In Which Martin Makes it Back to Beijing

Nothing much of not happened between my evening out and my trip home. Sure I walked around, saw some temples and palaces, breathed deep of the Korean air, and generally got my fill of Seoul. But not much of it is really newsworthy. I mean, I guess it depends on perspective. Back then I probably could have written a nice essay about it, but here in Beijing, a month or so on, it has faded into the happy mists of a good, if quiet, time had.

That’s not quite true. There was one fine event, the evening before I left, that is worth noting. I was walking back to the hostel, enjoying the rather brisk evening, seeing what there was to be seen, and I came upon a strange sight. The street I was walking along was split by a river (once an open sewer, now a delightful urban waterpark) and in the middle, on a platform over the water, were 20 women dressed in bright colors, moving in formation and beating drums. In the middle, and seeming to run the show was a pompous looking man with a small gong. I had no idea what was going on, but it seemed worth finding out.

Eventually the drumming and shuffling stopped, and an mc stoop up on a temporary stage. He jabbered for a while, and then introduced a singer, who began singing (as, I’ve found, singers tend to do) while all this was going on, there was a bustle of activity on the bridge. Lights had been strung up across the space, ironically between two lighting fixture stores on each side of the river, and the drumming women had put down mats on which to sit. The guests of honor, distinguishable by their dark green suits and impressive breast pocket floral arrangements, stood around and looked awkward, and then suddenly, as if my slight of hand, there was an enormous buffet spread out, and all the onlookers that had gathered swooped down upon it like so many hungry ducks at the Boston commons.

I opted to take photos instead of fighting my way into the fray, but everything worked out well in the end, as an elderly couple, noticing my lack of food, made a big deal of feeding me what they had taken (two heaping plates), and offering me a healthy swallow of soju to wash it all down. It pretty much made my night.

Next day, I took the ferry back to china. The ferry was, admittedly, one of my reasons for going. It’d been on one international ferry before (the one between Denmark and sweeten), but that was small potatoes compared to this. The trip took about 16 hours altogether, but I must admit, I spent a good number of those reading the DaVinci Code and sleeping. In that order. There were two other foreigners on the boat, one English and the other Canadian. Both were fairly unsavory in the way that middle-aged foreign guys living in Asia and keeping a woman often are. So I mostly sat on the couch, and inhaled the delicious ridiculousness that was Dan Brown. A tipsy Korean businessman on vacation came over and sat down on my couch (only wrinkling his nose slightly—I’d been wearing the same clothes for a week at this point, socks included) and introduced the 35-year-old women in his tour group. They didn’t speak any English or Chinese, but he assured me they thought I was cute. I wasn’t cute. I was smelly, scruffy, and greasy, but I smiled magnanimously, and said well thank you very much. Then they all left to go sing Karaoke and I finished my book and went to bed.

An attempted dawn awakening did not work by virtue of personal slumber, so I didn’t get out on the deck till we were well within sight of Qinqdao harbor. It was still a laborious 2 hours in, and then somewhat laughable customs later; I was back in china, home, where I could talk to people.

After an afternoon spent wandering around Qingdao, and an interminable 7-hour train ride back to Beijing, I really was home, and so were my brothers and my Da.

We'll get caught up one of these days.