Chaing Mai to Guangzhou

 

Chaing Mai feels like Buffalo in Thailand to me. Smaller and slower than Bangkok, it has the sense of a community collectively engaged in intentional development. Where a place like Bangkok grows and shifts by forces so large as to not even appear human anymore, Chiang Mai feels as if it is being molded by bare hands right in front of your eyes. I spent my time there less as a tourist and more as a resident might. I played drums at a few clubs, I did some local hikes, I visited temples, I walked and ate food and made friends in public parks. It was a lovely month.

But, the arrests of the musicians in Pai just North West of Chaing Mai had a tangible effect on music club owners and their willingness to engage with the kind of “open mic” type nights that had played such an important role in my social life. Tension around the issue could be felt and if Thai’s seemed concerned about something, they really are and it’s worth paying attention to it. Additionally, the burning season was coming soon and Erika was LOVING Nepal. I had friends from Kathmandu back home, and it seemed like the logical next step.

I know from experience that Erika loves novelty more than almost anything so I wasn’t quick to trust how much she loved Nepal. But by the time I asked her about it, she’d had a few weeks in Nepal to look beyond Novelty to a more objective level of experience. Her response was emphatic, “I could live here”. I’ve wanted to see Nepal for more than a decade and it all seemed to be lining up perfectly, so I booked a ticket.

When we both eventually left Nepal we left having the same doom-laden feeling of: “never again”. I think mutual bad luck (illness) and the timing of the wedding party Erika was asked to join played a role in the timeline of our attitude shift, as much as culture fatigue. She arrived in Nepal as the special guest for the wedding of a man who serves as caretaker to her autistic brother. Good caretakers can become an extension of the family and it’s clear that a lot of love goes both directions in this relationship. Much of Erika’s first weeks revolved around the curated and cloistered experiences of preparing for a really big wedding with these family friends. I don’t think she had really submerged fully in the experience of raw Kathmandu yet. She also deals with the carnival barkers of the alleyways better than I do, emotionally and practically, so I think the reality of Nepal took a little longer to hit. Additionally the gender dynamic I mentioned in the last post charted a different course of intolerability for her. The contempt with which men hounded me was nothing compared to the expectant adoration they caked on her, but it feels different initially. Adoration isn’t really the word, it’s a thirst for possession. Harassment comes in many forms and it’s especially terrifying for a girl who weighs 110lbs holding a dog that she’s spoon-feeding taco bell. Eventually Nepal took a few bites too many out of her as well, we both left hurriedly and relieved. But back in the Chaing Mai airport, Nepal was still looking like the decision of a cautious but adventurous, travel-wise set of pals.

Sitting at my flight gate a good solid Tom Harter “right-on-time” of 3hrs early, I was practicing some drumming rudiments with my sticks silently on my legs. When I eventually came up from the delightful trance that puts me into, I saw a young Japanese couple grinning at me. The young man pointed to himself and said “drummer, too”. I waived them over and grabbed a second pair of sticks from my bag and we had a little jam session right there on our shoes. He was really good and it was a ton of fun. Turns out he’s touring with a popular Japanese band that just finished a round of shows in Thailand; ½ a million Spotify listeners each month, a low down rock star. This is the band he was touring with, but he also gave me a cd for a new project he was working on which I don’t think has been released anywhere yet. I have no way to listen to it yet, but it’s definitely coming around the world with me. We shared music and drummers we liked, fast friends. We parted ways when he caught his flight to Japan, but it was a solid start for a journey.

Then, literally minutes later my plane started queuing up to board and I met the delightful: Frank.

Frank, inexplicably, is a fourth grade Chinese boy with a large stuffed tiger he is very proud of, and possessed of surprisingly solid English. Frank spent the next 20 minutes teaching me some basic Chinese phrases. Of course first, “Hello and Thank you.” (Knee-how, and Shia shia). He expounded lovingly on the grand tradition of Hot Pot comparing it favorably to Pizza. He expressed a sincere devotion to the fandom of Harry Potter, and genuine amazement at a video of my brother Jake juggling. His mom was unbelievably proud at his ability to make a Western pal so quickly and it was adorable. Pre-flight China was batting 1000 with Frank and my drumming friend. Post flight China nearly saw me arrested, twice.  

I had such high hopes for China. I wanted to see the mighty empire’s mad feats of city building up close – even if only for a few hours. My flight laid over in Guangzhou for a solid 9hours. And this was enough time I thought, to go out into the city, get a good wiff of it and return for my flight to Kathmandu. I was wrong and there was a moment, a moment that I should have recognized for what it was. It was a moment that if I had responded differently would have changed everything… but such is travel. I failed the test and suffered for it.

Unfortunately, Frank was seated near the front and I didn’t see him again until he had to pee. I booked my flight last minute and picked a seat on the isle near the back. I usually have to pee 6 dozen times per hour on any given flight so I often pay extra to choose to sit at the isle and near a bathroom so I don’t feel terrible about disturbing everyone a thousand times as I awkwardly slog my oversized body through the too narrow isles built to be just barely passable for the lithe bird bones of the Chinese Stewardesses, a career I’m convinced is offered only to retired professional dancers under the age of 30. They are unimaginably strong, thin, and agile.

The AC was out in my hotel the night before leaving Thailand and flights excite me in a paranoid “what’s going to go wrong” sort of way so I hadn’t really slept in 48hrs. I can’t sleep sitting up; I just wake myself up at the sound of my own guttural snore mere inches into unconsciousness. So I spent the short flight from Chiang Mai to Guangzhou drifting in and out of consciousness until we were suddenly just there. I was surprised by how much energy I “woke” with. My plan to white knuckle Guangzhou seemed like it was meant to be. I had nine hours to go get some late night hot pot in honor of Frank and text him a Harry Potter quote to confirm how great it was. 

The first sign something was wrong came immediately from a security guard. I explained what I wanted to do and he looked at me like I was nuts. “Sir, it’s almost midnight.” Guangzhou is a city of nearly 15 million people… I just didn’t imagine it shut down at midnight, so I thought, “so what, I’m awake, let’s do this.”

China has a free 10 day visa for people “In Transit”, but it requires an immigration interview. The office for entry interviews is wedged between the office for immigration enforcement where problem cases sit to be dealt with, and FOR NO APPARENT REASON the nicest complimentary office space that you’ve ever seen.

The office for interviewing for 10 day visas was vast and haunted-ghost-town empty. I know now it is because the entire city’s bedtime is fucking 9pm and China is a psychopath society, but at the time this set off no red flags for me. I didn’t see him immediately but the only other person in sight was a guy on the austere bench of the immigration problems area. He was wearing a weirdly nice suit and from a country I couldn’t make out from his accent. He showed me a pittiful 1% notice on his phone. “Oh!” I thought, his phone is out of battery and he doesn’t have a charger… this is easy, I can help this guy. I have a charger in my back pack, what a neat and simple way to help a dude in a rough spot. So I gave him my electronics and he seemed… not relieved. No matter, because in the bliss of my good deed I went COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED to sit in the WEIRDLY AMAZING corporate lounge area 15 feet away like a god damned business bitch. There were probably foot massage baths or Geishas or something but the immigration officer showed up so I didn’t get to partake for long.

But before we continue let me just expound on the corporate area a bit more. Fucking long ass couches, sleeping pods, plush chairs, charging stations at every desk, a free smart coffee machine boasting local delights and western favorites, snacks, and fucking not a single other person in it. Totally empty, no joke. I could have slept in there all night and it wouldn’t have bothered a soul. And I should have been sleeping.

But instead I faced a confused and perturbed immigration officer who looked like he just put on pants. He asked me how much money I had and what I wanted to do… and was equally confused about why I wanted to enter the country for just a few hours. But I was feeling good and I was committed. After all, people had put on pants for this.

I had done my research at this point (so I thought), there was a subway that went directly from the airport downtown. I needed to hit an ATM, get a little cash, stash my luggage with the airport luggage concern and then boogey. It did NOT SEEM HARD. My visa was granted and I gathered my things to leave, including my charger. The guy from Africa was using his phone, but he showed me the battery still said 1%... it wasn’t charging. His actual battery was shot and the only way he could use his phone, which would apparently take some time, was to be plugged in. I couldn’t leave my charger with him. They can be hard to come by in certain areas, and I didn’t have any idea what Nepal would be like. (This was the right choice, because specialized electronics are hard to come by in Nepal.) My visa was stamped… I really thought that now I needed to leave.

In hindsight, I absolutely could have let the man use my charger and have sat back down in the veritable testicle massage of a corporate heaven life had presented me with, but I didn’t listen. I took my charger from him, leaving him to his fate and walked past the gate of no return into China proper. My fate was sealed.

What you notice immediately is that China feels like America, but more nationalistic, surveilled and locked down. In a word: more fascist. It’s just evident. In fact, they are proud of it. Everything glistens in ordered grandeur. In this very-much-post-revolution airport, symmetry is a mantra; elegant repetition. The architecture is a carefully ordered collective of sameness.

Every third young person I saw was in something resembling a military uniform or a fashion threaded heavily to the Hugo Boss Reich collection. We can’t go to war with China. We will lose. It won’t even be a contest. The place feels shockingly like America in its nationalism, gaudiness and superiority complex, but is far less concerned about hiding its surveillance/police state, and the long dick of the law is proudly erect on the legacy of Mao’z Dong. I tried hard to give China a chance during my nine hours and it just fucked me repeatedly.