HERE AND THERE

A Note From The Editor: This edition of HERE AND THERE was found in the basement files of Dylan's wanderings.  It has been dusted off and reformatted for your consumption.  This story took place in the early days of 2011, during Dylan's first trip to China.  

HERE AND THERE
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TRACKS
BY DYLAN P. LAURION

Guangzhou, China
-February 2011-



I’m staying on the other side of the tracks tonight. Macau's marbled history of Chinese and Portuguese ancestral roots and the suffocating allure of the towering casinos is behind me. It has become another destination represented by a stamp in my passport and a collection of photographs securing memories: walking along paved and cobbled streets, sampling delectable treats, studying the intricate woodworking inside of large Catholic Churches, drinking beer with friends on stone steps shrouded in shadows, watching tourists and locals meander through the squares located throughout the city, and the electrifying entanglement with the legendary poker tables of The Grand Lisboa.

I’m staying on the other side of the tracks tonight. Not an encouraged destination for travelers. Rather, it was a summation of a calculated decision. The proximity to the train station, bus station, airport shuttles met our transportation needs for the following day. Convenience should be embraced, whenever possible. There are enough difficulties to sort out without adding to the list of opposing forces needlessly and so we ventured across a concrete bridge spanning the numerous iron rails rolling trains, filled with both cargo and people, in all navigational directions.  It was a short walk and at that moment, it was easier than trekking across Guangzhou using the subterranean labyrinth of subway routes to reach hostels designated for ‘foreigners.’ People like us.

I’m staying on the other side of the tracks tonight. The hotel, the only hotel found that would accept our Alien selves, blatantly disregarded a national policy to house foreigners in specifically regulated hostels or hotels.  There would be no entry in a registry listing name, passport number, and the next intended travel destination. I had gone through the process numerous times, sleepwalking through the bureaucratic requirement that really only needed a word placed in the right box. To this end, I often spit out whatever Chinese city first entered my mind. The hotel that night was the first building on our right after crossing the footbridge.  One of many squat, block buildings stacked upon each other, with alleys and streets snaking between them.

I'm staying on the other side of the tracks tonight. Money was the key to our discreet admittance into the hotel. R.L.G used his developing China Land lingual skills to conclude a brief negotiation of prices. An exchange of China-Tokens and we were in possession of the coveted room key. No request was ever made to see passports or record the identification number located in the blue booklet, stamped with golden seal. The strength of currency left the hotel attendants temporarily blinded, like money often does within a mercurial society comfortable with bribery, corruption, and a premium attached to self preservation.

I'm staying on the other side of the tracks tonight. Both the crowd and the environment is a far cry from other hotels I have seen, both in China-Land and elsewhere. But, the rooms were clean, the beds fresh, the shower hot, and an assortment of complimentary items: soap, toothbrush, comb, and tea were available, and all were eagerly placed in my pack as a practical re-supply. I like places like the Alien Friendly Hotel. I enjoy seeing the smaller, harder to find worlds offering a more intimate glimpse into another end of a cultural spectrum- people’s lives are unvarnished and not filtered through a lens of purposeful, tourist cleanliness. Tourism is often focused on a version of the truth. Much energy is spent providing tourists with what they want to see, hear, eat, and feel. Tourism is often a performance, the role of pimp supplying the fulfillment of a desired experience or romantic notions. I try to get past that particular veneer.

I am staying on the other side of the tracks tonight. R.L.G and I left for a night time walk, we wanted to burn some energy before a long day of traveling set to begin when we woke up. We passed by a rougher, saltier crowd of people as we retraced our steps across the tracks that had led us to that night's resting place. The crowd of people gathered around the hotel and the listless shapes huddled together or laying solitary and prone on the concrete walkway over the iron rails, passed by in the waning sunlight of the day and in the shadows cast by street-lamps illuminating the first part of our stroll around the northern part Guangzhou is a sharp contrast to the faces I had become familiar with on Shamian Island: a small oasis of serene, quiet, tree lined streets, and buildings indicating the extended historical influence of the West in the region and the first of three different locations I stayed on various trips to the large city cut in half by the Pearl River. I carried no particular preference for the polished or the grimy. Both the rough and smooth need to be experienced in order to develop a complete understanding of a world lived in. It is certainly not a consequence of romantic desires to be “roughing” it, a staged slumming, but rather a desire to knock over whatever may shelter the truth. This particular desire is often satisfied when willing to consider the gray areas.

I am staying on the other side of the tracks tonight. I've returned to the hotel and it has become a lively, ruckus driven, Chinese world below my window. The sounds, though loud and different to my ears, resemble a controlled quality of normalcy. The feel of the environment is of reality and a dramatic departure from the money injected city of Macau: the largest gambling center in the world.

I’m on the other side of the tracks, on the other side of a border, and I am on the other side of a trip that began in China-Land four months ago. My path is once again headed north, back to my trip's origin. A new stage in my journey has begun. I agreed, just the other day, to a six week ESL teaching position at a university in Qingdao. My reasons are both economic necessity and investigative curiosity. This new venture is dictating my road, steering the next two weeks of traveling. 


 I’m staying on the other side of the tracks tonight. I am ok with the location, the feel, the reality. I am ok with the explosions of voice and emotion and linguistically imperative tone booming off of the concrete walls and through my window. I am on the other side of many things.  Right now that is the only place to be.