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We stopped, and like many other moments when our momentum ceases to propel us forward we become surrounded by people. We had pulled onto a side road of the surprisingly large and chaotic city of Heng Yang to look for a lunch place for our last meal with the Koreans Kuang Sup and Su Ji. Jim had found a suitable place a but a Korean restaurant had been spotted closer to the main road, which happened to be a spectacular change by the way. Myself, Nakia, and Drew partook in the ever present waiting game when amongst a group of 7. To pass the time we spoke with our ever gathering on-lookers, as if we had a choice. America, Bahamas, expensive, from Beijing, no I flew it to Beijing first then road it here, not really that powerful, no I can only speak a little. A woman soon emerged above the rest though, her motherly characteristics set her apart in nostalgic sort of way. The conversation followed something like this
“You should come and rest at my place, we have boiled water for you to drink, you should drink boiled water.”
“Oh thank you, but we are just waiting for our friends, they are looking for a place to eat, then we will go there and get boiled water to drink.”
“But you must be thirsty, you should come drink boiled water, it is right over there, it isn’t a problem.”
“It is OK, really, thank you though, you are very kind.”
While this was going on Nakia was purchasing a pomelo, a large grapefruit like fruit. She brought it back and was going to begin eating it.
“You can’t it that like that, your hands are dirty! You need to go wash them, I have boiled water you can wash them with, you need to wash your hands first.” she said.
“Oh you are probably right, but I think it is alright, I will try to eat it like this.” I said.
Nakia began to eat the fruit.
“No no no, you are doing it wrong, open the skin.” said the woman.
She then took each slice, opened them for us and gave them for us to eat, we did not have to use our dirty hands and they were more delicious. We all found it particularly humorous.
“Can I have your name?” I asked “We have a website and I would like to write a blog about you, do you know someone who can use the Internet?”
I gave her my notebook and a pen.
“Wait a minute, I will be right back.” she said.
She then literally ran away with my notebook back towards the shop she had pointed to indicating that they had boiled water for us to drink. While she was gone a man approached Drew and gave him an entire case of bottled ice tea and a bag full of fruit. Soon, just as she said, she returned, but this time with a bucket full of apples, pears, persimmons, and a more serious looking husband.
“Why do you want our names? What are you going to do with it?” he asked.
“Oh there is no need to worry sir, I want to write a story about you so my friends in America will know how friendly Chinese people are.” I said.
He then looked through all my notes, saw the names and phone numbers of other Chinese who had given me theirs and decided that it was perhaps OK to do so.
“He said it was for friendship, its good, just give him our name!” the woman said.
I gave them the website although they didn’t know how to use the Internet, hopefully they can find someone to show it to them. We were stopped by a Local TV crew and interviewed as we were riding out of town, we mentioned how nice the people in the town were and how they gave us gifts. Mrs Huang I hope you watched the news because perhaps you can’t read my blog and I can’t write Chinese very well anyway, but if you do stumble across this thank you, the fruit was fantastic.
