke and Noodles

Helloooo! I'm sitting here typing in the restaurant of our beautiful hostel, looking out on one of the main streets of lovely, little ancient Pingyao, a town that is older than, well, the United States of America (Ming or Quing dynasty, anyone?). This place is BEAUTIFUL.=) Intricate lanterns hang from the curved corners of tile roofs, paper cut-outs of flowers and tigers and little Chinese men cover windows, dark wooden walls and dark wooden furniture is accented by light walls filled with painted tile art pieces that tell elaborate stories (we're assuming, as we can't read them...) in Chinese. AND our hostel has a breakfast buffet! Hallelujah! After arriving in Pingyao at 4:25a.m. on an all-night train from Beiing, we were SO grateful to step off the train and be greeted by a Chinese man with a van and a sign that said "Amy." We were tired and starving...having consumed Snickers bars and cookies and bagged chips for dinner, as the pre-packaged beef noodles they sell on the street corners looked a bit sketch to us. The train ride was quite a trip. Getting on the train was like being herded into a small corral with several hundred people who are a bit more used to pushing than you are (the guide books warned that we needed to "hold onto our hats" in Chinese train stations. Thanks for the warning.=)) However, people were so FRIENDLY once we got on board. If only we spoke Mandarin! Thank goodness that a very kind man offered to help us lift our large bags into the tiny luggage compartment over our bunks. It's a tight fit, and not speaking the language means you do a lot of smiling, nodding your head, holding your hands up to communicate, "I have no idea what you're saying" and such. We chose to travel in a "hard sleeper," meaning that we were in a compartment with six bunks. We booked a bit later than some (Chinese trains are the way to go transportation-wise, so they're always packed!) so we got top bunks. We spent most of the ride sitting in tiny seats in the hall, looking out through the gauzy curtains at the small Chinese towns and farms (including some people driving water buffalo and herding sheep) going by and reading books about China. It is a cultural experience to ride the train. We were the only tourists in our car, and were surrounded by locals who were playing cards, chatting about (it seemed) anything and everything, listening to Chinese pop music over the loud speaker, pouring hot water into their cups of beef noddles and stepping into the space between cars to smoke and laugh (smoking, especially by men, appears to be a national past-time). It's so amazing how often the people we met on the train (and meet in general) started speaking to us in Mandarin, just assuming we'd understand them. We're doing our best to learn a few new phrases each day..."excuse me" and "please" and "how much for this?" (in an effort to bargain...which sometimes works!) and other helpful phrases, but all of the guidebooks assure western travelers that trying to take a self-taught crash course in Mandarin is pretty pointless, as the language is tonal and even saying the right words in the wrong tone can mean the difference between asking after someone's mother and asking about their horse. So we try to muddle through as best we can...The young staff members at our hostel are incredibly nice, 17 and 18-year-old girls from the town, and their English is superb (of course...eesh...), so we've gotten the chance to chat with them some. In fact, we just got back from visiting an ancient Buddhist temple on the outskirts of town (pics to come later!) and had a great little chat with a monk there. He's working on his English, and we spoke the scant Mandarin we could muster. People here typically have the same line of questioning..."Where are you from?" "How old are you?" (This question is considered proper and polite here, as is a question about how much money you make, although we haven't gotten that one...) "Are you married?" (Also a big fav') The monk, not surprisingly, wasn't married, and wasn't surprised that we weren't, as Americans typically get married significantly later than most Chinese, apparently. However, the monk had news for Amy and me about our future marriages. He asked us for our palms and did some reading of them...and apparently Amy's going to "marry soon" and "become famous in the USA" (Woohoo for palm-reading monks!), while I, on the other hand, am either going to have a "bad marriage," or perhaps, if we misunderstood that interpretation, I am going to have a good marriage only if I "get married after 30." Cool. Lord knows it ain't happening before then, anyway. The nice thing about getting your fortune told with a language barrier is that you can interpret it as you wish...=)
China is an intriguing place to be, especially for a western and English-speaking traveler. Even though tourism is really on the up and up here, people still seem constantly surprised to see us...Two Chinese girls from this area who Amy and I just met on the street a few minutes ago asked to have their picture taken with us, and this was not the first time total strangers have asked. When we ATTEMPTED to go to the Chinese National History Museum by the Forbidden City in Beijing (details on this shortly!) we actually got sidetracked and ended up getting our picture taken with a young Chinse couple (the guy gave us a small Chinese flag as a gift...cool!). Speaking of not going to the history museum...well, let's just say that the logisitical side of traveling on your own in China is a bit, well, we will say CHALLENGING. Most signs, even in major cities like Beijing, are in Chinese, and even when signs are in English it's often hard to tell where to buy tickets for things, how to enter gargantuan buildings, etc. Upon finding the Chinese National History Museum and walking around more than half of it looking for an entrance (it's a HUGE building) we finally found a door with the name of the museum in English. People dressed in official gear, most likely young soldiers, were standing outside the building, but people dressed like this are standing outside most official buildings in Beijing, so we didn't think much of it. We were stoked, because there was a huge sign that was counting down the months, days and minutes until the Beijing 2008 Olympics (they have olympic fever here!), and we paused to take pics in front of it. Then, we started toward the museum...but we were grunted at, loudly, by the young men in uniform, who waved us off in another direction. We soon ran into two sweet young English-speaking college students who were attending a fine arts college in the Forbidden City (awesome place to go to school!) who informed us that the museum is closed. They're converting the space into a place to host dignitaries during the olympics. Needless to say, we just laughed to ourselves. Ah, what a simple sign can accomplish...BUT, as our museum plans were a bust, we befriended the girls and went with them to see their art show within the walls of the Forbidden City. They're water color artists and showed us their work and the work of their teachers. As it turned out, the place was crawling with foreigners, who it seemed most of the students had found on the square (probably when they were also in a state of confusion!...) and brought into the show. We ended up buying some beautiful work from the students...the proceeds of which will help them study abroad in Barcelona. Not a bad side-trip after all.=) AND, since so much of our time spent in Beijing seemed to be wandering, as it turned out aimlessly, it was nice to just go where life took us for a few...
Amy has been kept trying to figure out how to fit one of our random Thai stories into this blog. You see, as we were walking down a side street near our hostel in Chiang Mai this man kept stepping out at us and saying "MONKEY SHOW!" and flashing us this sheet covered with pics of monkeys doing tricks. It was random and hilrarious, and, every once in awhile, especially if it's hot and we're getting a big discouraged or lost, we remember the "monkey show" man and laugh. Well, that story fits our Chinese experience pretty aptly. As I mentioned earlier, people are incredibly intrigued by us here, and stopping to stare at foreigners is not considered impolite...so, as we walk down the street, we draw more than our fair share of stares, people sometimes pointing and often shouting "Hallooooooo!," and, after awhile, we feel like we've become the monkey show. It's a sometimes mind-boggling experience, but one worth having. We're off to Xi'an (Terra Cotta Warriors!) on another night train tonight, and then on to Shanghai! Next time, more stories from the road.=) Beth