China Trip

It has been a few months since returned from a great trip to China.  People keep asking me; “how was the trip?” or; “what was the most memorable part of the trip?” or similar questions.  Part of the problem was a month in China, much of it in very rural and ancient villages, has so many experiences that it is difficult to sort through to find the “highlights.”  A larger, and more interesting, problem is that what was “memorable” seems to be shifting with time.  For example, at the time one of the topics high in my consciousness was how to get through the sanitation problems without getting violently ill.  I got ill twice while on the trip, so obviously I wasn’t completely successful with that.  Everywhere that we went the lack of “adequate” sanitation was very evident.  However, on retrospect that was a nuisance, but not really a big deal.  
From the prospective of three months, the things that I most remember about rural China are the wonderful smiles and apparent happiness of the folks that we encountered.  I have never seen a group of people that appear to live in such peace and contentment. Sure, they have lots of problems and have a lot to complain about, but those didn’t seem to impact their inner joy.  It was amazing to me to watch people doing the hardest labor I could image, in some of the most primitive and trying conditions, but apparently in complete contentment.  I guess I would have to say that the beauty of the people is first on my list of memories.  The second has to be the food.  I really enjoyed eating there, no matter where I was.  I fully expected to have a “problem” with the food and to miss my American food.  However, I every meal was wonderful and I never missed anything.  In fact, when I finally had to come back and eat my normal food it was with a kind of distaste.  I still have that feeling.  I can eat American food without a problem, but I really miss the food from the rural villages and the street merchants.
The scariest experience, that made me search deeply into myself to shift my prospective of the world and life, was walking across the streets in Hanoi.  The first time I encountered the requirement to do that I almost gave up and decided that I would be limited to the block I was in rather than cross the street.  The problem started with streets that were full of traffic of all kinds.  I mean full, not just busy.  There is a constant flow of traffic (cars, trucks, bicycles, motorcycles, scooters, pedicycles, animal drawn carts, people carrying things on a stick over their shoulder,  you name it, it is in the mix).  Most of the traffic travels on the right hand side of the road, maybe in the 80-90% range, but that leaves quite a few going against the traffic (it is not obvious how they manage that feat).  The streets are filled from sidewalk-to-sidewalk, with seldom more than 18 inches or so between the vehicles in any direction. 15 or 20 vehicles side-by-side across the street seemed about normal (obviously, most of them were motor cycles of one kind or another). On top of that there are no stop signs or other means for creating a break in the flow.  Luckily, the traffic was fairly slow, only 20-25 mph I would guess.
My first instinct was to stand on the sidewalk and wait for a break to cross in.  It quickly became apparent that I could stand there for days and never get that opportunity.  Luckily, the friend that I was with knew the “trick” (if you could call it such a thing).  He said you just walk into the street, but don’t stop or change pace!  What a great trick, nothing to it.  All you have to do is step directly in front of a dozen or so vehicles and pretend that you are invincible.   While I was trying to come to grips with that concept, I noticed that he was already standing on the other side of the street waiting for me.  Apparently it had worked.  So….. I stepped off of the curb and walked with as much dignity as I could to the other side.  IT WORKED!  I was still alive.  All that it required was coming to the complete and immediate decision that this was a good day to die.  I found that I was never quite as relaxed with the approach as he was.  He would step into the smallest of spaces to begin the crossing.  I didn’t have that kind of nerve, I always had to wait until a space come up that was big enough to get my foot on the ground, usually about three feet of space.  Sometimes this took awhile, but it helped me to feel “safe” in the insanity of the situation. Once in the midst of the traffic I felt completely safe.  All of the traffic just flows around you, kind of like a school of fish flowing around you when swimming.  As long as you are constant and steady, they can all miss you.  I can see why you don’t want to stop though, because three or four vehicles will be aiming for the space that you are vacating.
Only once did I actually let out a scream in trying to cross.  It happened at an intersection near downtown Hanoi that had stop lights and a crossing zone.  It was a four lane, one-way street crossing a four lane, two-way street.  I came to the intersection and found the amazing experience of an empty crossing zone, backing up a complete block FULL of vehicles ready to cross.  I don’t know how many were there, but it is safe to say there were hundreds waiting there, all ready to go when the light changed.  I hadn’t gotten used to the idea that the signals worked differently at every corner, so I mis-guessed what the lights meant.  I got about a third of the way across, and the light changed – instantly releasing the entire batch of vehicles toward me. Having no need to allow space between vehicles, they didn’t start up one at a time like we do.  They all started at the same time with a roar, creating a slug of traffic headed directly at me.  That caused me to scream in panic.  It also caused a cute girl on a scooter to burst out in laughter as she whizzed by me. Luckily, I had practiced the art of walking calmly into the oncoming stream of traffic, and I made it safely across.  After that, I was much more careful to wait and figure out what each signal was going to do before crossing in front of the waiting horde.

Trip planning

My wife and I have signed up for a trip to Mexico in a couple of months. We are going to visit some Mexican "power places" with don Miguel Ruiz (the author of "The Four Agreements" and other books) and his son. It should be an interesting trip. I have done quite a bit of this sort of exploration over my life, but this will be my wife's first organized activity with a Toltec nagual to learn something of the spirituality of the ancient Toltecs in Mexico.

The last trip I took to Mexico with don Miguel was to Teotihuacan. It turned out to be full of wonderful magic that continues to influence my life. If all goes well, this will be similar - but in a different place and time so it will undoubtedly be quite different.