Or are we?

We left Dali for Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, then returned to Jinghong for our departure. Here are some final notes on China, our mumbled dreams as we slept through the last few days in the country.

Our effect on the children

A baby boy in Kunming, walking hand-in-hand with his father, stretched his parent's arm as he veered toward me to stare. I held his gaze as he walked by, slowly rolling out my lower lip as I did so. Eventually he began to cry, and his father picked him up.

Afterward, I replayed this scene from the boy's perspective. There squatting on the sidewalk was a man like none I'd ever seen before, with a pale face, big round eyes, and a long proboscis. Among the throng of people on the street, he's staring at me and me alone. I watch in fear-torn curiosity as his already fat lips enlarge further and further. What this is leading to, I do not want to know.

In the next post, we'll really try not to include anything about prostitutes

We were eating at a noodle shop when a Chinese man sat at our table and told us that he'd seen us before, crossing the street. He was a skinny man with close-cropped hair, furtive eyes, and a mucus problem. His name was Gao San, but his self-styled English name was Mike. He invited us to visit a tea bar with him when we were finished eating. This was our first meeting with an English speaker in Kunming, so we took him up on it.

We left the noodle shop, rounded a corner and crossed a dark parking lot to get to the tea bar, which was small, shabby, and empty of customers. Some baby supplies were piled on the floor. The first thing Gao San did when we entered was take the bar owner aside and speak with him. Then he returned to us.

"The boss is my friend," he said. "I speak with him not about you. Just business."

We took a table in the next room and ordered a pot of tea, and Gao San filled our three teacups every minute or so. He was still finishing a paper cup of Japanese wine that he had been carrying when he first approached us. He tried to gauge our interest in some prostitutes he knew, and we asked how they looked.

"Some ugly and some beautiful also," he said. "Ugly lady, pay ugly price. Beautiful lady, pay beautiful price."

What price?

"Make love one time, one hundred yuan. Two hundred, make love two times. Three hundred, make love three times. Four, five hundred, maybe more, can have all night."

We were only in China for a few more days, but we had a question for cultural learnings to make benefit glorious blog.

"A Chinese lady who is not a prostitute," I asked, "does she make love with a man?"

"Oh, you want --" he leaned to the side and dragged a great load of mucus over the ridges of his trachea. "You want first blood. This is three thousand, four thousand, maybe five thousand Chinese money. Too expensive for you. Too expensive for me."

"First blood for very rich man," Mike said.

"Yes. But I can get for you," he said.

"No thank you," I said. "That's not really what I was asking about."

"The mamasan...mamasan, what is English word?"

"Pimp?" Mike offered.

"The mamasan, he give me commission --" he leaned over and sloughed out another load -- "commission one, two pecks--"

"What's a peck?" Mike asked, for the man spoke very slowly.

"Maybe three packs Chinese cigarettes," he continued. "Oh. Excuse me. I go wash hands."

He was gone for about five minutes when we heared him speaking excitedly with the bar owner in the next room, which was divided from ours by a curtain. After this, he returned to our table and refilled our teacups.

"What were you guys talking about?" I asked him.

"Drink tea," he said. He swallowed his cupful and implored us. "I tell you honestly. From my heart. You must believe me."

"Okay," Mike said.

"If you believe me, I happy." He leaned over, coughed like a floundering swimmer, then faced us again. "I smoke Chinese cigarettes. I have a little bit cough," he said, pinching a little bit between his thumb and forefinger. "I sorry."

"It's okay," I said.

"If you believe me, I happy. If you don't believe me, I happy also. Drink tea." He poured and swallowed again, then began his story. "I was drunk. I was drunk. I walk straight. I see Chinese lady. I say, 'How much for fuck?.' She say, 'One hundred yuan.' I say, 'OK, that is good price for me,'" he said.

"That's pretty cheap," Mike said. One hundred yuan is about thirteen dollars.

"I follow her away," the man continued. "Then, someone say, 'Come into the office.'" A grinding cough, then he moistened his throat with another cupful of tea. "Come in the office. I go in the office. The man tell me, 'I am policeman. You pay me one thousand two hundred Chinese money."

"Oh no," I said.

"That's a corrupt policeman," Mike said.

"I am not a rich man. I have paid the policeman one thousand two hundred yuan. I tell you from my heart. I have no fuck. I have no make love." He did a sort of dry, one-note gargle. "I smoke Chinese cigarettes," he said again. "I have little bit cough. I sorry."

"That's okay," I said.

"I have paid that policeman. But tonight I drink tea. I happy. I do not make I die. I can pay money. I have Chinese salary."

"From the bus station office," I said.

"Yes. I can pay. But I am very angry that policeman."

I recommended he report the incident to a newspaper or TV station. I told him that in America, sometimes a corrupt policeman can get in trouble if you tell a higher authority.

"Yes. I go to the police station. I tell to the boss, 'I pay one thousand two hundred yuan.' He tell me, 'Come back three days, I will give you paper,'" he said.

"Paper?" Mike said. "A receipt?"

"Yes."

"What will you do with that?" Mike asked.

The waitress came, and Gao San had what appeared to be an argument with her in Chinese. She left the dining room, and Mike repeated his question.


"I don't know," he said. "I think maybe I go take paper, then go show newspaper." He turned to cough, but there was a hard mess of stuff in there that he couldn't get past. He refilled our tea and drank his down. "Drink tea," he said, then coughed. "I am very angry that policeman. Just put one thousand two hundred yuan for his pocket."

"Yes," said Mike, "not for build roads or hire more police. Only for his pocket."

"For he go buy nice Chinese cigarettes," Gao San said. He poured more tea and said in a reassuring tone, "I am a good boy. I am a funny boy. I drink tea. I happy. Or else maybe I drink medical, I go die."

"No no, don't do that," I said.

"I am happy boy," he said to us. "I believe, life is like a poem --" a coughing fit -- "Life is like a beautiful song. Life is like a dream. It is too fast. I like life. But some things I hate. There is so many fail. Like I pay Chinese policeman one thousand two hundred yuan."

The waitress brought the check. Gao San looked at it and told us that we could split the check three ways. He added nobly that if we didn't have money, he could cover the whole thing.

"We can pay, no problem," I said.

"How much is it?" Mike asked.

He handed us the paper, on which was written, "100 yuan." The average meal in Yunnan province costs about eight yuan; for a well-rounded dinner with several dishes we might pay sixteen each. It had been obvious from the start that some scam was amiss, but we had waited curiously to find out what.

"I don't think this is right," I said. "A pot of tea does not cost one hundred yuan."

"This tea," Gao San said, "one hundred yuan. You pay thirty, I pay thirty, he pay thirty."

"I think they are trying to trick you," Mike said diplomatically.

For whatever reason, Gao San had let us see the menu before we ordered the tea. The prices listed under a character that resembled a teapot ranged from fifteen to thirty yuan. I told him I could read Chinese, and this tea was no more expensive than thirty yuan. The argument raged on for a while. Again and again we cited the prices on the menu.

"This tea green tea," he attempted.

"Green tea is very cheap," Mike said.

At this rather pathetic point he tried to say that the sunflower seeds at the table, free everywhere else, amounted to the other seventy yuan. We got up from the table and approached the bar owner. We told him that we would pay ten yuan each. Appearing rather bored with things, he had the waitress show us the paper again. We told Gao San that we were not going to be swindled.

"The boss is your friend," I pointed out to him.

He smiled sheepishly and bowed his head. "No. I know him, but he is not my friend."

Mike and I paid the barman ten yuan each, and he sent us away disinterestedly. As we walked out, we heard Gao San protesting to the owner in Chinese that we each needed to pay thirty yuan.

We continued away through the dark parking lot. Mike and I had fought the scam less so for money's sake than for pride. I wondered whether we should have gone ahead and paid the one hundred. Gao San was sickly, he was stolen from when he sought love, and he was doomed as a scam artist.

I sent a prayer for him into the night: Don't go drink medical. Stay here among us. China's nights are alive with prostitutes, and the freedom that you've gathered here, hustling and drinking tea, can survive a few blows to the gut.

Cultural observations/racism

I recently learned that, in contrast to the genius of the colony, one ant is nearly helpless. He may attempt to pick up a morsel, drop it after an instant because it is too heavy for him, then continue to try indefinitely without progress. I was reminded of this at the post office in Jinghong during our first stay there. The worker brought a box out of the back room, found that my rolled posters did not fit inside, then continued to bring out one box after another of the same size. Needless to say, he failed every time.

Whenever I handed a Chinese person a map and asked where we were, he would trace his finger all over the map, corner to corner, before giving me a non-answer such as pointing to the sky. When we pulled the motorbike over and showed a woman our empty gas guage, she turned up her wristwatch and began to compare the two. Yet similar to the colony whose anthill can withstand rainstorms or be resurrected in only hours, the Chinese as a group have managed to build the largest economy in the world. Ants, in kind, are the most succesful species in the animal kingdom.

The precision of this analogy continued to impress me as we left China. Traffic was stopped for miles on a cliffside road because a tractor had overturned in the street. There was a crowd of about one hundred around the blockage. Instead of trying to move the small vehicle, though, they were watching cars and buses drive around it, often clipping a side mirror on one of the cliffside trees. Here I was reminded of the line of ants which, when you block it with a bottlecap or something, will scatter in confusion until the ants finally reorganize in a new line that bulges around the object but makes its way to its destination nonetheless.

Chinese people and Asperger's Syndrome

My ex-girlfriend Kendall once told me she thought she had a disease called Asperger's Syndrome, whose checklist includes looking around the room and responding, "No," when someone calls and asks "Is John there?" even if John is home but in another room.

All Chinese people appear to have this syndrome. If you go to the dining room of an inn and ask, "Can we sleep here?" they will shake their heads only to tell you later that there are rooms available upstairs. When the bus stops in Jinghong and you point to the floor to ask, "Is this Jinghong?" the other riders will laugh and tell you that no, this bus is not Jinghong. In Dali I visited the small office of an English-speaking travel agency and indicated that I needed to withdraw money from an ATM. "No," they scoffed. "You can't do that here."

Travel note: We left China by bus, traveled through Laos, and now we're in Chiang Rai of northern Thailand. Next is Chiang Mai, Thailand's second biggest city, and then we work our way south along the Burmese border. We met a young French artist named Jeremie on the bus from Kunming to Jinghong, and now we're travelling as three.