Adventures in Jishou

What a weekend! I was frustrated, I was happy, I was lost, I was found, all in 76 hours.

I blame Pat for giving me faulty data about the nearest airport to Jishou being Changsha. I go ahead and book the plane tickets thinking we'll be saving tons of time when I find out that Changsha is an 8-hour train ride away from Jishou. Fabulous. So we land in Changsha around 9:30 PM Thursday night and have to get over to the train station asap to try and get tickets that night to Jishou. And that's where the fun really began. There are only a handful of taxis outside the airport and they all want to negotiate a fixed price instead of using the meter. The price - 150 RMB. Rediculous. I am so offended that I decide to take to the streets in search of a fair taxi driver instead. Pat and I walk for at least half a mile down a dark highway, all the while being chased by the cab drivers. The drivers chase away the taxis that we stop telling them that we are their customers. We finally negotiate a fair price and get into the cab only to find out that he is giving two of his friends a lift as well. That means we take a detour and we stop somewhere for a while. I start telling the driver that we have to catch a train and we need to hurry, we have no time to stop, etc and he keeps saying "wo zhi dao" (I know). But we don't go anywhere. Finally I get out of the car (Pat refused to help me in this endeavor) and go over to the men and start yelling at them in Chinese saying that if they want my money, then we will leave XIAN ZAI (NOW). Amazingly, it works and we are off.

We get to the train station in the nick of time and buy the last two train tickets - one sleeper and one hard seat. I offer Pat the sleeper because he didn't go to bed the night before and is in more desperate need of sleep than me. He accepts. I'm not sure how many of you have ever seen hard seats on an over night train, but it isn't pretty. People are packed in. Some people have "standing" tickets which means they just hang out in the aisle for the whole trip and sit or stand wherever they can. You don't tend to see foreigners in these cars. It is certainly an experience. I try to go to sleep, but these officers come up to me, wake me up, and tell me not to sleep. What?? Is this part of the torture? A little while later, I'm nodding off again and the officers return and want me to go with them. I know I'm the only foreigner in that part of the train because as we walk through the cars, people stare, point, and shamelessly photograph me on their cell phones. We get to the food car, empty aside from train stewards and officers, and they tell me to sleep here, it will be safer. Ahh so that's why they made me move. I'm a lone 18-year-old foreigner in the hard seat car of a night train leaving my things vulnerable as I nod off to sleep. I'm grateful. I have all the space I need. I try sleeping for a little bit, but I can hear them talking about me in Chinese. Around 12:30, loud voices wake me up. The second I open my eyes, the officers start talking to me and asking me questions. They didn't speak a word of English, but they made up for it in friendliness and we talked for hours. Around 2:30 AM I am almost sleep talking and wondering if I am going to be entertaining these guys all night. Suddenly they ask me if I'm tired and why I didn't buy a sleeper seat. I explained the situation and they start talking on walkie-talkies and soon enough, a guy with a ticket machine appears and offers to sell me a sleeper seat ticket. Amazing! Wo yao Wo yao! (I want, I want - I feel reduced to caveman intelligence and articulation sometimes in Chinese). One of my officers accompanies me down the train to my new seat. Sure enough, there is a man sleeping in it. He gets shaken awake and there is arguing in Chinese. It sounded like the guy was complaining about the conditions of his seat, or something. Heavy dialect. I ask "you wen ti ma?" (is there a problem?). The officer responds what I am pretty sure translated to no problem, this guy is most bad (mei you wen ti. Ta shi zui cuo). He finally gets out of bed and I'm told to get into it. It felt a bit strange climbing into a bed that a Chinese man was just in, but I was too exhausted to care. It is amazing how luxurious and wonderful a hard sleeper seat can seem after trying to sleep in the upright position. A whole bed to myself. How extravagant! I fall into bed and sleep the last few hours to Jishou.

Things went pretty well after that. We get to where we want to go with no problem whatsoever. For lunch, Lisa and all of her friends hike up the mountain behind Jishou with a bunch of food and we barbecue for ourselves for hours. It was delicious! Afterwards, Ryan takes me on his motorcycle to a travel agent where he leaves me. I wanted to try and change my return plane ticket to have more time in Jishou, but this attempt ends in failure. Oh well. I take a taxi to the train station where I try to buy a train ticket back to Changsha in time to catch my flight, but they don't have any tickets. What?? I was 2 days in advance! I start to panic. While I try to communicate with the woman about the trains schedule, the people behind me push in front of me and start buying tickets. UGH! Can't they see it is still my turn?!? I used a public phone to call Lisa and she gives me the number of a travel agent that does train tickets. I call him, and he hangs up on me twice. So I decide to do what Ben, Pat, and I did in Yichang and Wuhan - get into a taxi, say "wo yao mai huo chi piao" (I want to buy train tickets) and let them take me to an agent. This doesn't work. After the third taxi refuses to take me to a non-specific location, or just doesn't understand my Kunming accent, I give up and start wandering around looking for one on my own. I'm frustrated. I'm worried I won't catch my flight out of Changsha, the ticket will be wasted, and I won't get back to work on time. It is a dreary day in Jishou and there are much better things I could be doing with my time.

Then my saving grace arrives: I find a quiet, clean, modern looking travel agent who takes me into a comfy room with couches, gives me a cup of tea, and sits down and talks to me about exactly what I want. I get out my plane ticket and explain I need to be in Changsha in time to catch this flight, he makes a few phone calls, and writes down a piece of paper all my options - the trains, the times, the prices. A godsend! I pick a ticket and he tells me to return at noon the next day to pick it up and pay. That is the easiest buying a ticket in China is ever going to get, unless of course you find an agent that speaks English.

So now I need to get home. I call Ryan and he hands me to his Chinese friend to tell me exactly how to say the name of the school. I go to a taxi driver, repeat what I learned, and he takes me to a massage parlor. I mean, a MASSAGE PALOR (aka, not a massage parlor at all). I think maybe this is where Ryan and friends are, explaining why he didn't just say the name of the place himself (I would assume he'd know how to say the name of his home). So I go inside. I ask the people if there are any foreigners inside and they laugh and say no. I'm a bit traumatized. They are very helpful and friendly though and let me use their phone. I call back Ryan and he is very confused by my presence at the massage parlor and tells me REAL name of his school (the Chinese girl decided to teach me how to say "English corner" which sounds like the name of the massage place). I hang up and try to explain to my helpers where I want to go, but they have no idea what I am talking about. They tell me to call back my friend and let him talk to them. I go to call Ryan back, but the number is magically erased from my blackberry. I wander out of the parlor, searching my blackberry, and I get into a cab to try my luck. It basically went down hill from there. I didn't know what I was saying was wrong, so I keep switching back and forth between what Ryan said and what the Chinese girl said. No one really knows what I'm talking about and I get dragged all over town. It gets dark. I have no phone numbers I can call. I start walking around - Jishou isn't THAT big, maybe I can find it by myself. I walk around for maybe an hour before giving up and getting back into a cab, only to get brought back yet again to the massage place. It really wasn't a good situation and I wonder how it happened. Where did I go wrong?? Certainly I can be expected to spend an hour by myself in a city and not get lost. It's getting late and have no prospects of finding home. I flirt with the idea of checking into a hotel and waiting out the night. Worst-case scenario, I have my wallet and passport and plane ticket - I could ditch my stuff and just go home. But salvation came in the form of a very patient taxi driver. He takes me to a restaurant where he has a friend and she tries talking to me. They think they know where I want to go and drive me a few miles outside of town and stop at a business hotel. Nope. I started crying. Maybe not the most productive thing to do, but I was so frustrated. I wasn't scared. I was just sick of it all. I was sick of trying so hard to do everything, I was sick of traveling in China where you leave a province and no one understands you, I was sick of trying to buy plane and train and bus tickets everywhere and the lack of infrastructure and how hard it is to get from place to place. When have I ever wanted to go somewhere populated in America where I couldn't fly there, or close by?? When have I ever not been able to book a ticket months in advance over the internet? For the moment, I forget all the good things I've done and seen and I hate China. But don't worry, the story gets better. The taxi driver then takes me a few more miles outside of town until we wind up at Jishou Da Xue (the city's main university) where he goes inside, finds the only English speakers in the entire city, and brings them out. One sees that I'm crying and says, "Don't be afraid. We will save you." It made me smile. I explain in English where I need to go, the students understand and explain to the taxi driver, and finally I'm heading in the right direction. Home at last! Several hours later.

I quickly forgot about the night as I returned to a huge hot pot dinner party - my favorite. I sit yet again for hours and stuff myself with the best food China has to offer.

The next day is very very boring in comparison to my adventures of Friday. We meet friends for a great thick-noodle brunch. Pat and I meant to spend the day seeing Jishou, but it is wet and rainy out and after all, I saw all I needed of the city the day before. The real fun doesn't start until that night. Lisa and her best friend Megan (not me) are hosting a party at the bar they usually hang out at, Red East. Everyone in the bar that night were friends of Lisa and Megan - other teachers, bosses, students, landlords, Chinese friends. Lisa and Megan are good friends with a man named Mr. Tien who supplies the bar with all the liquor, most of which is imported whisky, and so for the night we drink western drinks for free. People get up and sign songs on the microphone constantly, there is dancing, dice drinking games, popcorn. Everything you need to make a party fantastic. At one point during the night, Lisa produced huge bag of freshly cooked Muslim meet on stick - YUM. A great end to a not so great weekend. The night ends for me when Pat's decision to drink on an empty stomach results in him getting sick and I have to take him home and take care of him. It was timed well, I was ready to go. The fun thing about Chinese parties are that they start really early (around 7:00 PM), so you are ready to stop partying by about 11:00 or midnight and go to bed. Next morning, you are as good as new! Good thing too, because I had to wake up bright and early Sunday to make my lone trip back to Kunming, complete with an 8 hour train ride on a hard seat back to Changsha, 5 hours to kill in Changsha, and finally the blessed plane ride back to Kunming. Home sweet home! My apartment has never felt as cozy and homelike in my entire life. I'm back in the city where the sun (usually) shines, no one gets lost and I have a travel agent that makes getting tickets to anywhere a breeze.