chapter 7 - a nation like Magellan

“Do you want to go out now and get a quick bite to eat or to wait until dinner and get a proper meal?”

“I…think…I’m almost finished reading this book.”

I laughed. “That in no way answers the question.”

Hamish pondered a bit. “You’re right.” Pause. “I’m inscrutable.” He smiled. “Even to myself.”

“You nut.”

Food gets spicier as we travel north. We had hot and sour soup for lunch today. ‘Tangy’ would be an understatement. While we ate rice to offset our third degree burns, a man came in and ordered three of the snakes lying in little cages outside the door. The café owner put them in a large sack using great long tongs as a crowd gathered on the street to watch.

The Chinese we’ve met are all terribly curious. They stop and stare at anything unusual. When we open a map or book we immediately attract a cluster of bodies craning for a look, although map reading is a skill that seems to have bypassed this entire nation. We’ll ask where something is only to get a shrug. Maps are looked at with interest but no recognition. Even when we point out where we are standing, no comprehension whatsoever. The map could be, and sometimes is, upside down. It doesn’t matter. Of course if we ask directions we do get answers, but they’re never correct, instead what is thought we wish to hear. The same question asked of the same person will yield a totally different answer each time. They are cheerful throughout and not at all perturbed. Exasperating and yet fascinating.

I would love to get my hands on an old map of the country as it was pre-1933 for my collection, but maps seem, if not prohibited, then at least well concealed. I haven’t seen so much as a school atlas anywhere and even the tourist centres are remarkable in their absence of street maps. The thought of living in a world without maps is unnerving. Like Magellan crossing the Pacific, with no idea of how big it really was. Finally getting through the Strait that bears his name, breaking down in tears of joy at finding a way through at last, little dreaming of that vast expanse of water which lay ahead of him. But then again, if he had known, he might have never had the energy to carry on, to complete his journey, that so very important trip.

chapter 7 - river life

Yesterday we hitched a ride on a narrow, wooden boat down the river to the tiny village of Fuli. Along the way we caught glimpses of everyday life in this remarkable landscape. People washed clothes in the river at the base of stone steps that led down to nowhere, cattle swam and ate reeds next to bathing children. Little bamboo rafts took people out fishing, two long oars used like chopsticks.

Fuli itself was full of laden houseboats for market day. Buying and selling rice and other grains, wicker baskets and brooms. On one street there was a lady with a sewing machine set up on the pavement. Hamish bargained for a pair of shorts, choosing the most garish material she had. Half an hour later they were ready and he was thrilled to find that the pockets had been lined with a completely different but equally gaudy fabric. He changed into them right there and then. They are a bit too small and he looks ridiculous in them, but he proudly parades around with his hands in the pockets.

It reminds me of a story his mum told me about when he was a little boy. His aunt had given him a truly ugly shirt for Christmas. “Don’t worry”, his mum had assured him when he opened his gift and saw the hideous garment within. “You don’t have to wear it. We can give it to a charity shop.”

“No, I’ll wear it,” 6 year old Hamish said as he took the shirt out to look at it. “I feel sorry for it.”

I love that story. The image of a little boy feeling sorry for an ugly shirt. He may not be neat, but he’s got compassion.

And he’s got enthusiasm. He is loving the Chinese countryside. Probably because it is so different to Britain's. He goes on and on, full of almost as much purple prose as I am when I get my romantic head on. About the same really, for when I comment on it he says it reminds him of how I gushed about England when I first met him. “When you waxed poetic about country pubs and grand gardens I thought you sounded like a travel brochure.

“But England is a lovely place.”

“Not all of it. Not the England I have seen – working class urban midlands. The gardens and literature, that’s your England – the ‘Jane Austen England’.”

“The what?”

“There are two kinds of England in my opinion – the ‘Jane Austen England’ and the ‘Mike Leigh England’.”

“Mike Leigh?”

“Yes Mike Leigh, the filmmaker – you know.”

“I know. I love his films.”

“Yeah but his England, the ‘Mike Leigh England’, is like his films, grey and gritty, sad people with sad lives. You see the difference, don’t you? Your England, the ‘Jane Austen England’, is a green and pleasant land, full of culture, gardens and refinement. Mine is the ‘Mike Leigh England’, a bit unfriendly and bitter. The class system at its worst, everyone pigeon holed by their accent and where they went to school. Full of snobbishness and negativity.”

“Ok,” I laugh, “but the ‘Mike Leigh England’ does have humour and doesn’t preclude enjoyment of the ‘Jane Austen England’.”

“True but it’s a rueful humour. And only in small doses. And spread far apart.”

“That could be true of other places. Perhaps there’s a Chinese version of ‘Jane Austen China’ and ‘Mike Leigh China’.”

Hamish considered. “’Bruce Lee China’ and ‘Mao Tse Tung China’.” What about Canada?

I considered. "Anne of Green Gables Canada and Duddy Kravitz Canada."

"Aren't those fictional characters? Not real Canadians."

"You want to split hairs with my country's iconic personalities now?"

Well, of course the rest of the afternoon was spent figuring out the two sides of everywhere.

chapter 7 - tourists are not all the same

We had a wild bus trip crushed between locals and several boxes of squawking chickens. Those startling hills in the distance gradually surrounded us and I began to feel I was part of an old painting, becoming a watercolour version of myself blending with this romantic landscape. We like Yangshuo, a small town with a big market, overlooking the wide green Li Jiang river. The place attracts two disparate types of tourists, a few bedraggled Western backpackers and swarms of Chinese daytrippers. The backpackers we’ve met are holdovers from another era, hippies, hanging out in bohemian coffee bars and cafes that serve pizza. They don’t travel at all really – many have been here for years, just hanging out in a town that now caters to their American tastes in food. Even their language is unlikely, American surfer dudes stranded in inland China telling each other old stories. “So then they told me, no way!” “And they’re all, y’know, negative and stuff.” “So then I go, no way dude.” “They go, wow man that’s a drag.” “Gnarley.” “So then I go, like, bummer, man.” They remind me of Niki, like she used to talk and still does when she's excited about something.

The Chinese tourists, on the other hand, arrive on buses bursting at the seams, shop, eat and disappear within three hours. The market is flooded with them, everyone bargains and buys and then whooshes out, draining the market of life as it lethargically packs itself up within half an hour of the tour bus departures. That half hour is our favourite time. We are getting the hang of this bargaining thing and have developed a routine.

First, we spend a lot of time in front of something we like, looking at everything else but always coming back to the one thing that attracts us. We ask the price. The seller tells us something exorbitant. We sigh and shake our heads. They shrug. We walk on. In awhile we come back. The seller suggests another price. We say still too high, but make eye contact. He shrugs and looks away. We converse between ourselves in low voices, then suggest a price, quite a bit lower than his previous offer. He laughs and shakes his head, we go up a bit in price, he comes down a bit. Ready to close, we give a price, he looks tempted but shakes his head. Then we mention the magic letters “F.E.C.”. He repeats “F.E.C.”? The tourist currency is more valuable and less available to locals. We nod. Ok it’s a deal. We smile, he smiles, everyone is best friends.

I’m not as good at it as Hamish. I cave in too soon, and feel I’ve paid too much while the seller is just as unsatisfied because I didn’t play the game right. Hamish knows just the right amount of charm to use, just the right amount of time to pause in between musings. He loves it, too, you can tell. It’s like he’s just discovering some new talent. Mind you, he’s much better with money than I am in general. I have never really understood the concept of money. It flows through my fingers like quicksilver. To me it’s something to spend and forget, not something to value. Hamish bought me a triple strand of fresh water pearls and I bought him a very old chop he can use to seal his letters. We both know we still paid too much, but it’s a poor country. Besides, the bargaining is the best bit.

chapter 7 - Guilin

As we stepped off the train at Guilin we were immediately inundated with students wanting to show us around the city for a fee and offering dubious assistance in many and various other capacities. In the end we agreed to go with one of them who spoke a little more English than the others, and who offered to take us to a restaurant as we were rather starving. It was his sister’s place, a tiny dirty place filled with old Christmas decorations (Christmas decorations in China? in May?) and one filthy round table. The food was good however, and we stuffed ourselves with a variety of things washed down with three big bottles of Guilin beer and tea poured continuously all over the table, regardless of how full our cups already were or in fact where they were. The sister was a real character with several teeth missing, a wild laugh and a total of eighteen English words. Everyone in China seems to have sidelines: hers is changing money at terrible rates, which we declined. as gracefullya s we could.

The best part of the evening was the conversation, which took place in a mixture of languages and arm movements and drawings. We heard many things, including the generation gap in China and how difficult it is for Chinese youths. Inflation, low wages, older people feeling things are changing too rapidly and younger people feeling things are not changing rapidly enough, a nation of boys who will grow up to be men unable to marry because girls are often aborted or killed by their own parents, newspapers that hide the truth, radical students in the north, a government made up of old people, prohibited foreign travel and glimpses of life elsewhere - all these have bred dissatisfaction wiht our hosts.

They asked about us. When asked what I do, I told them about my curitorial work, but they couldn’t grasp that anyone would actually be interested in seeing a whole room full of maps let alone making up exhibits to take to other countries.

“Maps? What is maps?”

I showed them my map of Guilin. Then I had to explain that it was a map of Guilin. They looked at it with more interest but no comprehension. “Who wants to see this maps?” “People?” “Someone pay you money for that?” “A lot of money?” “Why?” It’s oddly disturbing to have people doubt there’s any value in your work.

Hamish enthusiastically told them he was going back to school to do an Engineering degree, which is the first I’ve heard of it. The others understood what enginnering was all about and spent the rest of the evening talking to him, while I drank tea silently.

When we'd returned to our hotel room I asked him about it and he said it’s something he’d been thinking of for a while, and was so excited about actually making the decision. “All because of you, you know.” He pulled me down on the bed and kissed me breezily on the cheek.

I pulled away and sat up. “Me?"

"You've inspired me to look beyond. You are my muse."

I was suddenly feeling very unamused.

"How long will it take?”

“Three years.”

Three years! “How come you never mentioned it to me before?”
“I hadn’t thought it was something I could really consider. But this travelling thing has opened my eyes a bit. You are so right – I need to see more of this world.” He reached to pull me down again in a bear hug but I stood up.

“What do you mean - 'more of this world'?”

“Well, I’ll be in Germany.”

“What?”

“The best engineering program is in Germany. Of course I’ll miss the West Ham games, but I’ll follow them somehow, and then there is bound to be something going there. It’s a soccer nation. And change is good right?”

“Is that all you’ll miss?”

“Probably. England's on its way down, and Scotland - well it's there already. And German beer is excellent.”

“What about me? What about us?”

“Of course I’ll miss you. You can come and visit. Then I can show you around. You’ll be able to put away your maps and let me do the tour guide thing.”

I was crushed. Is this the guy I thought was the one for me? The father of my future children? This guy who obviously cares so little about our relationship that he doesn’t give it a single thought?

“I thought our relationship was good.”

He propped himself up on his elbows. “It is. Why do you think I want to do this? I’ll have more options so we can do more and go to more places. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be staying in a job I hate without realizing there’s more out there. Really out there. That all it takes is doing it.”

“But you haven’t said any of this to me before. I feel left out of your plans, your future.”

“These plans are all about my future, and that future, certainly the near future, includes you. You know that.”

“But how can I know that? If you don’t confide in me. Am I missing something?”

“So you’re allowed to do what you want and I’m not?”

“No of course not. But we need to communicate, to let the other one know."

“You are always doing things without telling me.”

“Little things maybe. Buying things. Going out with friends. Business trips." He arched his eyebrows at me which was infuriating. "I’m talking about the big things. Ambitions. Plans. Goals. I tell you all the time about things I want to do.”

“I thought that was just rambling. You do it a lot.”

“Well, it’s nice to finally have someone to talk to after all those years of no one. And I ask your opinion about everything. Because I value it. I don’t do that with everyone, anyone really, but I do it with you. I thought you valued mine. Opinion that is.”

“I do."

“But do you?”

“You know I do. Look, I have always felt a bit disillusioned. Fitting into one sector of society but feel like I belonged nowhere. Going from job site to job site. Mauual labour its not all it's cracked up to be. Can you wonder why I was so excited to meet you and hear the things that came out of your mouth? Telling me I can do other things, go other places.” He lay back and took my hand.

I looked down at our joined hands. I’m beginning to think I know nothing of the sort. Have I really given my heart to someone who is about to leave me? I can’t bear it.

We talked a little more, well Hamish mostly, who talked excitedly about his plans. We went for a cycle along the river and walked up two famous hills, Solitary Beauty and Fubo. Away from the grey city it is a remarkable and beautiful landscape. A curling brown river and distant stark hills rise out of nothing, many of them with little temples on top. Surprisingly free from the hordes of Chinese, Japanese and Malaysian tourists that we encounter everywhere, the hills were quiet and cool with breezes. Car horns honked and bike bells rang far below, but sounded not of this time and place. Almost musical. No wonder temples were built at the top of hills. I breathed in deeply and tried to get my equilibrium back, trying to figure out who this guy I’m travelling with really is. I thought I knew where I was with him, who he was. I should be happy that he wants a proper education, options, the things I treasure and take for granted. But instead I wonder if I want to travel with him at all.

chapter 7 - the perils of punctuality

We’ve heard stories of full trains leaving early, so left for the station immediately after checking out. Or maybe it was just me. I got so impatient waiting for Hamish to pack. He had socks scattered all over the room and it took him ages to find everything and squish it in his pack. I rushed him out before he could find another reason to sit down again.

“Why do we always have to get to places so early?” Hamish moans.

“I’m worried about being late.”

“But we’re not anywhere near that.”

“I guess it’s from my childhood. My mom was always late for things and I hated it.”

“You missed a lot of trains?”

“Yes. No, not trains specifically. But it was the anxiety of it all, and the attention, everyone staring at me when we turned up late. I always hated it. Come on, move it!"

"I'm coming as fast as humanly possible! Why don't you focus less on me and tell me more about this phobia of yours."

"Ok, if you promise not to daudle. I know, ok, I promise. I don't know where it started. I guess the worst time,was during spring break when I was about 15. I know I couldn’t yet drive, and it was after the trip to London I had made with my band class, so I must have been 15. Babby was in Reno, you know she always used to spend part of her winter there. Anyway, she was still there at Spring Break and had invited me to join her, to fly down on my own, and we’d come back together. I was thrilled. Just me! A jet setter! And with the rest of the family going to Victoria which we did every year.”

Hamish smiled. “I can just imagine you all dressed in 70s glitz gambling with your Babby.”

"Well you have a pretty good imagination because it never happened. As usual Mom was fussing around with what I should wear and what I should take. She kept tucking more things into my suitcase, bringing me scarves and other things of hers to add, trying them on me first to see how they’d look and to show me how to wear them. I probably wasn’t much help standing there like a stick of rhubarb. I hated being dressed up by Mom. She never seemed to see me. I was just some mannequin to her. Anyway, then she fussed around with her own clothes. I mean she was only taking me to the airport! But in the end I went and sat in the car getting more and more stressed. Finally she was ready to go, we got to the airport and had a tearful goodbye, which you can imagine that I, at 15, just loved. Everyone else standing around looking sympathetic as if I’d never left home before.

"I heard the final boarding announcement for my flight and tore away from her, only to find a long line to get into the passenger area which seemed to take forever. I didn’t dare tell anyone I was in a hurry. They’d either make a big deal about it in front of everyone else, or they’d make comments about how I shouldn’t have left it so late. Finally I got through and ran as fast as I could to the gate, bumbling along with a ton of hand luggage. I got there at last to find the gate had closed, the plane had already moved away, and the lounge area was totally deserted. I didn’t know what to do, so I sat down and cried. I was so mad at Mom for making me miss the plane and now I was stuck here at the airport. The rest of the family would be off to Victoria without me and I had nowhere to go or stay and Babby would be at the Reno airport waiting for me and she would be all worried that I didn’t arrive and think I had died in a plane crash.”

“You must have been hysterical.”

“Only on the inside. Outside I was just this teary, blotchy teen who was mortified at the prospect of asking someone for help.”

“What on earth did you do?”

“Oh someone came by, asked what the problem was, took me to a lounge full of people where they phoned my home. Of course my family hadn’t left for Victoria yet. I was put in a special area until they came to get me. Mom phoned Babby and told her I’d missed the plane, and we all went off to Victoria as usual. My sisters were merciless to me that trip, making fun about me missing the plane. I felt like a total loser.”

“So you never got to Reno.”

“I never got to Reno. Not that that was the worst part of it. It was the whole being centre of attention thing. Mom never realized how much I always hated standing out. She was the one who loved to make entrances, who loved to dazzle the crowd with unexpected drama. I know she was wanting me to swirl in too, get noticed by everyone and then spell the pants off them, or fly off in style, so she could bask in reflected glory. But all I wanted was to blend in.”

“Poor baby. Let me give you a hug and dry those tears. If getting to the train early helps you deal with childhood trauma, and prevents you from getting so worked up, then I will happily sit in a waiting room for hours on end.”

Which we did. In a crowded #6 waiting room we waited for train #282. And waited for hours. At least we knew we were in the right room Numbers are universal, and the Chinese travel authorities seem to love them. The waiting room was packed as usual, with a horde of people sitting on and near numerous boxes and bags, nets and bowls, all pushing forward despite a closed door at the end of the room.

By the time the train was ready, it was madness. Sheer panic on every face, elbows and shoulders in force. Having designated seats doesn’t seem to matter, everyone pushes and shoves to get on first. I’ve never seen anything like it before arriving in China. Now a bit more prepared we let ourselves get swept among them like a stick on a river, and I was able to only glance at our train. Magnificent. New and shiny, freshly painted and chugging energetically with steam pouring out. Yes, here it is 1992 and we are travelling on a steam train! This must be the last place on earth that steam trains are used as a modern mode of transport.

Our carriage is long, with a narrow corridor along one side and bunks stacked up on the other, six bunks to a section, and ten sections to the carriage. The walls dividing each section stop before reaching the ceiling, so the whole carriage is open and full of chatter.

We have a middle and an upper bunk, both hard and narrow but with sheets, a blanket and even a grubby looking pillow. The corridor has folding seats and several little folding shelves used as tables, a thermos placed on each. Trolleys of rice in white Styrofoam boxes trundle past, along with sweets and water. We were rather horrified to see everyone toss the empty food boxes out the train windows when they were done with them, where they joined a mountain of white plastic along the track. Before long we settled into the rhythm and the rattle of the train, people shuffling around making tea and going to the toilet, a smelly, wet squatter that opened right out onto the tracks rushing below. We determined to keep tea consumption to a minimum if only to avoid visits to that hideous spectacle.

Little villages with red brick buildings flashed past. Tiled and thatched roofs and unshuttered windows glowed with candles or weak light bulbs. Old people in blue suits and wicker hats squatted over gardens, young men in white singlets and trousers with rolled up cuffs walked by with yoked baskets, and girls with long braids crouched over fields of rice or cucumbers. An old man rode by on a bicycle. Valleys of terraced rice fields, emerald green. Further on, the land gradually became rockier, the soil lighter in colour, houses now of stone, landscapes fading into the grey air. I had previously associated China with the colours red and gold, but now I’ll always think of it as green and grey.

We ate buns and oranges and made friends with a family of three that shared our section, a father, daughter and friend travelling to Luzhou. We showed photos and tried out our Chinese, filling in with gesticulations and smiles. The father is a purchaser at a Malaysian-owned hotel and hoping to improve his English so he can become a receptionist and earn 250 yuan a month, which is only about $10US. He said he has learned a lot about people while working in a hotel, and when we asked what particularly he had learned, he answered that he had discovered homosexuals. He looked amazed even just telling us, and added that he had never heard of such a thing before! Not quite what we were expecting when we asked the question.

The loudspeaker continuously plays very loudly, mostly Chinese songs but we did hear renditions of “Edelweiss” and “Auld Lang Syne”. We wondered if it stayed on all night, but it abruptly went out at 10 pm along with the lights. Thank goodness we were already in our bunks armed with torches, for it was dark as tar. Hamish reached down and took hold of my hand and gave it a squeeze. I kissed his hand and held it next to my cheek, then let him take it back for the rest of the night.

chapter 7 - amity interruptus

I got so mad at Hamish today. We had planned on going to Foshan for the day, but in the morning he rolled over in bed, saying he was exhausted and wanted a day of doing nothing.

I tried to conceal the dismayed surprise I felt at his sudden change of plans, but know in my heart I was not very good at it. “We are only here for a month and there is so much to see!”

“A month is long enough for us to take a day off now and then. Why do we have to go go go every day?”

“I just said. We are only here for a month and there is so much to see.”

“Well you can go if you like but I am sleeping in and just hanging out today.”He knew damned well I wouldn’t go to Foshan on my own. Hard enough to get anywhere in China as a twosome. No one will sell a lone white girl a bus ticket.

“Why didn’t you say this yesterday? I could have made alternate plans. You are being really selfish.”

“Hello Miss Pot, I'd like to introduce you to Mr. Kettle. Everything about this trip has been about you – where you want to go, how you want to get there, what you want to see.”

“I thought you were enjoying it as much as I was.”

“I am enjoying it, but I doubt very much if it’s as much as you are. No one can enjoy this guerrilla travelling as much as you do. Every day another bus trip to another town to wander around for hours, six museums, sixty shops, factories, libraries, ‘just another stop’, you say, ‘I want to check this out’. You are obsessed and I can’t keep up. Today I am choosing what I want for a change.”

I slammed out the door furious. Stomping around the neighbourhood I entertained dark thoughts. Ok, maybe this trip has been engineered by me, but I told him right from the start that he could do whatever he wanted. All he had to do was ask. But everyday he says, “I’m happy to do whatever you want to do.” I’m the one that made the plans, did the research, got the maps, made the notes, checked the details. And he’s never so much as questioned it before now. He never mentioned his feelings before. Why all of a sudden does he say this now? Why not yesterday or a day before? Surely he would have felt this way before this morning.

As I fumed it came to me that this isn’t really the first time he’s done something like this. Not often, but occasionally he will go along just fine and then, without warning, dig his heels in.

When I got back to our room he was watching TV and drinking tea. I sat down and confronted him calmy. “Look, we need to talk.”

He rolled his eyes.

Ignoring him, I went on. “I have no problem with you doing what you want, but why can’t you tell me in advance? I get so upset when plans change suddenly.”

“I don’t always know when that is.”

“But you must have known that you wanted to slow down a bit.”

“Yeah of course, we’ve done nothing but charge ahead since we got here.”

“So why couldn’t you say to me that you were finding the pace tiring and wanted to slow down a bit?”

“Would it have made any difference?”

“It might have. How would you know unless you try?”

“I think you’re being unreasonable. I can do what I like. I’m allowed. I'm a grown man.”

“Of course you are. That’s not the point.”

Or is it?, I wondered. Perhaps it's part of the point. But no, there really is more. “You can communicate your feelings to me. We are both equal in this trip and both equal in our relationship. I will really try to make it work for you but I can’t read your mind.”

“Whatever. Ok. Anything to make the peace.”

Anything to make the peace! Is this what he thinks of our relationship? Is this how we will always have to communicate? Just to keep the other from freaking out? I am not for the first time questoning if our relationship - am I cut out to be with someone else at all?

chapter 7 - warm inside

Every country has its great inventions. In China it’s the thermos. It took a few days for us to properly learn the etiquette. If you place an empty thermos outside the door to your room it is miraculously filled with boiling hot water within fifteen minutes, no matter what time of day or night. And, there is always a fresh thermos outside the door in the morning with another one put in the room during the day. No matter how long it sits there, the water is nothing less than scalding hot. We simply had to buy one. I love that we are buying permanent things together.

“It’s lucky you and I seem to like the same things.”

“It’s not luck at all. I know you have good taste and I want it to rub off on me.”

“No. Really?”

“Of course. You’re so refined.”

I laughed. “Refined!”

“You know my buddies have a nickname for you: ‘refined white sugar’. They are constantly asking how I managed to find someone like you. They think I must have won you in a raffle.”

chapter 7 - Guangzhou

Guangzhou is dirty and huge, smog so thick even a sunny day is hazy and soupy. Enormous new buildings are open for business below, their upper stories still being constructed by old men with wheelbarrows and wicker hats. Plaster on the shiny main floors already going mouldy, new signs looking old and curled at the edges, drips from the ceiling falling into large metal pans. New construction that won’t last more than a few years. We’ve only been here a few days and already I know this is typical.

Yesterday we explored the Qingping market, a narrow tunnel crammed with stalls selling the usual dried fish and vegetables and something that might have been seaweed. This led to the meat and fish section, where animals were sold cut in half, hearts still beating. There were also turtles, puppies, kittens, rabbits, squirrels, monkeys, frogs, snakes, lemurs, an opossum-like creature and a curious weasel/badger thing as well as ducks and chickens, all in little wire cages stacked up on top of each other and we mourned their woebegone eyes and sad fate.

“That’s really disgusting,” Hamish said.

“Shh, not so loud.”

“Why are you shushing me? Don’t shush me. They can’t understand me anyway, and even if they could it would be good for them to hear how other people feel. Some of these animals are rare, maybe even endangered.”

I steered us away from the food area. I agreed with Hamish it’s hard not to pass judgement on things that seem awful to our eyes. I mean, who wouldn’t find the idea of eating kitten crushing?

At the edges of the market we saw several people that looked different from those in the streets. Their cheekbones were higher and more prominent, faces darker and rounder. They were dressed in bright red coats and fur hats, played juggling games with sticks and small balls, and sold animal skulls and bear paws. Mongolians? Tibetans? Both places embroiled in conflict with the current Chinese Government. Locals gave them ugly looks and avoided coming near them.

Hamish asks me about Canada a lot these days. He never showed any interest in going before but now he wants to climb mountains and ford rivers. And visit Las Vegas.

“Why are Brits so enamoured of Las Vegas?”

“It sounds so bizarre, like nowhere else on Earth. I have to get there to see it for myself.”

"Well it's in the States, not Canada, so you'd need to pack an overnight bag"

"What are the highlights of Canada then?"

"Mountains, prairies, seas, rocks, plants, ice, sun, rain."

"Not cities? Not people?"

"Some of the cities are beautiful - Montreal, Quebec, and of course my hometown Vancouver. There are some great towns - Nelson, Maple Creek, Whitehorse, Kenora, Perce, Lunenburg. I've not been to the high North yet so don't know about that. According to general opinion the most interesting Canadians seem to either have died or have left to live somewhere else."

“Canadians are so cute with their low self-esteem and majestic landscapes.”

“Huh, ” I say, “Fine if you like hearing every statement said like it’s a question.”

“Yeah right, eh?”

“Good, your inflection is improving. You’ll be able to wear a plaid shirt with pride before you know it.”

“You mean tartan, wee lassie.”

“No, I mean plaid you fool,” as I threw a pillow at him laughing. "I probably know more about Scottish history than you’ve had hot haggis.”

Easy to joke but I was quite glad to leave off talking about Canada. I’m not sure I’m ready to go back yet. I need it to be on my terms, not just because someone else wants to see Las Vegas and the Rocky Mountains.

The air is sticky with humidity in Guangzhou. We take respite from heat and crowds at temples. My favourite is the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees, actually several buildings in a sort of courtyard with golden Buddhas smiling calmly. We thought climbing the Pagoda of Flowers’ 17 floors would be hot work, but it was actually cool inside the stone tower. From the top Guangzhou stretched out as an endless sea of gray, the great view an oddly depressing sight. The smell of smog gets to you and I leaned over an incense stick to breathe in its perfume, but I got too close I guess, because next I heard a sizzle and Hamish leaped up, battled my head with his hands and hurled a nearby bowl of water in my face. I looked at him in shock and found everyone in the tower staring at me and prattling in horror. It seems my hair had caught on fire and caused a minor sensation. Thank goodness Hamish is a man of action. I hadn’t felt a thing, but as I smoothed out my hair a lot of it came out in smelly, blackened hunks. Hamish passes off his heroism by wondering aloud whether or not the bowl had actually contained water.
Night transforms this city and even the polluted river looks beautiful and mysterious in reflecting paths of light. 'Kissing couples' come out. Or at least that’s what we call them. Couples are always smooching in public places, presumably because there is so little room indoors with large families sharing living quarters. Tai chi practitioners also emerge as do shady fellows whispering ‘change money’ in a sort of rhythmic mantra. Restaurants open with their little cages of kittens, puppies and snakes out front, a sort of ‘choose your own dinner’ option. We avoid any possibility of accidentally ordering Fluffy or Spot by sticking to vegetables and rice.

“Thank God there’s beer,” Hamish says. I’ve never seen someone put away so much of the stuff. Two or three big bottles with every meal. Another as a between meal snack. One more at bedtime. “I’ve got to keep my strength up” is his response to my no doubt pointed looks. Beer makes him snore.

One night after ambitious sex, we lay apart in the dark, looking up at the ceiling, not at all ready for sleep, and started talking about things from our childhood.

“What on earth attracts you to go-karting?” I asked him after he had told me of this boyhood passion.

“It’s fun. A rush of adrenaline. Like playing soccer.”

“Another thing you spend an inordinate amount of time on.”

“No more than you and your maps and books.”

“But they give your mind something to do.”

“And your body absolutely nothing to do.”

“Hmm.”

After a pause he surprised me. “I was in a play once.”

I rolled over to face him, even though I could only see his outline in the dark. “Really? You never told me.”

“Och aye.”

I pinched his nose. “Don’t start that again. When? What play?”

“The Three Sisters. By Chekov. In university. My roommate was in it and got me to go along and help out.”

“Wow. I’m impressed. What part do you play?”

“Lamp carrier.”

“What?”

“I got to carry the lamp on, and then carry it off.”

“You were a props guy?”

“Not just any prop. The lamp.”

“What was so special about the lamp?”

“It was worth 100 pounds.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“That’s what the director said. ‘This lamp is on loan and is worth 100 pounds.’ After he told everyone how much the lamp was worth, no one else wanted to touch it."

“But you did.”

“I took the risk and was entrusted with a lamp worth 100 pounds. That’s got to count for something.”

“So your contribution to the cultural world is on record.”

“Yes, but I never met a bigger group of snobs. I never stayed to watch the play or anything. As soon as my job was done I left for the pub. Theatre and opera and all that muck. It’s so pretentious. Everyone who’s interested in that stuff thinks they are better than anyone else. Give me a good West Ham-Arsenal match-up anyday.

“Do you think I’m a snob then, for liking ‘theatre and opera and all that muck’?”

“No, you are ok, as long as you don’t make me go to that bullshit.”

“You mean never?”

“I don’t want to be in the company of such patronizing prats. That play you took me too was the worst experience in my life.”

“Ok I admit that taking you a Bertoldt Brecht for your first play was not a good idea. But not everyone interested in the arts is a snob. Just like not everyone interested in soccer is a hooligan. There are all sorts of snobbishness. You are seeing it from the outside.”

“It’s a class thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Rubbish.” I lay on my back again. “What is it with the Brits and their obsession with the class system? If you don’t like something that’s fine. Once you’ve tried it that is. But if you won’t do something or think you can’t do something only because of some vague notion that it is above or below your station in life, well that’s ridiculous.”

“Not everyone is like you perfect Canadians. Can you wonder why I was ok to leave Scotland? You can come in and do what you want because the class system doesn’t touch you. People don’t judge your intelligence because of your accent.”

“And who cares if they do? Can they stop you from doing what you want? Who gives them the power? Judging people before finding out their character is a form of prejudice pure and simple. We live in a multicultural society, and that means living with different aspects of cultures as well as colour and race.”

“For the average Brit. multiculturalism means eating Chinese food on Friday night and an Indian curry on Saturday.”

“That’s not multicultualism. That a complete lack of culture at all.”

“Exactly. It’s a country that still thinks it’s top of the heap, only it’s a heap of rotting old phobias.”

“If I were to say something like that I’d be chastised as an ignorant foreigner.”

“Well, I live in a country that proudly exerts the double standard.”

Hamish sounded rueful. I didn’t know what to say after that and felt terrible. I had only wanted to know about go-karting.

chapter 7 - across the border

Slow train from Mong Kok to Lo Wu at the border, a 40 minute commuter trip of a journey. Prepared for the worst, it only took one smooth hour to go through immigration and customs. So much easier than expected. We got our ticket to Guangzhou and had about an hour to kill in a big and impersonal waiting room. People bought whiskey in bottles and biscuits in tins, read newspapers, and ate noodles with loud slurps. When the train came in everyone surged forward in one swarm, each acting as if they would be left behind if they weren’t the first one onboard, elbows out, pushing and shoving. We managed to get to the right seats in the right car without injury, then spent the next few hours going backwards.

It was obvious the train was getting close to Guangzhou long before it arrived. Buildings became more prolific, and uglier. Smoggy air got smoggier. At the station we met some other travelers who told us we could follow them to their hostel, good and cheap, and close by. This ended up being an hourlong bus ride followed by another hour’s walk, although it would have been less if the fellow leading us had remembered the way. Hamish sensed my impatience and took my hand as we walked, which sounds nice but was really rather awkward as our bulky packs made our bodies wider then usual. The hand hold became it bit of a death grip at times.

We finally turned into a beautiful little street on the island of Shamian, with a wide boulevard of flowers, grass and Banyan trees, the first real trees we’ve seen since leaving London. The buildings look Mediterranean, probably Portuguese given the history. The leader walking with us said this was originally the colonial part of the city, now full of government offices, residences and a few hotels, including the Guangzhou Youth Hostel, an ugly grey five-storey affair. We were given a ‘suite’ for 65 yuan on the fourth floor that looks out over the river through the trees.

Our door was opened by a key-wielding girl who did not smile and who sat at a desk at the top of the stairs with a huge ring of keys. I guess in a communist country everyone has a job, and every floor must have such a humourless key-wielding watchdog. Our suite's door opened into a severe little sitting area tiled from floor to ceiling and lit with a florescent light. A unit with two chairs on either side of a little table held glasses, a tea pot and an enormous thermos full of boiling hot water. A wooden screen opened into the bedroom. There was a mosquito net over the bed, a table, two bedside lights and a coat rack, an electric fan and a television. We noticed the far wall was made of glass blocks, dividing the bedroom to another tiled room surrounded by windows, doing double duty as our bathroom and our verandah. Interesting concept. There’s the usual hole in the floor at one end (the toilet), a pipe sticking out of the wall at the other end (the shower) and a less usual view across the street to the posh White Swan Hotel.

Once we’d unpacked and seen a bit of Chinese telly (15 minutes is enough. I love watching television in foreign countries, it provides an inkling of the country. Like going into grocery stores. If I can go into a grocery store and watch 15 minutes of TV in a place, I have a handle on the current cultural character), our stomachs rumbled. I changed into fresh clothes before setting out in search of food and, noticing Hamish had not, asked, “Aren’t you going to change?”

“Why? I look all right.”

“It looks like you slept in those clothes.”

He smoothed his rumpled shirt and ruffled his hair. “There, that better?”

I was wearing the new skirt I’d bought in Hong Kong. Hamish noticed and said, “You look nice. Very kempt.”

Typical Hamish, my own personal wordsmith. I replied, “And you look positively gruntled.”

“Thank you. I am.”

Down by the river we found a little restaurant with tables outside under strings of white lights. According to the menu and our shaky Chinese, the specialty seemed to be crispy fried chicken, but what we got was tough, meatless fowl lying on the plate with the head still attached. Thank goodness for rice and vegetables and little dishes of pickled vegetables and nuts. And wonderful cold beer. We got silly.

Hamish started it. As usual. “Guess the vegetable.”

“The what?”

“The vegetable. I’ll say something with the name of a vegetable in it. Guess.”

“You’re really rather weird you know.”

“I’m unbeatable.”

“That’s debatable.”

“No, guess the vegetable.”

“Oh, unbeatable, ‘beets’. But being British shouldn’t it have been beetroot? Okay, don't look at me like that ……How about, ‘Are you just going to let that rusty car rot in the lane?’”

“Not bad – carrot. I see you are trying to intellectualize my game by splitting syllables. All right, two can play at that. ‘Don’t you find this queue cumbersome?’”

“Cucumber! Um, to get to Larry’s house we need to turn up this lane.”

“Turnip. You’re not trying hard enough, that was too easy. ‘You haven’t often knelt beside me.’”

I thought a while, perplexed, then shrugged my shoulders. “I give up.”

“Fennel. O-ften knel-t! Get it?”

“Only if you don’t pronounce the ‘t’ in often.”

“Not nececelery.”

“Oooh. Touche. You win. Not ‘nececelery’. You tricky bastard! That’s good.”

“Feel free to use it if you wish.”

I really do love this man.

chapter 7 towering buns

Yesterday we went to the bun festival on Cheung Chau with its parade of ‘floating’ children, marathon opera performances and pink-stamped buns piled high into thirty-foot cones. Hamish said at least the opera being outside meant you could just get up and walk away when you’d had enough. I bit my tongue. Hamish is no lover of the cultural life.

Today we went to Lantau to see the Po Lin monastery with the world’s largest Buddha. Mist swirled in the damp air creating drama as the enormous golden statue would reveal itself before being swallowed up again. We bought a long red cord hung with a golden horse and teapot with a huge golden tassel at the bottom. It’s the Chinese ‘Year of the Horse' so this will be a good memory and we can use it as a Christmas ornament. Every year when I hang each of my Christmas ornaments, collected from the countries I’ve visited, I am reminded of when and where they came from. This is the first thing we’ve ever bought together. It feels a bit weird. But in a good way.
It was sunset by the time we took the boat back to neon central, big smiles on our faces. I’m amazed how easy this is really, this whole traveling with Hamish thing. We’ve only known each other a few weeks after all. Everything developed so quickly, and so easily too, like a flower opening in the sun. But sometimes, usually in the middle of the night, I wonder if it’s too quickly. I think I’m fine with it, the idea of having a boyfriend after all these years of single life, but then I get scared and clam up. How can I get close to someone else after Andrew? I feel such guilt. I can’t really remember how I told Hamish about Andrew, but I remember it knocked him sideways. He said he knew there was something holding me in but because I hadn’t said anything for so long he thought it was just my moods. When I finally told him he was the first guy I had dated in eight years it shook him. Later he told me he felt this awesome responsibility. All I remember is he got really quiet and I was afraid he wasn’t interested in me after all, that he wanted someone more experienced, more together emotionally. It was a few weeks later when we had The Big Talk that I found out differently.

It seems every couple I know has had The Big Talk That first night you both stay up and just talk all through the entire night. Everything came out in a flood. Weeks of thoughts. Years of thoughts. He told me his history, his feelings and desires and susceptibilities. And drew mine out. All of them. By dawn there was no denying it. I knew, I just knew that this was someone I wanted to be with.

The first night Hamish stayed overnight, the night after The Big Talk actually, we lay there in the dark, breathing deeply, knowing what would happen next but feeling awkward about how to start, and I started to shake.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

I faltered. “It’s - been awhile.”

He seemed to understand, turned and simply held me, stroking my hair until slowly the shakes stopped. And the tears began. This was not the time I wanted to but I couldn’t help it. I had just let myself open up to someone after years of being pent up, tearing down all the walls that had been carefully if haphazardly constructed. And once the walls were down my emotions just overpowered me and I flooded. Without saying anything Hamish kissed my tears away slowly, one by one, on my cheeks, my eye lids, my lips. I could feel the solid lump in my insides start to soften, then come away in layers, unwrapped like an onion, one by one.

We spent the whole night like that, holding each other and just exploring slowly, cautiously. Touches, then caresses, then soft lingering kisses. In the early dawn we made love. Afterwards I lay there feeling raw and guilty. Hamish got up and returned with mugs of tea. I couldn’t quite look him in the eye. We sat in bed silently sipping, side by side, my head near his chest, our toes touching. I could feel the hairs on his legs and hear his heartbeat. After awhile Hamish broke the silence.

“I think I’m going to stay here tonight,” he said.

I didn’t say anything, but a piece of my heart grew back as I took another sip of tea.

And now here I am in a full-blown relationship that scares the pants off me! I have to make sure this is it; that he is going to stick around before I fall irreversibly into the liquid brown of his eyes. I have to guard my heart as much as I can until I know. I pepper him with questions about his family, his history, his thoughts. He tells me about his parents’ divorce, his first kiss, his sister's distance, both geographically and emotionally, his lost brother (to cancer at age 12), his love of words and action movies, his favourite food (chip buttie) and sport (soccer), his dislike of working for idiots. I try to lay it on thick about my family, but he likes the sound of my parents’ passive squabbles, my sisters’ verbal arguments and tacit alliances. I find myself drawn closer to him the more I learn about how much he cares, how deeply he thinks, how restless he feels underneath his calm.

In the little boat back into Hong Kong harbour I stole a look across to see his long frame bent forward, a rogue lock of dark brown hair drooping over his brow while he read intently. I felt the urge to brush it aside, but didn’t want to interrupt his reverie, preferring to watch him, to just look at him. His cheekbones are high and delicate, more defined than on most men. A long nose, wide brown eyes, arched eyebrows. I am in awe that such a man as this cares for me. He must have felt my gaze then and looked up, smiling quizzically before folding me in his arms, and the rest of the evening was spent away from books and sightseeing.

chapter 7 - marketing

Our days in Hong Kong have been filled with smoky temples, markets streets, cramped shops and modern plazas. We eat poached lettuce, green and crunchy under oyster sauce. We ride double-decker trams that lurch along narrow streets. When we need to pee we opt for opulent. Mom always said “Find a posh hotel when you have to go”, the only travel advice she ever gave worth heeding. At the Park Lane Hotel there were attendants, wizened old things in white smocks who folded the ends of toilet paper into points, turned on faucets and placed towels out, all for small tips. I never feel comfortable with this servant side of countries. Awkwardly smiling thanks I left some coins and rushed out feeling ridiculous.

The markets are the best: Hong Kong is a shopping mecca! Flashy department stores, little boutiques and handmade stalls stand side by side, so tightly packed one can only walk by in single file, but that at least affords an opportunity to see everything on both sides. The eggs are the most amazing. I have never seen so many varieties of eggs. There are tiny ones, others covered in black goop and semi-scraped over part of it to show charcoal grey, large ones with thick shells that look impregnable.

If you have a lot of eggs, it stands to reason you have a lot of birds. There are hundreds of multi-coloured songbirds in tiny bamboo cage in a special bird market. Elaborate cages too, beautifully carved even on the bottoms and with little porcelain pots for food and water. There were live grasshoppers for sale in plastic cases. I assumed they were meant as bird food, but some of them were larger than the birds!

At night the markets continue, sprawling over sidewalks full of people. Outdoor woks hiss as seafood morsels sizzle, served within minutes to those sitting on round wooden tables littered all over the street. T-shirts and jeans, watches and eyeglasses (who buys eyeglasses in the street I wondered?) toys, shoes, sex aids, jade and fortunetellers all available. Every once in a while we’d pass a place of such clanging and yelling - mah jong parlours, bright, full of smoke and noise as patrons slammed down their pieces on metal tables. Not the sedate parties my mother hosts.

What a wonderful place! I love this combination of east and west, rich and poor, day and night. My heart races and my eyes dart trying to see it all. If someone were to come by and offer me a job in Hong Kong I’d take it on the spot. I wonder what changes will take place in a few years when China takes it over again. Hamish likes it too. Once he got over the hurdle of dealing with a different language he was fine. Although he always starts talking in English first whenever we go into somewhere which drives me nuts.

“It’s not polite. You should try Chinese first. This is a foreign country.”

“Actually it’s considered British soil,” he says with an annoying smile.

“Oh that’s ridiculous, it’s not Britain.”

“Don't get your knickers in a twist. I feel so stupid saying something I know they can’t understand because I can’t get my tongue wrapped around the sounds.”

“It’s a courtesy.”

“But how courteous is it to mangle their language? It’s kind of obvious I’m not Chinese.”

“Can’t you just learn ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ then?”

“I will if you will.“

“What do you mean? I know how to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.”

“Yeah but you never say it. You make me do all the talking.”

“Well, everyone just looks to you and talks to you as if I'm invisible because I'm a 'mere' woman.”

I'm partly right and he's partly right on this point. When I’m on my own I just get on with it because there’s no one else, but with him I guess I do lean on him. Is it because I finally have a travelling companion? Or is it because he’s a man? Or is it because my old shyness hasn’t really left, but just lays hidden until it has a chance to reveal itself? Am I still that pathetic?.

I’m feeling a bit at war with myself these days. Like there’s something wrong with me. Just when I think ‘Ok, this is really it, he’s the one, let’s stop this nonsense and embrace it’, I panic and think ‘run away, run away!’ Our lovemaking is passionate, sometimes desperate. I made the mistake of telling Mom this trip is to test Hamish, to see how he likes travel and if he could survive it. She looked at me like I was from Pluto. “What are you going to do to the man? Why can’t you just get married like other women who are over 30 and won't get many chances at that kind of happiness?” No one understands. I’m the only one who worries about putting out so much feeling to someone that might die on me.

chapter 7 - hong kong

We walked down busy Nathan Street, past designer clothing and jewelry stores intermingled with dens full of incense and aromatic herbs, taking a detour for dim sum at the Jade Garden. The trolleys were driven by unsmiling old ladies who treated the whole process as if it was a race to get back to the kitchen with as much food still on their trolley as possible, avoiding actually serving patrons. It took us ages to work out the Chinese characters on the little sheet at our table, and in the end we would just say the words for ‘shrimp’, or ‘pork’ or ‘peppers’ and hope to get something vaguely edible. The chicken legs were the only things that defeated me. They looked so pathetic sticking up in the air like that.

Preparing for our venture into China took a lot longer then expected, even though I knew it would take awhile. Most people travel in groups to well trodden cities and tourist sites, but I don’t do the group thing let alone the well-trodden path thing, so not surprisingly we are treated a little suspiciously. We are only allowed to visit certain cities and towns, so have agreed to use these as a base and try to visit the surrounding countryside once there. We have unfortunately had to veto Beijing and the Great Wall which seems a little sacrilegious to me. I can’t imagine visiting China without seeing the Great Wall. It’s an architectural and military marvel. Chinese maps of any kind aren’t common, and yet there’s an anonymous manuscript from 1609 that shows fifteen provinces with principal cities and the Great Wall in the British Library. I’ve gazed at that map for years and here I am in China, ready to see the real thing and now it looks like I’m not going to.

Hamish could see I was disappointed but reasoned, “We only have one month, and you said your priorities were the Guilin region and Shanghai and that we are to travel only by land. It will take days to get to each place by train. If we were travelling with a tour or by plane it would be different. Are you sure about what your priorities are? We could change them you know.”

I nodded assent. From a topographical viewpoint the Guilin area is most unusual. Sudden hills burst out of watery flatness, it’s the setting on countless Chinese paintings and photos; it’s what I always imagined China to look like. I have visions of floating down some river between those mystical hills with Hamish at my side. Shanghai has always held a certain fascination for me. The Paris of the East. Silk and Art Deco and international trade. We can take a local boat from there back to Hong Kong that is too irresistible to miss. Besides, everyone goes to Beijing. I want to see a China less seen. And that means travelling by land, by train and bus and bicycle even. We bought our first tickets and hoped the rest will go well from there.

Hamish has done all the organizing because everyone only responds to him; he’s the man. I tried, but failed, to treat it as an example of what it must feel like to be on the other side of prejudice and to use the experience to achieve a greater level of understanding. After we left the last office he smiled and asked, “Well, did I do ok? Did I pass?” I gave him a hug and kiss answer. I had been afraid that he’d find this whole “if we’re going to have a relationship together we have to be able to travel together” test thing offensive, but the first thing he said was “If this is what it takes. Besides, I’ve always wanted stamps on a passport.”

In the evening we took the Star Ferry across the bay to the Wan Chai district, gazing at the fabulous buildings. I really liked the Bond building, all knobby blue-grey glass, and Hamish favoured the Bank of Hong Kong, something out of a futuristic movie with its insides on the outside, the world’s most expensive building. A funicular goes up the Peak at steep angles and from the top we saw another paradox of Hong Kong, luxury apartment buildings across the street from overgrown vacant lots. Sitting on a ledge we could look down on the city below as dusk descended, grey mist swirling. Like watching a play. Or a poem. Planes landed and boats converged in a ballet of avoidance. Neon began to blaze. Birds and butterflies that flitted here and there in the softening light seemed surreal against the urban scape backdrop below. As darkness settled we left our ledge and rejoined the swarm.

chapter 7 - back in the saddle!

“Oy! Did you see that? I saw a guy brushing his teeth in that apartment!”

Hong Kong has got to be one of the most dramatic of places to fly into. Our plane cut right through downtown, passing so close to the high-rises we could see in the windows. Once landed, we took a taxi to our room in the A block of the infamous Chung King mansions, a squalid firetrap really, the main benefit being low price in this expensive city. Families rent out spare rooms for extra income, then sleep in hallways. Our room is so small the door can’t open all the way without hitting the bed, which we clamber on to get inside, sleeping with our packs as pillows because there’s nowhere else to put them. The only other thing in the room is a TV mounted on the wall, which our landlord took great pride in pointing out. It doesn’t work. Somehow I’m not that surprised. I love it.

Hamish was taken aback by the place I could tell. “This is ghastly. Is this really where we are going to stay?”

“Of course we are. This is what travelling is all about, staying with the people, really seeing life as they live it. You know, not everyone in the world has the luxuries we do.”

“But we don’t have our own bathroom. Have you seen the bathroom here? The one we will be sharing with six others? There’s no hot water. Just a hose coming out of the wall. And the toilet is a hole in the floor.”

I shrugged. “I've seen just as bad in Aberdeen. Look, if you want to be with me you have to be prepared to travel and you have to be prepared to travel the way I do.”

“Ok don’t get your knickers in a twist. I intend to give it a go. It will just take a bit of getting used to that’s all.”

Poor guy, he is trying. I really should cut him some slack. After all, he’s only ever been on boys’ drinking holidays to Spain. It’s like I’m giving him a test. Pass or fail. In or out. Love or lost.


“Come on,” I said, trying to be reconciliatory, “let’s go out. I’ll buy you a beer.”

Despite the late hour of our arrival, Hong Kong was buzzing. It certainly is a bit of a culture shock. The streets are crossed overhead with neon lines and there are crowds of people shopping and eating on rickety tables set up in the streets, beside the cars and busses hurtling past. Above them squat crumbling buildings, verandahs covered in plants, laundry and people. The noise and hordes are considerable.

Although no one could ever consider me tall, here we both feel like giants wading through a throng. Hamish especially, with his lanky 6’2” frame, is like a mast on a ship I could see on the horizon of black haired humanity. I clutched the sail of his shirttail to avoid being swept away, afraid to lose him in the crowd. What am I saying? My biggest fear is losing him period. When he goes out anywhere on his own my old fears rise up, unbidden and unwelcome. It’s not that I’m afraid he’ll reject me but rather that he’ll get hit by a bus. Will I ever get over this – this wretched neurosis? It exasperates him I know. Always having to reassure me that he's not Andrew. And I know that, I really do, but my heart overthrows my head.