TheBanyanTree: Return to China - Part 14

[Pat M]

I needed to do something different, something exciting, like going to town
with my friends and exploring downtown Pingguo. So far, I'd only visited the
supermarket and I felt like widening my horizons.

"Let's go shopping," I said to Alex and Jessica at breakfast.

"Yes, yes," both of them replied. Jessica grinned, clapped her hands and
bounced up and down. She is twenty-years-old, well less than five feet tall
with long, straight black hair and long bangs.

"We want to go shopping with you many times but there are only two bikes,"
Alex said in slow, halting English. (Just as well, as I wouldn't ride a bike
here; it's too dangerous!)  "We go to town often to eat good food."

"Hmm, good food. That would be nice. How will we get there? Peter said there
are no buses."

"There are buses but they go directly to the bus depot," Alex said. "They
cost 3 yuan."

"Oh. Great! That will work," I said. "Let's go after lunch."

A little later, Peter arrived at my room.

"Some people are coming to visit the orphanage," he said. "One of them is
from Canada and there will also be a radio reporter. They want look at the
orphanage. Maybe they want to talk to you."

"Do you think they're going to want to take photos?" I asked.

"Maybe."

"When are they coming?"

"They'll be here about 11:00."

I'd been going to have a shower after lunch when the solar hot water was
ready but that wasn't going to work.

"Okay," I said, and immediately went to sponge-bathe and wash my hair in the
sink.

I was ready by eleven. No visitors. Noon came and went. One o-clock arrived
without any sign of them.

I expected Peter to suggest that we delay our trip to town but he didn't.

"Maybe Peter doesn't want us to leave," I said to Alex and Jessica on our
way out.

"Yes, but we don't want our picture in the newspaper," said Alex.

I didn't need any further convincing. I also don't enjoy being interviewed
and photographed, and it happens far too often for me in China. Just as we
exited, the bus went barrelling past us.

"We missed it!"  I groaned.

But at that very moment, a tuk-tuk (a motorcycle made into a small taxi)
pulled out of a side road. We flagged it down. To my surprise it was large
enough to hold 3 people (not 2 as I'd thought). The cost: 5 yuan (about $1)
to get us to town. We were on our way.

Further down the road, we passed groups of our middle school students
walking back to school.  Alex and Jessica grinned and waved to them. It was
obvious they didn't use tuk-tuks and felt like minor celebrities.

One of the cultural differences between the west and China is that in China
it is perfectly acceptable to ask someone, even someone you hardly know, how
much money they make.

Peter had told me that it is very hard to find people who want to work at
the orphanage because the pay is low. Curious, I'd asked Jessica and Alex
what their salary is. They make 750 yuan per month or approximately CAD$135
so it makes sense that they don't want to spend any of it for tuk-tuk rides
when they can take a bicycle for free.  For that wage they supervise the
children, eat, sleep here and get two days off per month to go home.  Compared
to Amy and Zhang Hong in Lintong, their pay isn't too bad.  But it isn't
good either. Being on duty 24/7 twenty-eight days of every thirty is a lot
to ask of anyone, but in China, it is very common.

We got off near the supermarket and I followed my friends down a busy street
to a small bakery where we bought some delicious pumpkin cakes. We strolled
along the sidewalk looking in shops while we ate them. It is evident that in
Pingguo many people have never seen a Caucasian and can't help but stare at
me.

I asked my friends if they knew where the XinHua bookstore was located as I
wanted to buy some Chinese music CDs and English posters, if there were any.
Alex and Jessica led me to it. I asked for their help in buying a CD.
Neither of them had ever bought a CD before and mustn't listen to music much
as they had a hard time recommending a good CD of Chinese pop music.

Until I arrived and purchased a portable CD/cassette player with radio, the
orphanage didn't have anything to listen to except TV, which the children
are allowed to watch on the weekends and for an hour on Wednesday nights.

Alex had the orphanage's cell phone and it rang while we were looking at
CDs. It was Peter. Alex spoke to him for a moment and then said to me, "He
wants to know if we want Grandpa to come to pick us up."  None of us wanted
to leave; we were enjoying ourselves. She passed the phone to me.

"Hi Peter," I said. "Do you want us to come back now?"

"No," he said. "You should finish your shopping. The people are here now and
they will wait until you come back."

"Okay, we'll be back before five," I said.

When I got off the phone I said, "I think he wants us to go back, but he
needed to say so."

Alex said, "I think Peter might be very angry with Jessica and me."

"Maybe we should go back. I don't want to but...," I said.

"We understand, but we don't want our picture in the paper," Alex said.
"Maybe they will leave."

With that, we decided to find a restaurant to eat an early supper.

"Do you want a hamburger or noodles? A hamburger is 50 yuan."

I hadn't known there was anywhere to buy a hamburger but I knew a hamburger
in China was nothing to get excited about.

"Let's go for noodles," I said, recalling the many times I'd been
disappointed when ordering western food in China. I recalled the hamburger
I'd left uneaten in Yangshou made of who knows what kind of meat (definitely
not beef), the bacon and eggs smothered in cooking oil in Xian and the spam
clubhouse sandwich in Nanning.

We found a street with many restaurants that all looked the same—no decor,
hole-in-the-wall basic eateries. After my recent bout of stomach problems, I
couldn't help but feel some trepidation. I wanted to eat something other
than rice and cabbage but I also didn't want to end up sick again. Alex
chose one of them telling me they hadn't eaten at any of them. We walked up
to the counter and the cook, a middle-aged woman, grinned. A rapid spew of
Chinese followed. Although I couldn't understand what was being said I knew
she was asking about me—where I was from and what I was doing in Pingguo.

"Do you want noodles, Auntie?" Alex asked. Everyone calls me Auntie here.
Actually, it is part of the culture to call any adult woman Auntie.

I nodded and Alex ordered for all of us.

The cook took a handful of partially cooked rice noodles, placed them in a
wire strainer and dipped them into boiling water for a few seconds. She
added greens, some raw peanuts and a few other ingredients. I was served the
first bowl and chose not to add the red cayenne pepper on the counter. The
noodles were delicious, who cared if the woman handled them. After so much
rice and cabbage, this simple bowl of soup tasted like a gourmet meal. And
there were even disposable (clean) chopsticks on the table.

"Let's go," I said, when we finished. Several tuk-tuks waited on the curb.
We approached one and asked the price. The driver jacked the price up by 60%

"Ti gui le (too expensive)," I said. When we walked away and she saw I was
going to ask another driver, she called us back and dropped the price. We
got in.

By the time we reached the orphanage I was a windblown mess. I went to tidy
my hair and discovered I didn't have a comb with me. Oh happy day! After
finger-combing it, I peeked in the gate and saw a shiny black Toyota van but
no sign of the visitors. Great! Maybe I could get to my room and clean up
before meeting them. Alex and Jessica hung back but I entered the compound
and made a beeline for my room, and was instantly spotted.

A stylishly-dressed young woman with a microphone came running as did an
older Chinese man, a younger Chinese man and a camera man. The older Chinese
man introduced himself in English. His business card showed him to be the
managing director of Toyota in Nanning.

He said he was from Richmond, BC. What a surprise!  He told me he is a
Canadian citizen but has been working in his motherland for the past 14
years.

The radio reporter began snapping photos as I was speaking with him. She
joined us and using a microphone, began interviewing me in Chinese. The
Chinese man translated the questions and my answers.  I found it suspicious
that one short English sentence became several in Chinese and couldn't help
but wonder if he was embellishing what I was saying.

"Is it true that you hug the children at night?" he translated.

"Yes, it is. They're wonderful children," I said.

After a few more questions and photos the interview was over, and the older
Chinese man and I began to chat informally.  I told him I'd been looking for
an English/Pinyin dictionary and he said he would try to find one for me in
Nanning and send it. He told me he was responsible for allocating half a
million dollars to deserving orphanages in China, and Wesley's House
appeared to be one of the best he'd visited.

"Many children with parents aren't living nearly as well as these orphans.
They are very lucky children," he said.
"Yes, they are," I agreed.

*****



 Pingguo China 2008 photos can be viewed at
http://picasaweb.google.com/Ms.Pat.Martin/Pingguo#