Leaving for the Silk Road

Hello again. I just got back from a 2-week trip over the Chinese portion of some of the Silk Road. There was a lot of Silk Road, let me tell you. But we’re not here for history. We’re here for me. So here’s the story, from the night before I left.

Actually, I’ll begin with the 2 weeks before leaving. Chongyang left for an entrance interview at Sichuan University in Chengdu (about a 13-hour train ride from here) which left me with a hotel room to myself. You know that feeling you get when you first stop living with your mom? Actually, it’s not when you stop living with your mom, but when you have your own place. My schedule rapidly changed to eating Merona cookies (from Mom, ironically) in bed while reading comics on my computer; taking sinfully long showers; remaining naked (this became wearing only boxers when the maids ruined that dream); playing music full volume and dancing; farting forcefully. I barely got out. I didn’t know the exact day CY was getting back, so as one week crept towards two I slowly readopted civilized habits in the room, and every time I came back from eating or class (honestly I think that was it) I held my breath, as if opening the door would catch a tripwire, and I’d just hear his weak little “nihao” and know it was all over. But the days floated on towards the Saturday of my departure, and a little part of me worried I wouldn’t see him before I left. A bigger part of me happily watched movies under the blankets while eating ramen. Then I got a text the day before I left, saying he’d be in that afternoon. It could not have been more perfect. I would get to see him, then there would be sleep which never poses the threat of unwanted interaction, and then I’d be leaving at 7 in the morning!

Around 6 pm there was a tiny, professional knock on the door. I opened it, feigned gleeful surprise, and let him in while patting him on the shoulder because I didn’t know what else to do. He showed me pictures from his trip, typical unsmiling portraits of him or his father or him and his father with a backdrop of something historic or natural. It was kind of cute. I guess. Then he left to go have dinner with a friend, and was gone for a good three hours. I noticed that he had left 2 Tsingdao beers on his desk. For a few seconds I just looked at them like a confused and cock-eyed dog who’s just had a bone placed in front of him. Then I got as excited as a schoolboy at the thought that CY might be having a beer with me. Honestly, what other purpose could there be? He never drinks I think because it interferes with his sole passions of reading and power walking and bothering me, so they couldn’t be both for him, and he didn’t take them to dinner, so they aren’t for friends, so what else could it be? What other logical, sensible course could my mind go than to think that he wants to have a beer with me? I run to another room where a bunch of Americans and Australians are (there is a large population of Australian college students with physical education majors in the hotel for some inexplicable reason) and say, “Guess what! Guess what! CY’s got two beers!” After quickly establishing to those who didn’t know that CY was my roommate and that we would be sharing the beers in a landmark moment of camaraderie and equality, I received congratulations in about the same volume as if I had won a free combo meal from a Burger King cup (Oh, savory croissan’wiches, how I miss thee).

CY marks his return from dinner by walking about 2 feet into the room (not our room, the Westerner room) and just standing there, looking at everybody. Didn’t bother me, though. This was big. This could change everything. I feel a little bit like I’m endorsing alcohol, maybe I am. There’s really something in having a beer with someone. It’s the letting down of the guard. The removing of the mask. Okay, maybe you need more than one beer for that, but I figured CY’s a small guy who never drinks, it could happen. But beyond that, it’s a marked moment that you share with someone, up until the end of the beer. You talk, you sip, you enjoy each other’s company at least as much as you enjoy the beer.  That’s a beer pact. Anyway, I go back with CY to the room, he tells me he was at dinner, I tell him I know, and then I re-notice the beers on his desk (maybe a little too quickly. I was excited!) and say something like, “Oh, you bought beer?” Then he excitedly gives me one and I excitedly receive it, and right as I open it (fatal mistake, should have waited), right as that first crack turns to fiss, he picks up his Nalgene and says “I will drink water.” I was shocked. He didn’t. I asked him, “You’re not going to drink the other beer?” And he said, “Meishi!”, which is basically the Chinese equivalent of “no prob!” or something. It’s CY’s favorite word.

So I’m crushed. I drink my sad lonely beer and finish packing up my stuff, asking him a question once or twice but mostly just silence. I wondered to myself what he was going to do with one beer. I figured that out the next morning. As I made last-minute checks and preparations, he grabbed the beer and offered it to me. I thought, “he can’t possibly be serious. It’s 6 in the morning. I’m going on an airplane. That beer has no purpose for me.” Also, “did he really buy me two beers? Who buys someone two beers?” Granted, he also bought me some vacuum-sealed tofu squares (nasty) and a package of beef jerky with white fuzzies all over it (unopened). So I said, “Bu yao! Bu yao! Shi ni de! Shi ni de!” (“Don’t want! Don’t want! Is yours! Is yours!”) To which I got “Meishi! Meishi! Meishi! Meishi!”, the beer and his hand inching closer and closer to my face, my already delicate morning temperament becoming more and more compromised, until I snake around him and say I’m getting on a plane, liquids aren’t allowed. Unfortunately, he was now between me and my backpack, so he simply stuck the beer in my water battle holder.

“Meishi!”

Against my protests, CY once again walks me to the bus. Even more awkward standing and staring as we waited for everyone to come down. As everyone got on, he pushed more tofu squares on everybody, and waved us off. I cracked open the beer as we got onto the main street because, well, I didn't want to waste it (just so you know one can of Chinese beer might get a Pekinese tipsy) to dubious stares, and said, “Blame Chongyang.”

Boy drives me to drink.