Bring on the Night

5th July 2007 Yilan

Stardate 0 plus 5 moon days. Captain’s log. We’re orbiting the 3rd moon on the planet Quazar before vectoring to the sector 7 landing zone on Quazar. The Quazarians are a friendly race, but their customs are very different from us earth people’s. The planet itself is a strange sight and can’t be compared to anything else.

I’m not on Quazar, but I might as well be.

After having scrambled from the train station to the bus station, we found ourselves on our way to Yilan. It was a comfy bus, and nothing like I’d expected from reading the experiences on expats blogs. I’m sure I just got lucky. The bus itself is not new, but it’s still an acceptable ride.

Safety is not something you worry about much here.

There’s plenty of room and not too many people. If you disregard the stench from the bus toilet and the vomiting noises from the girl who has to go once an hour, it’s actually pretty cool.

It’s a long ride to Yilan. At least when you’ve already been 11-12 hours in a train, but it gave me a chance to check up on the north-eastern Chinese nature. I would describe the scenery to be close to the France or Italy, but still not a perfect match. At first there was filled with corn fields, but later it changed a bit and some rice fields started showing up too. Near Harbin the landscape is flat, but as we got closer to Yilan some hills starts rolling. Round the city of Yilan there’s what would best be describes as small mountains. When you’ve been in Norway as I have, it takes more than just a bump to join that category. For C everything hilly is mountains, so we’d had our discussions about this subject from time to time.

1 hour before we arrived in Yilan, C suddenly found out that she missed a plastic bag. The one with all her fresh fruit and worst of all: her Danish dictionary. It can be replaced, but her notes in it can’t. This book is an old print and not up to date, so C had done her best to add missing more modern Danish words. Loosing this is a mere catastrophe for her. We discussed where she could have lost it, and agreed on a public telephone spot at the bus station back in Harbin. C went to talk to the chauffeur who instantly called the bus station and successfully located the bag. One of the staffers had secured if from theft so we can get it next time we’re back in Harbin. It will cost us 2 packs of cigarettes according to C but that’s fine. The book is worth much more.

After this we drew a sigh of relief. C insisted that we paid the chauffeur’s lunch at the next stop and he accepted. Well, he accepted but wouldn’t hear talk about us paying afterwards. We even had a meal with him and the stewardess onboard the bus and weren’t allowed to pay that either. Friendly or just curious about the weiguren? I think they were genuinely friendly, but also a bit curious.

We zoomed in on Yilan. The city looks stranger than I’d expected. Hard to explain if you’re not here. Unexpectantly to me we were dropped of at the highway outside the city with nowhere to go. We had to jump a fence and climb the side of a bridge ramp to get to a smaller road towards Yilan. C waved a taxi driver down to help carry our heavy +20kg suitcase.

Highway close to Yilan, where we were dropped off.

He agreed to do it for 1 kuai. He later complained it was not enough money, but C had already closed the deal, so he was crying in the wind. Having escaped early death on our adventurous climb I got a good look at the taxi. It was a chassis build around a 3 wheeled motorcycle. It had room for 4 passengers if they were crammed well together. In our case it was just big enough for the 2 of us and our heavy suitcase.

We drove downtown in a slow pace. Fatal traffic accidents must be rare with this vehicle. It is so slow that you have plenty of time to avoid traffic. In case of a collision, the passengers could easily get off with just a bruise.

C asked the driver to find a public bath close to her parent’s home. We were dropped of outside one, and C headed out to buy a towel, some clean underwear and a pair of socks for me. As I waited the first thing I saw was a man relieving him self on a house wall. I then looked to the left and saw another man saving chopsticks from certain death by picking them of a pile of trash. It was a strange moment when your all alone in a new city on the other side of the planet, but I didn’t feel scared or anything. Somehow I felt safe and at home in Yilan without being able to put a finger on it. You have to have been here. It’s not Shenzhen or Beijing.

After my bath (more to come about bathing here in a later entry) we walked to C’s parents’ home. It was nothing like I’d expected. The outside and inside are 2 different stories. Inside it’s small but comfy. I instantly felt at home.

C’s father was not at home, but her mother was. She is a sweet lady and I felt very welcome. Actually I was not nervous at all unlike C’s mother. I think it was due to me being so tired. Everything was so different from Denmark and that kind of overshadowed my nervousness. It’s hard to explain how I feel other than I’m so happy we’re finally here. I can relax again. The style is almost like my late grandmothers house and very comfortable. One thing that I strongly sense is that the love between the lines here. It’s shelter from the storm.

After a while C’s family appeared one by one. At first C’s father, who doesn’t say much, but I was prepared for that by C before we arrived. He is very polite, smile a lot and observes me when I talk. I have no doubt of him welcoming me though and the hour later when we were seated for lunch, I was placed next to him. This to me is a great honour and C told me to notice her father’s acts rather than his lacking words. If this is the case, I already feel extremely welcome.

After lunch C and I took a walk with C’s stepsister’s child. My stomach was turning as it had for 12 hours already. I had to go to the toilet, but the options were not that cool. The 2 public toilets we found on our way were extremely smelly and you didn’t have to go there to know it was filthy too.

After our walk, we went to C’s sister’s school to get access to the Internet. Seems that I can’t use Outlook to send mails here in China, but checking them is ok. Instead I have to use Hotmail, which I don’t like that much, but it sure beats no email. I wrote an email for my parents and a few friends to let them know everything was cool.

My stomach weren’t getting better. I had to use a toilet and it had to be now. So C guided me to only one in the house, which of course was one of the dreaded pedal squatters. Until then, I’d managed to stay off these except for doing nr. one, there was no time to think twice. It was time for squatting and “splatting”. Won’t go into details, but lets just say that my aim was cool, but my understanding of these devil devices is scarce. I managed to leave a clean toilet but needed to make some “after adjustments”. Nuff said.

We walked back to C’s parents to eat dinner. Again the food was nothing like we eat in Denmark, but most of it tasted excellent. At the dinner, we were treated some rice liquor which I have no trouble drinking. C was a real mother hen, and was worried that I couldn’t manage. Strange, now that she have seen Kojak and I marathon drinking at least a dozen of times. C’s father kept an even pace at drinking, while her 2 brother-sin-laws wanted to test me out. I have been told plenty of times about the Asian dna and drinking. If I remember correctly about 95% of the Asians should, according to studies, not have the physique to break down alcohol and therefore easily getting drunk. My experience is that this does not count among the men here in Yilan. During our downing of liquor and beer, there was no doubt that I could drink most, but it was close enough to get me plenty worried. C too of course.

When we neared a natural end, both brother-in-laws told C they were impressed with my drinking. It made me a bit happy; because I felt nowhere in shape to drink. Not only did I have a troublesome stomach, but I was not in the shape as I used to be. As C entered my life, this part of my life has been “neglected”.

After dinner we were driven home to C’s sister’s apartment in one of the 3 wheeled motorcycle-cars. It was owned by C’s brother-in-law who just 5 minutes before had looked like he wanted to sleep on the table. Drinking and driving here is apparently ok.

C’s sister’s apartment is pretty cool. Not only does it resemble a equivalent one in Copenhagen, but best of all: It has a western toilet. There’s no bath though, but I was prepared for that. After being showed around, we tugged in and had a good nights sleep.

Tags: bathing, China, drinking, driving, family, food