01 Oops!
I think no one has the experience I made during our
stay at Bens place in his hometown. It is a bizarre story and really
should stay indoors.
When we were in (...) there was no electricity
in the house. No matter of course, in a way it is quite romantic and
after all we supposed to stay over for just one night. Ben found some
candles in the house and a lighter so we would have no problems finding
our way in the dark.
We went to sleep early: it got dark, no
streetlights along the road, no cars crossing by. The only sound you
here are some frogs and some late birds. A wonderful peaceful night.
I
have to pee. Outside in the dark. So I take the lighter and I go down
the stairs and walk to the backyard. So far so good. Of course by doing a
pee you need no light, so I put the lighter off. I open my zipper and
pull my dick out of my trousers. But, stupid me, I still have the heat
lighter in my hand! This is the first time I burned the glans of my
little willie.
02 The shower.
After three days the fever
finally disappeared! Hurray! I really feel better now. Time to take a
shower. I didn't take a shower all these days, because I was afraid that
the cold would become worse by doing this. At the house of Bens family
in (...) where we stay overnight on our way back to Xiamen, the shower
doesn't work. So they boil four big cans of water for us. I wash myself
sitting in a red plastic tub and I pour water over myself. There is one
green tub for the hands, a yellow one for the feet. It is a great
sensation and after the bath I feel very comfortable and reborn.
In
the country where I live every house has at least one shower, with hot
and cold running water. Some houses even have a big bathtub and a
shower. Thereby: you can use the cold water from the tap always and
everywhere as drinking water.
03 The fish.
We are walking
at the countryside with Bens mother, grandmother, aunts and nieces. The
women want to pick young bamboo shoots. Ben and I we take a look at a
few fishermen sitting at a small lake. The men already caught some fish.
At once we see a small tiny fish laying in the sand. It is still alive.
But too small to eat, so useless. Ben grabs the small fish in his hands
and throws it back into the water.
When I was young the whole family
on Sunday went for a day out to a little village at the river Maas. My
father liked fishing. I was not that son who likes to catch fish or who
likes to play soccer.
Painting the story about the fish it reminds
me of the little sculpture a Dutch friend artist made: a small boy in
bronze carrying a huge fish in his hands.
04 The funeral.
Someone
passed away in Bens family. At the moment the corpse should be brought
to his last place of rest, we are invited to be there too. It turns out
to be a great spectacle: with a lot of ballyhoo of the countless
fireworks, the brass band playing the proper funeral music and in
advance sixteen dishes to eat before we leave for the funeral march. Ben
does a little ceremony: he wears a kind of white cotton cloth draped
from his head. He doesn't really know what to do and what it is for but
that doesn't matter at all. "We do what we have to do but also we do it
in our own way".
In my homeland young people often refuse to do these
traditional things. It also seems older people have forgotten them or
don't want to be remembered at. We always want to understand what we are
doing, there always has to be 'a reason why'. Our funerals usually take
place in silence and people are dressed in black.
05 The bread.
The
first day of our trip to the countryside, sitting in the train I felt
really miserable: 18 hours just sitting! When I look around me I am very
surprised about the fact that all passengers sit there and show no
complain at all. The trip takes time, they know of course and after all
what else can you do than just sit and wait until the journey is over.
You have to go through. Suddenly a man sitting opposite of me takes his
bag and pulls out a large white bread. He starts to eat and doesn't stop
eating until the whole bread disappeared in his stomach. Amazing!
We
in Holland, we never eat bread like this. We cut slices and spread them
with butter and marmalade, or honey. We eat sandwiches with cheese or
meat. For God sake the man ate the bread with his bare hands. At the
Starbucks in Xiamen people use plastic gloves while eating their
sandwiches.
After the 18 hours train Ben and his mother are
astonished that I spent the whole trip without going to the toilet. By
the way, going from the upper north to the deep south in the Netherlands
takes less than four hours.
06/07 The bed.
The first
night after 18 hours train we sleep at the apartment of Bens grandmother
in (...). There is nobody at home, they are all gone to the funeral
ceremonies in a little village abroad. The apartment looks great and the
walls are recently fresh whitened. And there is a lit of light! Like a
disco. We have the luxury of each one a sleeping room with a big bed
for each of us. Next day the house will be crowded. After the funeral
everyone comes to grandma's house. No idea who is who, which relation
they have to each other: grandma, mama, aunt, niece, cousin, just
friends? While I still feel very sick I have no energy to ask Ben. As
evening comes they decide Ben and I should share room and bed. The
cousin makes everything ready for the night: two blankets, to pillows,
placed 'head to feet'. The other days we sleep together under one
blanket, which turned out to be really hot.
For me this is an unknown
experience. I always sleep on my own, alone in my bed. Since I was a
child I have my own private sleeping room and I still I have. Sharing
the bed for me has to do with 'being married' or 'making love'. I am a
little bit afraid of being so close to each other and don't know what to
do when someone in his sleep creeps close to me. In a way it feels
uncomfortable, at the other site it is very cozy. Looking at the
painting I made: don't think Ben and I were that close in our bed.
08 The mandarins.
I
didn't buy anything to eat during our train trip to the countryside.
Feeling so sick I am able to just take a taxi to the railway station.
Ben and his mother, who is travelling with us, of course did. Sitting in
that train and feeling miserable and worrying about if I would survive
this trip suddenly I really needed 'vitamins'. The pills I bought in
Xiamen didn't work at all, fever is raising. A woman passes by with on
her trolley a lot of fruit for sale. "I need some mandarins!" I almost
shout out. Ben has no idea what I mean, what is that, mandarins? But I
insist and buy a package of mandarins. After that I feel relieved. Now I
soon will be healthy again. The mandarins are of a bad quality. Ben
doesn't eat, mother just a half one. I bravely eat them all, of course.
Later
when we are in the city of grandma. Ben buys some pills that are good
against the fever. On the market I see a man who sells a huge amount of
mandarins. His shop is filled to the rafters with mandarins, so you
can't hardly find the man himself. He doesn't look as if he wants to
sell the mandarins, he is just sitting and watching.
09 The music.
It
is a hot day, Ben and I walk around the little streets of his hometown.
Somewhere on the side of the road we sit down to get rest in the
shadow. Ben has a blackberry and we listen to some music. Suddenly he
asks me why I'm divorced. "Because I fell in love with a man". "You
never told me", Ben says mildly surprised and somewhat confused. Well
for me that looks quite normal when you are gay, but for Ben it seems to
be not that simple. Gay means feminine, or something with fashion. And
that's not me. So how to recognize a gay man? Ben thinks that a son his
gay sexuality will hide for the family. He will go to live in the big
city and disappear. Or he will marry and live an ordinary life.
When
I was young in my own province town there also lived a notorious gay
couple. Two men who behave ostentatiously and spoke affectedly with
female mannerisms. At the age of 12 I new already that I was gay and I
always had those two man as bad exemplary figures : I never, never would
become like them! Nowadays in my country like a man can marry a woman, a
man can marry a man and a woman can marry a woman legally.
Songs Ben
and I also listened to: The Beatles "All you need is love", Elton John
"Your song", Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros "Home".
10 The school.
I
have seen a lot of schools during this trip. Kindergarten, primary
schools and secondary schools. Ben showed me the schools he visited as a
boy. I was amazed and somewhat shocked. Schools as big as small
factories and al lot of students. The classrooms are overcrowded.
Students sit the whole day in the same classroom, their desks overloaded
with books. You can hardly see them sitting behind the stacks of books
and notebooks. And a mass! 'A pigsty', we would say in the Netherlands.
No way the school inspection would agree to this. I wonder how students
can learn in such circumstances. Thereby they have to go to school from
morning until in the evening. And they have to learn hard. No wonder
that after secondary school students get lazy and don't want to study
anymore: they are "death studied".
For me the school interior also
has a unprecedented beauty. I love places that are as good as decrepit,
where life left behind his visible traces. Where the history is
palpable.
11 Home.
Ben talks a lot. He loves to tell me
about his past. He wants to give me information about traditional
country live. For example: in the small villages there are many recently
build new big houses, completely furnished but vacant throughout the
year. At the time of spring festival the whole family from all over
China comes together in that house and the have days of festivities,
eating, drinking, playing games and making jokes. Grandparents, parents,
brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces and so on. They haven't seen each
other for months, sometimes for a year. Children who raise by their
grandparents, parents who look after the children of their kids.
One
day Ben will go back to his hometown. Also his family will. They will
all live together in that big house, calm and relaxed. Away from the
impersonal hectic life in the cities. Like it was in older times. Ben
sais.
I wonder where my home is. Is it the place where I'm born? My
grandparents and parents died. I have three sisters; only one of them I
see more or less frequently. I am divorced. My ex wife lives in
Switzerland. My daughter studies in another city. I have a beautiful
building where is my house and my studio. I live on my own. Home is
where the heart is.
12 Rice pudding.
When we are at Ben's
hometown there is nothing in the house to eat. And in that little town
there are no shops. But no problem: within half an hour almost every
citizen invited us for dinner at their homes. Ben tells me Chinese
people say as a greeting 'Have you eaten?' instead of our 'How are
you?'. I also learn that you have to be careful by saying yes. Because
there are preferences. You could insult one by going to diner with the
other. So be aware you keep peace in town. Well for me, I know, I would
go for dinner with the old teacher, or with the woman of 90 years who
walks around as if she was 60. But no. Suddenly Ben surprises me "The
neighbours have asked us for dinner, she made rice pudding". Oh my God!
Rice pudding! I hate pudding. Although I believe I have never in my life
eaten pudding. As a child I refused and, spoiled as I am, my mother
made me something else to eat. So please? But in China I have eaten
more things I never ever should eat in my own country, so let's go. That
the pudding is delicious, is too much said. It's good and there are
also delicious vegetables and roasted nuts. But most of all I enjoy the
way the neighbours succeeds in eating such a pudding with only two
chopsticks. Amazing! In no time 'sssshhhhlp, sssshhhhlp' and the pudding
is all. I can't do it like that, in my cup at the end there is only
rice water. The rice I could pick up with the sticks, but I really caný
bring the cup to my mouth and do a 'sssshhhhlp, sssshhhhlp'. Ben tells
me to be a 'Roman under the Romans', but preferred to act like a foreign
guest than as a Chinese between the Chineses.
13 Toys.
The
parents-in-law of Bens eldest brother take care of the brothers little
baby child. Also their youngest son of eighteen is living in the house.
To the walking cart of this baby child hangs a small plastic bottle. The
grandmother shows the little child how blowing into the opening sound
emerges from that same bottle, like it is a kind of flute. For me I find
it a bit in common, because a child of that age can never do something
like that. I already noticed before how little toys for children there
are in the homes. Sometimes I see children outside playing with self
made toys: a football made of newspapers, a seesaw made of some warped
wood, or toys made of old plastic bottles to play with water. However,
even the most modest house seems to have a computer and a PlayStation.
14 Focus.
When
Ben talks, he talks a lot. Because he wants to tell everything what
comes up in his mind. Thereby he has a big imagination and he has a lot
of subjects to talk about. His thoughts go in all directions and in his
enthusiasm he links themes together which at first sight have nothing to
do with each other. More than ones he loses the threat of the story he
started to tell. We found a solution for that: when Ben again threatens
to lose in his story again, I say "Focus, Ben!".
15 Pills.
Pills
are an important thing in my life: since I was young I always have
taken pills, because of my asthma. It has become a kind of addiction.
Sometimes I get nervous only by knowing the medicines are almost on. And
here, far away from home all medicines are totally different from the
ones I know. And how to describe in poor English to a Chinese saleswoman
what for I need the medicines!
16 The snake.
We saw a
snake! And belief me, it was a big one. In Ben's hometown, the day we
arrived. Next day we went to walk through 'the wild nature' Ben took a
branch and while walking he beated along with it into the grass in front
of him. To frighten the snakes. I was walking behind and thought
'maybe I should do the same. So I found a nice branch and beated into
the grass. But I felt a kind of clumsy and if what I was doing didn't
make any sense at all. So I threw away the branch and I trusted all over
again for the umpteenth time on my guardian angel.
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