Web Exclusive

Going home

By Frank James (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2011-06-08 09:15

At the time, I was pretty sure that Mr. Li was keeping something from me. As an American, I of course had heard about the mysterious phenomenon of "losing face", but aside from brief mentions in magazine articles and obscure lines in poorly translated Kungfu movies, I had no real understanding of what that term meant. Still, I was pretty sure I had caused it to happen to the driver and Mr. Li was just too polite to let me know. After seven years of living in China, I now know that they were probably just talking about the weather, or the best way to get to the airport. At the time though, I was convinced I had just insulted a Chinese person on my first day in China.

After an, albeit one sided, tense ride, we finally arrived at the airport. After paying the driver, Mr. Li grabbed one of my bags and ran into the terminal. I grabbed my other bag, and with a quick backwards "sorry" to the confused driver, I ran after him. Once inside, it became clear that Mr. Li had not actually bought the tickets yet and that was why we had to get to the airport so early. He asked me for my passport, told me to wait where I was, and ran to a very full counter. I thought he would have to wait in line for hours, but Mr. Li just pushed and prodded his way to the front and was back with our tickets within minutes. As it turned out, our next plane would leave in a little less than an hour.

"Don't worry, we'll take breakfast on the plane",  said Mr. Li, before grabbing my bag and running in the direction of the security entrance.

After getting through security and making our way to the terminal, I had just enough time to get a bottle of water, before I had to get in line for the plane. It soon became pretty clear that everyone there somehow came to the silent consensus that I would be the last person to get on the plane. As Mr. Li jostled his way through the line, he looked back and frantically waved for me to follow. Not wanting to offend a second person on my first day in China, I timidly made my way through the line, letting anyone with the notion, or just the elbow power, to get in front of me, do so. Finally, an older woman, who must have bemusedly watched my first attempt at getting through a crowd in China, held out her two arms ladened with bags of some kind of food, and nodded that I should go ahead of her. With a grateful smile, I finally made my way on the plane and sat down beside Mr. Li, who was already fast asleep. Four hours later, and I was in Wuhan.

Which, of course, was not the end of my trip. Jingmen, which was where my new home was located, was another six hour bus trip away. But, after a nap on the plane, I was ready to go. And hungry. We had had no time to eat anything in the morning and if breakfast was served on the plane, I had slept through it...although I did notice that Mr. Li had two empty tinfoil containers on the pull down table in front of him, when I woke up. So, I was pretty excited when Mr. Li told me that we had a few hours before we had to be at the bus station and he wanted to treat me to lunch. Not only was I hungry, but I was also thrilled at the idea of finally eating real, authentic, Chinese food.

From the airport, we got on a shuttle flyer. On the hour long bus ride from the airport, I thought about Peking Duck and real, authentic, General Tso's chicken, and...well, to be honest, my imagination stopped there. I had no idea what real Chinese food would be like, but after an hour on the bus and then another thirty minutes of walking along the street, I was beginning to think that I would never get to try Peking Duck and that General Tso probably never really existed and even if he had, a general didn't sound like the kind of guy who would spend too much time cooking. The longer we walked, and the more restaurants we passed, and the more I tried to imagine what real Chinese food would be like, the more excited I became. That excitement quickly turned to disappointment however, when we finally arrived at Mr. Li's restaurant of choice.

I had left America. I had left my job and my family and my friends. I had left the only culture that I had ever known. To travel to China. To see China. To meet Chinese people. To eat Chinese food! But what I got was McDonald's. I don't know if Mr. Li thought he was doing me a favor by buying me food he thought I would be more familiar with, or if he just wanted to finally try a hamburger (he told me as we ate that our town had no McDonald's) but my very first meal in China was a No 2 Big Mac combo meal.

Disappointed, but full, we left the McDonald's and headed to the bus station, which turned out to be right across the street. We got on the small, crowded bus and started our final trip to Jingmen. As the bus drew closer to its destination, I noticed that each town we drove through was smaller than the last. Some towns seemed to be no more that a single street, surrounded by vast stretches of farmland. With each village that we entered, the same words passed through my head, "Please, not here! Don't let this be my new home!" Finally though, we made it to Jingmen, a town that was smaller than Wuhan and Shanghai, but much bigger than the villages we passed on our way.

From the bus station in Jingmen, we jumped into one final taxi, which would take me to the school where my new apartment was. Once again, Mr. Li sat in the front, while I sat in the back with my bags. Even though it was October, the weather was much warmer here than it was back home. With the windows rolled down, I felt the cool wind dry the dampness from my hair and face. I let out a quiet sigh, knowing that I was almost there. Over thirty hours of traveling, all in two days, was about to come to an end. I finally felt that the stressful ordeal of traveling from one country to another was almost over and even though I also knew that soon I would be confronted with the new stresses of finding my way around a city where I did not speak the language and later still I would find myself in front of a classroom for the first time, for now, I could be at peace. And as I sat there, with the strange new sounds and smells of a strange new city carried by the cool breeze across my smiling face, I heard what sounded like a deep hacking from Mr. Li. I opened my eyes just in time to see him spit out the window. I watched as the glob of yellowish liquid flew out his window, got caught by the wind, and was then thrown back into the car through my window, to land with a splatter across my forehead. I wiped the spittle from my face and smiled. I was home.

The author currently lives in Wuhan, where he teaches writing at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (ZUEL). He has lived in China for almost seven years.

[You are welcome to share your China stories with China Daily website readers.Detail]