A Warm Reception in Nanning

In a visit filled with spotty weather, my last day in Hanoi is gorgeous, one where it's almost impossible not to be in a good mood. I visit the jam-packed Temple of Literature--as I leave the crowds make room for a music-led, double-file entrance of maybe a hundred women wearing long, light-blue dresses--and have lunch across the street at a well-designed non-profit/business venture called Koto. Later, I take a book out to the lake, and I guess by virtue of my solitude, end up attracting a couple of local residents, including the single most adorable adult human being I've ever met: a little university student wearing a big pink hat who quietly joins me on my bench and ends up talking with me for over two hours, despite the language barrier. Every time I say something to her, she repeats the last word of my sentence and nods assertively--it was sweet. I round out the day by going with a Danish girl from the hostel to make a last round to my favorite Old Quarter food spots--a pho street-stand and a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that makes nothing but pork-filled rice crepes all day. I'm up at 7:30 the next morning and soon on board an 8-hour bus ride to Nanning. ___________________________________________________ Word on the street--and in my China guidebook--was that Nanning had little to offer a traveler, so my plan was to catch a sleeper the same night to Guangzhou. I make it across town from the bus station to the train station pretty easily, but when I go to the ticket counter, the clerk informs me that the next train available is February 8--nine days away. Awesome. Thankfully, I had looked up a cheap hotel in Nanning before leaving, just in case. After eating a meal of unknown meats at the train station--the girls behind the counter laughing uncontrollably at me the whole time--a guy who hears me trying in futility to order in my native tongue senses I may be a lost puppy, and takes the time to assist me in getting a taxi to the hotel (I'm at peace with whatever it was that I ate--I was starving and tired and it tasted good). Once I got settled in my room, I felt pretty good about my delay: I watch TV while going to bed, sleep nine hours, and take a long, consistently warm shower the next morning--all firsts for my trip. ___________________________________________________ The next morning I head back to the bus station and buy a ticket for the following day, and then I get to exploring the city. I don't know how Nanning got it's reputation for being drab, because it's actually really, really nice: very walkable, full of energy and street life, maybe the greenest big city I've visited, and packed with tasteful and attractive parks and plazas. But whatever it was, the reputation must be widespread, because over the course of my visit, I literally saw tens of thousands of people across the city, and I was the one and only Westerner in sight. A brief categorization of the reactions to my exceedingly foreign presence: a) Amusement: similar to my experience with the girls in the train station restaurant, many occasions on which I was a customer were greeted with strangely elongated and intense laughter. b) Wonderment: children gave me prolonged looks filled with awe, but even some adults seemed sort of fascinated by my presence. The guy next to me on my bus to Guangzhou watched my every move--every time I changed a song on my I-Pod, turned a page in my book, or turned to look out the window. c) Thrill: this one was an exception--my taxi driver to the bus station the morning of my departure, who was clearly good-hearted but more than a little crazy. She was bursting with excitement to get to speak her recently acquired English with me--even forced me to move to the front seat so we could talk more easily--and when we got to the station she refused to accept my money. d) Empathy: a couple people went out of there way to help me out, including the guy at the train station and the only English speaker on my bus, which was very nice. ___________________________________________________ The most common reaction, though, truly seemed scornful and disapproving. I started noticing the trend while walking through downtown--people's facial expressions would transform into what I perceived to be a glare immediately after noting my presence--and the reactions became so regular while walking in People's Park (the flora-filled centerpiece of the city) that after a while I felt compelled to leave. When I got back to the hotel and spoke with the woman at the front desk, I asked (probably with little tact) why I was getting so many looks that seemed so negative, and she replied: "They are probably upset that they can't have a conversation with you because they can't speak English and you can't speak Chinese. But in the future, Nanning will get better and better!" The explanation that I got from a couple English teachers at the hostel in Guangzhou seemed more natural: that I was misinterpreting the body language and what appears to an American to be a glare is simply a long look-over out of curiosity or surprise. They were probably right, but whatever the case, at the time I had such a distinct feeling of being ostracized just because of my appearance--it's definitely a feeling that a white male growing up in the US doesn't experience too often.