OPINION> Dylan Quinnell
Strangers no more
By Dylan Quinnell (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-09-04 06:53

The Great Wall of China is as breath taking as you imagine, undulating over the highest peaks as far as the eye can see. After an amazing day at the stunning wall it seemed nothing could dampen our spirits. But then suddenly, Bam!

Our tour bus had hit something hard and began swerving around the road. The driver managed to gain control and pulled over into a parking lot. He and a British tourist hopped off, had a look at the tires and hopped back on. There was no problem that they could see.

However, as the bus took off again, with a bunch of concerned passengers, we could feel something was wrong. When the bus then hit a pothole, the back right wheel bounced up and down, clanking against the rim. The driver stopped again, this time blocking one lane of a bridge we were on, and got off to investigate again.

He then got on the bus and hopped into his seat, and you could feel the apprehension of the passengers, especially those of us sitting in the back over the damaged back wheels.

Thankfully he found evidence that something was wrong and immediately called his boss on his cell phone, rather than drive further into what we feared would be certain disaster.

We were stuck two hours from Beijing and blocking one lane of a bridge quickly causing chaos on the bridge, with traffic in both directions trying to cross in one lane.

Most of the foreigners quickly got impatient and all hopped off the bus frantically trying to wave down locals, other buses or already full taxis. But instead of stopping to see what the problem was, whole busloads of other Chinese tourists and their drivers waved back at us as they drove past.

Eventually a few cars did stop and the number of us foreigners stranded soon diminished. A Canadian mother and daughter hopped into a taxi with two Chinese people heading to Beijing, and three others got a ride with a family heading to the airport.

I happened to be in the right place at the right time when a nice-looking car pulled over in front of me and the window rolled down to reveal a friendly, but slightly confused couple, and what looked like the wife's sister in the back.

In my almost non-existent Chinese I managed to say only one word: 'Beijing?' They nodded and I switched to the international travelers sign language showing two fingers to communicate there were two of us, myself and a friend, Meghan. They looked at each other, at me, at each other again, and decided I looked friendly enough so they nodded in agreement.

When I opened the door for Meghan and we hopped in, we found a newly woken little boy, who looked to be about three-years-old. He was pulled up onto his auntie's lap and was trying his best in his befuddled state to figure out what two lao wais, were doing in what had been his sleeping spot. He seemed to decide we were harmless enough, but weird, so turned his back to us and stared out the other window, trying to ignore us for the first hour.

We knew a little Chinese and the driver's English seemed to only consist of "Do you like Beijing?" Our answer of 'dui dui, hen hao', 'yes yes it's great', was exactly what they were hoping for and they all burst into clapping and gave us big, proud smiles.

We pulled out Meghan's phrase book and the plan was to use the fact that we knew how to say 'you' and ask the auntie 'how old are you', while simultaneously pointing at the boy. Simple, right?

Not in a language where depending on the tone it is said with, a single word can have four completely different meanings. We gave it our best shot pointing at the kid, but as we did so we were met with black stares. The adult trio had a short discussion and seemed to work out what we could be saying, before answering wu, five. Test one passed.

Next came the harder part. We wondered if the two women were Han Chinese. They looked like they hailed from Tibet or southwestern provinces, so we asked. Once again we consulted the phrasebook. This time we got a quicker answer, an emphatic yes from the driver and nods and smiles from the two women.

By now the little guy was started to warm up to us and began playing with his auntie and repeating sentences his mother gave him like "Beijing huanying ni", "Beijing welcomes you", following the names of the five Olympic mascots or Fuwa. His mother found it hilarious when I joined the impromptu lesson and started repeating her phrases as well.

Next thing we knew they had pulled out a map of sprawling Beijing and were trying to find out where we lived. We tried to explain that dropping us off at any subway station would be fine, but they would have none of it, so we gave them our address, practiced to perfection on taxi drivers.

Before we knew it we had reached Beijing still knowing nothing more about our 'Good Samaritans' than they lived in Beijing. They pulled over and tried to gesture to us the direction we needed to walk in. We gave our thanks and began pulling our wallets out of our pockets to offer money for gasoline. But there were sudden shouts of 'no, no, no' and hands waving. With a big smile the driver gestured out of the door, "Welcome to Beijing!"

We shook hands with the driver, patted the little guy and headed on our way, only to find we were 10 minutes' walk from our home in a city where a 30-minute cab ride is considered close.

The Olympic spirit humanity is definitely alive and well in Beijing.

email: dylan.quinnell@gmail.com