A few weeks ago I met this woman on the street near my home. She is only as tall as my shoulder but has a personality the size of a small city. She has kind of adopted me and has asked me to call her jiejie (big sister) I believe her real name is Mei, but as that also means little sister I cannot know for sure. I now call her Jie, she seems happy with that! She was an absolute star when I was in hospital and check on me regularly, ensuring that I knew what was happening and hat I had food. She also, with the aid of a teacher from my school, helped me back to my apartment and texted me regularly to check that I was ok! I don't know much about her, other that she was once a doctor specialising in bowels, and that everyone seems to know her. She is a real 'salt of the earth' person, and often hangs out with the poor fruit sellers on the street near her house, I love these people too! The only downside is that she is a dialect speaker and I struggle to communicate with her in words, although we do seem to have a tacit understanding of each other!
Anyhow, today at around midday I get a text from her asking what I was doing. I wasn't doing anything in particular. I told her. She said she was hanging around in the street. I asked if she wanted company, and she invited me down. This was the start of a mini-adventure!
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| Jiejie in the blue. and some of the poorer local residents. The woman in the green coat wanted to get out of the photos asap. Not sure why! |
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| The two other women who sat next to me. I think that they were two of the vegetable sellers. Never can tell in Jiangkou! You can see the woman in the green coat continuing her dash out of the photo! |
I met her with her street friends. They were all sat round a mini brassier warming their hands. Jie threw me over a chair. I don't have a picture of the chair, but it was a typical street chair. About 8 inches high! I managed with difficulty to sit down on it , no knowing whether I would be able to get up again! I sat and tries to talk. I managed a fair bit with occasionally use of google translate. It was nice sitting there warming my hands on the fire! The ocassional child would pass by and I'd offer them a balloon from my pocket. The kids love balloons! Anyway, we had just about talked our talk when Jie stood up and said she was going to eat lunch. Yikes! I was not sure I could get up from my chair. I held out a hand and she offered hers and pulled me to my feet and walked purposely off. After abut thirty seconds of bodily re-adjustment, I followed her. She stopped at the nearest street cafe. We sat down and chatted with the locals. She then got up and walked over to the food stall. She asked em what I would like to eat. I told her most of what I wanted and then pointed to other things I wanted but did not know the word for! She got out her phone to pay, but after a little persuasion I manged to pay for us....it really was my turn! I had noodles, a boiled egg and some sort of sausage. She had similar but chose a chicken foot instead of the sausage. I don't mind chicken feet, but they take an awful amount of work for very little meat! Anyhow, I was surprised. The food tasted really good. I'll be going there again!
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| Jie loading in the noodles |
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| Lunch finished. They put the plates in bags to save on the washing up! The rolled up brown things on the front plate are just tissues |
We soon finished and she invited me to the park to meet her friend Miss YA. It is only twenty minutes walk to the park, but it proved a very interesting journey! It started quite quietly, until the avalanche of my school pupils. Apparently tomorrow was going to be a day off. A last minute announcement it seems and everyone left the school at the same time! They all saw me with my new friend and were all very curious about her and about how I was doing. So many children stopped me and asked how I was! I even got a few "Happy New Year!"s. They really are lovely kids! half way through the avalanche I met another of Jie's friends, who, later through WeChat invited me to swim near Mount Fangingshan when the weather gets warmer. She offered to teach me Chinese in return for English lessons. She seems s fun character and I will see where that leads. Incidentally her husband has bad knees.....just like me! Finally after what seemed ages as I talked to so many children, we reached the park and played on the exercise equipment for a while whilst waiting for her friend.
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| Miss Ya, Jie's friend. |
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| Jie |
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| Miss Ya and Jie, apparently discussing Miss Ya's sons relationship problems. |
Her friend arrived and and I chatted with her in a mixture of Chinese, English and Google! After a while she moved and sat next to Jie. Their conversation began. It was a long and intense conversation. It was dark and I was cold by the time it finished! After that we walked off home. again we meet a lot of school students who said "Hello" to me and wished me well. It was a really good afternoon, however I felt a little awkward as we walked back home. At her invitation I had been with her all afternoon, however it is hard to assess how well it went. At the park they had talked for about forty minutes. It was all dialect. I understood maybe about four word per sentence but could make no sense of what they were talking about. I didn't feel left out as much as not knowing whether this was a cue for me to leave! I would have loved to talk about it more on the way home, but I just don't have the language to do it. I've met the situation before and managed to misread things, hung around when I wasn't wanted and that managed to spoil an otherwise good friendship. Maybe I think too much. However I chatted with Jie later on WeChat and got the stock Chinese answer "Just be happy, be happy everyday!". Maybe I will be! After all, some people say happiness is a skill! I am starting to believe this and have noticed that I am far more adept at sadness as a skill!
(Note to Maria: I think you have been telling me this for years but now it is finally sinking in!)
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