Discovering China: Chongqing Cliff Notes - Part 3

July 18, 2013

The day began with a drive into the mountain country surrounding the metropolitan center. That gave us a bird's eye view of the beautiful Chongqing South Mountain scenery. Real people; rural people, who didn't have time to put out the "good chopsticks" for the American teachers were about their business in the small mountain town we stopped at. We split up and wandered around. There were some small brick and mortar shops and more than a few outdoor stalls set up. We had some time to kill before our afternoon lectures. My mission during this stop led to one of my favorite memories.

While back in Beijing, two cities earlier in my itinerary, we visited a hot pot restaurant. Recall my post called, "The Noodle Dancer." During that interactive dinner, I got my nails done. I know this is going to seem silly and trivial, but sometimes little things lead to bigger events. Well, that nail polish was, by this time, pealing like old paint, and it was driving me crazy! I needed it off and didn't have any nail polish remover. In this south mountain town, I spied a drugstore. The perfect place to pick some up. Scanning the aisles carefully, I couldn't figure out if they had any or not. While I had a rough idea what it might look like, I couldn't read any of the labels. When I finally gave up finding it myself, I enlisted the help of the sales clerk. Through gestures and acting, she figured out what I wanted, I think. She didn't have any.

In the meantime, two girls who looked to be about 12 years old were curious about me and began creeping in a little closer. After exchanging friendly smiles, I posed my question to them. "Is there any nail polish remover here?" I gestured wiping the chipping, purple stuff off of my nails. They seemed to understand what I wanted, and we went from one shop to the next together. No luck. We said good-bye. I thanked them and caught up with some of the others who were shopping/wandering around the outdoor merchants' stalls.

Kitchen utensils, fans (both electric and hand-powered palm leaf styles), fruit, hardware, and a variety of other odds and ends took my attention for some time. Presently, I felt a tap on the shoulder and turned to find the two girls behind me. They had Cheshire Cat smiles on their faces and proudly produced a bottle of nail polish remover. Tah dah! I gushed thankfulness and gratitude and tried to pay them, but they refused to take any money and ran off. I really did try to pay them. In fact, I started after them to try to give them some yuan, but gave it up when another man started yelling at me. To this day I don't know whether that man thought I was trying to hurt the girls, or whether he was just a yeller. I tend to think he was a yeller because he followed me and my group around until we boarded the bus again, all the while talking/yelling. Thing is, even my tour director, who speaks fluent Mandarin, couldn't understand what the man was trying to say. But I digress. The kindness of those girls will not soon be forgotten. In a world where I'm seen as a rich American by many, and someone from whom a few yuan might be made, it was a refreshing reminder that some people just want to make a friendly connection. :)

The evening finally arrived. An itinerary highlight was this cruise along the Yantze and Jieling Rivers. They join here and then the Yangtze continues to flow south toward the Three Gorges Dam. We didn't see the dam on this trip. After running back and forth to find and board our boat, we all finally made it and scoped out a good place at the rail to enjoy the cruise... which started an hour later.