dongbei day #1

Wow I don' t even know where to start. I wrote quite a bit in my journal on the train, I'm going to put it on here eventually but right now I don't have it with me so I'll just have to start with after I got here.

I stepped off the train and asked someone where I could buy a bus ticket. I'd arrived in Mohe, but this still wasn't the Mohe I was looking for, the northernmost spot in China. Actually, I still don't understand the distinction...I think this must be like the county of Mohe (they all say this is "Mohe xian" but I don't really know what "xian" means), and then there's a smaller place also called Mohe. It just so happens that the guy I asked was ferrying people from the train station to the town center in a van for 2 kaui, so I hopped in. He took me and a few other people to the park. I explained my situation and he offered to take me to the other Mohe, he called it "Mohe cun" or "Beiji cun", and cun has something to do with farms and the countryside, so I assume this place is going to be more rural. He was going to take me and another guy there for 150 kuai, 75 each, but I decided to wait for tomorrow and the bus because that'll be cheaper. Even though he said it'll take 4 hours I'm not in a hurry. I'm really glad I decided to wait because tonight's been a blast.

From the park, I started to wander. Mohe, this Mohe, is surprisingly well developed. It's very clean, and all the buildings are modern. Apparently I came at a time when there's convention or something in town because the first two places I checked at didn' have any rooms available. The third place also had no vacancies, but a guy who was already there offered to share his room which had 2 beds. They were really reluctant to let me stay because I'm a foreigner. Around here, the foreigners are supposed to stay at the expensive places and there are penalties for the little hotels if they let foreigners stay there. Luckily, I managed to convince them that the other hotels were booked full, with the help of my new roommate. I ended up paying 20 kuai for the room, 5 kuai more than the starting price to help convince them to let me stay there. It was still insanely cheap, considering the other places would have been anywhere from 1 to a few hundred kuai. My room is small, very clean, and comfortable, with a tv and 2 beds. My roommate is also very cool. We went out to eat together, with him picking up the tab as happens almost every time I eat with chinese people. Somehow, the occasion always calls for treating the foreigner to dinner, and never for the foreigner treating the locals. I have to say, it works out well for me but I feel like once I get the hang of making Chinese let me pay for dinner, I'll have really made some progress understanding the culture. Besides, dinners are super cheap as far as I'm concerned, but sort of expensive for them. I feel like I should be the one to pay some of the time. They're always unwilling to spit the tab evenly like any sane American would do. Right now, I'm sitting in the internet bar with the roommate digesting dumplings, scrambled eggs with pork chunks, nameless green vegetable with garlic, pressed tofu rings, and a couple of huge bottles of beer that always accompany getting treated to dinner. These dongbei people can seriously drink, but it always gets me a little funny.

The roommate is a valve salesman from Harbin. We came in on the same train, but he was in the hard seats and I was in the sleepers. I think he's really tired because the train was 20 hours. I on the other hand am not tired at all, since I was in the sleepers and there's not much to do on a train except sleep, read, and write. I'll just have to go back to the hotel and read for a while. I hear the bus to the real Mohe leaves tomorrow morning at 9:00, so I'll have to rise and shine a little earlier than I'd like. Tomorrow when I get to the real Mohe, I'll have to find an internet bar and transcribe the stuff I wrote on the train...right now, back to the hotel.