Goodbye 25

My birthday party was wonderful - I never expected to spend it with so many good friends. My invite list was tiny: Louise, the Australian family, Hilary and her husband Charles - but everyone accepted and Hilary offered to host it in her house. In the morning, Louise and I bought takeaway portions of my favourite Islamic restaurant's hand made noodles, and Hilary cooked up spaghetti bolognaise with them.

Hilary and Charles' lovely flat had the feeling of a welcoming sanctuary - they filled it with flowers, books and freshly ground coffee. It was, on reflection, a small place, but it rarely felt that way while I was there. The Saturday wove its way along blissfully, we helped with the two sessions of English teaching Hilary had scheduled, and Louise and I eventually left after eleven, I think. It was great to see people who invested a lot of love into their home, yet who didn't seem bound to it. As Hilary said at one point in the day, "The world is my home".
At lunchtime we ate the bolognaise, some garlic bread I haphazardly constructed and a lemon birthday cake Louise had chosen for me. Steve (the father of the Australian girls) and I drank the last of a bottle of Nicaragua's fine Flor de Cana rum that I had carried around China. I sat in a slow chair with the dark sweet rum and coke in my hand as other people kindly washed up the huge meal.
The Australians left in the afternoon, Charles came back from his lunchtime work and Hilary cooked up dinner for the four of us. I told stories of a few of the odd people I'd met on my travels, Charles (originally from California) told wonderful accounts of a few of the many places he'd lived in Asia. As he described his favourite areas, I'd be on the verge of asking for any recommended restaurants when he invariably then added, "Of course, that was forty years ago".

Charles and Hilary follow the Baha'i religion, and through them I'd met a few Baha'is living in or travelling through Kunming. The previous day, one Canadian woman, who had lived in India for seven years, gave me lots of tips on the country and then suggested I visit the Baha'i HQ for India when in Delhi. She was a little surprised when I told her I wasn't actually a Baha'i, but after a moment she shrugged and said if I needed anything, speak to them, as they would treat me the same either way.
Although I admired Hilary and Charles's outlook on life a lot, and reading about Baha'ism through a Google search, it seemed to have many values I respected, I didn't have any feeling this was something I wanted to take up myself. I'm just not someone in whom the religious urge is easily kindled, I think - I'm more interested in buying the milk than the cow, as it were.
However, I may visit that HQ in Delhi, especially if I run into any problems in India - if the hospitality they offer is anything like what I experienced in Kunming, I will be very happy.

In the evening, a class of older Chinese teenagers came to the house, as did a young American guy, Jordan, who was helping out. We found ourselves all playing a game he suggested, one person trying to make another laugh by saying, "Honey, I love you, won't you please smile for me"? Gestures and strange voices were ok, touching wasn't. The target had to listen to the request, keep any trace of a smile off their face, and then reply, "Honey, I love you, but I just can't smile". I found to my surprise that while I was awful at making people laugh, I was inviolable to others' attempts. Everyone in the room tried different approaches to break my ice, but I just felt untouchable unless I wanted to be - the room had hysterics watching my face observing coldly my challenger's. A great day.

So, a year older. I always wanted to do something spectacular during my twenty fifth year, believing as a teenager it was in some way one's prime year. Given that I, in the end, quit my job and went travelling around the world, I feel satisfied. It is a nice feeling, to be not begrudging the passing of time. We need Time, a world with Time, I suppose, in order to do or experience anything - I wonder if regret and fear of time passing comes from not doing the things we hoped we would be doing in the time just passed. I know I've felt something of that in a couple of recent years. And while it would be nice to have a body and mind that lasted longer, or a firm belief in the immortality of my soul, but given that those things don't seem that likely to materialise, I'm happy with what I've got. Being born at all seems so unlikely and life so strange and incredible, I just want to do the things I want to do in whatever time I have existing here.

Goodbye China

Well, China, finally we part. Three and a half months (counting Hong Kong and Macao) has been a long time, but I've rarely had a boring day. Good and bad press themselves against you here - China generates a viceral love and hate. I don't resent the bad, anymore; if you want to be toughened up and learn how to stick up for yourself better, I can offer few more apt suggestions than a few months touring this oft infuriating country. And I will remember the good: the lessons about generosity, about how to show a person respect and welcome, about maintaining bonds between family members and generations.

And goodbye, endless historical kung fu tv soap operas, where the hero always has the same hair cut, and the "throw fireball" move is always the same!

Goodbye Kunming

A lot of people have been asking me lately whether I miss my home - perhaps because nine months away does seem a long time. While I miss people back in London, I feel, as I travel around, that anywhere I get to know and meet good people becomes something of a home. Todosantos, Chengdu, and maybe also Grenada, San Francisco and Portland are places I could go back to, know how things worked, know where I liked to eat, know people that cared about me. Going back to London would be a harder jump than going back to any of these. If those places feel a bit like home, the same is true of Kunming, more than anywhere else in the world. I've spent more time here than anywhere else on my trip, and saying goodbye to the city was especially poignant.

I walked its streets, China new and old, and went back to the Islamic restaurant where I had become a regular at (I described it in my first stay in Kunming). After hearing me go on and on about the fresh noodles, Louise and her mother asked me to treat them to a visit. Their dishes arrived, then after a few mouthfuls, they swapped plates. "Mine was better, so I gave it to my mother to eat", the well brought up Chinese girl Louise explained. I still don't know Louise's mother's name, it would apparently be far too disrespectful for me to ever use it, so I call her, as instructed, "Ah Yi", or Auntie.

Goodbye Louise

I didn't want to lose her, I didn't feel I could stay with her. My days with her disappeared one by one, and suddenly we were sitting on the bus taking me to the station and away.

My last day in Kunming, Louise and I went back to attend the English Corner in the Iamliving bar, where we had first met three or so weeks ago. Then, after the post Corner lunch, I said goodbye to Hilary, who had to run. She wished me the best, and wondered if we would meet again in some corner of the world. I smiled, "It's possible, after all, the world is our home". She had a big smile and disappeared to work.

Louise and I collected my stuff from the Green Lake hostel, pausing because someone was promoting a mobile home on the street. A previous evening, we were walking alone near a park when we saw a big street advert for a mobile home resting by a beach [To be honest, I'm not at all sure what the right English / American names are for this. But, by mobile home, I mean a trailer that a car pulls along with a bed, toilet, kitchen etc inside]. "It is my dream", sighed Louise, "to drive around exploring countries", so we both laughed upon seeing this parked in front of us the next day. We walked in and had a fun look around, paid little attention by the bored attendants, who correctly assumed we didn't have 400,000 Yuan to buy it.

Louise spoke as were approaching the bus stop, "My mother told me not to cry when you leave. But I told her, I won't cry, I am happy that you are continuing your travels". I mused, "Perhaps I will be the one crying then"... "No, no, to travel the world is what you want to do, your... destiny, you cannot stop it for one person. I would do the same thing in your place. But, I feel... very strongely... that we will meet again, and I hope very much we will live together". I looked at her, "Leaving you is so painful, I can't believe that I've done it twice [the first being my exit to Yuanyang]" - she smiled at me and I rested my head on her shoulder.

"I wonder, will we be the same people when we meet again?", she had asked, earlier, along Green Lake's walkway, "will you still be the same open and good natured person, always thinking of ways to make other people laugh"? "Perhaps we will look different, perhaps I will have a big beard and a ring through my nose?", I squeezed her waist. "No, looks are not important, if the person is the same". "So", I smiled, "if my belly got THIS big, would you still want to kiss me"? She made a yuck face and decided, "You should eat a balanced diet".

We arrived at the bus station with little time left. On the bus over, she told me something like, realistically, we would not see each other for a long time, so to make promises would be foolish. "Although I like the word "promise", thoughts and feelings change; promises are always broken". Although she imagined we wouldn't look for another love, but if one appeared, then we would not refuse it. I felt split open - wanting more than this formulation, but not at all sure I had the strength or courage to propose we stay together long distance for the best part of a year. I felt a terrific coward as that bus drove on.

My express coach was ready and waiting, with maybe fifteen minutes left to go, and we sat in two of the seats as the minutes ticked away. She told me, "My only regret is that I cannot come with you and travel now"... I realised that I was not happy with just a vaguely planned reunion in the future, and if I couldn't make it more real by uttering promises I had no idea whether I could keep, perhaps I could make it more real by imagining and speaking it. "If we did buy a mobile home, where would you want us to take it?", I asked, now with a smile. "Hawaii" she mystifyingly responded. I tried to point out some of the pointlessness of buying a mobile home only to stick it on a boat heading across the Pacific. Although I could tell the idea of spending a couple of weeks watching the ocean waves pass our ship still appealled, she mused again. She suggested we drive it through Asia and into Europe, then down across Africa. "Would you want to stay in China, or are there other places you would be happy living in"? I asked. She could live anywhere, she happily shrugged, "as long as we can eat". "So", I concluded, "would you like to explore Africa with me in a mobile home?", I said as I kissed her. "Yes, yes! Once I have finished my masters - but Africa is another whole continent, we will need fifteen years to see it [she was recalling my story of the Greek traveller I had met in Xiahe]. You can work teaching English, I can teach Chinese"! We were happy and kissed each other again. While I wondered how this would all work, and in particular how expensive a mobile home would be to maintain, this was not the time for practicalities to intrude.
The coach was ready to leave, we stood outside it and held each other, in fact we did all those "lovers parting" things that to everyone watching I'm sure looked horribly cliched, but to the people doing them, they felt like the only salves for a searing wound.

My bus carried me away from her. I had no idea if those happy imaginations we had just made would remain just that, or whether, like some Creator standing on the edge of endless nothing, I had just spoken something into being.

I don't know what will happen. I can't even promise that I will be able to tell you what happens next between the her and I - even I have limits on what I am willing to share. We will see, all I can say now is that I have had a magical time, memories that feed me still, during my April in Kunming.

Daniel, 27 April 2004, the town of Boten (just inside Laos)