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June 28, 2005 In December of 1997, on the train from Beijing to Hong Kong, where I was traveling in order to get another six-month Chinese visa, I met a good-looking Chinese lady named Yang Ming, with whom I struck it off very nicely. She said she'd like to learn English, so I spent much of our 30-hour ride teaching her basic English vocabulary, like greetings, numbers and pronouns. She was married to a Hong Kong publisher of art books, and she and her husband maintained apartments in both Hong Kong and Beijing. She told me that she could help me get an apartment in her building in Beijing, which would prove much cheaper than the hotel where I had told her I was living. However, she would be in Hong Kong for several weeks. I was to call her when she returned to Beijing in late January of 1998. And I did so. Yang Ming and her husband, whose name I've forgotten, came to my hotel room shortly thereafter, with another lady, Yang Xiaohui. Yang Xiaohui was around 40, fairly attractive, but not as nice-looking as Yang Ming. She managed a building on Jiugulou Dajie (Old Drum Tower Road), near the subway station of the same name, in Xicheng Qu, a district on the north side of Beijing, about 4 miles due north of Tiananmen Square. The apparent sameness of the two surnames, Yang, is deceptive; they were entirely different Chinese names, written with different characters. We all went together to Yang Xiaohui's building, where Yang Ming and her husband also lived, and they showed me a 4-room apartment for $213 a month, a good deal cheaper than my hotel room, so I agreed to take it, and I stayed there for 8 months. Yang Ming, the lady I met on the train, turned out to be somewhat featherbrained, though she was generous to a fault, doing me many kindnesses. However, her interest in learning English proved to be very short-lived. She was the kind of person that was always taking up fads and crazes and hobbies, and dropping them almost as fast. She was a Buddhist, the only person I met in China who professed a religion, but this was no more serious than if an American housewife, bored with washing dishes and doing laundry, decided suddenly to join the Rosicrucians or take up Scientology. So shortly after I moved into the building on Jiugulou Dajie, Yang Ming and I started drifting apart. Yang Xiaohui, though, turned out to be a real gem. The building that she managed was owned by the government she said, but I don't know the exact nature of her position as the manageress. She had an apartment much like mine, where she lived with her sister of about the same age, also an attractive lady, who functioned as a high-school teacher. Neither spoke English. Yang Xiaohui had no religious views whatsoever, but she was as good as gold, always cheerful and friendly, honest and dependable as can be, and also very handy and practical-minded. As the manageress of a building with 100 apartments, she could fix a lock or a washing machine in nothing flat, and of course she knew where to get the workmen to do the things that she herself could not do. You could ring her doorbell almost anytime in the day or at night, and she'd answer merrily, without showing the least sign of annoyance. Originally, she had explained that I was not really supposed to live in her building, because it was reserved for Chinese citizens, but that she did not foresee a problem, unless one of the other tenants informed. Well, one of the other tenants did inform, so Yang Xiaohui got a police lieutenant friend of hers to issue me a residence permit, which of course was just a personal favor to which I wasn't really entitled. But we had to go to the police station twice, and I'm sure she had other things to do, so I was grateful. Once I casually remarked to her that jeans were awfully expensive at Baisheng and the other department stores around Beijing, so one day, she led me on the bus to an open-air marketplace for clothes, near Beijing Zoo. This was a huge place, where I found a pair of jeans for 50 yuan, about $6, and I was delighted, but Yang Xiaohui got in there and bargained the vendor down to 40, so I got them for $5 instead. We stopped at a Chinese restaurant on the way home. This restaurant was next to a Kendeji (Kentucky Fried Chicken), but Yang Xiaohui seemed to be averse to eating there, which was fine with me, though I like fried chicken too. On another occasion I complained to her that Hao Linju (Good Neighbor), the Chinese answer to 7-11, Circle K or White Hen Pantry, did not have milk. I guess Chinese do not look upon milk as a dietary basic in the same way some Americans do. Anyway, a couple of days later, Yang Xiaohui and I went, arm in arm, to a nearby farmers' market, where tons of fresh produce were on sale. There I was able to get milk, packaged in hermetically-sealed plastic envelopes in 200 milligram quantities that came to about 40 cents a quart. Yang Xiaohui, very seriously inspecting the produce, bought some yams and other edibles. We also went over to an elegant art store called White Peacock, but didn't buy anything. When the time came for me to get a third six-month visa, Yang Xiaohui also conducted me to the Immigration Bureau near Tiananmen Square. She was always taking me somewhere. Anyway, I had no luck there, so I had to go again to Hong Kong, and when I returned I made sure I had some presents for her. The thought passed my mind that it would be great to have a girlfriend like Yang Xiaohui, but I had nothing to offer her. Sure, I had some money in my pocket, but I had no house or business back in the US, and I wouldn't have wanted to give a false impression, so I abandoned the girlfriend idea. It turned out, however, that Yang Xiaohui already had a boyfriend, Wen Xiansheng, Mr. Wen--I don't remember his given name--or perhaps she'd just met him while I was living in her building. He was a fairly well-off retired military man from Taiwan, and, of course, perfect for Yang Xiaohui. In September of 1998, immediately as I returned to Beijing from a tour of Central Asia, Yang Xiaohui and Wen Xiansheng told me they were on their way to Dalian, a city in Liaoning Province, and invited me to join them. I did join them, but I'll describe that little outing in another article some day. Though I hate television, I had bought a television set in China so I could use it to practise listening to spoken Chinese. When I left China, I gave the TV set to Yang Xiaohui, who, of course, already had another one, but I'm sure she managed to do something with it. As for Yang Ming, the lady I'd met on the train, she and her husband had bought a house east of Beijing. We parted a little coolly. Yang Ming would always say she'd come over at such-and-such time, and then not show. Still she did me many favors and bought me several presents. Basically, I got far better treatment from Chinese ladies than a Chinese person could expect to get from American ladies. I wonder why that is. If anyone knows, please explain it to me. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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