Barbarians

Once you have seen the history, culture and civilization on display at the Palace Museum, you realize that we, the other peoples of the world, are just barbarians.



As a 'guest' and a white man traveling in Asia, I am customarily shown a large dose of respect. Whether it's warranted or unwarranted, real or fabricated, I don't know, but it happens. In India, they often salute me.



Not in China! In Beijing I was looking for internet so I wandered into a shop with computers and teenage boys. The head boy shooed me away as if a stray dog had walked into the shop: Barbarian, get out! On the train, a fruit vendor punched me because I didn't understand her instructions to get out of the way. In the dining car I wanted breakfast, so the waitress handed me the menu turned to the Western page; there was one item: eggs, toast and coffee. I tried to turn the page for some congee or dumplings, but she slapped her hand down on the menu, shaking her head and wagging her finger: Barbarian, you eat Barbarian food!



Even the yaks know. In rural Qinghai, the train was stopped for fifteen minutes, so the foreigners were taking photographs of a herd of yaks. I was watching a solitary yak who had wandered from the herd. Like most solitary creatures, he was male. He grazed for a while, rolled in the grass, scratched himself, looked at the train and then turned, squatted, and pooped.



In Tibet, the yaks are friendlier. So are the people. The children run up to me and say "hello, what's your name?" The women smile and try to sell me something. The men smile and sometimes offer a drink. It's back to normal--almost like being in Thailand again.