火锅

I could begin by telling you about the most miserable and torturous 12-hour bus ride I've ever been on. Or I could skip that part and tell you about the most brilliant stars in the blackest sky I've ever had the joy to peruse. I was almost mesmerized enough to forget how icy every inch of me felt. And then I could tell you how when I arrived in Enshi I was greeted with a cup of hot chocolate and a heater for my feet, that took away every bit of complaint in my muscles. Good friends can make any hardship worth the pain. Then I would need to tell you about the wonderous Thanksgiving dinner we shared with Chinese and American friends. I can assure you that giving thanks for our daily bread has never meant so much as it does in this place. If you feel like you are not truly grateful for simple things like food, come live in China. As a matter of fact, come live in China anyway! The workers are few.

Nate took me and Craig exploring at a cave and waterfall on the outskirts of Enshi. We rented bicycles and rode them out on a country road. Aside from a few farmers and groups of giggling children, a sleepy ox was the only witness of our passage. What we found was what I had imagined Enshi was like in the beginning, a peaceful mountain town rather than a bustling metropolis. We went early enough to beat the crowds, and got to explore the mountain unhindered by staring eyes and yelled "Hello's." We got to see a grove of bamboo unrivaled by any I've yet seen, an old abandoned military outpost, water flowing out both sides of a mountain, and a view of the town from high above.

The 3½ days I was in Enshi passed entirely too quickly and I regretfully talked myself into going to the bus station at 2:30 yesterday. I bought a ticket for 3pm, which should have put me into Yichang at 1am today. Nate walked around with me and tried to help me find my bus, which was nowhere to be found. Finally we gave up and I went inside to sit and wait at 3:15, when we still couldn't find the fabled transportation. Thankfully I had bought some peanuts, oranges, and tea eggs to snack on while I rode. About 3:45 I started to get really curious about why my bus hadn't shown up yet and I went on a quest to try and find out. Keep in mind my Chinese is about as basic as you can get, and I could ask a question but not understand a word of the answer. After walking around trying to annoy all the people who worked there, a group of college students spotted me and took pity. They had come to see their friends off to Wuhan, and they helped translate my conversation with the workers of the bus station. Eventually we discovered the my bus was "broken" and I would have to wait a 'minute.' [I'll keep my opinions to myself about what the problem really was] To make a really long story someone shorter, I eventually got on a bus at 5, and we left somewhere closer to 6. It would be easy for me to complain about the fact that I had to wait over 2 hours longer than I was supposed to, had to pay 10 kuai extra to get on a sleeper bus that I didn't want to be on in the first place, and scrunch onto a bed that was too short for even me. But when I start to complain about that I feel pretty guilty. You see, there are some things that totally outweigh the negative. Three college students took an hour out of their day to help a foreigner too stupid to learn the native language. They carried my bag for me, gave me some of their oranges, and made sure I knew everything I needed to do. I don't know if you would find people like that in any other country. This is truly a wonderful place.

"Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being."
-Gandhi