Here is something from before. Before I got sick, before everything in my life totally changed. It feels strange that it was not even very long ago. This was originally posted on Facebook and I thought I would post it up here again to show that I once was a normal person, but that even then, I was always in transit. Yeah I have been doing a lot of thinking lately, now that I am almost 30, wondering about how I've been affected by spending half my twenties like a rolling stone with no direction home.
Cierra and Mark Go To Kunming, Part One: THE TRAIN
Cierra and Mark Go To Kunming, Part One: THE TRAIN
After the Hang On The Box show, which was the night after New Pants, Mark and I went back for our last sleep at Jason's place in the diplomatic compound. The next day we set out on a 40-hour train journey to our next destination: Kunming, known in China as the City of Eternal Spring!
On the train, we passed through the provinces of Hubei, Hunan, Guizhou, and Yunnan. I was harassed several times by a railway worker with a disturbingly robotic voice who insisted on telling me stories, very loudly, in very nasal English. He also refered to Mark and I as "dinks". Apparently in China "dink" means "double income no kids"... actually I had heard that before, but isn't that for married people who are well into their 30s and have already decided to permanently not have kids? This guy was ticking me off anyway and I had already used pretty clear body language to show him that I was busy writing, so I just turned my head back to my book and told him not to say that word anymore because it has another meaning, a bad meaning.
"WHAT WORD, DINK? DINK? WHAT IS WRONG WITH DINK? WHAT IS THE BAD MEANING OF THE WORD DINK? DINK?"
"Nothing. No meaning. Stop talking."
"MY JOB IS TEN HOURS WORKING THEN REST, AND SO ON, THREE DAYS TO BEIJING THEN THREE DAYS BACK TO KUNMING THEN THREE DAYS OFF."
"I know, you've said so several times already."
"MY WIFE IS A NEUROLOGIST."
I tried not to laugh but all I could picture was this woman marrying him so she'd have a constantly available experimental test subject, and then not being able to stand him and shipping him off to work on the train on the longest, farthest route she could find...
Luckily, the other people in the train were fun. There was He Hao, Liu Pu Quan, and a wierd little kid whose name I never learned.
He Hao is an engineering student in Beijing and was on his way back to his home in Kunming for the holiday. He called his dad from the train and asked him to help find a place for us to stay when we arrived. When we got to Kunming, his dad was even waiting for us all at the train station and took us out for breakfast. He Hao's brother even invited us to his wedding next Saturday and of course we are going to go.
Liu Pu Quan is a true Dongbei (Northeast) guy from Jilin. He has three girlfriends who don't know about each other although their photos are all stored in his cell phone, and he dreams of opening rou chuanr stops on the sidewalks of every town, wherever he goes... even though he doesn't even eat rou chuanr himself. He had just graduated from tech school in Beijing and had been assigned to a work unit in the far southwest, farther than Kunming, and was on his way with only a backpack to the place he would stay and work, without leaving, for at least the next three years. He was headed about as far from his hometown as you can go without leaving the country.
Then there was the wierd little kid. He seemed so tame at first. I came back from getting some food in the food car of the train and saw a sweet little boy sitting at the window table with Mark studying Chinese character flash cards together. The little guy looked up and politely excused himself when he saw me arrive with the food. About 20 minutes later he showed up with some chicken feet for us and left again. Very sweet. Next, Mark and I took out our Sudoku books and were subjected to ridicule by He Hao and Liu Pu Quan for playing such obviously simple games for little kids. We said ok fine, you play with it... and our two compartment mates quickly found themselves stranded because they had boastfully started with "difficult" instead of "beginner"! The little guy came back and I taught him to play crazy eights. Mark went for a nap on an upper bunk and after Liu Pu Quan and He Hao admitted that Sudoku wasn't a game for babies, they joined the little boy and I for Nanaimo Rummy. It was all going very well until the little boy lost interest in the cards and noticed that Mark was missing. It didn't take long for him to spot Mark on the upper bunk, at which point his monkey limbs came out and he was swinging from the side of Mark's bed, shouting, "味， 老外，你 在干什么？" ("Hey foreigner whatcha doin?") at the top of his lungs, and clambering up to stick his head in Mark's shirt.
A moment later he was crouched back on the floor between the berths, wide-eyed and pale. "I looked in his shirt... and from here to here," indicating his neck to his belt, "it's ALL HAIR!" Liu Pu Quan seemed interested ("really?") but He Hao rolled his eyes. I said to the kid, "you're going to embarass him. Don't talk about him to everyone on the train." Then the kid started going bonkers! I had to put away the cards so he wouldn't wreck them and as I started to hide my sudoku book too, the kid even grabbed my sudoku book! He was flopping and flipping on the bunks and shouting and going apeshit! I tried ignoring him but to no avail. He Hao and I tried looking at a book together but the kid kept kicking and yelling and saying that he wanted something sweet to eat. Oh my god. How did Mark manage to sleep through all this? Finally He Hao gave up and realized there was no choice other than to wear the kid out. So he grabbed him and tickled him and held him upside-down and then held him down on the bunk and let him squirm. The kid's squirms got more intense so He Hao and I picked him up by the wrists and ankles and dragged him down the aisle pretending we were looking for a big enough garbage can to throw him in. He wriggled away and ran back to our bunks and started going wacky again! So He Hao just held him down, until finally, he was successful and the kid lost his energy and became docile again. Mark was still asleep.
Maybe I'd rather be DINK after all...
On the train, we passed through the provinces of Hubei, Hunan, Guizhou, and Yunnan. I was harassed several times by a railway worker with a disturbingly robotic voice who insisted on telling me stories, very loudly, in very nasal English. He also refered to Mark and I as "dinks". Apparently in China "dink" means "double income no kids"... actually I had heard that before, but isn't that for married people who are well into their 30s and have already decided to permanently not have kids? This guy was ticking me off anyway and I had already used pretty clear body language to show him that I was busy writing, so I just turned my head back to my book and told him not to say that word anymore because it has another meaning, a bad meaning.
"WHAT WORD, DINK? DINK? WHAT IS WRONG WITH DINK? WHAT IS THE BAD MEANING OF THE WORD DINK? DINK?"
"Nothing. No meaning. Stop talking."
"MY JOB IS TEN HOURS WORKING THEN REST, AND SO ON, THREE DAYS TO BEIJING THEN THREE DAYS BACK TO KUNMING THEN THREE DAYS OFF."
"I know, you've said so several times already."
"MY WIFE IS A NEUROLOGIST."
I tried not to laugh but all I could picture was this woman marrying him so she'd have a constantly available experimental test subject, and then not being able to stand him and shipping him off to work on the train on the longest, farthest route she could find...
Luckily, the other people in the train were fun. There was He Hao, Liu Pu Quan, and a wierd little kid whose name I never learned.
He Hao is an engineering student in Beijing and was on his way back to his home in Kunming for the holiday. He called his dad from the train and asked him to help find a place for us to stay when we arrived. When we got to Kunming, his dad was even waiting for us all at the train station and took us out for breakfast. He Hao's brother even invited us to his wedding next Saturday and of course we are going to go.
Liu Pu Quan is a true Dongbei (Northeast) guy from Jilin. He has three girlfriends who don't know about each other although their photos are all stored in his cell phone, and he dreams of opening rou chuanr stops on the sidewalks of every town, wherever he goes... even though he doesn't even eat rou chuanr himself. He had just graduated from tech school in Beijing and had been assigned to a work unit in the far southwest, farther than Kunming, and was on his way with only a backpack to the place he would stay and work, without leaving, for at least the next three years. He was headed about as far from his hometown as you can go without leaving the country.
Then there was the wierd little kid. He seemed so tame at first. I came back from getting some food in the food car of the train and saw a sweet little boy sitting at the window table with Mark studying Chinese character flash cards together. The little guy looked up and politely excused himself when he saw me arrive with the food. About 20 minutes later he showed up with some chicken feet for us and left again. Very sweet. Next, Mark and I took out our Sudoku books and were subjected to ridicule by He Hao and Liu Pu Quan for playing such obviously simple games for little kids. We said ok fine, you play with it... and our two compartment mates quickly found themselves stranded because they had boastfully started with "difficult" instead of "beginner"! The little guy came back and I taught him to play crazy eights. Mark went for a nap on an upper bunk and after Liu Pu Quan and He Hao admitted that Sudoku wasn't a game for babies, they joined the little boy and I for Nanaimo Rummy. It was all going very well until the little boy lost interest in the cards and noticed that Mark was missing. It didn't take long for him to spot Mark on the upper bunk, at which point his monkey limbs came out and he was swinging from the side of Mark's bed, shouting, "味， 老外，你 在干什么？" ("Hey foreigner whatcha doin?") at the top of his lungs, and clambering up to stick his head in Mark's shirt.
A moment later he was crouched back on the floor between the berths, wide-eyed and pale. "I looked in his shirt... and from here to here," indicating his neck to his belt, "it's ALL HAIR!" Liu Pu Quan seemed interested ("really?") but He Hao rolled his eyes. I said to the kid, "you're going to embarass him. Don't talk about him to everyone on the train." Then the kid started going bonkers! I had to put away the cards so he wouldn't wreck them and as I started to hide my sudoku book too, the kid even grabbed my sudoku book! He was flopping and flipping on the bunks and shouting and going apeshit! I tried ignoring him but to no avail. He Hao and I tried looking at a book together but the kid kept kicking and yelling and saying that he wanted something sweet to eat. Oh my god. How did Mark manage to sleep through all this? Finally He Hao gave up and realized there was no choice other than to wear the kid out. So he grabbed him and tickled him and held him upside-down and then held him down on the bunk and let him squirm. The kid's squirms got more intense so He Hao and I picked him up by the wrists and ankles and dragged him down the aisle pretending we were looking for a big enough garbage can to throw him in. He wriggled away and ran back to our bunks and started going wacky again! So He Hao just held him down, until finally, he was successful and the kid lost his energy and became docile again. Mark was still asleep.
Maybe I'd rather be DINK after all...
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