Visit to An Ancient City

I stepped out of the airport in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province armed with my luggage, a hand-written letter from Mr. Chen, and two George Foreman grills. I was to give the letter to Master Zhang Xigui when I met him at the competition, and the George Foremans were for Mr. Chen's son Jindao. Taiyuan was a city of about 5 million people, and Jindao took me to his home for lunch. Jindao and his wife spoke no English, so they had their nephew there to translate for us. Jindao looked concerned as he asked me about his father, and I told him that Mr. Chen was recuperating well and looking better every day. He seemed very relieved at that point, and we had a home cooked lunch while chatting about the upcoming competition. I needed a "kung fu uniform" for the competition and asked if they could bring me somewhere to buy one. We went to a martial arts shop and I picked out the material, a black silk. The proprietor of the shop measured my arms, waist, legs, and chest in a fraction of a second and scribbled his findings on a piece of paper. He had the ever-present cigarette in his mouth, just like 90% of the other people I met in China, including half of the athletes at the competition. The next day a woman rode up to us on a bicycle with my hand made black silk uniform. I paid the man for the uniform and handed the woman some money as a tip. She turned red in embarassment, took the money after some encouragement and climbed back onto her bicycle while carefully not looking at me. Had I unknowingly just propositioned the woman? I had no idea. That was just one of the many slightly uncomfortable situations I would encounter over the next month in China.

The ancient city of Pingyao was about an hour away from Taiyuan, and I rode there on a bus with Jindao. I have often thought about that bus ride, as it was the most crowded bus I have ever been on. Not only was every seat taken, but wooden benches were placed in the aisle between the seats, and filled with people. That one-hour bus ride from Taiyuan to Pingyao ignited a deep love and appreciation of China for me, in a way that no one could know by "touring" the country. That was the most lively bus ride of my life. Families with children eating hard-boiled eggs and other snacks; the blatant staring that I would become used to very soon; and the tolerance of the people riding a ridiculously over-crowded bus with no air conditioning past coal mines and heading to Pingyao; I sat and took it all in. And those people sat and took me in, too. I later found out that many of them had never seen a Caucasian, except on television. Occasionally I would catch someone's eye, and they would realize that they were staring at me, and quickly look down. They seemed so innocent and polite, I didn't mind the staring at all. It actually made me feel kind of important--if I was the first Caucasian they would see, I needed to make a good impression. The enormity of this international competition had not really registered to me yet, for some reason. But that bus ride--just when it seemed no more people could fit in the bus, the bus stopped again and picked up some young men who joyfully stood in the open front door of the bus. These guys were hanging out of the bus, holding on for dear life. About ten minutes later, the bus pulled over to the side of the road and some men piled about ninety cases of potatoes or produce of some kind on TOP of the bus. I was convinced that the bus had lost all possibility of being a balanced load--I would have felt that it was a death trap except that now all the weight had slowed it to a crawl. The Chinese passengers sat impassively while all of this went on; this completely insane bus ride was simply business as usual for them.

When we arrived at the compound where the competition was to be held, I was immediately approached by two young college girls who spoke to me in English. "Welcome to China, we are Alicia and Pei Pei, we will be your translator guides." I registered for the competition and was issued two official t-shirts from the competition, a stack of meal tickets for the hotel restaurant, and a hotel key. The newest hotel in Pingyao was reserved for the visiting athletes and it did have all the modern conveniences, including air conditioning. It was evening, so I took a hot shower, put on the television (more on that later), kicked back and slept very soundly.

Next: "Ga-ry, Ga-ry..."