I’m
sitting on a couch in Room 415 of the Linfeng Hotel in Guilin having spent the
night with a complete stranger.
This is not how I expected my evening to unfold. This is the fabled city of karst
mountain scenery on the shores of the Lijiang River and indeed, out back an
estuary of the main current is rolling along.
But the Linfeng, situated as it is, near the railroad station, is a
bit of a compromise. Coming from arid
Beijing, the room feels alive with mildew and indeed, I’ve just flicked my
second micro ant from off my hand. The towels are pre-Cambrian, the soap comes
in individual bags one must tear open to squeeze from. The internet however, is free.
I was on a flight from Beijing to Hong Kong. I was supposed to be conducting some
must-do business this morning there in town. The rain that fell in Beijing caused my flight to depart
about two hours late. One of these
hours was announced, so I could sit in the lounge, the second duration was
spent on the tarmac. All quite
routine really, flying around in China, perhaps anywhere. The flight was choppy but
manageable. And about two hours in
they announced that we were not going to land in Hong Kong due to inclement
weather and rather we’d be going down into Guilin.
Everyone was furious, but fortunately no one that I could
see lost their marbles. We set on
the runway for what must have been three hours or so, with the expectation that
we would somehow rocket back up to complete the twenty-five minutes remaining
to fly to Hong Kong. The pilot had
a sense of timing and only when all the in flight wine and beer had been
exhausted, he 相机而动[1]. And we were told that this flight has been cancelled and we had to wait
for immigration authorities to come and receive us.
About an hour later I was on bus driving along the airport
road at 1:00AM. After about thirty
minutes of driving it became clear that we were not going to some convenient
“airport” hotel, but rather we were drive all the way into to town. Precisely how it is that the nation’s
premier carrier has established affinities with the Linfeng, I do not
know. It must assuredly have something to do with someone’s relation to someone, and nothing whatsoever to do with
service.
We piled in at 2:00AM grumpy to desk staff that were less
then well oiled. Everyone
complained. No one cared. I exchanged my stub for a notably worn
room key and was instructed to bunk up with the other young foreign looking
gent to my left. We exchanged just
enough courtesies concerning how Air China sucked and the room sucked and the
situation sucked and the wifi worked to navigate a civil descent to
oblivion. The phone rang. Just a happy Linfeng reminder that
breakfast is from seven to nine.
The phone rang again about three and a half hours later with
my wife, who was up bright and early an hour ahead of me in South Korea to say
she’d gotten my email and how could it be, and why could this be and if you add
the hours it doesn’t make sense, and what is it they’re proposing to do with
you and when? All will be revealed
love. Have a nice morning.
Sleep ruined tried to go back to bed beneath the aromatic
blanket. My room mate snored.
Perhaps I had, as well. As John
Lennon says to Ringo in “A Hard Day’s Night” “you’re a window rattler
son.” Sleep was off. So I did my toilette and explained to
my neighbor who was semi conscious by now that I’d be going down to have a bit
of breakfast.
I exchanged my breakfast slip to a lanky man with a sour
face who pulled one of two or three remaining hard-boiled eggs from a plastic
tub. My egg was broken. It was clear that pointing this out to
the sour man would be pointless.
In an angular room that was painful to consider sitting in, let alone
actually reclining in, there was a buffet of stewed cabbage, instant noodles,
and steamed bread bits. There was
also a dispenser of warm, sweetened soymilk.
With that I went out back by the riverbank to take some
snaps. It was sad snapping. Even the dilapidation wasn’t
interesting. I called my mom and
reached her before the end of her U.S. Sunday Mother’s Day. She was kind to commiserate. I took a stroll about town. It didn’t improve my mood much. Everything looked rather worn down, I’m
afraid, here in China’s count em’ on your right hand most famous tourist
destination. I guess its good to
know that much of China still looks like China used to look. People are on their way to work. Women try to look nice in a manner,
which could be charitably called “provincial.” Men don’t seem to try at all. At least there is a place with passable dumplings to
eat.
I was here twenty years ago. I was also passing through, in the night as well, as I
recall. I went up, as everyone
does, to Yangshou and had a lovely time. And then drove a bus overland to Wu Zhou
which was odd and fascinating, and with that we piled down into Guangzhou. I might do well to revisit this option,
as I still have no clarity as to what will befall me later today.
Trying to cheer myself up I have looked up another of these
stride piano players like our Shanghai veteran Teddy Weatherford whom I wrote
about yesterday. Johnny Guarnieri also has a rendition of “My Blue Heaven”
which appears to have been recorded in 1944. I must say I much prefer our man Weatherford, who physically
assaulted the piano. I’m not sure
Mr. Guarnieri would have made the same impact playing Asian hotels in the
30’s. He would though be quite a
welcome addition here at the Linfeng.
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