sofasurfers

As with any community, couchsurfing is rife with gossip; outrageous
behaviour travels fast and far online. And so, on my last day in
Xi’an, Beth takes me to her English school [quick tangent: in the
staffroom, a very shy Chinese student with a clipboard interviews us
about music: "Do you like music? Why do you like music? What don't you
like? Why not?" but she's so shy, she doesn't write down any of the
answers; she just blushes and flees – it's the sweetest thing] where
she looks up online a Californian couchsurfer in China who has been
causing something of a stir with his sexual preferences. Actually, so
keen is Beth to pass on the goss she phones both Gareth and another
Xi’an couchsurfer; we probably spend an entire hour searching for his
online profile. Anyway, search over, it seems he invites his lone
female guests to swing with him. Couchsurfing works because it
operates an Ebay-style reference system – and the act of
propositioning unwilling women makes for compelling reading with some
juicily negative references: “This man boasted about how “large” he
was, and how well he could “satisfy” a woman and then invited me to a
swinging club. His conversation is totally inappropriate for
couchsurfing.” And another more (typically) cagey reference: “I
strongly advise that before accepting this man’s hospitality, you meet
him for a coffee beforehand to check that you both want the same
thing.” So: surprise, surprise – people really do use coushsurfing for
casual sex. What’s more surprising is that this man is a couchsurfing
ambassador (for which you need just 10 positive references and to have
been vouched for by another ambassador), which goes to show that
ambassadorial glory is somewhat meaningless. And – what do you know –
there’s a swinging scene in China

For a couchsurfer, the words, “Good night” are always accompanied
with, “So what are you up to  tomorrow?” in an attempt to work around
and with your host’s plans. For my final night in Xi’an, there didn’t
seem to be any major plan – Gareth was taking his businesss English
students to KTV, the karaoke bar (well, I suppose singing English
songs is good language practice – but for business English??), but
that would finish early and Beth didn’t have any. So, returning from
the mountain, I dropped a quick text saying I’d be backin town at 7pm.
I didn’t hear from Beth until 8.30, when she called me to say that she
too was going to karaoke. They’d be back at 10.30 (I had keys). “Oh –
would you like to come?” she said (afterthought, I thought to myself).
Nah, I said (I’d got up at 6.30 this morning, plus I really didn’t
have the energy for madness tonight) - I’ll see you at home. But of
course I didn’t because it was another late night for them. “A perfect
guest is one who is part of the furniture,” they’d said at dinner the
night before. This evening’s dinner-for-one got as far as opening some
rice pudding that I’d bought from the local shop, only to find that it
had congealed back in March, its best before date (foods on sale way
past their sell-by date is a frequent occurrence here, I am
realising). I was even without a cuppa, for there is no kettle in the
flat. And so, with the other little pile of abandonment, their
Chihuahua cross called Gumpa (named after Chinese beer), we shivered
on the sofa together. China’s heating is centralised: “The government
says when it’s hot and when it’s cold,” Gareth had explained. Feeling
lonely should be the one thing that the couchsurfer is protected from
when being hosted – but what was I supposed to do? Pull rank over my
hosts and say, “Hey come on, guys, it’s my last night – and no, I’m
not up for karaoke again”? Well, at least I was being the perfect
guest.

Footnote: you may be wondering how the dog managed to go to the loo,
locked up in that third-floor apartment. Was it litter trained, I
wondered? I looked around for a litter tray but there was none. And
the apartment didn’t smell of accident. Then I followed a slim opening
in the French windows leading onto the balcony: a long, skinny balcony
which I soon discovered was decorated with long, skinny dog logs. The
RSPCA wouldn’t approve. Still, at least it’s not on the menu.

Perhaps it’s a taurine-flavoured motivation.

Just thought I’d chuck on this photo that illustrates (I hope) the
terrifying gradient that had me wobbling like a wet jelly (the other
side was equally steep – think rock tightrope). And this little friend
in the foreground is a porter who canters up and down the mountain to
deliver provisions to the top. In flipflops, of course. Chinese
proverb: wherever there is demand, there is supply.

Dragon Ridge, Xi'an

Yesterday I scaled a mountain – Huashen, which indeed means Flower
Mountain, and which stands at 2080m. And – of course – it was a
psychological and physical conquest. So I’m going at it with
characteristic gungho, until I finally admit to myself – on this
extremely steep and narrow ridge – that I’m terrified, and not
enjoying the view in the slightest. Can mountains fall over? I was
convinced that this one would, so precarious was this path. Of course,
this didn’t deter the Chinese tourists at all, who pluckily continued
– it reminded me of the Chinese spirit that I have observed here.
China is really is the land of possibility: anything, so they believe,
is possible here. So I retreated defeated. I found a much more sedate
path, where I joyfully stumbled upon this tree porn! And then this
sign! That would have made my day, but then my curiosity drove me on
(I wonder, I thought, what lies beyond the brow of this hill?) Thus,
several molehills maketh a mountain - I eventually realised I could
do the mountain after all, and so I did it, and no, the mountain
didn’t fall over. Very busy and very noisy Chinese was the theme of
the climb: there were constant shouts as they tried to hear their own
echo, but no sooner had one shouted, that another drowned his echo
with another shout. And then there were the ominous-sounding
explosions every so often (not good for my nerves). I returned to the
foothills of the mountain somewhat in admiration of the Chinese drive
to do, compared to the British (as solely represented by yours truly)
ease at defeat. It reminded my of my hosts’ thoughts (I’d asked them
if they thought they were becoming more Chinese in attitude, owing to
their love of noise and busy-ness). “Oh sure,” said Gareth. “Everyone
thinks China wants to conquer the world. They don’t – they just want
to make their own country great.” To conquer their own mountains, you
could say.

Tree Porn

More Tree Porn

I’m getting used to being the white freak in China (I have had my
photo taken too many times to count). I was sitting in the park,
minding my own business when four teenagers stroll past me. After a
short time, I hear a meek “Hello!” - the teenagers evidently stopped
right by me without me noticing and had spent the last five minutes
composing their opening line. “Hi!” I say (in English). They fall
about laughing. Another couple of minutes pass, and then they sidle up
to me. They are giggling. “Hi!” I say again. They wave a girly white
mobile phone in my direction, which translates as them wanting to take
my picture. Sure! I take their picture in return. I’m wondering how
old they are, so I write in my book, “1974″ and point to me, and then
point to them. “1991,” one of them writes. We smile at each other.
They linger. We exchange names. They linger. Then: “I miss you!” says
one of the girls. I miss you too, I say. And then we just hang out in
this little bubble of mutual curiosity, in a surprisingly comfortable
silence, until it’s time for me to leave. I say good bye in Chinese,
and they in English.

So with Beth’s other half, Gareth, stumbling in the next morning at
10.30, having been drinking till this time, I console myself with the
idea that at least they’ll want to take it easy tonight. We meet in
their living room at about 7pm, and settle in for some Family Guy on
the telly. Both are swaddled on their respective sofas in their
(uncovered) duvets, I on an engulfing armchair. We chill. Now
admittedly, this may not seem like headline news, but for me, it was
the most exciting event thus far. There had been Chinese TV in
Beijing, but it only served as background noise to the couple’s rants
about China and those strange, silent tensions between girlfriend and
boyfriend and girlfriend and guest. Here in Xi’an, we chat, we do our
own thing, we play with the dog, we laugh at the TV. There are vague
discussions about going out locally to get something to eat, but I’m
willing it away – right here is perfect. But finally there is some
action, and Gareth and Beth take me to their neighbourhood. It’s a
total trip. First we meet their friends in the corner shop, and we
stay to banter awhile (they banter, I observe). We pass their friend
who used to own a restaurant but lost it: she plies us with strange,
processed meat balls boiled in spicy water and refuses to let us pay;
I am introduced to the whole family. G&B pick up some beer (that side
of things never seems to stop) to take home and Gareth charges into
the shop to muck about with the adolescent shop attendant (he tells me
later he was trying to pinch his nipples). They muck about some more
on the talking calculator, tapping in numbers that apparently also
say, “Dirty bitch!”, “Your nephew and your uncle will go to hell”. We
finally stop at a Muslim restaurant – when the waiters see Beth and
Gareth coming, they shout at them affectionately in the street. We eat
lamb kebabs outside (B&G buy a bottle of rice wine – they shot the
lot, and chase with beer) and talk about China. “The problem with
expats,” says Gareth, “is that they live in an expat bubble. I know
many who have been here for two years and now as many words.” You
could not say this of G&B – they both seem to speak excellent
conversational Chinese; they are the opposite of my Beijing hosts, in
that they are fully engaged in local life. They get what they give.
They have learnt the language, they have made friends, and they love
it here. “I don’t understand why people live here if they don’t like
it,” says Gareth. This bridge to local life is exactly why I’m
couchsurfing.

So how do you get around with no Chinese (ok, I have five words now)?
Simple – you just call your Chinese-speaking friend (for at least I
can say this of my hosts), and then, quite unannounced, thrust the
phone into the face of a local. The first time I did it, I felt quite
guilty, as if I were a messenger of doom/authority/serious trouble – a
flash of fear crosses said locals’ face as they nervously take the
phone. But it’s so amusing, so very Dom Joly, and the situation so
quickly explained by the voice on the end of the phone, that I do
think that next time I will be brave enough to take a photo of the
moment.

“How do you fancy some karaoke?” Like – do you even need to ask?!
After dniner, we go to meet my hosts’ school-teacher friends – a
mixture of UK, US, Canadian and Chinese twentysomethings – at KTV, a
posh Chinese karaoke chain. The VIP suite has been hired, bottles of
Absolut vodka have been bought, and pride has been pocketed: Bridge
over Troubled Water, Don’t Cry for me, Argentina, Big Girls are
Beautiful and more are warbled, shouted, rapped, wailed, while vodka
is slurped, slammed and spilled. At one moment, I hear a giant
amplified belch – I turn aghast to the holder of the microphone: it is
Beth. “Oh, that’s Beth for you,” says Gareth, the other half of my
hosts…
But at about 2am, my long day, my rubbish train sleep (I’d landed in
Xi’an at 8 this morning) AND news that we’re booked in to sing till
6am begin to sully my spirit. Argh – how to escape? Fortunately (or as
fortunately as one can hope for), Beth has gone AWOL (”Oh that’s Beth
for you”) - but apparently, she can’t be far away, and she’s probably
homewardbound. Gareth puts in a call, and I soon find her out in the
street thick in fisticuffs with some local Chinese, drinking a beer
for the road and chowing on a sausage sandwich. Then we even have a
bit of a moment, as I say I need to collect my rucksacks from the
youth hostel… “You can collect them tomorrow”… I need them – they
have all my valuables… “It’s too far.” It’s like 20m up the road, at
the Bell Tower, the very centre of town. “I don’t know where that is.”
Ok, we are going there – it’s no detour. I will pay for the taxi. “Oh
sorry, I am being drunk and bullish.”
We jump in a taxi. But first she demands a MacDonalds. But you’ve just
had a sausage sandwich plus dinner. Fortunately it is shut, and I get
to regroup with my possessions. 20 minutes later, we arrive home –
another greying communist block – to be greeted by a fractious
Chihuahua cross with cupboard syndrome (ie, it’s been alone and inside
all day and a new guest is all too exciting for her, as she jumps,
barks, runs in circles in seeming perpetuity). This is all too
exciting for me, as I find myself overtired and on the precipice of
rattiness. I’ve booked into go and see the Terracotta Army the next
day, so I turn in – into my own room with a double bed! Beth takes to
the sofa and a particularly loud DVD performance of The Wedding
Crashers, and prompty passes out. I then fret around my bedroom about
whether it’s really not guestly to march out into the living room and
turn the TV off. What if she just looks like she’s asleep, but is
actually thoroughly enjoying the movie?! I peek through the crack in
my bedroom door, and it’s impossible to see. I wander out into the
living room with the pretext of tidying my boots (!)… and I turn off
the TV – it is neither noticed nor remembered. The nomadic life of a
couchsurfer is unavoidably chaotic – dates change, hosts change,
you’re constantly on the go, without much control as to when and
where; sleep and peace are rare luxuries. A chaotic host is chaos too
much.

Terracotta Army in Xi

So at the designated time, I trot alo g to KFC, the meeting point for
the Xi’an couchsurfing group monthly get-together (some serendipity
that it lands on the day I land, sans host). This is where a) I hope
to connect with my replacement hosts, and where b) I hope to parachute
into a readymade social gathering with instant friends. It’s only when
I arrive at KFC-on-a-China-scale (ie a vast, 600-cover eaterie) that I
start feeling a bit tragic/shy/lost. I see one whitey with two young
Chinese people, but I can’t bring myself to assume that the one
mixed-race group are the couchsurfers. I hide behind some fauxliage in
an attempt to bore myself into action. Soon after, I hear the words in
my ear, “Are you here for the couchsurfing meeting?” (’Meeting’ – why
so businesslike?). Hello Romeo (real name, apparently) – Romeo is a
Californian airline pilot who had actually called me earlier in the
day to respond to my last-minute couch request (though by that time it
was all sorted). “Do you know if this is the right KFC?” he adds.
Pointing out that there is in fact another (though smaller) KFC
directly opposite, I find myself potentially in yet another ‘casual’
directions drama (when due to meet my Beijing hosts at Peking
University’s West Gate, I learnt that there were in fact two West
Gates… and then there was of course the “which Ulan Bator public
library” fiasco). This, I realise, is a Chinese hazard – so big,
everything is in duplicates: London is just so village by comparison.
Actually, no such drama ensued – the other group I’d spied were in
fact couchsurfers, and we gravitated together in one seemingly normal
and thoroughly unstrange collection of strangers: not one person had
met before, yet there was so much to share. Eventuallythe female half
of my hosts arrived –Beth, a 26-year-old Canadian English teacher –
and we set off to our meal (not in KFC).

So it seems that my replacement BlackBerry and UK sim were deemed by
the local customs to be highly suspect, and so I never received them.
I do have a Chinese mobile, however: +86 150 1144 2562 and I
understand you can send texts to me for free via Skype. When I land in
Kazakhstan (hopefully on 19th November until 30th November), I will
(hopefully) be back on my Russki phone (+7 916 648 407). Or of course
I am on email, but much less reliably so.

So if the book Point It (a universal dictionary of 1,200 photographs
of useful things, such as foods, tools, body parts) isn’t useful in
China, I thought, where can it possibly help? And so, I head to the
market all smug and optimistic – I’m off to buy a mug so that I can
make tea on the trains. Out comes Point It and a big smile (from me).
Then comes a headscratch, and a huge saucepan (from them).

After some mixed messages from my host in Xi’an (I’ll meet you off the
train/get a bus to the centre of town), and no response to my sms, my
couch was clearly looking a little shaky in Xi’an. I called him, I
texted him, I called him…. “Sorry, the subscriber is not reachable”.
But it’s only 9am, and I’ve taken refuge in a youth hostel (which for
a traveller who wants their ear to the ground, it’s the next best
place as there’s a constant flow of stories, tips). Plus they have
wifi. So I jump straight in, and join the Xi’an couchsurfing group.
And look! They’re all having dinner tonight. Soon I will have local
friends, even if I don’t have a couch. I also make some last minute
requests, on account of Plan A going awol (I later receive a text from
his number saying, “Jack forget phone. He went old hometown. He maybe
tommorrow come back. What can I do.”). And lo, some hours in, I get a
response, from the city ambassador no less, who hosts with his
girlfriend. Moral of the story: don’t make snap judgements.

So I didn’t feel at all guilty about popping out to a couchsurfing
party back in town that evening – in fact, it was almost my duty to
leave. (And yes – praise be to couchsurfing, for delivering instant
gangs and house parties even – house parties! My favourite! - in
every big town.)

So was ‘Sustainable John’s’ birthday party – a twenty-something
American guy (yeah, I know, not very investigative of me not even to
get his age) who works for the Beijing outpost of a British renewable
energy company. (Note: another couchsurfing characteristic – a strong
eco conscience.) My friend Donagh is there, who Ollie and I had met at
his own couchsurfing party in Moscow, where he worked as an architect.
He’s staying with a Philippino, whose mission on his couchsurfing
profile is “to spread faggotry around the world”. Colourful
conversation is anticipated. “So may I ask you a personal question?”
he demurrs. Umm, go on then. “Have you ever laid any of your hosts?”
Ha ha ha ha ha. I say, young man! No, thank you! “I have,” he
volunteers (one suspects that his initial question was really just to
enable this confession. “I’ve even had a couple of straight guys. I
just say to guests that they can sleep in my double bed if they’d
rather not sleep on the floor.” Ah – that old chestnut. Lucky Donagh.
Ha ha ha ha ha.

And evidently, lots of people use couchsurfing for hook-ups – and
there are enough Russian girls whose profile photos feature themselves
naked for as far as they can see, happily fuelling the stereotype that
they are easy. But what happens when couples couchsurf? Do they? My
straw poll of one, who perhaps we shall leave unnamed, says no - “You
just don’t feel like it. Even if you have your own room. The
conditions just aren’t optimal.” And what about couples who host?
Well, maybe that’s why I wasn’t welcome for the evening with my
Beijing hosts. One guest reports: “Yes, I once stayed in the same room
as a couple, who were clearly, though surreptiously at it at bedtime,
and then again in the morning. It was pretty awful – and immature, I
reckon: I was so conscious of my every breath. I was trying to pretend
to be asleep, but I didn’t really convince myself. It was the same in
the morning – when it was all over, I then feigned waking up – with a
big yawn and stretch.” The moral of the story: no more couples.

My couchsurfing friends: Donagh and Yvonne at The Great Wall

So leaving the cocoon of my five-star hotel, I set out for my first
Chinese hosts, a French-Taiwanese couple who lived near Peking
University. A young couple, I thought – they’ll be feathering their
nest! The maternal instinct will be flowering! They will take care of
me! And while I’d originally intended to stay only with natives, I
speculated that ex-pats might give me a more honest perspective on
life here. And honest I got: however, I know with some certainty that
Big Brother is watching (check this Security Error Notice that popped
up when I was online: “It is possible that someone may be trying to
intercept your communication with this website”), so I’ll save it (and
my bacon).

But while the French post-doctorate biologist couldn’t have been
kinder, more hospitable or, dare I say, more handsome (he baked apple
cake, took me to the market, lent me his bike etc), she didn’t seem
possessed of the couchsurfing spirit. Maybe she had a headache. Maybe
she was cross because I broke the only toilet (yes, I sat down and
with my apparently doughy derriere, snapped the seat, creating one of
those cracks that pinches your bottom so sharply, you don’t know
whether to laugh or cry). Maybe she has only-child syndrome (China, a
nation of only children, doesn’t seem to exhibit this disorder of the
developed world, however). Or maybe she just felt threatened – she
certainly made it clear that I wasn’t to be accepted. At our second
dinner, she was virtually silent: her nails were top priority for some
15 minutes. Meanwhile, Monsieur mediated. He and I chatted like she
wasn’t there, though it was impossible to relax and defy her repelling
forcefield.

…is great (yes, there’s a phone signal here). We’re 800m up, and some of the climb reminded me of my 1st encounter with stairs, when you have to take to all fours to mount (stop that now!). As one fellow climber said, ‘Now I know what they mean by breathtaking views’. For others, The Great Fall of China would be more appropriate. And for company, I’m with CSers, hearing about how some are more like bed hoppers! Gory details soon!

Yes, yes, tonight, I’ll be back on track, as I check out of luxury, and into my first Chinese couch for two nights – still in Beijing, owned by a French-Taiwanese couple. Actually, I’ve been doing a bit of a Nikolai (the Russki who leans on couchsurfing for new friends in new places while staying in hotels) – I have met up with a city ambassador, who warned me of tales of sexual predatory behaviour by one Beijing host (”I only have a double bed or floor space, but you might find the floor a bit dirty,” he says to his guests). And I also reunited with a girl from London, from whom we took the baton at our Moscow couch. I had posted a thread on the Beijing couchsurfing forum for allies to go to the Great Wall avec moi. I feel like my London prejudices and snobbery has almost left me entirely – posting for friends on forums! Who would have thought?!

Me and my bike, outside the Forbidden City

“I’d like to hire a bike!” I announced to the hotel, on landing in Beijing. They looked at me with great concern, but dutifully obliged. £1 later, I was off! I took a mental photo of where I was: this simply must be the tallest building in Beijing, I squealed silently to myself – a perfect landmark! I can never be lost. And despite the fact that in fact this is the second tallest building in Beijing, at 249.9m – just inside the regulated limit of 250m – as soon as I was just some 500m away from the hotel, it was indeed lost to the wall-like cloud of pollution (comparable to smoking 70 cigarettes a day, some say). No matter – where there is sun, there is a compass. And off I pedalled to Tiananmen Square, to the Forbidden City, to the crumbly, higgledy-piggledy hutongs of backstreet Beijing. For there is no finer way to conquer a city (and Beijing – the size of Belgium – had felt like Everest in my perception). I might not be able to speak like a local, but at least I can cycle like them.