sofasurfers

So you don’t have to live it yourself. I’m now Writing the Book, see.

The tantrums, the toilet raids, the titty tours, the bedroom appointments, even the gothic bondage chatrooms - yup, it will all be there, and much, much more, in glorious, shameless explicitness. It’s called On The Couch, it features lots of Ollie’s photographs, and it tells both the geographic and personal journey that I took. Hypothesis: is it really possible to travel a continent by staying in the houses of strangers met online? And who really was placed on the metaphorical couch - them or me?

You can pre-order it here!

“Welcome to London Heathrow. The outside temperature is 7 degrees and the sky is expected to remain overcast today.” Reassuringly dreary.

But then my travel-tuned eyes turned towards London: so used to they to looking out of foreign windows, gauging new cities, London was instinctively perceived through fresh eyes: all Victorian townhouses and real Christmas trees with tasteful, twinkling lights - London resembled a quaint little Christmas card. What’s more, people in the supermarket let me go first. I patted someone’s Dachshunds and chatted to their owner. Everything seemed to fit the Goldilocks rule of proportion - not too big, not too small. I felt a surge of London pride. This will put me in good stead for receiving couchsurfers in my house… For now it is time to pay it back.

Ignorance alert: presuming that Knightsbridge doesn’t count, my visit to Bahrain was my first to the Middle East.

So when confronted with the full spectrum of female muslims all within this tiny country (pop. 723,000), I confess I got a little confused.

“I class them in a sliding scale…” said my host in Bahrain (who happens to be Omani, but still drives a Porsche so he fits right in). Plus he’s muslim, so he’s allowed to make the following comments…

“Darth Vaders are fully covered in black abayas - you can’t even see their eyes. Then there are the Ninjas, whose abayas just have two openings for their eyes, while Batman gets a mono-slit for both eyes. Those Star Wars-esque Jawas sport large headscarves that protrude out the back [it's apparently a combination of piled-up hair and fabric], and then there’s the humble Maid Marian who just wears a simple headscarf. If any colour other than black is involved, it means they’re Shiite; if they’re black, they’re Sunni.” (Most Bahrainis are Shiite muslims, though the Royal Family are Sunni.)

I found Darth Vader out shopping with some ninjas in the souk…

Oh sorry, wrong picture…

But I still didn’t really understand the difference in religiosity, so I went to the grand mosque…

(Please observe the newly built (if dwarfed) “World Trade Centre” - yuh, twin towers even - just to the left of the Mosque, which houses Moda Mall from the Kuwaiti retail royalty, Sheikh Majed Al-Sabah. This rival temple bows to that other God, materialism.)

Right, anyway, back to the Mosque, where I spent a good hour mesmerised by a member of the be-gloved batman subspecies who was my dedicated guide (dedicated to informing just me, and - natch - dedicated to her “creator”). I am somewhat ashamed (and unworldly) to admit that it was the first time I had ever spoken to a hooded lady (save any sightless call centre encounters). Am I allowed to be shocked that she was so confident, so self-assured? A 23-year-old Islamic law student, she was well-educated, well-informed, open-minded and open to all my questions - we briefly became friends, and she even gave me her email. She explained that the choice (choice, she insisted) to be fully shrouded in black was a matter of personal interpretation of Quranic translations: some say potato, some say potarto. “I am only to be desired by my husband,” she added. “We don’t want to put temptation in front of other men - it’s not honourable.” It was a point that I only fully grasped as I disrobed

Mixed movies: Batman and Maid Marian

and walked through the city to my next destination in my Western clothes (and - gasp! - short sleeves), to the soundtrack of constant beepings of the horn (geddit?) and kisses being blown at me. Without my abaya, I felt naked and inappropriate and thoroughly un-Rome. “Oh they probably think you’re a prostitute,” confirmed my host back at home. “Ex-pats just don’t walk around here - everyone drives. Walking the street classifies you as a prostitute.”

That evening, we saw the other side of the coin. Relatively liberal, Bahrain is crawling with prostitutes, and thobe-robed Saudis who cross the border at weekends to drink and ‘dance’… “The Bahraini women just aren’t available,” says my host “They stay at home until they get married”. Ample opportunities are available elsewhere, evidently.

A spot of titty tourism (”No photos or you leave!”) took me to an Arabic bar where five sausagey-built Asian ladies danced on stage in an attempt to lure the few solo Saudis sheeshing away at their tables to come and buy the Arabic equivalent of a lap dance - the chance to lay a garland around the girl’s neck and to hold hands with her while she looks into their eyes for the duration of one whole song! All the girls were clothed from the bosom to the ankle, if tightly with some tummy spillage, in coloured silks. So innocent? “There’s a sliding scale…” said my host. A full service is supplied by China (recall that new Chinese proverb: where there is demand, there is supply). “In the late 90s, most of the Eastern Europeans were kicked out, and replaced with Chinese girls - I don’t really understand it,” he admits. Apparently they’re tighter, I offer. “I wouldn’t know,” says my host. That, I say, is the correct answer!

See, my flight to London had a stopover there. ‘Is that near Malaysia’ everyone asked. Exactly. That is, no one seems to know anything about Bahrain, not least where it is (not near Malaysia, of course - it’s a tiny country just east of Saudi Arabia), and not least, me. So I decided to turn two hours in Bahrain airport into two days… Primarily research warns me to wrap a light sweater around my shoulders in its cool evenings. And those four couches? They ALL belong to my final host, who also has three spare double bedrooms. No doubt he will be pleased to despatch me to London in time for Christmas …

Walking to my host’s house in Shanghai, I had my first warning of
Shanghai’s noise nightmare. It was just a humble fast food outlet –
y’know, just one of those single-fronted, fluoro-lit
only-go-in-drunken-desperation numbers. Outside was a young, suited
man who was holding a MICROPHONE (for he was SHOUTING LOUDLY but I’ll
spare you the caps lock): “Yum, yum, come and get it! Fast food! Slow
death! Come and get it!” (Or something like that).
In China, even the low-rent fast-food joints have to make a noise to
make money. As one foreign student told me, “Unless you shout in
China, no one cares about you.” So the free-market frenzy of Shanghai
is right off the scale of noise pollution: “Miss! MISS! You come my
shop! Just lookin!” I’ll only come inside if you promise to remain
silent, I said… But no: “Miss! Miss! Come my shop! Chopstick! Jade!
Cucci [sic] bag!” My Italian host compared the Bund, the riverside
promenade and tourist trap numero uno, to Alien 2, where all the
aliens shoot out of their hiding places, screaming and yelling. Even
the house cat cries at night when he doesn’t get his way….
You know what this means? It’s time to come home – and so I am… But first….

Words you never thought I’d say (though probably never cared enough to
wonder): “May I come to church with you?”
This was no religious quest, but cultural - how is it to be a Chinese
Christian, I’d pondered - since my host is one. Hard…
“The head of our family church doesn’t think it would be a good idea
for you to come: the government is very touchy about Christianity.” Oh
that’s a shame. “But we are meeting for lunch afterwards - you are
welcome.”
And so each one introduced themselves to me: “My name’s… I’m a
Christian”… and together explained how the family church works. They
meet at one of the “brothers’ and sisters’” houses, where they take
turns to lead the teachings - there’s no priest, there’s no church,
just good faith and the bible. “You have to register with the
government at official churches,” one says. “I read on the internet
there are three times as many family church-goers as official
church-goers,” says my host. “NO PHOTOS!” says this week’s hostess.
“It is a real burden to protect the brothers and sisters,” says
another, in defence.

And yet, all around the dark heart of capitalism, Christmas carols are
being played full blast, there are Christmas trees at every turn, glad
tidings festooned around all shops, and all the other commercial
urgings of Christmas. In fact, there’s such a disconnect with
Christianity and Christmas that when I asked my host how he would be
celebrating, he just said, “Oh we don’t celebrate Christmas - we are a
typical Chinese family…”

The Chinese couchsurfing scene in Shanghai is no different to the rest
of the country in that the majority tribe is Western TEFL teachers. I
have half resigned myself to the cause to stay with one such Italian
boasting 150 references (also a typical characteristic: guests really
have to impress these seen-it-all hosts). And half playing the wild
card, staying with a Chinese couple in the missionary position: “Thank
God we have found Jesus,” reads their profile. And their most recent
missive to me: “Let us show you the way.” Wild.

Knowledge of a couchsurfing school in the neighbouring town eventually
lured me like a vampire to blood. (Sadly, a couchsurfing school is not
where you get to learn couchsurfing etiquette for once and for all,
but instead, here in Yangshuo, in Guangxi province, a private English
school where couchsurfers are welcome to stay for even months at a
time, with free lunch and dinner, in exchange for making weekly
speeches to the students and participating in daily English Corners,
where all gather to chat in English.) And my, do the couchsurfers get
a good deal: we are put up in the students’ ‘dormitory’ (read: 3-star
hotel-esque establishment complete with English expressions at every
single step
where I shared a twin bedroom with an ensuite, large TV and DVD
player, and in-room hot-water dispenser – tea on tap!).
Because I’d left it so late (like, “Hello, is it OK if I come this
afternoon?”), and wasn’t going to be there for a single English
corner, I urgently needed to attend to my side of the bargain.
“Perhaps,” I offered in pathetic, unblinking earnest, “I can help out
in the school kitchen? [Can you imagine?! I was seriously up for
this.] Perhaps I can play badminton with the students? [Ditto.]
Perhaps I can help in the office?”
“Well, you could call our previous students to see if they would like
to come back to study,” says Charles, the school’s manager. “Try and
get into a conversation with them. Ask them how about the weather, ask
them how about their job.” Great, I said, in genuine delight; how
hilarious, I said in silent aside.
So I was set up with a spreadsheet of names and numbers and a script
(”Hello, this is [your name] from Zhuoyue [jo-yoo-eh] English
School… Welcome back to Zhuoyue when you have free time.”
Unexpectedly, it was a most rejuvenating experience – suddenly, I felt
like I was 22 again: like I’d just graduated, and was dithering about
in dead-end temping work… Because, yes, of course, it’s the task
that is so awful they have to get a temp in to do it. Most of the
numbers didn’t work. Of the 11 numbers I called, I got through to just
one boy, “John”.
Hello, this is Fleur from Jo-yoo-eh English College! I was just
wondering how your English was coming along since you left the
college.
“Uh? Uh?”
[Repeat lines one and two.]
“Ha ha – I sorry. Very difficult. No understand.”
Ah! Hello. This. Is. Fleur. From. Jo-yoo-eh. English. College! How. Are. You?
“I working.”
Oh. Sorry. If. You. Are. Busy. There. Is. A. Forum. On. Jo Yoo-eh’s.
Website. Where. You. Can. Practise. Your. English. Shall. I. Spell.
It?
“J-O-H-N”
Lovely, thank you very much, John. Welcome back to Jo Yoo-eh when you
have free time!
Forcing a conversation with John just felt like a small torture for
him, so I leave it at that. I go to sing a song – or go to the loo in
Plain English – where I find three toilets, one of which is
Western-style. In the two Chinese-style ones (ie, hole in the ground),
there are English expressions pinned to the door: “More haste, less
speed”, “Great hope makes great man”.
On my return, I spot a British boy. Hello, I say, with the kind of
entitlement you feel when you chance upon a fellow minority. “Oh
you’ve been doing that ring-round,” he says. “I had to do that last
year. It’s a complete waste of time – complete waste of time.”
So I abort task and set about some real temping work (aka discreetly
doing my own thing). At which point, natch, Charles asks me how I’m
getting along with the list. Well, I say, with gusto and job pride…
Both quickly fall away as I run down the list of names and expose my
uselessness, until I’m left standing there, stark nakedly useless. Ah
– it made me feel so naughty and young again.
Footnote: I must add that my unrewarding experience was only a
self-inflicted punishment for deciding too late and leaving too early,
and not having the time to involve myself in the cultural exchange of
their English Corner. It’s clear that couchsurfers have a really
fulfilling time here, and many do stay for months, years even. My
lesson learnt at the Zhuoyue English School was Just Deserts. It’s
probably written somewhere on the door of one of their Chinese-style
toilets.

Since conversation was severely limited, I invited Axiang to play ping
pong with me. “Uh?” Ping pong! You know, ping pong! Now I understood
that ping pong is so called because it’s onomatopoeic so I made a smal
song and a dance, giving it all the “piiing!” and the “ponggg!”, to no
avail. So I take to my pencil and paper and draw it: “Aaah! Ping pan
cho!”
I also learnt a few more things about the sport. Firstly, how to spot
a ping pong table: no green and white paint job and net fancy
business here – no, no: look for the cement-clad breeze blocks and the
plank of wood, like this one in the local school where we played.

Secondly, the bat is held almost like a pen, thumb and forefinger on
the front (as you’ll see ably demonstrated here)… Obviously, things
got a lot worse before they got better on my side of the ‘net’. And
thirdly, when playing against a 13-year-old boy, it is advisable to
stand a good four feet back from the end of the table. If only someone
had been able to advise me of this.

Post Script

Other sports in China: squash is called “wall ball”, badminton is called “feather ball”

Somewhat against the traffic, as more and more of China’s population
takes a one-way ticket into its cities and out of rural life, I headed
towards the village of Xing Ping in Guangxi province – yes! A village!
I’d found a couchsurfer in a village… Or had I? Correct: exactly as
feared when going to a place where there’s only one option, my one
option went and ran out on me. Just as I was on the bus there as well:
after I’d sent a couple of unrequited texts, I do indeed hear back
from my host that that he’s left town. Grrrowl. “Go to the youth
hostel and find Axiang – she will look after you”. Harrumph.
Actually, despite my grumpy cynicism setting in as I was led up the
(garden) path into the youth hostel, I was not expected to pay to
sleep in a dormitory with hairy and smelly travellers (and nor they
with me…). Axiang, the 21-year-old niece of my absent host’s wife,
took me off to her place where I even had my own bedroom.
Communication wasn’t easy (our Chinese whispers conversation led me to
expect to be staying with her parents and brother in a farm; I arrived
to find it was just me and her above a grain store), but she gave me
her house keys and her heart, and a window to life in her village.

And so I got to witness buffalo (oh maybe they are water buffalo, but
hey, the shepherd is herding in his pants – that’s got to be village).

I saw sausages made like they used to – out of real intestines (and
please note the orange trees in the background; also observed: banana
trees, chilli bushes and strawberries – and those are just the ones
that I understood).
 I saw Mao posters in pride of place by the TV (the real rural God) in
crumbly yellow brick houses with wide-open doors, holey ceilings and
woodsmoke fires… I saw a crowd which had gathered to spectate a
lorry unloading an oildrum (clearly a rare excitement). I saw abacuses
in shops, and small collections of orange pith (peel removed) drying
in the sun – some kind of cottage industry as they can sell on the
pith though I haven’t yet uncovered the point. I saw fresh dinner on
its way to the table – these little chucks were still alive.
 And what about the yuf, when they can’t get their hands on any spray
paint and a good wedge of urban wall? Bamboo etchings. Let’s hope it
says something fully filthy.
 I even went for a walk up those strange limestone camel humps where my
sole companion was this little calf (no people for two hours! Remember
this is China). I heard nothing but birds singing, cow bells dingling,
and sometimes just nothing at all. Total luxury.


And.. I saw this furry fellow in my bedroom – please do observe that
the water bottle you see for the purpose of perspective is a full
1.5litres, not an incy wincy 300ml one. In fact, so impossibly large
(and still) was my bedfellow that at first I thought it was a plastic
joke. But no – by the time I’d procured a giant jar large enough to
catch him in, he’d moved…into the shadows and into my nightmares.

Resist the panda merchandise, I self-chided. Resist!
 Oh, argh, ohhh, nooo! Too late. A panda pen jumps into my hand and out
of the shop. Needless to say,  the ink ran out even faster… But my
furry friend did make me pretty popular on the choo choo train.

 (Oh no! Resist the Chinese camera salute – resist! Oh no!)

And kept me company on a ride down the Lijiang River past these
lovely, leafy, limestone camel humps, on the way to my next stop, Xing
Ping…

“I’m sorry – I already have a couchsurfer staying with me.” My Serbian
host is on the phone; we’re out in a bar. “There’s no space. I’m
sorry. I can ask around and see if anyone else could take you….blah
blah blah…. OK, I will meet you at mine in 30 minutes.” I’m not sure
what is being said on the other end of the phone, but this person
certainly has tenacity. My host hangs up and announces that he needs
to go home to meet a Russian hitchhiker who will stay with us tonight.
I don’t suppose by any chance it’s Stasia, I ask. Stasia was the girl
who took me hitchhiking in Russky Island. I took this footage on the
boat over to the island – she has a thing about orange but could only
find one orange shoelace.

“Yes,” says my host. “You know her?” And so the silver lining shines
yet brighter. Stasia carries a bubble-blowing kit wherever she goes,
plays the mouth-harp and likes a spot of skinny dipping – without a
hint of pretension, she is footloose and fancyfree. And so I had some
company at Guilin’s map of the world. Here we are trampling over
Birmingham the night she arrived.

I had someone to go for a stroll with the next day while my host had
to wait for a plumber.

We strolled to the Seven Star cave (just me and her in this vast, ancient cave).

There was someone to take a photo of me in front of a little white
rabbit-shaped rock formation (no, I couldn’t see it either; thought
best to recreate).

And she told me all about hitchhiking in China (ah, The Life
Vicarious): “If a Chinese man stops by the side of the road, it’s
because their car is in trouble. If a foreign girl stands by the side
of the road, they assume you’re in real trouble. My drivers they buy
me so much food so I don’t die [she shows me the photographic
evidence: crisps, fruit, biscuits, sweets – an ample picnic for five],
and then 15 minutes later, they buy me dinner. And nobody speak
English so it’s really…” she throws her arms out with grand
melodrama… “Theatre”. In fact, she told me all about hitchhiking.
“There’s one guy in our hitchhiking community who say he only spends
$300 in half a year – he just lives on rice.” But it’s not just about
free travel, is it, I ask, with wide-eyed (vicarious) idealism. “No –
some can pay for their travel.” (Of course, the idealism being that –
as with couchsurfing – the hitchhiker is really on the ground, open to
all sorts of random encounters; tellingly, Stasya’s Chinese is much
better than mine – we’ve been here for pretty much the same time.)
“Some hikers have all the good equipment – the good camera, the good
shoes, the good bag – and then they have to stand by the side of the
road and show the drivers they need a lift.” Meanwhile, Stasia’s shoes
are falling apart, I notice. “Yes! They come from China. I think they
choose to stay in China,” she grins, with characteristic Stasic charm.

Note to self: don’t overcomplicate the communication when
corresponding with locals.
This little lesson was learnt when approaching my most recent couch in
China, in Guilin (going south, getting warmer, now hitting 20
degrees!). I’d organised to stay with a native Chinese host (whoop!
These are rare beasts on couchsurfing!), who lives in a
tri-generational set-up (triple whoop). “Please let me know if it’s
possible to stay, otherwise I will find an alternative,” I’d said. And
possible it seemed – my host responded: “We have couch and floor for
you.” But just two days before I was due to arrive in Guilin, I
received the following bulletin: “I have given your couch to an
Australian man as you said you had alternatives.” Nooooo! How I cursed
my excessive verbiage – how I’d confused matters.
Oh anyway, I managed to find a new host, though not native but Serbian
– and, with some amount of silver lining, he happened to be a
couchsurfing ambassador (so, a) he knows everyone in town, and b) he
honours his offer). “Ah – you were going to stay with Bleepity Bleep,”
he said, when I explained Plan A. “He’s a married gay guy, and he also
lives with his mother. He’s on couchsurfing to meet young men. You
see, it’s very difficult to be gay in China.” Complicated, then.

A spontaneous decision to go and see this band (”The best live band in
Kunming,” my host had announced) was made (by me, course) when my host
also announced over dinner that he had a “bedroom appointment” later
that night. What?! Not even a living room appointment first? Straight
to the bedroom?! “Yes,” he said, coolly. “It’s complicated… ” Is
this in your bedroom, I asked, in your own apartment? “Yes, but don’t
worry – you don’t have to make yourself scarce. It’s fine.” I
obviously made myself scarce (though not quite in time – I was hiding
in my room when a waft of woman and perfume entered the apartment…
“This is pretty stressful, this …’thing’,” I overheard). When I
heard his door close, I opened mine and so I headed to the bar where
Lush has a residency. Since they were nowhere to be seen when I
arrived, I tried – and failed – asking, and then took to my notebook,
writing: “LUSH?” Naturally, I got some pretty funny looks from the
neon-flashing bar staff (really). Did they think I was asking if they
thought I was lush? Did they think I was looking for a drink? Perhaps
Budweiser instead, one offered. Anyway, I eventually found Lush,
hidden upstairs in a deserted room where the pick of the tables was
mine. “The only other people up here are waiting for a room
downstairs,” said the singer. (Downstairs, by the way, was a bearpit
of bacchanalia, with a 100% Han crowd hoovering up whole bottles of
spirits and lines and lines of beer laid out on their tables.) This
rare luxury of peace upstairs was quickly invaded by a group of
Israeli students who got busy with embarrassing disco behaviour:
illicit karaoke with the band’s kit, a little frottage and a lotta
noise. I sighed to myself: how long does one give for a ‘bedroom
appointment’?

So I found myself at dinner – as you do as a couchsurfer who can only
expect the unexpected – with the local expat band: three Argentine
jazz cats and an American singer. The guys are all talking in Spanish
to what turned out to be the band’s biggest fan who was taking them
all out for dinner. “Do you wanna know what they’re talking about,”
says the singer in a conspiratorial whisper to me. Yes! Why not…
“They’re asking the Chinese girl if the chilli [the very considerable
amount of chilli, that is] affects Chinese people as much as us when
they do a Number Two.” What appropriate dinner conversation - thank
you, boys. Well?! What’s the answer? No – of course not. But it begs
another question – what’s the Chinese euphemism for Ones and Twos?
“Sing a song!” says the Number One Fan. “When we want to go for a pee,
we say we want to go singing.” And…? What about Number Twos?
“Dancing!”
The band (called Lush, by the by) then recount how they were recently
interviewed by the local magazine and were asked to say what they
don’t like about Kunming… “Well, you know how much the locals stare
at Westerners?” one explained. “Well, when you go to the urinals, they
REALLY stare.”
Then, suddenly, I find a chicken’s claw on my plate: “Welcome to
Kunming!” says the singer. “If you eat too many chicken claws,” adds
Number One Fan, “they say your writing becomes really messy.” However
my host had heard otherwise: “If you get the claw, it means you get a
prostitute that night.” I was just girding myself to have a go –
because I like to have an informed opinion on these matters – when the
singer swiftly returned it to its home, an oily soup in the centre of
the table, only for my host to swiftly claim it for himself, in an
unconcealed act of manliness. And proceeded to suck on it (I’m sorry –
facts are facts). How is it, I ask. “It tastes like chicken,” he says
nonchalantly.

Just as Hollywood stars conduct closet commercial work in Tokyo
professing their lifelong allegiances to Suntory whisky, budgerigar
food and polythene nappy bags, so the prestige of a white face has
filtered down to Kunming, the land of my latest couch. So my Norwegian
host was offered (and took up) work posing as an American businessman
for a Chinese-American company who wanted to portray some white
“Americans” in their corporate propoganda (”There were genuine
Americans working for the company, but they were all Chinese
American,” he said). So they wrote him a speech for him to read out,
and took photos of him shaking hands, doing good intercontinental
business. And it was in a way – this stunt paid him about £300 (plus
hotel and expenses). Then I met a Swiss environmental engineer in the
Halfway House (don’t worry – just the name of a bar) whose
going-home-early excuse was that he had an appointment with a Chinese
TV camera crew the next day. They’d be filming him cooking some Swiss
dish (”stew,” he promised) for the Christmas special of a popular
cookery programme – and for his efforts, his Christmas spending budget
would be boosted by £50. He’d previously had work starring in a
commercial for a fertiliser company (a fertiliser company!) posing as
a Westerner signing a fertiliser contract (a fertiliser contract!):
“They think it shows that it’s a good company, if Westerners are
willing to do business with it,” he told me. “I know some expats who
get work just sitting in offices, without actually having to do any
work – just so that potential customers are enticed in by their white
faces.” My host also knew someone that worked in a perfumery
performing as a chemist (no prior experience necessary), mixing
potions in test-tubes behind a glass window for all passing traffic to
see. Apparently, you can make a living off it out here (if, of course,
you can live with yourself and the lie), and there are agencies and
even a scouting hotspot in Kunming – a cafe-filled street where
incidentally I’d been hanging out for several hours, apparently
perfectly invisible.

Just while I thought I was having the time of my life, I went and got
a boring complex. It first hit when out to dinner with my Chengdu host
(a 25-year-old Chinese law student with her own fashion boutique) and
her parents. My host had originally thought there’d be two other
couchsurfers to babysit me on my first night, but they mysteriously
left town early, so she invited me along to the family dinner. “Fun!”
I’d thought – though I knew I’d have to endure it pretty much mute,
due to the language barrier. And fun it was to watch them make toast
after toast with two hands cupping their rice wine, canned drink, duck
soup or whatever else was to hand. But obviously, my score on the
boring scale was already soaring, owing to being The Dumb One. Then we
join the gang in a bar, an international crowd of teachers and
students, many of whom are couchsurfers. The conversation soon turned
to couchsurfing. Apparently, her Irish boyfriend’s profile picture
features him with a violent, torrid nose bleed. (Why was your nose
bleeding, I ask. “Because my nose was bleeding,” he responds
sarcastically. Hmmph) His tactic here, he says, is to deter boring
people: only those who get the joke need apply. The night continues
with tale after tale about who are the most boring couchsurfers: “I
have a blanket ban on Polish couples,” says one girl from Brighton.
“Invariably boring – although I’ve only had two sets.” “And all
couchsurfers do the same old route – they’ve all come from Xi’an and
they’re all going to Kunming [guess where I'm going next – Kunming],”
says he of the bloody nose. Another says, “First I was looking for
friends on couchsurfing because I didn’t know anyone here, but now I
have an interesting social life, so the couchsurfers have to be really
interesting to make the grade.” I gulp, become self-conscious, and
then – I am sure – become quite boring. Later that night, back at my
host’s apartment, she asks: “Have you done crystal meth?” Oh no, I say
– it sounds really boring, at which point she produces a contraption
for ‘doing’ crystal meth. Oh my, is that the time? I say, stifling a
‘yawn’… And last night, without warning, my host spent the night
“with her parents” (read: boyfriend), so I was home alone after
returning from the opera. And today, she’s “teaching” all day.
I had presumed that being a successful couchsurfer requires getting on
with everyone. Which seems to require the shelving of any
controversial opinions and antisocial habits until such a time that
seems safe and open enough to introduce them (couchsurfing – I’ve said
it before: it’s classic first-date territory). Perhaps in the
meantime, that leaves a rather bland, superficial shell of a
character. And after one too many first dates, you become a bit over
the whole facade required in trying to please everyone, leaving a
naked, raw core, which can be a bit hard to take. Rather like suddenly
finding yourself confronted with a host who is totally starkers, in
fact (one guy I met from the Chengdu group is actually naked in his
profile picture; another says she was going to go naked on her profile
picture but she thought that would attract the wrong type). For some,
I’m sure it’s refreshingly thrilling. For boring types, it’s just all
too much excitement.

Pandamoneum
Overheard: “It’s going to be one of those days when you spend the
first half taking photos, and the second deleting them.” This morning
I went to the zoo… because, when in Chengdu, go and see the pandas.
As China’s national treasures, there’s no chance of cramped cruelty
and animals rocking in chronic psychosis – the giant pandas performed
perfectly in their chorophyll-heavy bamboo jungle. To conserve energy,
they are slothlike (cooo! Panda sleeping in tree!)

apart from at feeding time when they stuff themselves with bamboo
shoots and leaves (cooo! Fuzzy panda eating!).

And because their digestive systems are actually carniverous, they
only absorb 2% of the nutrients from bamboo, and do between 120 and
150 Number Twos a day (I’ll spare you the picture). In fact, after
laughing and laughing at these little teddy bears who fell off trees,
rough-and-tumbled like Calvin & Hobbes, and lay on their backs holding
bamboo like lollipops, it didn’t seem such a surprise that they are so
endangered (only 1,000 left.. sniff).

So there I am, minding my own business… (and so these stories always
start – “once upon a time, minding my own business”…), standing in
the street, sending an SMS when I hear the words, “May I help you?” Oh
I’m OK, thank you. “I can help you?” This young, polite lady seems
insistent on helping, and since I was about to try and locate a wifi
cafe, I think to myself, good timing! “Pardon?” In-ter-net? [Blank
face] In-ter-net? Oh I’m OK really, thank you. But still she’s keen:
“Please – excuse me?” So to save face for her, I draw a computer in my
notebook. And she swiftly puts her arm in mine and walks me up the
street. Hmmm, is she abducting me, I wonder. Why does she want me so
much? I instinctively, suspiciously pat my possessions in my coat, and
we continue with our real-life game of Pictionary and charades. “One
yuan for bus!” she commands. Oh I can’t get a bus – I’m going to the
opera in the park. “Pardon?” And so it goes on… We swap names (she
is “Moon”), and decide against locating an “electric brain” (how the
Mandarin for ‘computer’ translates), and instead she helps me find the
opera (which takes considerable street mime on my part to explain). We
pick up a friend, “Star”, who scores similarly highly on both bad

where they are surprised that I am surprised. “Not at night, you?” Not
ever aerobics in public, me!

Finally we arrive at the theatre in the park, where she offers me some
of her strange dried fish,

and where the actors are putting on the make-up in public view

and insists I call her tomorrow. Wondering quite how successful such a
phone call would be, I grin and agree, delighted by our strange little
intercourse, her dutiful dedication to helping me, and the blessing of
being able to waste time like this.