Hundred Secret Senses, The by Tan Amy

Author:Tan, Amy [Tan, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: China, Fiction, Novel, Orient
ISBN: 9780007385690
Publisher: Fourth Estate
Published: 1995-10-31T02:00:00+00:00

13. YOUNG GIRL’S WISH

My first morning in China, I awake in a dark hotel room in Guilin and see a figure leaning over my bed, staring at me with the concentrated look of a killer. I’m about to scream, when I hear Kwan saying in Chinese, ‘Sleeping on your side – so this is the reason your posture is so bad. From now on, you must sleep on your back. Also do exercises.’

She snaps on the light and proceeds to demonstrate, hands on hips, twisting at the waist like a sixties PE teacher. I wonder how long she’s stood by my bed, waiting for me to waken so she can present her latest bit of unsolicited advice. Her bed is already made.

I look at my watch and say in a grumpy voice, ‘Kwan, it’s only five in the morning.’

‘This is China. Everyone else is up. Only you’re asleep.’

‘Not anymore.’

We’ve been in China less than eight hours, and already she’s taking control of my life. We’re on her terrain, we have to go by her rules, speak her language. She’s in Chinese heaven.

Snatching my blankets, she laughs. ‘Libby-ah, hurry and get up. I want to go see my village and surprise everyone. I want to watch Big Ma’s mouth fall open and hear her words of surprise: “Hey, I thought I chased you away. Why are you back?”’

Kwan pushes open the window. We’re staying at the Guilin Sheraton, which faces the Li River. Outside it’s still dark. I can hear the trnnng! trnnng! of what sounds like a noisy pachinko parlor. I go to the window and look down. Peddlers on tricycle carts are ringing their bells, greeting one another as they haul their baskets of grain, melons, and turnips to market. The boulevard is bristling with the shadows of bicycles and cars, workers and schoolchildren – the whole world chirping and honking, shouting and laughing, as though it were the middle of the day. On the handlebar of a bicycle dangle the gigantic heads of four pigs, roped through the nostrils, their white snouts curled in death grins.

‘Look.’ Kwan points down the street to a set of stalls lit by low-watt bulbs. ‘We can buy breakfast there, cheap and good. Better than paying nine dollars each for hotel food – and for what? Doughnut, orange juice, bacon, who wants it?’

I recall the admonition in our guidebooks to steer clear of food sold by street vendors. ‘Nine dollars, that’s not much,’ I reason.

‘Wah! You can’t think this way anymore. Now you’re in China. Nine dollars is lots of money here, one week’s salary.’

‘Yeah, but cheap food might come with food poisoning.’

Kwan gestures to the street. ‘You look. All those people there, do they have food poisoning? If you want to take pictures of Chinese food, you have to taste real Chinese food. The flavors soak into your tongue, go into your stomach. The stomach is where your true feelings are. And if you take photos, these true feelings from your stomach can come out, so that everyone can taste the food just by looking at your pictures.

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