To the Hills

Mr. Li had boasted many times about the comforts of his van. He assured me that today it would be particularly pleasurable as I had the whole back seat to myself. Through no design of the manufacturer, the back seat did offer some comfort. The metal core of the seats was broken in several places, and the surrounding foam had grown soft, giving the passenger the sensation of riding on a rocking waterbed. "The whole back seat"—technically speaking—offered three seats, but gaping holes in the floorboard rendered the side seats defunct. It was lucky too, since only on the remaining center seat could the passenger hope to slide forward between the front seats (instead of into them) in the highly-likely event of a sudden stop.

Mr. Huang—the driver—had drifted into the left lane. As an oncoming car approached us, it moved gradually toward the center and then toward our far right. Both vehicles passed each other on the left side of the road. Turning my head into the muddy back window, I did not see the car return to the proper side of the road. Nor did we.

We could not be far from Dayao, but I did not recognize these roads at all. Mr. Huang and Mr. Li did not seem to recognize them either, and I tried to overhear their conversation as they argued in rapid dialect about directions. Mr. Huang (seemingly in defiance of Mr. Li's directions) veered to the right and onto a dirt road. It rose quickly as we approached the hills, and its width shrunk with altitude. Soon it seemed the van would not fit at all. Mr. Huang seemed to realize this, and lifted the emergency brake halfway up the hill. Turning off the engine, he let the van roll backwards. Slamming the other brake to the floor, we veered off onto the grass, and accelerated upward.

This section of road—perhaps because there was no road at all—was far steeper. The engine and Mr. Li both screamed as the van threatened to die. Unbothered, Mr. Huang gradually downshifted until we were climbing in first gear. The road flattened suddenly, and the van lumbered forward, splashing mud in all directions, the last remaining puddles of the night's rain.

Several miles and close calls later, we seemed no nearer to our destination. We were nowhere I had ever been—or anywhere that Mr. Li or Mr. Huang intended to be. We had passed a few fallen scarecrows and abandoned homes a while back. We had seen people too, though they had been scare, mostly farmers trudging through the mud as they pushed their oxen through the wet fields. The road—if that was indeed what it was--had not been driven on for a long time.

Homes had grown scare too. There were a few graineries, and other buildings that had fallen into utter desuetude. Then for the better part of an hour there were no buildings at all, until we espied a small farm house on a hill off to our right. Mr. Huang drove toward it. I did not have to ask to know he was looking for directions.

A man sat on a chair along the dusty path before the house. He held a baby as young as he was old, and both bore the signs of having been recently asleep. The afternoon sun was hotter today than it had been for months, and man and baby had meant to drift away on the hazy thoughts the sun engenders.

Mr. Li stepped out of the car. Through the window shield, I could hear the murmur of Mr. Li's voice, but when the old man spoke I heard nothing at all. Sensing the man was deaf, Mr. Li's voice grew louder with each word, yet the old man's voice remained soft, his sentences brief.

Mr. Li returned to the car. "What did he say?" I asked.

"Nothing I could understand," said Mr. Li tartly.

We began to pull away, but the old man stood up. Still holding the child, he motioned to a metal pot—blotched and peeling—on an adjacent table. We had been asked to tea.

The tea had been heated long ago, but the heat of the afternoon sun had kept it warm enough. The baby and the old man were both silent as we drank. I was unsure if it was the man's age or the few hours of aimless driving that had made him indecipherable to us. Perhaps it was some of both; we were a long way from Dayao, up in the hills where a dialect from a distant town would have been of little use.

The three of us talked for a while together, mostly about the temple we had been looking for, and that Mr. Li and Mr. Huang wished to look no longer. The temple was for another day, they said. They had driven long enough, and could scarecly remember the way back to Dayao let alone to a temple they had not visited since their youth. The man and baby were silent throughout the conversation; yet their eyes rested on us, the ears of the baby resting on our every word.

Who Will Sweep Their Graves?

The characters were hard to discern. Faded, obscure, and stylized, I was not expected to understand them. But I was supposed to stare for a while, and meditate on the ancient stone block on which they were written. One character--larger than the rest--bore the surname Li. Beside was a date in the old agricultural calendar which I had never successfully learned to read.

"How old are these graves?" I asked my friend.

"A few hundred years old I think," He Jiang replied solemnly, "though this stone isn't so old as that. It's relatively new I think."

"New?" I exclaimed, brushing my hand against the moss. "How old is it?"

He leaned in close to the stone and examined the date, feeling the characters as though they were braille.

"I don't know," he concluded after a moment. "It's too hard to read. Someone here must know." He looked around hopefully at the scores of people crowded around us. A handful were watching us talk, and the rest were busy sweeping, weaving about two piles of earth with long brooms that scratched the cement like wooden spiders. These two mounds were the real graves; the stone block merely marked them.

An old man stood feebly some way off. He rested one arm against the hill and the other against a crooked cane. His arms shook as he walked toward us. He paused for a moment, regained his breath, and then withdrew two cigarettes for Jiang and I. I politely refused while he and Jiang puffed in silence.

Now that he was near, I wondered how old the man must be. His chin was shrivelled and his eyes cataractous, but his grip on the cane was firm. When he lifted a hand to remove his cigarette, he did so with truculence, as though daring old age to deny him his last remaining pleasure.

When he finally spoke, he spoke quietly, pausing occasionally to find either his breath or the words to continue. Minutes were punctuated with a solemn puff on his ashy cigarette.

I could tell that even Jiang--a Dayao native--was struggling to understand the old man, but he nodded politely all the same, and after a few minutes turned to me, and said in Mandarin, "He asks if you know who these people are." He pointed to the two mounds of earth encircled by men and brooms.

I shook my head. No one had said anything about the names of these people, and I had believed it was a gap in conversation I was not intended to fill.

"He says their names have been lost, but that they are very ancient ancestors of Dayao. Most of us here are still related to them somehow." He paused and added silently, "Though of course you're not." I thought this last phrase was Jiang's own, until I saw the old man's wrinkles twist into a smile. He was evidently proud of his little joke. I smiled in return.

"He wants to know where you're from, and if people in your country are sweeping tombs today."

I turned to the old man, and spoke slowly and clearly so that he might understand. "I'm American, and in my country we do not have Tomb Sweeping Day. This is my first time."

The man looked confused, and I understand his next sentence before Jiang translated it: "But then who will sweep their graves?"

In truth, I had never thought about this. I had always imagined a grave as an end in itself, the end of a life. It was the life that was to be celebrated, not the tomb. A life looked nothing like a tomb anyway--nothing about a life is cold, flat, or inconstant like a stone is. But as I looked at the men and their brooms, I knew they did not come to respect a stone; they came to remember. They came to remember what hundreds of years and thousands of busy days might make anyone forget--where they had come from and where they were returning to.

No one could read the date on the block and no one could remember the names of the people it commemorated. But that didn't matter. Sweeping a tomb--like a tomb itself--is not for the dead, but the living. As the men return with their brooms each year, they know they too will be remembered--even after their names are mute on every tongue and weathered from every stone.

"How is it," he said, "That you do not sweep your tombs?"

Mad Dogs and Drivers

My noodles slipping through my shaking chopsticks, I realized I could not go back as I had come. Undoubtedly it would still be there, baring its teeth and biding its time. Though I had not seen the thing clearly in the darkness, in the light of the night café I could imagine it perfectly--with dark, protuberant eyes and yellowing teeth.

Of course I had not actually seen these things, because one could not see anything on the long, uneven street that connected the high school with Dayao proper. There were no streetlights and no cars. Careful attention to the road's many bumps by day was the only way to avoid them by night. But that night I had seen something, or the shape of something, as it moved across the road with an unmistakably canine gait and angry growl.

Though a lifelong dog lover, the stray dogs of Dayao had done little to reciprocate the affection. Having grown accustomed to the strange animosity these dogs bore me, I found little joy in meeting a large and angry one on a dark, deserted street.

As the dog came steadily nearer, I smelt its rank breath and heard again a low growl. Only its silhouette was visible, slowly circling me. Though my impulse was to run, experience with stray dogs told me to remain still. Eventually, it had to go away. Staring ahead, I saw the light of the night café in the distance. I could no longer see the dog, and assumed it must be behind me.

A motor taxi approached. Its light was dim--almost burned out--but it must have been strong enough to see the dog and I, for it rumbled to halt in front of me.

"That dog's mad," the driver said. It was not the voice of encouragement or assistance. His tone was matter-of-fact, as though he had just noted the night was dark.

"Can you help me?" I asked, my voice tremulous. "Can you scare the dog away with the light?"

"The dog's gone," the man noted. "It just ran away. Get going."

I didn't need telling twice. I walked as quickly as I could without drawing attention to myself, and collapsed in the night cafe. A frequent customer, the vendor brought me a bowl of noodles and asked no questions. I ate slowly, reflecting, wondering if the dog was mad or I was mad for walking down a dark road. Then I recalled that dogs are usually hunted at night anyway. He had probably been as terrified as I was.

I finished my noodles and left a wrinkled five yuan bill on the table. It was late--very late by Dayao standards--and there were no motor taxis. I would have to walk.

I crossed the street and peered down the long road. The light of the high school was barely visible in the distance. I wondered if the dog was still prowling somewhere in the darkness.

A red car rolled slowly down the main road, stopping at the intersection with the dark street. I thought--briefly--that I might be blocking the car, but realized I was not on the road and had never known a car to stop for pedestrians anyway. The car then inched forward, and I saw a head emerge from the driver's seat, staring at me as the car moved onto the curb.

I was used to staring in Dayao, but this was absurd. The driver seemed to forget that he was driving at all, and I half expected the car to collide with a building before he audibly pulled the emergency brake. A man in the passenger's seat lean over the driver and ask excitedly, "Where are you from?"

Before I answered--before I endured the gasps and the awkward questions--I knew I'd found a way to get by that dog. The car backed out of the curb, and promptly stalled in the middle of the intersection. The few cars remaining at that hour were honking impatiently, yet neither of the men seemed to hear. "We'll give you a ride!" yelled the passenger as the car nearly side-swiped the night cafe.

Just your luck, I thought to myself, as I stared into the lair of the mad dog, and again at the two men who seemed unable to handle a gearshift. "Hurry up!" smiled the driver. I sighed; there was no other way.

The car moved no more quickly down the long dark road than it had on the main road, as neither man was anxious to let me go. It seemed they hadn't had this much fun in years; while the passenger descanted on the weather, the driver spoke at length about the pitiful roads in Dayao, and that I shouldn't judge a place by its infrustructure, but rather by its people. As if to demonstrate, the driver took a bottle of baijiu from his bag and shoved it into my hand. "Drink!" he chortled. "Yes, drink!" repeated his friend. I doubted I had ever seen anyone so happy.

I politely took a sip of the baijiu, and tried to turn my grimace into a smile. It tasted like lighter fluid.

"Good, no?" said the passenger smiling. "It's not that Jiangxi stuff, no! This is authentic Hunanese baijiu!"

Still trying not to gag, I mumbled something polite about the flavor and returned the bottle. The passenger then took a drink as well, and smiling broadly, he told me they had been saving the bottle for a special occasion like this. I pretended not to notice that the bottle top had already been broken.

We were now parked in front of the school gate, and every time I moved toward the door, one of the men would hold my arm and pull me back into the seat. "Do all Americans have noses like yours?" asked the passenger in a genuine tone of curiosity. "Is it true that Americans don't drink baijiu?" the driver asked, "or is that just a terrible rumor?"

It seemed I would never leave.

Then slowly the gate opened, and the night guard stepped out into the pavement. "Hurry up and get inside," he said impatiently. "That damn dog is about again." He looked frightened at the mere thought.

I thanked the two men again, politely refused another round of baijiu, and scanning my surroundings for the mad dog, passed through the school gate.

Black Friday

Dayao, Hunan, China

Still half asleep, I traipsed down the dark staircase and across the school campus. I noted a stillness in the air that I had never associated with Dayao; mornings were usually marked with a stray firework or the frantic bay of some animal making a break for freedom. The school, too, usually echoed with a chorus of student voices or the bellow of conversations as teachers paced the stairs between their classes.

But that morning those same stairs were vacant, and I knew before I'd made it to the first landing that the schedule had changed sometime in the early morning hours, and--yet again--no one had told me. Sure enough, a glance into the nearest classroom showed sixty students contorted over a ream of papers, tousling a spare hand through their hair. Another test day.

I walked up another flight of stairs to the teachers' office to learn the details of the schedule change. A geography teacher, whom I always saw in the office but never in a classroom, greeted me sleepily, and confessed he hadn't the slightest idea how long the test would last. He predicted at least through the morning. Possibly through tomorrow. He sounded like a Camus protagonist.

I sat down at a desk and waited for someone better informed. I sighed and shut my eyes for a moment. If the students were testing all morning, then I can return to bed, I thought. But the image of my students' frightened faces and furrowed brows passed through my head, and I felt guilty. Whether I returned to sleep or not, at least I didn't have to take a test.

A minute later, six male teachers, protected against from the morning cool by thick black jackets, talking over each other loudly, gathered around a laptop. I walked over to them, figuring that between the six of them they could deduce whether I could return to bed or not. I began to speak, but was interrupted by loud--and distinctly bad--music erupting from the laptop.

It took me a minute to recognize the ungainly voice of Rebecca Black. If I hadn't been introduced to the youtube sensation two weeks prior while visiting a friend, I wouldn't have known about the noisome music video making viral ripples throughout the Western world, rivaling sneezing mice and baboon farts as the worst internet video of all time. No one, I thought, could take this video seriously.

Shocked to hear her infamy had spread to China--and that her video was accessible without the censored youtube--I stood near the teachers awkwardly, wanting to make some comment so that the teachers would understand this was not a fair representation of American youth. We might be more cosseted than most, but not everyone's parents paid a few grand so their teen daughter could pollute the internet with a music video.

This was the third time I had seen "Friday", and if it hadn't been for the seconds ticking off on the bottom of the screen, I would have sworn it was the longest. I held my breath about halfway through as the video approached its nadir of shoddiness. As Rebecca sang about the days of the week (or, at least, Thursday through Sunday), I prepared to interrupt the video with an explanation I'd been working out in my head since the video began. I moved to speak, and then noticed the teachers' heads moving in what was unmistakably a head bob.

The second part of the video felt far faster, and at its end the teachers' nodded quickly in approval. "Hao! Hao!" a few said. "Very good!" I was then informed that one of the teachers had "discovered" the video the other day and wanted to use the morning test as an opportunity to show it to others.

"What a great song," said a teacher whom I didn't know well. "It's great you're teaching our students English so that they can learn songs like this." I swallowed my prepared words (and my pride), and muttered a polite thanks. "You should learn to sing this song at karaoke," said another. "It'd be a hit."

I watched in horror as the sitting teacher moved the cursor back to the beginning of the song. "Excuse me," I spoke over the opening notes, "When do regular classes start again?" The sitting teacher looked taken aback that I would interrupt the video over something so trivial as the schedule. "The test lasts two days," he said. "You needn't teach today or tomorrow."

"Thank you," I said sincerely, though I don't think he heard. I sauntered toward the door, and after a backward glance at bobbing heads, I left the office and returned to bed.

Dark Beer and Prawns

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Around nine at night, I was struck with an awesome idea for a short story. The plot was vague but the characters were clear enough, and surely their conversations would build into a satisfying story. A night cafe across the street boasted dark beer and prawns. Missing the former through geography and the latter by my own choice, I ordered a beer and began to write.

An IT genius had just met a scientist whose life he'd been commissioned to destroy. The scientist didn't know it, but the IT genius' pocket held a flash-drive that could eradicate decades of groundbreaking work. The scientist began to tell the IT genius all about his work, and the IT genius began to doubt his own. My beer came, and for a moment my characters began to edge on something almost interesting. Then their conversation began to wane, and--turning over onto a fourth page--I realized that nothing on the past three were worth the ink that had written it. I closed my notebook and took a sip of beer, trying to clear my mind. Perhaps there was a way to salvage this yet.

"Excuse me?" asked a voice from the table to my left. "What should I order? This is my first time in East Asia, and the food is...strange." His voice had a faint accent, but it was clear he spoke English well. Hiding behind sunglasses and a large fanny pack, I noted he didn't travel much.

I took the menu from his table and began to thumb through it. No wonder the poor man was confused. The menu was trilingual, not in that everything was labeled in three languages, but that food items were labeled in either Malay, Tamil, or a vaguely comprehensible version of English. Sometimes a picture would appear instead of words. Staring into the void of the faded pictures, I put the menu down, and nodded toward the sign at the entrance. "Have you ever had prawns?" I asked.

"Prawns?"

"Prawns. They're like shrimp. Big shrimp, I think." I paused and confessed, "Actually I'm not entirely sure what a prawn is. Seafood anyway."

"I see," he said. The waitress appeared and he ordered spicy prawns. He also ordered another beer. Then he said in a single breath, "When in Rome do as the Romans do, and I never disliked seafood. So where are you from then?"

"America. Michigan."

"Ann Arbor?"

"No, but I know a lot of people who went to school there."

"Good school," he interjected.

"Yes," I confirmed. I thought to ask, "Did you go to school there?"

"Michigan? Heavens, no! I was studying in Isfahan. But I'm from Shiraz."

"Shiraz? You're Iranian?"

"Yes, but the province is better than the wine, trust me. Have you ever been?"

"No, I--"

"It's a shame you should go," he interjected again.

"I would like to, but the visa..."

"Yeah, don't tell me. My dad's in Houston now, and I can't get a visa to the United States."

"Sorry about that," I said solemnly.

"It's not your fault."

There was a pregnant pause. "Why don't you sit at my table?" I asked. My table was better located next to the night market, which--apart from to write bad fiction and eat prawns--was why someone would choose to sit in the restaurant at all. He moved over to my table, leaving an empty bottle of beer behind him. "Are you traveling alone?" I asked.

"Well, yes and no. I'm traveling with my mother, but she's been ill and in the hotel room for three days now."

"I'm sorry. I hope she feels better soon."

"You apologize too much," he said. "You're not response for Iranian-American tensions or my mother's health." He took a sip of his beer. "Still, thank you."

I rarely find myself with nothing to say, but at the moment I had nothing. I awkwardly sipped my beer again. "I'm going to Serawat tomorrow," he said quite suddenly.

"Serawat? I hear it's beautiful. I won't have time to go there, but I hope you enjoy it all the same."

"I hope so too," he said. "I'll be there for a year."

"Are you working?" I asked.

"No, studying. My friends all think I'm crazy. No one's heard of the university, let alone Serawat."

"What are you studying?"

"IT."

For a fleeting second, I thought about mentioning my aborted story, then realized that it was neither appropriate nor relevant. I tried to think of something that was appropriate, and couldn't think of anything that fit with an Iranian studying IT in Serawat and drinking beer in Kuala Lumpur.

"Why did you choose Serawat?"

He smiled glumly. "It was far from home. And I needed a change of scenery. I figured a Muslim country would be an easy first step." He instinctively looked at his beer. "Well, sort of Muslim country anyway," he sighed. "You probably think I'm a bad Muslim for drinking." He stared at me, expecting an answer I could not discern.

"Not at all."

"Well, I'm not. I'm not supposed to drink, I know. But God is ever returning and most merciful. That seems to be our relationship really. I mess up and he returns anyway." His voice was flat, but I heard the unmistakable ring of humor. "I bet you've never seen a Muslim drink before," he continued.

"No, I've seen it a fair few times," I replied, uncertain where this was going.

"Where." He did not accent the word as a question.

"A few places."

"Where's that?"

"Jordan, mostly," I said. "I studied there for a while. Though I had Muslim friends in the States too."

"Jordanians. They hate Iranians, you know."

I sighed and sipped my beer again. "I don't think think the Jordanians really hate anyone. There are some misunderstandings, sure."

"Like what?"

"Political rhetoric engenders social misunderstanding," I said. Then I blinked, trying to understand my own words. Unaccustomed to speaking unadulterated English, I was growing unpleasantly used to saying such sentences.

"What does that mean?" he asked.

"I have no idea," I laughed.

We talked for a while, and I introduced myself as much as anyone can over a glass of beer. I told him I was teaching English in rural China, satisfied in most ways but not in others, and that the New Year's break had allowed me the much needed opportunity to travel again. "Do you like traveling?" I asked him.

"It's all right. Apart from the sick mother and the strange food it's been a good experience," he said. He sounded sincere. "I have to admit though, I'm a bit terrified."

"Terrified?"

"Yeah. You see, I've never travelled before. And now I'm committing to live in Serawat, and almost no one travels there."

I had to admit I would be terrified too. I tried to comfort him by telling him that Serawat was supposed to be a very lovely place, and that any travel experience is really more what you make of the place than what the place offers you. I wasn't sure if I was being helpful or pontificating.

Our conversation turned to other topics, nothing profound, and yet nothing dull either. Yet such conversations are soothing for strangers who are far from home without a clear idea what the immediate future will bring. It was good simply to share company and fears, and a tall glass of dark beer.

"You know," he said. "I should probably return to the hotel. I made it seem like I'd make a quick trip down here, and I've been here a while."

"Of course," I nodded. I doubted there had been such a time limit on his dinner, but I agreed that our conversation was over, and we were both satisfied. He got up to leave. "Good luck in Serawat," I said.

"Thank you. Where was it you said you'd be next year?"

"I have no idea. It changes every few minutes, so it's not really relevant now."

He looked slightly confused, but nodded politely. "Well you said it's all what you make it."

"True. But at this point it's just making it happen."

"It'll come together," he said. "I didn't know I was going to be in Malaysia until a few weeks ago. And look how it turned out? Or at least, I hope it turns out..."

I smiled. "I'm sure it will." I stood up and shook his hand. "It's been a pleasure meeting you," I said. He responded with similar pleasantries, and I watched as he and his fanny pack disappeared into the night market. I returned the notebook I had closed in anger a few minutes before. I happily drew squiggly lines through the first four pages, and began afresh.

Colonial Baggage

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

It was getting dark, and the picture wasn't coming out at all. I knelt down closer to the ground and brought the crudely written political graffiti squarely within the camera lens.

"Why are you taking a picture at that angle?" said a voice to my right. "You can see the bridge much better from the other side."

"Oh, yes," I stammered, feigning intense interest in the bridge itself, and not the distasteful message written on it.

"Where are you from?" asked the man. He leaned back against the bridge and set his bag on the ground. He intended to talk.

"The States..."

"The States? There are fifty of them. Which one?"

"Michigan."

"Oh, I know people from Indiana," he smiled.

I smiled back and almost said "I do too" before I realized he might think I was mocking him. I fumbled for something to say about Indiana when my thoughts were truncated.

"So tell me. There are nearly two hundred countries on this planet. Why did you come to mine? Why choose Malaysia?"

This was a very fair question, but not so very easy to answer. An exceedingly cheap ticket to Kuala Lumpur didn't seem like a satisfying answer, and--as I reflected on it--it wasn't merely the bargain flight that had brought me here.

"I've been living in China, and I was interested in seeing other aspects of Asian culture."

I heard the stupidity of my comment as I was saying it, but hadn't been wise enough to abort my words before they were finished.

"Asian culture? There is no 'Asian culture.' "

I tried to refine what I said ("I meant see a different Asian culture."), but the man didn't seem to hear.

"Do you think Malaysian and Chinese cultures are similar, and that their intersection is 'Asian?' "

He was right to call me out, of course, but I really thought he was being a bit unfair. I was tired from the flight and confused by the circumstances, and every thought that went through my head sounded dull and problematic. Thankfully my new friend began talking again. "What do you do in China? Business?"

"No...I teach. English."

"Oh. A good salary I presume?"

"Not really. I'm a volunteer technically."

"A volunteer? Now that's just dumb." Again, I had no idea what to say. I stammered out a few sentences in an abject tone. "Why do you people do that?" he continued. "Do you think we can't learn English without you?"

I had no idea how to answer him, and tried my stab at a few diplomatic words. "I just figured its sort of a valuable skill, and it feels wrong for me to make much money off a skill I have by accident of birth."

"That's very noble," he lamented.

I muttered a thanks, unsure if being "noble" was anything to be thankful for.

"You really should have learned something about Asia before you came here. You just had a vision, I'll bet. A dream. You wanted to come to Asia to help out. Be altruistic. Maybe learn something about 'Asia' while you're here. Well, maybe you should have learned something before you came."

I really thought he was being unfair, but kept enough composure to ask, "I'm sorry, what is it I should have learned?"

"You teach English, so you should have learned something about English. You have no idea what English is. So tell me, what is English?"

What is English? I had never met someone who had asked so many difficult questions so quickly. I was beginning to assume that most of his difficult questions were rhetorical, and I waited awkwardly for him to continue talking. He didn't.

"English? English is the fourth largest language in the world--in terms of native speakers. It's the language of Shakespeare, and of my parents and grandparents. It's the de-facto language of international communication..." I listed a few other things even dumber than these and the man listened politely.

"All very true. Let me add something to your list. English is status."

"Status?"

"Yes. Most people here don't learn English as a means of communication. They learn it because it's cool. It's chique. Everyone here wants to be just like goddamn Madonna or fucking Leo. They want to move to Los Angeles and make it big. They want to leave the country that's been there ancestral home forever and immerse themselves in your culture."

I had to admit there was a softened form of his argument I agreed with, and I conceded that I had met people who wanted to learn English with the express purpose of leaving China. "But I really think most of my students are very proud of being Chinese," I argued, "And--whether they know English or a dozen other languages--they don't want to leave China and certainly don't want to be from anywhere else."

"I agree with you that they might not want to be from anywhere else. You have to understand that English means something here that it doesn't mean anywhere else."

"I don't follow at all," I sighed.

"Of course you don't. You're American." Then he added, with no pause, "Will you get tea with me?"

We walked over the bridge I had been pretending to photograph and turned down a side-street. He said there was a quiet place at the end of the road that the tourists never go. The tea was cheap, he said, and good. We took a seat a booth and each ordered a tea. We quietly sipped for a moment, and began again.

"So you're saying that people in Asia should not learn English?" I said, still genuinely confused.

"How's my English?" he asked hostilely.

"As good as mine," I whimpered, realizing I had--not for the first time in that conversation--said entirely the wrong thing.

"As an American you should know how difficult it is to speak another language well. I wouldn't speak English like this unless I thought it a wise investment of my time." He smiled. "Of course Malaysians should learn English. But it's the reasons why they learn English that I'm concerned about." He paused for a moment. "Americans come to Malaysia and go home saying that Malaysians are so nice. They like how we smile. They like how we laugh at the Americans' jokes. They like it because they feel so 'welcome' here. They like how they can be rude slobs and say terrible things but the people here will still treat them so well. They like a country they can visit and feel like they're not even in a country, but some sort of imaginary world in which their actions have no social consequences."

"What do you mean?" I said.

"Americans tell me about it all the time. They talk about how Malaysians are always treating them; always picking up the bill. Americans don't have to worry about a goddamned thing. No one bothers to learn Malay. I mean nobody. Even the American businessmen who live here for years can't speak a damn word of it. Tourists never try."

"I ordered tea," I offered.

"You tried to order tea," he snapped. "Would you like to have this conversation in Malay?"

"Well no..."

"Right. So my point is that Americans have successfully colonized Malaysia even though we live in a postcolonial world. I don't even want to talk about economics. I want to talk about cultural colonization. Can you name one Malaysian director? One Malaysian poet, writer, or pop star? How many Americans do you think everyone outside on that street can name?"

"But you can't divide economics and culture," I said. "It's through America's economic prowess that it's successfully exported its culture."

"Don't just blame yourself," he said. "We're responsible for it too. We could just say to hell with it all and just close our borders but we haven't done that."

Not knowing enough about the situation to speak, I opted to say nothing at all for a long while. Then I said, "You said earlier that there are good reasons to learn English, reasons apart from to gain status and to self-colonize. What are those?"

"Oh," he smiled. "Where there's only one really."

"Yes?" I asked.

"To tell you everything I just said. I don't care how white you are or what your native language is. I don't care if you have money, if look like an American movie-star or happen to be one. You have colonial baggage in my country and I don't expect you to forget it."

I picked up the bill.

Westward Leading, Still Proceeding

Changsha, Hunan, China

I woke up to knocking on both sides of my body. To my right, a thin finger pecked incessantly on the frozen window, precipitating a headache for my head that rested on it. To my left, the taxi driver cautiously poked my shoulder as though ensuring I was still alive. "Wake up," he said hopefully.

I hadn't slept the night before, but I was still embarrassed to have nodded off in the taxi. More awkwardly still, I noted that I had fallen asleep cuddling my backpack. "It's because of the cold," I explained to the driver, showing him my broken zipper and paper-thin jacket. He smiled doubtfully and nodded toward the window. An old man was still tapping. I cautiously opened the door, hoping the old man would step out of the way. "Wait a minute," I moaned in groggy Mandarin, as I swung my backpack from my embrace and onto my back.

"Changde? Changde?" the old man said hopefully. "Are you going to Changde?"

"Yes, actually." I was surprised and relieved. I had been expecting a good ten minutes of aimless bus searching, sent ten different directions by as many people who didn't know where the Changde bus was, but didn't want to appear unhelpful to a foreigner. "Can you take me to Changde?" I asked.

"No," he said curtly, as though though that was the most ridiculous question he had heard in a good while. "Of course not. But I know someone who can. Seventy yuan."

That sounded about right. "Show me where he is," I said. He smiled and walked off down the road. I paid the taxi driver and followed.

It was Christmas Day, and the weather seemed about right for southern China. There was no snow, but it felt like there should be. The wind blew through my jacket as though through a broken screen, and I felt my ears pulsate from the cold. We passed several groups of travelers aggregated around street fires, warming their hands as they waited for their buses.

I noted that the man had moved a good way ahead of me, who seemed to avoid the nasty game of human Frogger by letting the cars honk and skid around him. My, does he walk fast, I thought to myself. Though he was not running, and was--by a generous estimate--a mere fraction of my height, I couldn't keep up with him. I had met only a few people who walked faster than I, and certainly no man of his age. I began to trot, folding my arms to protect myself from the wind.

It went on like that for a while, the small old man race-walking and I slowly trotting. The buses had fallen far behind, and I wondered if the man knew where he was going. "Excuse, me," I shouted ahead, "Where are you taking me?"

"It's a special bus," he said, not as an explanation, but as though it were common sense. "A special bus", I grumbled to myself, and thought of the street fires several roads back. Then I thought of the roads, and realized that they were gone. Instead we were rising, leaving the array of Changsha streets below us. Oh God, I thought to myself. He's taking me on the freeway. My ears had never felt so cold.

"Where are you going?" I called again. "The highway," he explained--which, in Mandarin, has the far more sinister name of "high speed big road." I mumbled to myself about the absurdity of anyone walking onto a freeway on-ramp, and it wasn't until the first car zipped by me that I realized I was the real idiot for following him. "It's about half a kilometer ahead," he said.

We hugged the side of the road, and I saw the frozen city below me to my right and confused cars whizzing by to my left. "Thank God the roads aren't icy," I muttered. I saw in the distance a group of people waiting where the highway diverged from the off-ramp. As we came nearer, their features became clearer, and I read in their expressions an annoyance at the cold, but no particular discomfort from huddling together on an onramp. When we finally arrived, I noted they were all staring at me. In Dayao I had grown rather used to the stares, but my exotic appearance usually garnered fewer stares in Changsha.

It was then I realized I was still wearing my Santa hat from the night before. You idiot, I thought to myself. But don't take it off now; it'll just make things more awkward. And no wonder your ears are so cold.

We stood together like that for an uncomfortable while. The old man seemed particularly proud of himself, as though he had just brought home a trout from a pond full of bass. There were so many of us that we spilled over into the right lane, but most cars moved over and didn't seem to care. I noted more than one driver's head crane, and though I imagined it was because there were people on the highway, that seemed normal enough to everyone else. The only thing strange was me. Damn this Santa hat, I said to myself.

The old man was moving among us, collecting seventy yuan. He took my money and told me the special bus would be there in about three minutes. He paused after counting my change. "So, you're from Xinjiang, right?" he asked.

"No," I said, for what what I estimated was the hundredth time. "I'm not Ughyur."

"Oh," he said. "Really?"

"Really."

"You look Ughyur," he said, more to himself than to me. He paused for a moment, ostensibly hoping I would explain myself.

"I'm American," I said.

"American!" the man shrilled. Like a true thespian, he threw back his hand onto his forehead in what I feared would be a swoon, nearing knocking his furry black hat to the ground. "He's American!" he shouted to the rest of our frozen group. A few people gave a perfunctory smile, but most ignored him. "I haven't met a foreigner in a very long time," he said smiling. His distant persona of the perturbed window-tapper and determined speed-racer instantly dissipated. The bus was approaching.

"A real American!" he said to himself smiling. The bus stopped beside us, blocking traffic in nearly every conceivable direction. The door opened and the ticket-taker stepped out reluctantly onto the road. "A real American," the old man repeated, pulling the ticket-taker over to me so that we could be properly introduced. "I want you to be sure this man has a seat on the bus. No standing for our foreign friends." The ticket-taker showed a mild interest in me (or, based on his gaze, in my Santa hat), and returned to the bus to greet the other passengers. One by one they entered the bus, but the old man was not ready to let me go. "Make sure he has a seat!" he yelled toward the bus. He then began to speak rapidly about a great many things I didn't entirely follow. Though he spoke Mandarin remarkably well for his generation, after a sentence or two his accent decayed, and a sentence or two after that he switched to the local dialect entirely, and I struggled to follow. I then realized that he was really speaking to himself, and that I was merely a sort of unwilling muse in a great many thoughts he needed to put words to. Everyone else was on the bus.

The ticket-master appeared at the door. "Are you going to Changde then?" he grumbled.

I walked toward the bus and stepped onto the ledge. The bus began to move before the door was closed. From the ledge I heard the old man's last cry, "Make sure he has a seat!" The door slammed shut and I looked over the seats, scanning for a gap in the sea of heads. "No seat, you were too slow," the ticket-taker said, with the air of a teacher chastising a student. He picked up an ice-cold pail from off the slippery ground. "You can sit wherever you like," he said.