#2 - Four strangers in a lift

China, June 2011

I'd just visited the coastal city of Qingdao (where Tsingtao beer comes from) and was on my way inland to Jinan. It was a five-hour train journey trapped inside a cramped and overheated carriage. Every inch of space in the carriage was filled with either people or bags. I was lucky enough to get a seat, but as it was a ying zuo (hard seat) carriage, the seats felt like they were originally designed to torture people accused of "subversion of state power". My buttocks would never forgive me.

Sat across from me on the train was a shy-looking girl, about 20-years old. She wore a bright yellow t-shirt and thick rimmed glasses. From the moment she sat down she'd started staring at me intently, a nervous smile hovering on her face. I occasionally met her gaze and smiled back. Every time we made eye contact her eyes lit up and her small nervous smile grew into a huge beaming grin. It was infectious. As much as I resisted, I couldn't hold back the grin from stretching across my face too. Moments later we both spontaneously broke out into laughter. A few heads turned to witness two strangers laughing at each other on train for no apparent reason.

Her name was Meng Jing. She was a student in Jinan, returning to university for the new semester. She didn't speak any English (I suspect she knew a little), but we got by in Chinese. At this point I was quite used to curious people coming up to talk to me in China, but Meng Jing seemed almost star-struck to have met me.

"What will you see in Jinan?" she asked me, eyes still fixed on me at all times.

"I don't know yet," I answered honestly, "I'm not familiar with Jinan. Do you have any suggestions?". 

Meng Jing wrote down the names of some sites I should visit, sat back thoughtfully for a minute, then started typing something on her phone. A moment later she lifted her head to ask me "do you have a hotel yet?". I hadn't. She then smiled to herself and got back to what she was doing.

While Meng Jing busied herself on her phone, the people around us, who'd been largely silent up until that point, began to quiz me on my itinerary. I got out the envelope that I'd scribbled my intended route on.

"You can't go to Qufu!" exclaimed the old lady sat next to me, "You won't be able to travel to your next stop from there. Why don't you go to Tai'An instead?". 

The guy sat next to Meng Jing, who'd been asleep the entire journey, woke from his slumber to point out another flaw in my plan. Then disembodied voices, drifting from behind bags and other people, also began opining about my plan. Very soon I had a robust itinerary laid out for the rest of my trip. The consensus was that it was the most interesting route to Nanjing, although a couple of the voices maintained that the routes they'd suggested were better.

As we approached Jinan, Meng Jing explained what she'd been doing on her phone earlier. "My friend is going to meet you at her campus across town. She can help you find a hotel and will take you sight-seeing tomorrow". I was speechless. This was incredible! I couldn't thank her enough. The guy who'd been sat next to Meng Jing promised to help me get across town, as he lived in the same part of the city. Together we rode the bus to Meng Jing's friend's campus and sure enough, she was there waiting for us when we arrived.

The friend's English name was Sofia. Another girl had also come out, curious to meet the Englishman who can't plan a trip properly. Once introductions had been made, we headed over to the university campus hotel. The guy I'd taken the bus with decided to tag along too, not wishing to miss out on the fun. 

For a university that boasts of its international credentials, curiously the campus hotel in Jinan didn't have a licence to host foreigners. Sometimes hotels are willing to bend the rules a little, but this one couldn't be budged. The receptionist suggested that we try a 4-star hotel just outside the campus instead.

So onwards we marched, across the campus to the aforementioned hotel, just outside the gates. Thankfully this one did accept foreigners. My entourage negotiated the room rate for me and Sofia insisted that we all see the room first before I paid for it.

As we headed up in the lift, the absurdity of the situation suddenly hit me. Apart from the two girls, who knew each other already, we were all strangers. Essentially I was in a lift with three people I'd just met, and who didn't all know each other, heading up to inspect a hotel room together. This was weird. Wonderful, but weird.

The consensus was that the room was okay, so I dumped my bag and we headed out for dinner, which Sofia insisted on paying for. Over dinner we discussed the plan for the next day. I agreed to meet Sofia at 8am for breakfast, then we'd climb Thousand Buddha Mountain together with a couple of her friends. I was blown away by Sofia's kindness towards me.

I returned to my crowd-sourced room that evening with the biggest grin on my face. I sent Meng Jing a text message to thank her for making this all possible, then fell asleep, still smiling.

Me with Sofia (far right) and her two friends on Thousand Buddha Mountain

#1 - The worst date I've ever been on

Over the coming weeks I'll be covering some of my more memorable experiences in China, Uzbekistan and other far-flung places. But I wanted to start this blog much closer to home, both geographically and spiritually, with a delightful tale about the worst date I've ever been on. Enjoy!

About a year ago I decided to give internet dating a second chance. I'd tried it briefly once before in 2010, but didn't really get into the spirit of it and only met one person. Much to my surprise and delight though, the one girl I did meet was adorable and we hit it off from the start. We were only together for a short time, but I look back on that experience fondly. 

Secure in the knowledge that sometimes internet dating can work, I signed up with another website and made more of an effort to meet people this time. As a result, I had my first date lined up within a few days. We agreed to meet at a pub in East London and the scene was set for what promised to be a pleasant evening.

How wrong I was.

The date was doomed from the start. She was an actress and a published poet, who usually spent her evenings performing; either on stage in theatrical productions, or in bars for her poetry evenings. By contrast, I'm an introverted self-confessed nerd who likes to spend time learning Chinese, constructing things out of paper and travelling alone. To say that we had nothing in common would be an understatement. I tried my best, but we simply spoke different languages and within minutes the conversation had dried up to the point where we were both contemplating our exit strategies.

Before we could escape though, a member of the bar staff came over to our table and asked us to move downstairs to the basement, as the show was about to start. "Show?" I inquired of my date, slightly confused. "Yes," she said, "there's a free comedy show in the basement this evening. Let's go down!".

Caught slightly off-guard by her sudden enthusiasm for this date to continue, I followed her downstairs, where the only remaining seats in the room were located on the front row. My stomach churned as we squeezed through the audience towards the one spot where clearly nobody wanted to be.

While we waited for the compère to begin the show, my date recounted her last experience at a comedy club. "...so I got dragged up onto the stage by the comedian, who took off all of his clothes and then forced me to shove a bar of soap up his rectum. It was disturbing at the time, but pretty hilarious looking back on it". A little shocked, the only words that found their way out of my mouth were "That doesn't really sound funny to me. More.... illegal". And with that we had reached our conversation quota for the evening.

After a brief warm up by the compère, the first comedian sprung onto the stage and looked around the audience. "So who here is on an internet dating website?" he asked. My jaw dropped. This was the opening line of the opening act of the evening. "You've got to be shitting me" I thought to myself. I suddenly felt like a sitting duck on the front row. I glanced nervously at my date to see if she'd put her hand up. Thankfully she had not.

Barely had I breathed a sigh of relief though, when she started heckling the man on stage. The first of what turned out to be many heckles that evening. When asked by one of the acts what she does for a living, she responded "I'm an escort", at which point I buried my head in my hands and cursed myself for not escaping when I'd had the chance.

Mercifully the last act eventually took to the stage and, as had become customary by that point, engaged in some banter with my date, asking about her life as an escort. "And who is your date?", asked the comedian, suddenly turning his attention to me, "You guys have been sat together all evening and he hasn't said a word to you!". It was a bit of a low blow, but undoubtedly a fair point.  Without missing a beat I piped back "I'm her manager!", which got a laugh from the audience. A minor victory in the midst of a train wreck.

After the show finished we headed back upstairs and went our separate ways. Needless to say we didn't contact each other again, but I felt like I'd established a new low, and that was something. From that point on, any date I went on couldn't possibly go worse.

An Introduction

My name is Matthew and I write a lot of notes. My notes are sporadic and typically consist of a series of disconnected thoughts and observations taken from around the world. To list but a few examples: I've made notes halfway up a mountain in China, in the middle of the desert in Uzbekistan, while freezing in the Arctic Circle and while lost in the Middle East. They rarely make sense, but they're usually quite entertaining.

In an effort to start writing more and find a more permanent home for these notes, I've decided to tidy some of them up and publish them to a blog. I have quite a lot of material to draw from, so I should be able to post new entries once a week for the foreseeable future. I'll see how it goes.