T A B L E_T A L K

China lite: Join the discussion on travel in China and Chinese culture, without getting heavy or deep in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk

R E C E N T L Y

Mondo Weirdo
By Brett Harris
A close encounter with a restless ghost
(04/03/98)

The sadhu from Texas
By Anne Cushman
Memorable encounters with a sadhu from Texas by way of Varanasi
(04/02/98)

A pan-Italian feast -- in Geneva
By David Downie
Chez Roberto's culinary delights -- and Swiss soul
(04/01/98)

The craziest road race of all
By Craig Bromberg
Deep dunes,wild wadis and grenade-wielding rebels enliven the Paris-Dakar Rally
(03/31/98)

Introduction to Beijing
By Carrie Kirby
A resident's primer on the city's daily pleasures
(03/30/98)

__THE CHINESE FRIEND .|. PAGE 2 OF 2

We stopped for lunch. I'm not sure how it happened but somehow I ended up in one restaurant with Wang, and the rest of the group ended up in the restaurant next door. He ordered an omelet peppered with tiny fish; I ordered a pork and eggplant casserole.

"Know how much this omelet costs?" asked Wang.

"No."

"Thirty yuan."

"That's an expensive omelet," I said. "Perhaps they used extra eggs."

"You can buy a dozen of them for 10 yuan at the market." Wang picked one of the little fish out of the omelet and held it in the air with his chopsticks. "It's these little fish that are the problem. Any idea what they are?"

"Just looks like a little fish to me." I didn't know the Chinese word for minnow, and I doubt that's what it was anyway.

The waiter wandered over and sat down at our table. "Are you here traveling or here for a conference?" he asked.

"Well, we're here for a meeting with Chairman Mao," I said, "but he hasn't showed. Any idea where he is?"

The waiter grinned.

"Ha!" said Wang. "Fuck your mother. Mao Tsetung, he fucked us over for 30 years. The Communist Party is still fucking us over." He smiled. "You're OK. I've never talked to a foreigner before. Have some omelet." He gestured at the omelet with his chopsticks. "You can call me Wang."

I gave him my Chinese name. I ate some omelet and little fish; he ate some eggplant and pork.

"You know what I think?" said Wang. "It's fate that brought us together. Yes, fate. Here's me, a bumpkin from Zhejiang -- yes, that's what you should call me: Zhejiang bumpkin -- and here I am eating a meal and speaking Chinese with a foreigner. It's fate, that's what it is."

The idea that fate had brought me together with Wang -- to what end? -- was a slightly disturbing one, but I know too that the Chinese have no truck with the random, with chance. "You know," I said, "China's so big most Chinese don't get much chance to meet a foreigner."

"No, it's fate, that's what it is." Wang helped himself to a mouthful of my eggplant. "You're from England. That's a rich country. Do you have human rights over there?"

"Well ..." I began.

"Fucked if we do over here."

The waiter, who had been listening in, got up and left.

Wang then insisted on paying for my meal. I tried to pay my way, but it was hopeless, and in the end I simply thanked him.

"Fate brought us together," he said with a solemn nod.

Our next stop was Dragon Head Cliff, a spectacular vantage point. Clouds lapped at our feet like a steaming tide. A craggy islet of rock rose in the near distance, a lone fir perched impossibly on its summit. Shadowy cliffs stood shoulder to shoulder in the distance. It was a scene that looked as if it had been conjured into existence by a Chinese brush.

The guide droned out the inevitable roll call of artists, but before she had finished Wang began to become agitated. He waved his arms outward at a distant row of cliffs, and the guide faltered in her monologue.

"It's ridiculous!" said Wang. "We're all standing here, because this is where we're supposed to stand. But if someone had decided we had to stand over there, we'd be standing over there."

A shocked hush fell over the group.

Wang appealed to me with his eyes. "Wouldn't we?" he demanded. The guide glared at me. I said nothing. The guide coughed and resumed her speech. Wang shrugged and stomped off.

He was waiting for me on the next ridge. He gestured helplessly out at the scene before us.

"They say it's amazing. I'll tell you what's amazing, when a person can start with nothing and make a pile of money. That's amazing."

"Well, perhaps," I said carefully, "when you've got a pile of money, you'll want to do something with it. See amazing things maybe."

He scowled. "Maybe. But the only people in this country with money are the Party and their hangers-on."

The guide, her gold megaphone held aloft, was heading our way. Helplessly, to change the topic, I said, "Here she comes."

"The ugly bitch."

We drove back into Jiujiang, the town in which we had started. There were no more statistics. Everybody nodded off. We dropped Wang off at the train station, where we had picked him up. He scrambled out of the minibus and lit up a cigarette. He took a few steps and then turned and waved. It was a half-hearted, diffident effort, and halfway through he gave up. He shrugged and turned away.

The terrible thing was, he was right in his way -- about Mao, about the Party, about the absurdity of our neatly organized sightseeing expedition. He was an outsider and I was a foreigner, which amounted to the same thing. My mouth opened. I wanted to call out, "I'm sorry!" But he was disappearing into the heaving scrum of the train station. Then he was gone.
SALON | April 6, 1998

Chris Taylor is the author or co-author of the Lonely Planet guides to China, Tibet and Japan, and of the Insider's guides to Nepal and China. He has also written for the Asian Wall Street Journal, the Daily Telegraph and the Australian. He lives in Taiwan.