[Editor’s note: Redacted some drama.]
But about leaving China…
I was so excited about this. My mom, who felt sorry for my China misfortunes, and the unexpected expenses which was a misfortune all its own, was nice enough to use her Marriott rewards points to get me a hotel in Beijing. I was staying there 3 nights. Then I was leaving. And the first day I got there I had completely to myself.
Jesse told me that I should use the day to visit the Beijing art district, and by that I mean he brought it up so many times I decided I wasn’t going to visit it on principle. Even Jane told him to stop talking about it.
Regardless, I was already seduced by the idea of doing nothing. I know it was my last few days in China, but I would have teleported the fuck out of China instantly had I the power — Q-style, bitch! — so it didn’t really matter what I did. Priority #1 = coping.
The schedule
Nov 28, Saturday — I leave for Beijing on the 1:15pm train.
Nov 29, Sunday — Day to myself. Jesse and Jane would arrive at the hotel that night.
Nov 30, Monday — LONG day of hiking the great wall, starting very early in the morning.
Dec 1, Tuesday — Forbidden City in the morning and then my flight home at 5pm.
Two weird disagreements
I’m sure I’ll think of some more, but for now, two.
#1: Jesse and Jane were planning on catching a late train to Beijing. I wanted them to skip one of Jane’s classes on Sunday night and leave two hours earlier, but they wouldn’t do it. They couldn’t understand why I cared, but I said we had a long hike the next day and them getting in at 1am when I had to wake up at 6am didn’t sound good. Since they were getting a free hotel room, I wished they could have accommodated me here. But they said “No, no, we’re getting in at 11:30pm. The taxi will be quick.” I was skeptical.
#2: I blame them less for this one, but Jane and Jesse didn’t want to drive me to the Jinan train station. Instead, they generously offered to call a taxi for me.
Passive aggressive?
You know, sometimes I wonder how much of this comes from Jane’s experience of our family at a previous Christmas, 1 or 2 years earlier. We were going to drive Jane and Jesse to the Atlanta airport to catch their flight, but then suddenly Jesse remembered that his flight left at 12am tonight and not 3pm tomorrow, and he needed to be driven right now. It was 9pm. We were all sitting around, playing board games, talking. Fuck, Jesse’s own older brother was in the room. He wouldn’t take Jesse. And neither would anyone in my family.
A few members of my family make big bucks and this was their vacation, and time is money, and so they were like, “Fuck it, we’ll pay for your cab.” And they paid for their cab. Jesse’s brother? Did not pay for the cab. I don’t say this to blame the guy, because he’s a great guy, but just to show the generosity they were getting, in my opinion.
Jane was abhorred by this. She told me this post-China. Her family would have loved to take Jesse and Jane to the airport because it would have meant more time with them. I had to explain to her that Jesse gave us no notice, and that why did my family get her ire and not Jesse’s brother? She agreed.
But back then, I wonder if there was still some resentment.
Getting out the door
So they called a taxi, which I would have to pay for, and they left me alone in the apartment to pack. I had bought a $50 Yankee candle for Jane because she’d said most candles in China were awful. I didn’t buy anything for Jesse, but like he wouldn’t be getting something sometimes when that candle was lit! Come on. I left the candle on the bed along with a thank you note I pulled out of my ass.
I was nervous. There were some elements which had little margin for error, and I worried fate would keep me trapped in China beyond December 1. The first hazard was the front door of the apartment. I couldn’t take their key with me, so once that thing shut, it shut. And it was like a door you’d find on a shipping boat; it was 3 inches thick and shut of its own weight and momentum, loudly. There was also a 1 inch steel piece along the bottom of the doorway, because in China you need to worry about flooding on the 2nd floor…?
Once I got my luggage outside and rechecked the apartment twice, I let the door shut. Clang, echoing down the stairwell. But I felt the weight of finality too fully to be relieved. And there were more hazards ahead.
I was wrestling 3 bags. I could carry them by myself, but it was a lot easier in a flat floor like you’d find in an airport. Here, there was ice on the ground. I would have loved for the taxi to pick me up outside the apartment, but apparently they’d only stop at the front of the apartment complex. I had to get down there with the bags. On ice.
This is where I fell. But it was all snowy-like.
I bricked it on the last run of those steps. I was being so careful, carrying one bag down at a time, but alas, I slipped. One bag fell into another, toppling like dominos.
A Chinese person walked by me soundlessly, staring. He passed me and continued up the steps.
I wasn’t injured. My bags were okay. I looked back at the steps and saw the bunched pink 100 yuan bill, ready for the taxi ride, and I thought, “Thank God that guy didn’t take my money.” And then for the hell of it I scanned the steps up higher…
And I saw my passport.
And then I got pissed.
I was totally fine taking myself to the train station until that moment, when it became not only unjust but possibly reckless.
Further up and further in
I got down to the front of the apartment complex fine, and the taxi eventually showed (although I wondered if it would, if I wouldn’t have to hail one at the intersection 1/4 mile away). I got to the train station fine, got on the train fine, got the Beijing taxi driver to find the Marriott hotel with some trouble but eventually we figured it out, because I had data now, suck it, and THEY SPOKE ENGLISH IN THE MARRIOTT AND THEY GAVE ME CLUB LEVEL PERKS AND THERE WAS A BATHTUB IN THE ROOM, THERE IS A GOD.
That night, I made a trip to a small grocery store down the street, stocked up on a few food items, and decided I wasn’t going anywhere the next day.
And now a few relevant pictures.
Jesse had said we would visit the famous Yellow River, but we never did. I snapped a picture of it while the train passed over. And now I’ve visited it, and that’s done.
The agricultural hellscape between Jinan and Beijing.
Life after the bomb.
When I’d come to Jinan, it was too dark to see anything. I can’t say it mattered. It was like this the whole way, and the pollution didn’t let up.
Half a seatbelt in the Beijing cab is still no seatbelt.
Free drinks in the club room at the Marriott.
The view from my room Saturday night.
The view Sunday morning. It stayed like that the rest of the time.
December 1… 2015… a date which will live… in infamy.
Oh wait, that’s just pollution.
Was I more surprised to discover the Bible or the lightsaber?
I thought it was just hilarious there was a Bible in the hotel drawer. I think in the United States they still say how the Chinese government will put you in prison for having a Bible. They were certainly saying it as recently as a few years previous.
I know it probably used to be like that, in China. But just as some Americans have a myth about what America is, they have a myth about what China is.
Up next, in our concluding chapter
Did Jesse and Jane arrive on schedule?
Did we survive the icy Great Wall hike?
Did I board the plane in time?