周庄

Today is the day of the dragon boat festivals in Shanghai, a national holiday. We decide to take the day and go to Zhōuzhuāng 周庄. Apparently the Venice of China.

I wake Ali up; my hangover from the night before kicks in. We rush to get ready and leave the hotel at 7:45. I get in the taxi and mumble

"人民广场"

Before getting on the bus, we stop for fried street noodles, a breakfast that proves itself to be utterly terrible for our uneasy stomachs.

We finally arrive two hours later. I’m led through a woven maze of people I tower over once again. I lose my group. Walking around the small water town by myself. The smell hits me. It’s known in English as “stinky tofu”; I gag. Here more than ever, it’s obvious I don’t belong.

I’m visiting this rural town admiring its quaintness. The golden-teeth paddlers rowing their boats. The unknown person getting water from the river. Two women weaving thread. The small dogs lying across the river bank. This town is their real life. This is all they know.

The town is used to visitors. Tourists come from all over China to admire their watertown and quaint way of life. They’ve adapted a way of blocking them out and carrying on as if no one was there. Being here, I felt like a voyeur spying on people who didn’t want to be bothered. I was lost. I entered a restaurant and attempted to speak my broken Mandarin but the shopkeeper wouldn’t be bothered. I wrote down “bus stop?” But my strokes were wrong. I thought of the Theory of Text. How is it I’m so far away from what I know?

I walk into a shop of postcards and see other head peer out of the bookshelves. Someone tall. I look over and see another foreign face. He was on my bus. I walk closer to him and smile.