北京

night in Beijing

It’s bright and early here in the sterile Beijing airport lounge on the second day of my new adventure. I’m currently awaiting my final connecting flight to Zhengzhou City.

Last night, the city of Beijing was like a giant broom sweeping me along like a brown-haired dust ball on a China-man’s hard wood floor, only to settle back here in the same corner the next day.

I'm sure my blue eyes betrayed me as I wandered into the airport’s central lobby. Clutching my 'Instant Chinese' book, trying my damnedest to look nonchalant like I visit China all the time, I braced myself and strolled through the strange, foggy glassed sliding doors separating the desolation of the airport terminals from the overpopulation of the Middle Kingdom.

I didn't manage more then ten cautious steps before I was approached by a well-dressed, smiling Chinese fella' saying, "Hotel? Taxi?" I was feeling a bit disoriented and instinctively wanted to assume that he was a clever full-time criminal preying on helpless foreigners. I tend to assume the worst about people. I looked down at him, chin out and said, "I’m in control here, buddy, and I ain't goin’ nowheres. I'm sleeping in this-here airport-lobby til' sun-up and take-off in the morning, okay-so scram!"

The China man didn’t budge, instead he quickly glimpsed at my plane tickets which I kept at the ready. He chuckled to himself, muttering something under his breathe in Chinese which tonally seemed equivalent to,"You silly rabbit." He then proceeded to kindly explain that the airport closes every night after being completely emptied prior to 1:00 AM.

I’m sure my blue eyes once again betrayed me as I digested this new information. I hadn’t never thought of that possibility. I didn’t want to believe him but seeing as how I had no form of counterintelligence regarding this matter, I surrendered and allowed myself to be led to a hospitality counter where I purchased a night at a two-star hotel room for 240 yuan.

The well dressed China man standing at my side seemed to celebrate a small victory seeing me there falling apart at the seams, fumbling through my belongings while trying to remember the currency exchange rate. Eight to one, eight to one, must remember eight to one. I was told to wait five minutes for my shuttle bus to this overnight two-star refuge. This gave me some much needed time to process what had just happened, scan for errors in logic and form a quick plan A and B, just in case.

A long thirty minutes later and still waiting for the shuttle. I was beginning to think that clever lil' China man was a jackal after all; that my inexperience had been manipulated by these yellow communist bastards to the sum of 240 yuan and my confidence. Just then, the shuttle arrived. Thank God, because plan A was fuss and plan B was pout.

Mine was the only mass of white western flesh canned like a sardine in this tiny van-bus. The foreign faces, sme

lls and sounds of a once far away place bombarded my senses as the bread loaf of a bus coughed and sputtered like its Chinese passengers and we left the safe haven of the unfamiliar airport. I was completely out of my element, powerless and therefore- I had nothing to worry about.

Beijing, I thought, looked like any other major city with maybe a few more giant neon signs flashing alien chicken-scratch characters. Seeing the wide main roads and clean modern city blocks full of normal looking citizens eased my nerves, only to have them re-doubled in knots by the reckless ballet that is driving in China.

Bouncing right, the bread loaf turned onto a narrow side street called a ‘Hutong’ which much closer resembled the China I had anticipated. I saw people everywhere, rickety rickshaws, makeshift food stands, congested alleyways, communal chaos. Impatient autos were constantly blasting their horns and bullying bicycles and bipeds to the side of what, I guess, they consider to be a road here.

Finally, we seemed to be pulling up to the ‘Airport Tian Shun Cheng Hotel.’ Stepping out, I attempted to acknowledge every single pair of beady eyes glued to my foreign mass. A smile and a wink, just another friendly foreigner, that's me folks. No need for alarm. I attempted to communicate verbally with the counter girl but it ended being more like a game of charades. Once safe and sound in my own room, I was relieved to put my bags down and greet my lovely white western toilet.

I unpacked, reorganized and repacked my junk; all ready to go on a moment's notice as if I were waiting for the holy rapture. Inhaling the fumes of my own nervous energy, I sat on the bed feeling exhausted but still wired. After being conscious for well over 24 hours, the realities of my current situation, the vulnerability and the rush of a finally realized adventure saturated my thoughts. I was all by myself ! On the other side of the planet! In a foreign country! That I knew next to nothing about!

I wasn't too hungry, but I was in friggin’ Beijing for god's sake and I sure as hell don't want to just sit around in my square hotel room. I tried to relax my nerves and watch some TV but it just made me feel really out of my element listening to the strange sounds these people make. Outside my window I could hear the foreign city making all of the familiar city night sounds. Engines, sirens, horns, loud shouting, chatter and the odd unidentifiable noise every so often. So eventually, conjuring the spirit of Indiana Jones, I decided to venture out in search of Chinese food and a cold beer.

I found the girl working the front desk and pointed to the Chinese character next to the word ‘restaurant’ in my ‘Instant Chinese’ book. She looked at the book then said something, pointing to the right hand wall. Squinting, I shook my head ‘no’ and pointed to my right ear. She said the same thing over but a lot slower this time still pointing at the same wall. I took an educated guess that she was saying there was a place next door. I pointed at the same wall she was pointing at, nodding my head ‘yes’ with a smile. She smiled, slowly saying something else. I asked her if she would like to be the mother of my children. She nodded her head ‘yes’ and motioned to the wall again.

No door, next door at the restaurant, instead there's just a filthy plastic wall of flaps. No signs advertising the restaurant's existence either. I entered the eatery and it seemed like I was barging in on a quiet family dinner. The startled family looked up at me, open-mouthed food half-chewed, as though they’d just seen a ghost walk right through the wall. A friendly ghost though, like Casper. I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself at this point, so grinning I just sort of stood there, unsure if I was in the right place.

I was relieved when a young teenage girl with blue contacts in her eyes and broken English on her tongue offered her assistance and a menu. I was led down a hallway to a room more closely resembling a restaurant where I took a seat at the cleanest looking table I could find, and once again (this time with some charisma) I whipped out my 'Instant Idiot' book and went to town. The blue-eyed girl was my all too eager assistant and we all had a good time laughing and being silly as I clumsily attempted to communicate simple sentences in Chinese, butchering the phonetics beyond recognition. The whole household gathered around curiously and without realizing it, I received my first Chinese language lesson.

Not wanting anything too weird that might upset my stomach, I ended up ordering beef with green peppers chopped up and served with a room temperature twenty-two ounce green bottle of beer for about three dollars total. This seemed like one hell of a bargain, especially if you tally in the free Chinese lesson. In no time at all my food came, it was nothing special and the beef tasted a bit musky but it complimented the flat beer nicely.

The mother figure sat watching me fumble around with the chopsticks trying not to poke an eye out, then jolted upright by a bright idea she broke her motherly gaze and suddenly left the room. She reappeared triumphantly saying something in Chinese and waiving a fork around. Now this fork wadn't no average fork, no sir. This here fork looked like it hadn't been used in decades; it was tarnished silver and had probably been pried out from between the greedy dead fingers of some colonial English navy guardsman a half a lifetime ago or something.

Smiling, I politely declined the fork of doom, opting instead to get acquainted with my new friends- the chopsticks. When the man of the house offered, I also politely refused to use a lil' plastic cup that looked a lot like the kind of cups I've been required to pee in, choosing instead to drink my beer right from the bottle like an A

merican.

Dinner was excellent! I am so glad that I decided to leave the safety of my square little hotel room and venture out into the Beijing night to get some food. Being alone and unable to effectively communicate, going next door to that strange little restaurant and having such a good time with those kind people inspired me to be more open-minded and optimistic.

Back at the hotel, feeling content with myself and the universe, I stretched out on the bed still fully clothed, listening to all the commotion up and down the hallway right outside my paper-thin door. My mind was replaying scenes from the day and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to fall asleep. Next thing I knew, someone was banging on my door in short bursts. It was my wake-up call.