zimatravels

When I was living in Macau in 1992, I began meeting a new friend weekly at a very special library in Macau that is a copy of an ornate library in Toledo, Spain.  Her name was Mary Gaunt.  It didn’t matter that she died  before I was born.  Lest I thought that my adventures as a lone woman traveler in China were extraordinary, she left behind a book called  A Woman in China with a copyright date of 1914 that showed me we would have a lot to talk about together.  The old book was too precious to take out, but I was welcome to come visit with Mary in the quiet and dignity of the unusual library surroundings that neither of us would have expected to find in Macau.

I worried what would become of Mary’s old book along with the other dated treasures of that library when Macau reverted to Chinese rule in 1999.  The librarian had told me that these books will not be allowed to return to Portugal after the handover.  With such an uncertain fate, the library was attempting to put them onto microfilm for posterity.

Mary:  “I had reached China, the land of blue skies and of sunshine; the land of desperate poverty and of wonderful wealth; the land of triumph, and of martyrdom, and of mystery.”

Me:  Even in 1988 when I first came to China, it was an unusual destination for an American woman alone.  China’s past of deep poverty and extravagant wealth still seep through the sights one visits even though communism has leveled the excesses in the present.  As a third-world country, it all seems poor to the eyes of a westerner.  You would be disappointed in how polluted those blue skies have become as coal and smokestacks obliterate the blue.  The mystery you felt remains.

Mary:  “…in all the towns I passed through I was a show, and the people stared, and chattered, and crowded around the carts, and evidently closely questioned the carters…What romance they wove about me, I don’t know.”

Me:  Yes, I know what you mean.  It was a new phenomenon for me to be looked at so continuously and so carefully everywhere I went in China.  In the U.S., I blend in anonymously and attract no attention at all.  I know that it bothers some foreigners to be scrutinized so constantly, but I accept it as the curiosity of a country that has basically been closed to the outside world for such a long time.  I particularly remember a man walking along a railroad track who was obviously shocked to see me looking out the train window.  He studied me with an intense stare as though I surely was from another planet.  I broke into a smile.  Then, it struck him that I was just another human being.  Whereupon, he broke into a big, wide smile and we made contact.

Mary:  “When I first heard of the wolves, I laughed.  I was so sure no beast of prey could live alongside a Chinaman for the Chinaman would want to eat him.”

Me:  It was the markets of Canton, now called Guangzhou, where I first watched snakes being stripped of their skins, saw eels swimming around, and cage upon cage of miserable animals that I couldn’t even identify.  Dogs lay bleeding and half dead, waiting only for some gourmet to put them out of their misery.  I never saw cats wandering the streets.

But food is food.  And the Chinese have suffered from starvation.  You were in China long before Mao and the terrible famines, but the Chinese have had to endure starvation often.  In truth, is a squid, octopus, sea cucumber or jellyfish any less edible than a lobster or shrimp?  When I ate eel, I liked it — until someone said that it was eel.  So my friends knew never to announce we were eating eel.  Although possibly delicious, I never intentionally ate dog or monkey brains, but I did actually enjoy eating a pig’s ear once.

Mary:  “A man with a birdcage in his hand, taking birdie for a walk, is a common sight in China…but I have never seen a man followed by a dog.

Me:  It seems to be the delight of older men in cities to take their birds for a daily walk.  They hang the cages in the trees and listen to their lovely songs while they gather for a smoke and a chat with their human friends.  I have heard that swinging the cage gives the bird the illusion of being free.  I wonder if that’s true.

My countryside friends have told me that they sometimes have pet dogs.  I met one of these dogs, but it was not used to being touched or played with.  My friends expect their pet dogs to be short-lived.  It is no surprise when, one night, the dog doesn’t return home.  One friend even told me his mother went out looking for their dog and caught a neighbor in the act of skinning it.

The close relationship that we westerners might have with a pet dog is reserved for the peasant and his water buffalo.

To be continued…