ARRRRGGGHHHHH!

China can be a difficult place to be for a foreigner. It is a culture completely different from the Western world. There are many characteristics to this developing country that are hard to experience as someone who has seen the other side. To begin with, there is a HUGE trash problem here. This is very sad, as China’s scenery is absolutely breathtaking, and almost every inch of

it is littered with trash. As a Colorado girl at heart, and a person who generally appreciates the Earth, such vast litter is a difficult thing to see.

As bad as the trash is, it is the honking that may kill me. I am not an angry person. I usually only get really mad at people who take a shot at my pride and succeed i.e. ex boyfriends. But I tap into a reservoir of anger at every truck driver who drives past us leaning on his horn. The road we’re on now is very wide and newly paved. There is PLENTY of room for two trucks to pass each other and for scooters or walkers to be on the side of the road. However, for some reason unbeknownst to me, these truck drivers feel the need to honk their horn as they pass us. I’m not talking about

a friendly, “Hey, I’m coming through” toot toot. These fuckers put all of their body weight on that horn and they hold it from the time they see us to the time they’re well past us. Sometimes I’ll be turned around to talk to Annimal when one approaches and I’ll catch eyes with the driver through the windshield. I’ll hold eye contact as they drive past, bursting our eardrums with their foghorns. “I hate you. I hate you. I FUCKING HATE YOU SO MUCH!” is what I tell them with my eyes. But I don’t think they can hear me over their blaring horns.

It has been a rough week overall. I’m trying to tell myself that it’s all in my head and that if I change my attitude everything won’t look so dismal. That’s true to an extent. But the throbbing blister that feels as though my right pinky toe has been ripped off says otherwise.

Five weeks into this adventure, the struggle of culture shock has hit me with a vengeance. It all started with the volunteer leader in one of the towns we visited this week. Let’s call him Mr. Lu. Last Friday we rolled into Mr. Lu’s town and took a ride from him once we reached our kilometer goal for the day. He took us to a hotel, then out to dinner with a group of his volunteers. We went to a vegetarian buffet restaurant which was closing, meaning there were only scraps of food left. I didn’t mind because by this point I am so tired of Chinese food that it doesn’t matter whether it looks good or not- I don’t want to eat it. There was a girl from Singapore who spoke English in the group. I talked her ear off throughout dinner and she laughed when I told her how much I wanted ice cream.

“There’s a supermarket in this town that sells Haagen Daz.” She said. “We can go tomorrow since you’re having a rest day.” I wanted to kiss her (but I didn't). We said goodnight to the volunteers and made plans to see them the following day.

The whole crew knocked on our door around lunchtime the next day. We went to a restaurant near our hotel for lunch. As we ate, I started wondering which Haagen Daz flavors the supermarket might have, and what I might choose. My blissful thoughts were interrupted by Singapore girl translating for Mr. Lu.

“Mr. Lu would like to take you both to the train station where our group is volunteering. Would you like to go?” I tried to quickly think of a way to get out of it without being rude.

“Fuck no. This is our day off. Why the fuck would I want to go to a motherfucking train station? I’ve already told you that want ice cream and a massage and a nap” is what I wanted to say. Instead, I said, “We won’t stay long, will we? I still want to go to the supermarket and maybe get a massage. We need to rest this afternoon, too.”

“We won’t stay long.” She assured me. “We’ll stop in for a minute just to see.

We made the quick drive to the train station and AN HOUR AND A HALF

later we still found ourselves there. “Stopping in for a minute just to see” is apparently code for “we’re going to keep you here until you wish you were dead”. We stood around, doing nothing except taking pictures with volunteers. Then we were ushered outside into the rain to do more standing and more nothing.  After the train had come and gone, I started to become extremely agitated. Every time we expressed that we wanted to go, there was something we needed to stay “just a little longer” for. Mr Lu wanted us to stand by the entrance and help people with their bags. Mr. Lu wanted us to go out on the platform in the cold, rainy weather to help show people where to board the train (you board it near the doors). Mr. Lu wanted us to stay a bit longer for a television interview.

“I’m going back to the hotel” I finally told Ann. “Tell homeboy he can either take me, or I’m taking a taxi or walking”. I’d had enough. As I stormed out of the station with Ann behind me, Mr. Lu quickly arranged someone to take us back to our hotel. He seemed upset that we didn’t want to be his prime circus act anymore. Regardless of how pissed he was, nobody was more angry than I was, going back to the room without ice cream. (In hindsight, I know this sounds ridiculous, but I was SO MAD). When we got back to the hotel I went to bed livid, hoping to nap my anger away.

This is just one example of the many frustrations Ann and I have dealt with so far. We have met A TON of extremely helpful volunteers, and a few who used us to push their own agenda or to look important. Yesterday we experienced our worst day so far. It ended with me bawling, curled up into a ball in my sleeping bag. But a while before that we were wet, cold and shit out of luck. After walking 26 kilometers in the rain, we arrived to a small town in the late afternoon. We were cold, I was soaking wet (my ‘waterproof’ jacket was made in China) and I had a blister on my toe that

made it nearly impossible to walk. We stopped at one hotel that wanted to overcharge us, so we decided to keep going. We stopped at another hotel where nobody was present. Weird. We decided on the third hotel and got all the way up to the room and began unpacking our things before being told that there wasn’t any heat or hot water. We got our money back and went back to the first hotel. The boss woman there had apparently changed her mind about wanting to host us, and told us the hotel was now full. Perfect. Defeated, we sat in a cold, concrete restaurant eating steaming noodles while we waited for a miracle. We even ran into a volunteer whom Ann had previously spoken to on the phone. We were sure he would help us. But After Ann asked him for help, he stood up in front of his table full of people and said, “Please call me if you have any difficulties” before turning his back to us.  

On the contrary, there are some great people who have helped astronomically. After the debacle with Mr. Lu, we hesitantly accepted a dinner invitation from a man and his wife who heard we were in the area and wanted to befriend us. They took us to the nicest restaurant in town and expressed how much they admired what we were doing. They were respectful of our time, asking humbly if we would mind stopping quickly to meet their children. It actually was a quick stop and their children were

lovely. They took us to a grocery store that didn’t have Haagen Daz, but it did have snacks and supplies for the road that the family insisted on paying for. These were lovely, respectful people. It’s true that you have to take the good with the bad. Sometimes I need help remembering that the good outweighs the bad, and that the bad days won’t last forever. We've just got to breathe through them.