Tom: Chengdu (July 21)

Chengdu (July 21) · Jul 25, 09:03 AM

Our ten-bed dorm room is on the fourth floor. The rooftop terrace, bar, self-service laundry, and breakfast buffet is conveniently across the hall. On the other hand, heat and steam from all the shower rooms below gather down the hall. There’s an A/C unit in the room, but my Chinese roommates don’t like it very much.

I forced myself to stay in bed until past eight — not a difficult task. I feel like a pile of warmed-over poo. Poo with an achy, energy-sucking cold. Poo with lots of gooey phlegm. By using this childish metaphor, I know — one day — this cold will become a cherished memory, a favorite thread in the tapestry of my life. For now, however, I am rather miserable. It hurts and leaves me exhausted to climb stairs. It hurts to walk out and buy water to stay hydrated. It hurts to stare at the floor in despondency while I contemplate the magnitude of sucking going on here; there are no sicks days I can take. My schedule is tight and each day only happens once. While I’m out buying water — remember, this hurts — I ask directions to a pharmacy and buy what turns out to be an odd pair: a herbal pill traditionally used to “detoxify” and a modern antibiotic. While I’m out doing this, thinking about what to do next (besides die for a few days), or when I’m eating a dull mixed Chinese and western breakfast on the rooftop terrace — in all of these cases I’m hot, sweaty, aching, and on the verge of crying. I’m that weak.

I ought to make phone calls. I ought to contact my friend Du’s family here; she’s invited me to stay at her parents flat, though they are currently in America visiting her after a recently successful defense of her Ph.D. dissertation. I don’t have energy for anything. Can I just sit here for a while, please? Maybe I’ll not call and apologize later — I know that’s wrong, and I know I want to do it.

OK.

Enough about the crappiness. I should explain how I barely escaped staying another night at the hostel and how the day was turned around, thanks to Du’s cousin’s son Dan and his schoolmate. In the end I gave them a call from the hostel after sitting for twenty minutes to gather the willpower and strength to check out. This involved climbing back to the forth floor, packing, returning, and then using my Chinese to cold-call someone I don’t know. It all happened, and it all happened after an expensive taxi tangent into town. I was looking for an internet bar with Skype; I found bar, but the computers were locked down to tight for me to install. However, I did find a Watson’s stocking both floss and fluoride mouthwash. One ought to take special care with dental hygiene in China.

So after all that exhausting adventure, including the phone call I mentioned, I have an address. I made sure to write down my take on the pinyin, and double check the tones, then walked out to catch a cab. This was not an easy task; all the cab driving by had passengers, and no-one is getting out here. I ran into my Korean friend before I found a cab, and pointed him to a nearby internet bar I wish I had known about this morning. Actually, the floss was a terrific find — I’ve been “casually looking” for more than a month. Katie gave me extra floss in Xinjiang province, so the need wasn’t pressing, but it was becoming a Personal Quest. Stores will have 50 different toothbrushed and 100 different toothpastes, but no floss. Whatever. I found a corner where a cab would stop every five to ten minutes and grabbed one. Dan was waiting for me in a UF international club shirt.

He invited me up right away and almost as soon as I’d sat down he was off to buy lunch. He left the TV on for me. He returned with two bags of vegetables and meat, retreats to the kitchen, and closes the door. I’m left watching a strange movie with a bowl of peaches he set out. Possibly the movie is set in ancient Persia, and I think it’s French. There are colored djinis. Afterwards, I surf to a special on the new train, then an old Jackie Chan movie from before the time he went comic, back when he was “just” the next Bruce Lee. Lunch is ready.

Dan has fried up cucumber with chicken, pork with green peppers, and a green vegetable I don’t recognize; we eat well. After dinner I lay down for a short nap. An hour later, I wake up sweating because the bedroom A/C is off. Dan takes me to an internet bar. Three hours later he takes me to a Carrefour to buy an alarm clock that can keep time and a new notebook. Dan meets up with a friend from school, and they buy two roast chickens for dinner. We swing through a KFC to grab ice-cream. They also buy me an expensive chicken sandwich. It’s delicious, but I’m a fool for letting them. I make sure to always make a small fuss about paying, and then being sure to lose. We eat dinner — leftovers — watch TV, and I see then out before taking a shower. It’s half past midnight when I get to sleep.

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http://tom.spacing-guild.net/2006/07/25/kangding-july-22

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