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.