The sun sets over West Street as I wander the cobblestone streets. The smell of sandalwood sprinkles the night and reminds me of places I’ve never been. Paper lanterns tell you there’s only one way to go. The road, shrouded in night, looks beautiful, lonely, and mysterious. The only downside is there’s nothing to do at night except shop and eat. That is unless of course I want to stand around an empty dance floor while pimps try to set me up. I’ll keep that as Plan C.
I walked about picking frog-leg out of my teeth when suddenly I came upon a bustling little mob, everyone holding their cellphones up taking pictures of some celebrity. I was expecting an actress or K-pop star or something judging from the scene. But as I got closer, what I saw was totally different. He had the look of a master traveler, poised upon his bicycle like Don Quixote. I watched as he signed another one of his masterpieces for the buyer, who watched in anticipation as he wrote Chinese characters on a paper fan. He had a long wispy beard and a Fu-Manchu mustache, a long yellow poncho and a yellow headband tied around his long single braid like the Karate Kid. He only had one arm and one leg.
I stood there in the crowd and watched as he dipped his brush into a small jar of ink, wrote something with the automation of Jackson Pollock, then signed his name vertically in the upper left hand corner of the open fan. The buyer, an older man, bowed with his family in near prostration while the bicycle man cracked not a smile, unflinchingly accepting their admiration, all while sitting on his bike, a high-horse customized machine, making him seem like a giant. He leaned his weight on his leg of flesh and bone, while in the stirrups of his steed rested the foot of his unmasked prosthetic. His hand held the fans as blank canvasses while his other arm, cut off at the bicep, was strapped with a revolver fitted with different-sized brushes.
By some shifting of the sands, I was moved to the front, and suddenly found myself face to face with the master. He turned and looked at my speechless face, emitted something of a low rasp, then handed me a pamphlet from a stack he kept in a messenger bag. He couldn’t seem to talk, but even if he could, I wouldn’t have been able to understand him. Still, his face glowed with pride as he pointed to his bio and mumbled along as I read in English.
His name was Feng, and according to his pamphlet, he was the Guinness Book of World Records holder for longest distance traveled by a one-armed, one-legged man on bicycle. He had been traveling for eighteen years nonstop across China. A former gangster, he lost his arm and leg in a gun fight, devoted his life to Buddhism, and became something of a traveling monk. He sustained himself from the money he made off painting paper fans. If you bought one, he wrote something like a proverb or a verse of poetry in that wild calligraphy from the brush strapped to his bicep.
I told him I wanted to buy one, and he seemed to understand. I chose one with pink flowers growing off of a long gnarled branch as the motif, but the real art lay in watching him make it. With flash and flourish, he wrote calligraphy across the fan like a fencer makes sword strokes, and read the characters silently to me one by one, mouthing the words and pointing right to left with his bent finger. I wished I could understand, but all I had was my imagination to ponder the meaning of his words as he repeated them again, looking straight into my eyes and searching for comprehension. It seemed that somehow, this total stranger, this lone traveler of the truest kind, could see something in me.
At that point, I became so overwhelmed with emotion I dropped to the ground before him. “Please let me be your disciple!” I burst aloud and clasped my hands together. Yes! This is what I had been searching for all along! A mentor, a master, someone to guide me into the ways of a wandering monk! I could see us traveling across China together and fighting whatever injustices we found. Some triads in Hong Kong threatening an old lady’s grocery? POW! We leave tire-tracks across the roulette tables and scatter all the chips with our skidding wheels, both of us flying off and slapping five in midair before jump-kicking some gangsters in the face. I saw us in a flash, cruising upon bicycle, dressed like Buddhist monks in the mountains, practicing calligraphy and swordplay. But all I heard was that raspy chuckle, and when I looked up, everyone was looking at me like I was the one with one arm and one leg.
Later that night, pretty girls stand outside the bars inviting men to come in for a drink. It’s low season now, and most of the bars remain empty. Every bar bumps their dance and rock and roll tunes, but not a single soul can be found funky enough to wander in. The bars may find a few flies after dinner, after the horny toads have had their fill and start tipping back a few shots of baijiu with friends to help aid their digestion. Afterwards, there’s the happy voyage around the alleys acting magnetized to whatever voices happen to call them. The lust is never quite so naked as it is discovered in a sort of serendipitous adventure wandering deeper into holes illumined with hot pink neon.
You see, one does not simply answer the call of toadiness so directly. One must first taste the wind. The perfume must tingle upon one’s lips. There must also have been the obligatory slip of allowing oneself to have a few too many drinks at dinner before one allows oneself to be enticed by the prospects of getting cozy with one of the pretty little barmaids inviting you in.
The temptation to piss your money away on bar girls while traveling is insurmountable at times when you’re alone with no one to stop you from making that ridiculous statement, “Maybe I’ll just have one little drink”. By the time you utter those words, it’s already too late. The bar girls have sonar hearing and zone-in on you immediately. Before you even know you’ve bled into the water, they’ve got you in their jaws. Come in, handsome! they sing and grab your arms. Of course, the thought of it in your mind was just a faint notion, which could have passed just as easy as it is to keep walking. But once the words exit your mouth, it becomes a promise.
They sit you at a table- never the bar. The bar is too easy to escape. They sit you like a king in the empty room, and quickly try to compensate for your embarrassment at being the only patron by giving you full control of the music. This gives you a sense of power and ease. Now your drink has arrived and you’re starting to feel comfortable. The girl beside you asks sweetly if you’ll also buy her a drink. Oh, how inconsiderate of me! you say. Of course!
The conversation is just flirtatious enough to make up for the fact that you’re not really having a conversation. Certainly not worth sticking around for and buying that second drink. Okay. You’re satisfied. Time to settle up and go back to the room. But then, just as you get ready to pull out a few bills from a secret pocket sewn in your underwear, another pretty girl walks in. This is her friend. The first girl calls her over. Introductions are made. Sit down, sit, sit.
One more round. But that’s it.
Pretty soon that second drink catches up with you and one of the girls touches your knee and before you even order it, a third round materializes. Tequila shots? Fuck it. Why not?
Before the night is done, you’ll have blown a carefully structured budget equivalent to about a week’s worth of food, room, and transport on sugary cocktails, an eventual hangover, and a sad masturbation session. Wandering around West Street reminds me of this ancient wisdom passed down through centuries. I avoid all eye-contact with the lithe creatures singing me to my doom outside the neon-lighted bars.
But then, as I wander back towards the inn, I see a salesgirl in a jewelry shop who made the bar girls look like frogs. I find myself closer, and closer, until before I know it, I’m inside the shop. I quickly reassured myself, whispering to my penis that I was only here to look around, perhaps picking up some gifts for the family for Christmas.
At the moment, she was busy with another customer, an affluent-looking grandma standing by a display case full of silver. A smile was already on her face in the manner of a friendly sales-pitch. As I walked in, however, I saw that little extra glisten, twinkle, that faded just as quickly as she returned her attention to the rich old lady. I pretended not to notice and walked casually past her, making my direction towards the mini-gallery in the back of the shop.
The shop was spacious, dimmed and atmospheric, the display cases spotlighted to bring out the moonlight luster of the silver pieces laying on beds of black velvet beneath the glass. These were far from souvenirs. Everything was hand-made, produced by a vanishing tribe in Yunnan famous for the beauty of their silver. The designs of each bracelet, ring, and necklace were elegant and intricate. I admired a row of long-toothed princess combs, just because they looked so royal, but the sheer amount of zeros on the price tags told me I couldn’t even afford a keychain.
The truth is that the businessman hopes for the artist’s untimely death, for he knows rarity creates value. With the extinguishing of a flame comes silver. If everyone had the gift, they’d just be stones. Time erases all. The lost and forgotten become priceless and locked away in a museum. All that remains is the beauty and the light.
It’s hard not to want to fill up your castle with the splendor of all these earthly treasures. But the heavier you are, the harder it will be to ascend to heaven. You have to learn to appreciate beauty with your eyes only. The money you have is enough to buy you passage through the world, but this is a walk through the red light district, not a fuck fest. You come on a journey like this to exit the world, not to collect its pieces and fragments. Learn to appreciate life without wanting to take it with you. Let go of the ring, Frodo! We all want to live in the Shire, but in truth, we are all born Orcs.
“Hi! Can I help you with anything?”
I turned, thoughts interrupted, and found myself face to face with the belle of the silver-shop.
“It’s a beautiful shop,” I said.
“Thank you! It’s my aunt’s shop.”
“Did you see anything you like?” she asked.
I blacked-out with the possibility of a hundred different responses. But luckily, my instincts took over. This is what I had trained for. I quickly transformed into Gallery Man. Cultured. Smart. Mysterious. Lonely. Able to have a decent conversation with a pretty girl without making his words drip with innuendo.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I read the, uh, description here. Very interesting. But why does it keep saying ‘vanishing tribes’? Where are they going?”
“Oh, well, you know, these days, the girls in the villages want to live like the rest of Chinese. They don’t want to wear those clothes and make silver. Now, there is only old people making them. But when the old people die, then maybe there will be no one left to make it.”
“That’s a shame. Such beautiful clothes and jewelry. The world will miss it.”
“Yes, that’s why we have our shop. We want to share with the world before they are all gone.”
“They’ll become dinosaurs.”
“Yes,” she laughs. “But not so scary.”
Her name was Mei.
She led my penis around the shop and showed it some of the display cases. “Are you shopping for your girlfriend?” she asked.
“Oh no,” I replied casually. “Just looking.”
Still, she seemed to have no problem ignoring the other potential customers as she led my penis around the store. Soon, I had her taking out rows of bracelets and trying them all on. She seemed to enjoy it immensely, holding out her long smooth arm for me to hold and lower my face just close enough to smell the fragrance of her skin.
“Do you like?” she asks me, flipping back her hair, displaying chandelier earrings that reach down to her shoulders.
“Yes,” I say, nodding like a dog gazing at a bone-shaped cookie.
Alright. Enough of this game. It was time to go in before I ended up playing the millionaire card, buying everything in the store like a degenerate gambler hoping she’ll like me for my credit cards.
“What do you usually do after work?” I asked suddenly, as she modeled a silver wedding tiara.
We were now alone in the back of the store.
“Usually I just go home. Sometimes I go out for a snack.”
“Anything good around here?”
“Do you like noodles?”
“I love noodles.”
“There’s a really good noodle shop nearby.”
“Well, if you’re not busy, I think it’d be easier if we just went together.”
“Together?” she said in a sort of mock surprise.
“Yeah, you know. Just a little bowl of noodles between friends.”
“Friends?”
“Sure, why not?”
“So. . . after work?”
Suddenly, without warning, I felt something rumble deep inside me. It was a sharp stabbing pain, followed by a sickening gurgle.
She mistook it for hunger. It was anything but.
Tiny beads of sweat began to break out on my forehead and nose. Her voice became mute and only her lips were visible, talking without words, the various lefts and rights I would need to take to get to the little noodle shop. I heard nothing. There was a flame growing within my belly.
“Wow,” I gasped, as a gurgling fire-worm began to emit a lion’s roar.
“It’s okay,” I whispered, reflecting now upon everything I had ever eaten. “I have to go.”
“Here. Take this,” she said putting the directions into my numb fingers.
“I have to go,” I said again in something of a whimper. I was beginning to sweat profusely from every pore.
Without another word, I speed-walked and hobbled out of the shop, doing my best not to hunch over until I was out of sight, and then ran to the inn unashamedly holding both hands to my ass, trying desperately not to shit myself.
What happened next was the price of a lesson learned. Wash your hands always, always, always, after you play with farm animals. They’re dirty beasts and treat mud like soap.
I guess the timing was just about perfect though because it took about two hours of running back and forth between the toilet and my bed when I realized it must be around closing time at the shop. Exhausted, pants around ankles, lying on the bathroom floor, I wondered to myself what she was doing. Was she thinking of me?
Imagine she could see me right now . . .
Despite the fact that my face looked as if I had been traumatized, there was a determined little smile within the shadows beneath my eyes. I glanced at my watch and saw it was about fifteen minutes to closing time. Perfect!
Of course I could’ve just given up and rested like a normal human being. It wasn’t like I was in love with her or anything. But to not take a girl I would never see again out on a date? Impossible! I would soldier on, and carry with me the flag of her “yes” for all of my days to come.
Ten minutes later, I strolled back into the shop as if nothing had happened, as if I had just been strolling about, casually window-shopping and happened to come here once again. Mei was taking everything out of the display cases and putting them into boxes where they would then be locked away. When she looked up, she seemed genuinely surprised to see me. Not happy. Not annoyed. Just surprised.
I have to admit, I was hoping for some kind of smile in her eyes like the one she had given me when I first walked in. Now all I felt was the female instinct of defense and hesitation. Can you say “stalker”? Oh god, was I one of those? The return to the scene of the crime always indicates something of an obsession. An inability to move on and keep it cool. I felt like a creep now, but what could I do? I had walked through the door.
A tinge of desperation began to discolor my aura and I immediately wanted to disappear. Who is this guy? I could hear her wondering. Doesn’t he have anything better to do than bother the locals, insert himself into their lives for no good reason, only to disappear the next day? Well, no, not really, I don’t. You got me. I’m a drifter.
“Did you get lost?” she asked me.
“Yes! I mean, yeah, I, uh. . . “
“Oh, I’m sorry. Were you looking for the noodle shop this whole time?”
“No, no. I just, well, I just kind of wandered around for awhile.”
“Awww,” she said sympathetically.
And with one fell swoop, I went from creepy stalker to lost little puppy. Amazing how women can change your entire identity with a sound.
“You want to go? I’m pretty hungry now,” I said cheerfully, relieved that at least this part of the fiction could be true.
Mei turned and said something jokingly to Pikachu, who pretended not to notice us, despite her fur standing on end shooting bolts of electricity off its ends. I just stood there smiling sheepishly.
“Well, I want to go,” she said, “but my aunt lives above the shop. If I don’t come home, she might worry.”
Still, I gave it a chance. I didn’t push or pull. I said nothing, seeing what she would do. She looked at me a moment more, then turned and conversed with Pikachu for about five minutes. It was like I wasn’t even there. I stared at the empty display cases and figured out the exchange for myself.
Mei: Pikachu, what should I do? If I say no, he’ll think I was just flirting with him, won’t he?
Pika: What do you have to go with him for? He’s just a customer. He didn’t even buy anything.
Mei: But he is pretty nice. Should I just go? It’s just down the street.
Pika: People get kidnapped on their own street most of the time.
Mei: He’s not a kidnapper.
Pika: He’s an American. Don’t trust them.
Mei: We’ll have noodles and go back home.
Pika: Fine. You buy.
Mei: Okay.
After some moments of this intense private conversation in front of me, Mei turned to me and said, “Is it okay if Ling come?”
“Who? Pikachu? I mean, yeah, okay,” I said hesitantly.
“I mean, sure! Let’s all go!”
“Okay great!” Mei smiled. “But I have close up the shop first. You can wait a little bit, can’t you?”
“Okay, sure. I’ll just. . . wait.”
Ten minutes and a phone call later, we were all walking down the cobblestone streets of Old Town making our way towards a famous noodle shop that Mei seemed to love so much. The stars sparkled above us in the autumn sky and it seemed a perfect night, but I couldn’t help but notice the mood had changed somewhat between us. The flirtation we had enjoyed earlier seemed to be somewhere locked in the past sitting in the glass display cases next to the necklaces and earrings.
I tried to keep the conversation alive by asking her questions about life in Yangshuo, but it all sounded kind of forced, like I was asking her to become my tour guide or something. She didn’t want to live out in a field like I did. She didn’t live in Old Town either. She commuted from nearby Guilin, perhaps preferring the anonymity of city life. Her eyes kept glancing here and there, trying to keep her voice down when she spoke, very different from the bright bubbly personality in the shop. I could detect a very tangible self-consciousness of the passersby in the street all about her. Pikachu padding along quietly behind us instead of together with us wasn’t helping either. It felt like we were being chaperoned. And we were.
At least everyone else seemed to be having a magical night. Couples strolling together arm in arm down the red lantern lit streets in bliss, romance spilling from the sounds of a street violinist moaning sweet music from an ancient melody. I considered stopping for a moment to listen to the music, but Mei seemed to want to get to the noodle shop as soon as possible and then get out of there. She had heard that song a million times before.
The noodle shop was a little hole-in-the-wall which specialized in one kind of noodle soup. There didn’t seem to be a menu. Mei ordered three and we sat down near the door. I went to the refrigerator and offered to get Mei and Ling a drink. They both politely refused. I took out a bottle of green tea and brought it back to the table and sat down, knowing now that I had no fancy descriptions of art or silver-work to rely on, I was screwed. Usually alcohol played point guard in these types of situations and made way for the easy assist, but neither of them drank. So there we sat in stony silence, wondering why it was so complicated to be human.
“Has your aunt ever thought of expanding her business?” I said, without zeal or even interest. The noodles were taking forever.
“No. What do you mean?”
“I mean like, if you opened a shop in New York City, for example, I think a shop like that would do pretty well.”
“Really? Do American peoples like to wear those things?”
“Oh sure. That stuff is always popular. I mean, if it’s real and authentic.”
“What?”
“I mean, um, people who like fashion. They like things from other countries. You could make a lot of money.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” she said with forced cheer.
“Yeah,” I agreed, but I could tell neither of us really cared.
Finally, the noodles came.
“Alright, let’s eat,” I said with utter relief. I shoved the noodles in my mouth like I had never seen food before, just so I could have an excuse to stop talking. They were pretty good, but a little spicy. I worried about my rectum again, but figured I would deal with it later.
I looked at Mei with curiosity and wondered about her life. My lust and attraction to this lovely creature were slowly becoming bitter-sweet. Maybe this wasn’t her first time having noodles with one of the many travelers blowing in from the wind. They rode in on surfboards and kayaks and promised a lifetime of anything but here as they flowed and ebbed with the seasonal tides- learning, acquiring, collecting, disappearing, returning. And here she remained, as the seasons changed, in the most beautiful town I had ever seen. She seemed cheerful, but didn’t she want to leave?
“Good noodles,” I said.
“Yes, this is the most famous noodle-shop in Yangshuo,” Mei said.
“Lot of foreigners here, huh?”
“Yes, many coming. More coming everyday.”
I tipped the bowl of soup back and drank all of its contents like a savage. Somehow, I felt defeated.
“Do you ever get bored here?” I asked after a moment. “I mean, it’s beautiful and everything, but do you ever get used to it?”
“I wish I could travel sometimes. But it is good for me here. I work with my aunt and uncle, have my own apartment in Guilin. I ride bikes. . .” she said. “But maybe I can travel like you one day.”
“But you could never go alone.”
“Alone?” she laughed. “Not safe for a Chinese girl to travel alone.”
“Where would you want to go?”
“I want to go Europe, if I has some money. Maybe Japan. But you will see many good places in China,” she said coyly with a smile, “You will meet many pretty girl.”
“I think you’re the prettiest girl I’ve met so far.”
She laughed like a bell. Pika rolled her eyes.
“If I don’t, I’ll come back and tell you.”
Mei smiled and looked into my eyes, and for a moment, she really wished I would.
“Listen, I know this sounds crazy, but why don’t you come with me?”
“You want to go somewhere else?” she asked.
“No, I mean let’s go together. Come with me! Leave the shop! Let’s take a trip!”
Mei started laughing.
“I can’t leave. I have to work silly. Thank you for asking.”
“Come on. Don’t you ever want to just leave everything behind for awhile?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You know, just go out and explore the world. That kind of thing.”
“You’re real nice, but I can’t.”
“This is your chance,” I said to her now, and wondered if it was her I was talking to, or myself. Suddenly, I transcended this shit restaurant and saw us actually make it. I saw us get on a bus and awkwardly try to feel as if this wouldn’t be the worst mistake of our lives.
“Let’s do it,” I said, deciding for both us now that it would be totally worth it.
She smiled and shook her head no.
“Alright. I just wanted to see if you would really do it.”
An awkward silence fell over the table as we sat with empty bowls. Damn it, Pikachu, this is where you say something funny. Can’t you talk? Worthless!
Mei insisted on paying, saying I was her guest. I tried to refuse, but I didn’t feel like ending the night by ripping open my underwear. I dropped Mei and Ling off back at the store. I waited as she knocked on the door and made a few comments to lighten up the mood knowing that we would soon never speak again. Finally someone opened the door. I smiled and said it was nice meeting her before she and Ling slipped into the darkness and left me standing alone.
I walked off into the fading lamplights of West Street accompanied by the song of a two-stringed violin.
