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February 10th 2007
Published: February 10th 2007
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The day began as most do around here - with peanut butter pancakes. Naturally, I asked for a side of chocolate for dipping, along with the freshest glass of pineapple juice this side of Bhutan. Once I had my fill of paradise on a plate, I set off for my real goal of the day.

One of desires during this month-long trip was simply to get out and enjoy where I was. I didn't have to be going anywhere special, or honestly, anywhere at all, but instead just get going and let the road take me where it pleases. I wanted to get lost in China, and let the country reveal itself rather than I desperately searching for it.

To this end, I stopped at my now favorite bike shop, and popped for the ultra-fancy 20 yuan bike. Damn happy that I did. I immediately bolted for the hills.

I knew of a small dirt road running alongside Yulong River, a path that had beckoned for my exploring ever since my first tire fiasco. Winding between cliff faces, straddling a crisp, blue river, and full of absolute possibility, at least so I imagined. With a bright Yangshuo sun beating down on my now burning neck, I launched down the road, ready for a full day of adventure.

Of course, things are never as romantic as they may seem. Within two minutes I was off my bike, rolling up my pants as the baggy khakis were seriously ruining both my spirits and chain. Now I looked like a tourist...great. How am I supposed to discover China looking like this? Functionality over style I guess. I took off again, this time pumped and ready to roll. Chain catches a snag and I immediately find myself in some rather nasty bushes. Good start to the day of adventure.

This time I was off for real. The unassuming dirt path I had chosen had turned out to be a rather bustling tourist route, and I was quickly choking on dirt and smog from the countless buses of Chinese tourists, all heading for a relaxing "Bamboo!" boat ride down what was supposed to be my river. I pushed on though, just knowing that my luck would change. It did.

After thirty minutes of torturous rocks and screaming tourists, my path veered to the right. Suddenly, I found myself in pure, unadulterated silence. I was alone. Alone with the mountains, alone with the river, and of course, alone with some stray oxen. Alone enough.

I continued on, my path leading ever closer to the Yulong. I found yet another fork in the road. With the right taking me back to the mountain course, I darted left, straight for the river. Wrong choice. I found myself surrounded by mini buses, tour guides yelling "Bamboo! Bamboo!" and an utter dead end to my quest. Well, so it seemed. After five or so minutes of explaining that while the bamboo rafts are very nice, I'm simply not interested, a tout asked where I was headed. I knew of a bridge a ways up, appropriately named Yulong Bridge, and said that was my destination for the day. His arm shot up instantly, pointing straight to the river. "Na bian!" That way! The river didn't seem like the best choice for my bike, but as I inched forward, I discovered an incredible stone bridge running to the other side. Built flush to the water, the bridge was a solid S-curve, requiring the famous Bamboo! boats to stop and be lifted over. I pulled up, deciding to walk my bike over lest my poor riding skills get the best of me and really put on a show for the Chinese tourists. I creeped to the other side...to destiny (as that was my goal for today).

The other side was absolutely what I hoped for. Immediately leading to wide open farm land, a small rocky path no wider than three feet took me between two large orange groves. Coming down the same path, a small farmer woman carrying a stick hay bundles not much smaller than the oxen that kept me company earlier during my discovery of aloneness. She sqeezed through first, and after a friendly Nin Hao, it was my turn. I walked through, smelling the sweetness of oranges and victory, sun shining overhead and a looming peak tipping its hat to me directly in front.

A walk through some vegetable patches, and I was back to riding, now finding the crag of a road not so bad. I rode and rode, zipping through small farm villages full of real people just living the real China life. While I know this is but a small bit of the country as it is now, it was a piece that I had been desperate to see. Rural China: the side that doesn't get the CNN Presents, or invoke the fear of US politicians. One town offered a decidedly Communist take on life as what appeared to be the entire population huddled around a public noodle bowl, chomping, joking, and watching the lost foreigner fly by on his Schwinn.

As all good things come to an end, I thought my point had too as I pulled to a paved road leading through nearby Baisha town. What others had warned was a full day of hard riding had turned out to be a mere three-hour jaunt in the hinterland. Still, I kept on riding away from Yangshuo, too early to go home. I turned down a side road, led by a sign promising a bridge of some cursive Chinese character name. Turned out to be the Yulong I had been searching for.

But I was lost, exactly what I had wanted all day but now not enjoying it so much. I was headed down a well-paved road, but the growing emptiness left me a bit worried about where I was headed this time. In my panic, a young boy rolls by on a moped screaming "Hello!" Hardly anything knew as it happens every twenty seconds but this time I caught up to him to ask for directions. He said he will show me, and so I follow his puttering moped down the street and into yet another farming town. I hadn't known before, but this was is hometown, and Yulong Bridge was its star attraction.

We pulled up to the bridge. Beautiful of course, but honestly nothing all that special. Really old I guess. Small and standard looking, it still represented more to me though than just a passing over water. I had reached my destination, my goal for the day, and a quest for something unexperienced that I so wanted long before my trip ever started. My day was done, dreams accomplished, and ready to get rolling once again.

There is always one thing though that can put an absolute halt to even the best laid plans - food. Yes, I was starving, and while the dried banana chips I picked up before I left were nice, I needed something more fulfilling. If there is one thing in China that can always be had, its food. But in a place like this, in the middle of nowhere, it's gonna cost you.

As I stood admiring the plain bridge, a small elderly woman approached asking if I was hungry. Fantastic, not only did I see a part of China completely foreign to me, now I was being invited into a small farm home to enjoy the local food. Not quite. Turns out the old broad was running a bit of a money racket here in nowhere. As the only restaurant for miles, and with a relatively important attraction in town, the restaurant was free to charge a hefty sum for their fresh Kung Pao Chicken. 65 yuan later, I had my chicken in the kitchen, plucked and deboned for my viewing pleasure. The guts are a bit of a turn-off, no matter what you pay.

While I sat and waited for my feast to arrive, my moped friend came by. It is important to note here that I absolutely could not understand a single word out of this kid's mouth, nor anyone's in the town for that matter. They spoke Yangshuo Hua, as they relayed to me through hand gestures and broken Mandarin. My new buddy's acting did get me up from the table though for what I could only guess was to be a stroll around town. His "walking fingers on palm" trick gave me the hint.

He led me through three or four old mud brick buildings, all of which were dark, damp, and completely uninhabitable. Communist slogans plastered a few plank walls, torn and battered by passing time. I stepped into the last house, a lone doorway directly ahead. He swung it open to reveal a room completely taken up by two small twin beds and a pair of NBA sandals. This was his room, and he had invited me in as his guest without ever needing to stop and ask for my name. There, in a dark room no taller than myself, it was humbling to see this kid's life. This was his part of the world, far different than what I ever knew, and he opened it to me without hesitation. He bent down and pulled two giant youzi grapefruits from under his bed. A gift for me, his guest.

I could barely say thanks, let alone honestly express my gratitude for what he had given me, before we were back off in to town. This time, a stop on top of the bridge. As we watched the scenery and boats passing underneath, he peeled a youzi for us. As we enjoyed the sweet fruit, his younger sister came up to meet us. A friendly Hello, but this time a slightly more normal pronunciation caught me off guard. She was studying English! While she was shy enough to be positively embarrassed by talking in my native tongue, her schooling had meant she also spoke Putonghua, or Standard Mandarin. At last, a person, albeit minimally, that I could understand!

Now as we ate the infamous 70 yuan chicken (price goes up with each re-telling), a word kept coming up in conversation. Mati. My comprehension of the conversations during the lunch resembled something along the lines of: You________Mati_____? And that is how it went for a good hour, the girl's broken English and Mandarin training really playing a rather inconsequential role.

My excitement for the day was coming to an end, and with the sun creeping towards the peaks, I knew I needed to get going back. Still, as we walked to my bike, Mati was everywhere in the now sister-less boy's talk. This mysterious Mati had me perplexed. Did he want me to meet his mother? Was it a duck? They were everywhere. Could Mati be the missing link, because this kid's passion for the word had me both excited and positively terrified. Not knowing anything else to say, I motioned that I needed to get going, and we began walking towards the edge of town.

Or as he saw the pathway out, towards his home. He pulled me inside a doorway, leaving my bike lonely in the road. Inside, another tall, dark concrete room, devoid of anything save a small torn up couch complete with lounging Chinese woman. It was his mother, or so I presumed, and who had to be the mysterious Mati I had heard so much about. I was invited to sit, and took my place at the end of the couch. Two tattered pictures of official-looking men were plastered on the wooden wall beside me, overlooking the room with a stern, hardened gaze.

Now Mati as I knew her, she too spoke Yangshuo Hua, and was therefore left with out a clue. I did manage to get the first thing she said to me upon sitting down though:

"We here are very poor. You, your country is very rich. Everyone has money."

It hit me hard. I honestly had no idea what to say in response. So I sat there, a look of guilt across my semi-nodding face. Compared to her place in the world, this was the absolute truth. People don't know this life where I come from. I couldn't begin to relate to what her experiences had been in this town as they resembled nothing to mine back in New Mexico. As I think about that exact moment, even if she spoke English, I still don't know how I could have possibly responded. I was the rich foreign tourist, and for whatever conceptions she may have had toward me, I was still unquestioningly invited in to her home, as a guest, and as a friend.

And there I sat, Mati on my left, my young buddy on my right. We tried to speak about simple things I could understand. My age (young), my country (far), my school in China (famous). Soon though, a bright face joined the room that promised a small bit of help. The boy's sister had returned, and she too was anxious to try and speak with me, though sadly not in English. We continued to struggle in dialogue, but I did manage to get a glimpse of her English language textbooks. Amazingly complex, I would say some of the passages were easily from college-level reports. Yet while she could rattle off a passage with speed, poor pronunciation and fluidity gave me the impression that a rote style of memorization had been the only manner of instruction, and therefore left her with very little ability to talk. I knew her exact situation all too well.

And then she escaped again, this time in to a back room. Mati and I again exchanged glances of friendly nods and awkward silence. Suddenly and with a burst of hot steam, the sister flew back in the room, a giant bowl of piping hot something in hand. She struggled to set it down right in front of me.

"Mati!" she yelped with pride.

So this was Mati, not the woman that was my silent couch partner, but rather the steaming chestnut-like brown things on the floor. The boy darted for one, hands writhing in pain from the steam as he struggled to peel one open. He did, and promptly handed it to me. With now four pairs of eyes on me, a random elderly woman had strolled in, I took a chomp on the white fruit inside. Hot. Very, very hot. They giggled with satisfaction as I burnt my tongue.

It reminded me of a water chestnut, but I wasn't about to claim that the mysterious Mati was indeed one of my favorite ingredients in any Chinese dish. I had never seen a water chestnut in its natural form, just its delicious state inside a can from Whole Foods.

And so we sat, mostly quietly, tearing at the outer layer of the Mati with our finger nails, delighting in its piping hot interior. We made small talk with the little we shared between us, hands now covered in brown. They would laugh at me. Apparently I was a poor Mati eater. I struggled to peel one as they enjoyed five or six. Still, the boy would constantly hand his over so I would never be without something to chew on.

When it came time for me to leave, I did my best to express my gratitude for the invitation in to their home. It was more of an unspoken thank you as my smile and head-nodding had to do most of the work. When I was at the door, the young boy, who had led me from the streets of nowhere to his living room couch, stuffed some of the nuts into my backpack pocket. I rode off back to Yangshuo, back to my part of the world, this time with a load of free Mati to accompany me on the ride.

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For the record, Mati is a water chestnut. I confirmed it a distance from town with the help of a dictionary.






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11th February 2007

Your stories are really interesting, I was perplexed to what this Mati could be too, I never heard it being called that! I cant believe u got a motorbike all the way from guilin to yangshuo, thats a 1 hour and a half journey, a good experience though! Ps if u like a challenge go rock climbing in yangshuo, its awesome. I went with a shop called xclimber but shop around for the best deal :)
12th February 2007

Thanks for the encouragement!
Read the next update, the coincidence is mind-blowing!

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