China: Guangshou to Wuzchou: The Pearl River Angels

During our travels, we were always amazed that when we were in need, out of nowhere, an “angel” would appear to guide and help us.  This was to be the case in every country we were in.  My guess is that we are all guided each day and when in need, help is always there, we just don’t always notice it for what it is. Being in novel situations seems to make us more aware of how we are taken care of by our guides and angels.

In the Chinese countryside, in 1990, very few people spoke English, so we resorted to  “playing charades” to communicate.  It seems that each time we felt we would never be able to make ourselves understood some “angel” stepped in to help us.  One such “angel”, a man in his 50s, a Berkeley and MIT graduate who managed multi-million dollar building projects around the world, came to our rescue in Guangshou as I was about to strangle a  bank teller who was NOT being helpful in my effort to change money.  He asked if we needed help, stepped in, and not only got the money exchange done but when he discovered we were trying to get a reservation for the Pearl River boat trip to Wuzchou, he took us across the street to a hotel where he had the woman at the desk call and make a reservation for us.  He then hailed us a taxi and wrote a note to the driver telling him to get us to the docks.  When asked what we could do for him for all of his kindness, he said he was always helped by the kindness of others when he was in the USA, and enjoyed helping Westerners who were in need of guidance when in China.

We got to the boat dock thinking that we would be getting the 4 PM boat but when we arrived, a lady wrote out a note and told us to go outside to buy our tickets and we were immediately pointed toward our boat which was leaving in 10 minutes!  We had no time to think, just move. We followed everyone’s pointing fingers, found our way to the dock, then had to traverse four boats, which were tied side by side, until we reached ours. Following pointing fingers again we found our cabin below decks.  Luckily, we had a four bunk cabin to ourselves. There was a door with two bunk beds on either side, each with a foam cushion covered by a bamboo mat, a blanket and a pillow. 

We located the hot water machine for our tea making and the stinking, hole in the floor, toilets up front. There were three decks, two of which had the cabins like ours and the other deck had what had been described, in our guide-book, as concentration camp beds. Those were two-story beds running the length of the boat divided by 4 inch petitions. I didn’t think we were quite ready for that yet, so we took the next best accommodations.

 After recovering from our shock of everything happening so fast we wandered on deck, watching the ugly, dirty city go by. Sampans, ferries, barges, etc. cruised the busy Pearl River where everyone threw their garbage and human waste.  Black smoke poured from stacks, the air was hazy from smog, the water brown from pollution. People fished, bathed and washed clothes in it. I hoped they didn’t also drink out of it!  The country certainly hadn’t heard of the environmental movement.  So far, everything we had read in Paul Thoreaux’s book and the guide-book about China had been true. Dirty cities, staring people without smiles, lots of spitting, garbage throwing, spitting food on the table, almost constant Muzak. It was really fascinating.

I napped for a while in the afternoon while Sky drifted about the deck. He had a young man, named Chen, approach him to practice his English and that same man helped us later to order our dinner, which turned out to be very tasty. Of course during the meal we had to endure the many stares since we were the only white faces on the boat, but we did get some thumbs up for the way we used our chopsticks!

On deck, after dinner, I said hello to an old man and he started speaking to me in Chinese so I went to our room and retrieved our Chinese language book in hopes of being able to communicate with him.  We proceeded to point to phrases in the book in order to communicate, he pointing to the Chinese characters and me pointing to the English letters.  The old man read the entire book while a curious crowd gathered wondering what was going on.  We pointed to words and practiced Chinese pronunciation and they pointed to words and practiced saying them in English. There were many laughs all around. That continued until we ran out of things to say and they handed back the book. They also asked all the questions that we were told they would ask; how old are you; how much money do you make; how many children do you have; where are you from?  We were to become very familiar with all of these questions during our stay.  

I had spoken too soon about our private room!  About 9:30 PM the boat stopped at another port where more people got on and two men came to our cabin.  One of them was very friendly and tried talking with us and he too took the language book to read so he could try communicating.  That didn’t work too well so we turned off the light and went to sleep. We slept well until 3AM when I woke up with a large cockroach crawling on me. I inadvertently flipped it over to Sky, which woke him up, and he flipped it to the wall where it eventually either made its way out the door or onto the guys below us. The rest of the night sleep was a toss and turn affair.

We awoke at 6 AM when the boat docked in Wuzchou.  Sky’s angel friend, Chen, found us, as he said he would,  and directed us to the bus station where we played charades for twenty minutes with three women, while trying to communicate our wishes for a bus and their trying to tell us when in it would leave, where it was going, how long the ride was and how much we needed to pay. They were really nice and we all had a lot of laughs until we got it straightened out. 

I have got to say that I think the guidebooks got it wrong, we found many people with smiles and a huge willingness to help out these ignorant Westerners.  There are angels everywhere, you just have to be open to seeing them.

Until next time, be fearless and recognize when you are being helped by your angels!