Eric's Beijing Diary

I was walking out of the washing area of the guest house last night when a little Japanese boy pointed at my and became very animated. I said, "Nan desu ka?" He pointed at my stomach and said, "Onaka futoteru!"

Well, I tried to pretend that it was complete news to me, but I have actually been aware of it for some time. Thanks for giving it to me straight, kid.

As I was leaving the guest house this morning, she came running up to me. A young lady with two long braids.

"Do you need a translator? Do you need a guide?" I really wasn't looking for either, but she looked pretty desperate, so I thought perhaps I could have her take me around the area--show me something of her own village, or something. I told her that I could only use her for half a day. She asked me how much I would pay. I said, "I'll give you eight kuai an hour." I asked her how far away her home village was. She told me she was from Dongbei.

"Dongbei?! How long have you been in Dali?"

"I just got off the bus this morning."

Great. What good was a drifter from Manchuria who know less about the town than I did going to be to someone like me? I was really wanting to back out of the deal, now. "I'm sorry, I really need a guide who knows the area."

She was not to be deterred. "But I can buy a map and figure it out." This was comical, but she really looked like she could use a good meal, so I told her that if she worked for me for half a day, I would buy her dinner and pay her by the hour. I told her that I wanted her to take me around the lake. True to her word, she bought a map and told me which bus we needed to get on. We went to the bus stop and began our journey. As we proceeded, we began to approach an area that showed a peninsula on the map. The Shenyang drifter thought we might get off and have a look. We got off the bus and hired a motorcycle taxi to take us to the point. When we got there, it became quite obvious that this area was not frequented by tourists. I could tell that some kids had been skinny dipping at the end of the peninsula. I walked slowly and talked loudly. The drifter said, "Many people do not get to see this." No doubt about that. I noticed a swimmer staying very much in the water. It was definitely not a regular tourist stop, but the view was awesome (I mean the lake).

We headed back to the highway, and we were going to proceed around the lake, but the drifter complained of severe stomach cramps. I asked her what was wrong, and she said some people were trying to stab her. Hmmmm... well, it didn't look like she was going to last very long, so I told her that if she didn't feel well, perhaps we should go back to town. We crossed over to the lanes going the other way, and waited for a bus. One soon came along, but passed us without slowing down. I said, "Why didn't that bus stop?" She told me that the bus could not stop because it was full.

"And there's another reason."

"What is that?"

"They know us."

"No, they don't know us. I am not from this area, and you just got here this morning."

"Yes, but people have been following me."

We finally made it back to Dali, and the drifter got rid of her map as soon as possible. "I think that map gave me a stomach ache."

"No, you don't get a stomach ache from a map."

This young lady definitely has a few strikes against her. Most of the time she was fairly lucid, but her problems were not just emotional. She was encumbered with delusions which clearly impaired her mental functions. I worked with quite a number of people like her during the time that I was a psychiatric aide at Oregon State Hospital, and I have come to believe that, as William Sherman said, people believe delusions stronger than they believe the truth. I meet very few people in China who show outward signs of severe mental impairment. Perhaps most of those who cannot function are hospitalized. But there are certainly some like this lady, who drift around the country, making what they can. It's really tough to know how to help people like her.....I suppose, in a sense, someone like her who is marginally functional, and is determined enough to scare up part time work from whomever she can find it, could go for sometime without being detected as a candidate for treatment. But one wonders what she might be pressed to if she gets hungry enough. There is certainly a lot of ground to cover in trying to reach out to those who do not somehow fit into the mainstream of Chinese life.

Labels: Summer 2004