Bad decisions, bad business!

Yibin, CHINA – My host in Sichuan arranged a pick up for my team and I in Yibin. Her younger brother arrived in a sedan carrying his wife, niece, and two year old. There are two healthy sized young men in my team so our seating arrangements placed the niece, my two guys, and myself in the back seat with mother and child in the front passenger seat.

After two days of little more than instant noodles and preservative packed bread on the trains, my mouth was smacked with spice over a breakfast of spicy noodles and peanut crunch with every bite.

Exercise on the train was limited to pacing the corridors from car to car so the hike on Cui Ping Shan (翠屏山) circulated my blood a little.

I splurged 30RMB on a few good words after a prayer at the temple.

After the great morning start, I believe we are finally on our way to Suijiang, but no. First a stop at a friend’s home/ appliance store. I am told we are having lunch here. Lunch seats a his and hers table – boys with the beer and baijiu (a high proof rice wine that removes paint and good judgment) on one table and women with rascals at mine. After roars of laughter and multiple ganbei’s¹, faces at the men’s table have pinked and eyes are that of a fish’s gaze from a market stall. My chaperon has left his table with my assistant Gaojia, and I am told he is too drunk to drive the two hours to Suijiang so he is coordinating amongst his friends where to put us up for the night.

I have been traveling day and night for the past three days and the bad decisions of an uncle with poor vehicle capacity standards is delaying my trip and work a night longer! I’ve been in the same clothes for three days and the fabric is literally in stitches having to work overtime. I’m disappointed over the uncle’s irresponsibility to deliver my team and I to our destination, but I won’t argue with staying alive. Ah, but the opportunity arises once more when he starts the car and tells us he will drive us to our hotel. Here the cultural differences surface.

I refuse. I am not about to endanger the lives of my nephew, Gaojia, or myself. I learn the hotel is 300 meters away so I say, “We’ll walk.” Gaojia looks troubled as he turns to the uncle sitting in the driver’s seat with the engine running, waiting for us to get in. I sense Gaojia is embarrassed so I approach the driver and tell him that I am full from the delicious lunch so the walk will be good for me. This alibi provided an out for the uncle and relief for me. The uncle takes off in the car with his niece in the passenger seat.

While my nephew, Gaojia, and I walked to the hotel Gaojia tells me that it may be American that I did not get into the car with the drunk uncle. He reasoned that because he is Chinese, if he were alone and in the same situation, he would have accepted the ride from the drunk uncle as it would be respectful. Cultural etiquette doesn’t provide the air I breathe so I explain that nothing is more important than the life we are living and while I am responsible for the lives of my nephew and Gaojia’s, no bad decisions will be allowed. I then coined a phrase for Gaojia that I feel may be my new mantra, “Bad decisions, bad business.”

We arrive at the hotel where internet is sporadic, my bathtub looks like a drained Koi fish pond, but the hotel manager is cheerful. He invites us for a small fireworks celebration in front of the hotel commemorating the Communist Party anniversary. Our travels in Sichuan are off to a BANGIN’ beginning!

Later in the evening I learn that the day the uncle got married, he was very drunk and took his niece on his motorcycle. The uncle had an accident and the niece suffered many injuries. This is the same niece accompanying us from the train station and who rode with the uncle from the appliance store to the hotel. History shouldn’t repeat itself, but in this situation saving face continues to ride in the passenger’s seat.

¹ ganbei – Toasting to dry one’s glass; drinking all liquid in the cup.

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