“Ni shuo zhong wen ma?” I ask our driver, and he furiously shakes his head. Oh dear I thought, he doesn’t speak English. So starts the IBM adventure to the Great Wall. It is time to put the sparse Chinese I learned form friends, family, and Taiwanese Dramas into place.
The great wall is impressive and is just like the photos. It is fun even with all the people. We lost a couple IBMers on the wall but thankfully, we found them later. There was something that looked liked a ride down from the Great Wall and we debated taking it, but we are not exactly sure where it went and the possible hike was a bit intimidating, so we decide to go back and grab lunch.
Then it is time for lunch. All the restaurants in the area are small local restaurants. We wander into one where we found a photo menu. But we still could not identify what the food was. Then the server shows up with a menu in English, and we are like “aaaah.” In our group, we have two vegetarians; one does not eat eggs, onions or garlic. Luckily Sue has a paper that has, in Chinese, phrases like I am vegetarian. I do not eat eggs. I do not eat garlic or onion. I pointed at the phrases “I do not eat egg” and “I do not eat garlic or onion.” Then I asked “which one doesn’t have?” They pointed at beef noodle soup. I was really confused as to why they would recommend a non-vegetarian dish. Then I had an epiphany that I did not emphasize the no meat point, and I pointed at the phrase that says “does not eat meat.” Let’s just say it was another 20 minutes of wild gesturing and halting Chinese before we finally got our order in, asking for some dishes to not be spicy. We received all our food without any onion, garlic, eggs, or hot spices. The guys that ordered kung pao chicken, missed that bit of pao flavor to their food.
We finally got back to the van a bit late, looking forward to the Ming tombs. The other IBMers say they think we’re not heading to the Ming Tombs, and ask me to ask the driver where we were going. I was like, I don’t know how to say Ming Tomb in Chinese. Finally I tap the driver and point at the exit for Ming Tomb as we drive right by it. Of course I don’t understand a word he says. So we use our emergency weapon, our ABV contact, Edward, who helped arrange the van in the first place. We phone Edward and asked the driver to speak to him. We finally get to Ming Tomb at 3:30pm. So I tell the group we should try to get through it as fast as possible since we were supposed to meet with ABV in two hours and it would take another at least hour to get to Beijing. It was small tomb with some nice grounds. Nothing brilliantly exciting after the Great Wall, but it is still interesting to see.
The team finally rounded up and was back in the van to Beijing for our meeting with ABV and of course we hit traffic. If you think New York traffic jams are bad, think again. In the midst of the highway traffic, Sue tells me she has to go to the bathroom and could not wait. So we have emergency call number two to Edward. As the driver pulls off the highway there’s a little accident as another car smacks our van’s mirror. Our driver stomps out and yells at the other driver and fixes the mirror. We were sympathetic, but then driver gets back in and gets back on the highway and we see a McDonald’s pass by. There are some frantic noises from the others telling me get the driver to pull over. I ask the driver about the bathroom. He says we’re really close to the hotel. We’re staring at the traffic and Sue. I tell him in Chinese, “she can’t wait; she really, really can’t wait. Can you stop?” He pulls off at the next exit and all was see is residential buildings. Sue’s ready to go on the street. The driver pulls over, and he looks at me like, what do you want to do. I’m thinking this is crazy Sue is not going in the street and tell him “to go a little.” Lo and behold a KFC appears. People start screaming, “stop the car.” I ask him to stop the car, he just needs to go to an area where he can pull over. I say I know, but the noise behind us get louder. So he just stops in the middle of the street. Sue pleads with me to come with her. So I jump out of the van with her. I ask for the washroom in the first restaurant, and they say no. We zoom to the next building, and I ask for the washroom, and they point the way. Sue is lucky that I learned how to say washroom the day before and for some reason my Chinese is improving under stress. After the emergency is alleviated, we jump back into the van where it was able to pull over legally.
We finally get back to the hotel, where we find our Australian Business Volunteers (ABV) coordinators waiting for us. I hug Lucy and Emily happy to see a fully bilingual people that could translate everyone’s requests. I blindly follow them with the rest of the group to the restaurant, where she ordered for the group. We have a wonderful dinner with food that was properly seasoned and vegetarian dishes that hand no onion and garlic in them. Happy to just enjoy the food, I cannot think of a better ending to a very interesting day.
-Andrea
