LOST IN CHINA

by Boihaki M. Yahya

Bei Bei

“Bei Bei”. Just a short answer she gave and gone by the car we drove with. She was the first Chinese I knew and helped me in my long lost in Hangzhou. She could not speak English well while I could not speak Chinese, only English and Arabic the languages that I could use. Before I came to China, I thought, with English and Arabic I could go anywhere in this world with no worries about lost and any problems. But that statement ruined from the first step I took in China.

Air Asia plane landed smoothly on Hangzhou International Airport. Most of the passengers are Chinese, only I and four other people who came along with me had different typical face and skin color in that flight which originally from Indonesia. So, it was kind of we had our own group and in my group there were four men, Professor Rani, Jufrizal, Sule, and included me, and one woman, Nelly. Before landing in Hangzhou, we transferred plane at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. That was not the first time for me to go abroad, but it was the first time for the three others, even to go to the capital city of Indonesia, Jakarta.

Prof. Dr. Arani Usman, was called Rani, he is now a dean of UIN Ar-Raniry Aceh. He had been taken one year observation and learnt Chinese language in 2004 before and thanks to her I and my friends now got the scholarship for master degree of Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC) in 2011. We were placed in Nanchang University, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. At that time there was no Indonesian student studied there before. And he was on his duty to take four us to our next four years campus.

Hangzhou International Airport. Looked like it was the last plane that landed in that airport at that time, almost no more activities in the airport. Just few illegal taxi driver looked around for some customers and disappear when their moves were captured by the security officers. There was five taxi drivers came to me and ask in Chinese whether I need a taxi or not. But of course, I could barely understand any words came out from their mouth but “taxi” word.

Shock Culture

Shock culture was what we felt in a time when the plane landed in Hangzhou. Whole words were written in Chinese characters, started from the information boards, directions, map, and toilets, even the fast food restaurant’s name board were written with Chinese character.  No one of those characters we knew, only could recognize some of them from the drawings or the symbols that we used to see in our country. Rani was the only one who had learnt Chinese before, but he could not read all of those Chinese characters, he could speak only. Nevertheless it was better than nothing to know about it.  The solution in that confusing situation was asking. “the best teacher in confusing is asking”, he said.

No plane from Hangzhou to Nanchang at that time. Among four of us, the students, there were no one could speak Chinese. Other languages we had were English and Arabic, and the one who could use them was me. For the others, they could not even speak other languages beside our mother tongue, Bahasa. I dared myself to ask the airport employee. If the airport was an International airport, so all the information would be not only in Chinese but also in English and all the employee must be trained to learn English too.

“May you help me sir?”, I asked in English to an officer that has word “Police” in his vest. I continued, “I would like to continue my trip. I need a transportation which is going to Nanchang?”. All he did was listen without answering. He looked around and call his friend. I repeated the same question more slowly, may be the first one was too fast or too long to be understood by them. ”Could u tell me a transportation which is going to Nanchang?”. Did not mean to ignore me, both of those officers talked each other in Chinese that I could not understand even a word. I intended to show them directly the address of my destination, but I just realized that it was written in English, not in Chinese!

Then they lead me to the other employee, a woman this time and I hope she could help me, of course in English. “Do you speak English?” quickly she shake her head. Means no.

O, My God! How could there was no one in this big International Airport that speak English! I told myself. I came back to my friends who looked so tired and were waiting for me hoping that I could bring some good news and useful information for them.

“See? This is China. Even for someone who mastered English and Arabic cannot do anything. China with bunch of its cultures stands high up to preserve their mother language.”, Rani said while he stood up from his seat. “Come with me!”, he pulled me to follow him and find other officers.

Rani asked an officer with his halting Chinese. The officer looked confuse to understand what he said. He did learn Chinese for a year before but it was years away now and he never used it anymore when he came back to Indonesia in 2005. Chinese descendants preferred to speak Indonesian than Chinese to the Indonesian people.

Some illegal taxi drivers heard over what we talked to the officers, “go go…” they said, as if they know where to go. Rani said that they would give a high price, twice even three times from the normal price especially for the lost foreigners like us.

At last, by using some gestures and Rani’s limited Chinese, the officers understood and told us to go to the train station, but first we needed to take a bus. By airport’s bus, 100 Yuan for five seats.

Trouble Was Not Over Yet

So much time wasted in the airport. The time was 23.30 midnight when we arrived to the train station. All the ticket counters were close. Tired, hungry, thirsty, and sleepy, no lunch and no dinner. We planned to buy some foods from the shops in the station, but always language became our main problem here. “How can we go to buy some foods if only English we can use while the sellers cannot speak even understand English?”. Juf asked confusedly. Besides it was his first time taking a flight and going abroad, it also his first time talked to asked how to get some food after a long hours without foods.

“Use your body language if you can’t speak any languages.” I told him while I laid down my body on the station’s floor. “But how?”, he asked again. “Spread your arms like wings and make chicken sounds if you wanna choose chicken meat menu.” I explained, “And just make some other sounds according to the menu you want.” Jokingly said. We laughed in our weariness.

The ticket counters would open at 9 o’clock tomorrow morning. It would be too long to wait for the train. So, we decided to take bus with sleeping beds. While I and Rani were going to buy the bus tickets, Juf and Sule went to find some foods, and Nelly looked after the bags. Bus departure at 4 o’clock in the dawn, earlier than the train’s schedule. We soon bought the bus tickets for five of us so that we could have some long rest on the bus.

In the bus, other passengers started to lay down their fatigue bodies to have some comfortable position to rest, so did we. Luckily, the bus was not too crowded and we could sleep tightly.

May be some people would ask us why Hangzhou? Why we did not transfer the flight from Guangzhou or Beijing or Shanghai or other big cities in China. Because according to the google map that we used at that time, we learnt that Hangzhou just about 5-6 hours from Nanchang by fast train. So, we thought that from Hangzhou to Nanchang would be nearer than others. But because of a long an tiring waited hours, we changed the plan. We got the bus to go to Nanchang from Hangzhou.

There Would Be Always a Little Angel as a Savior

In the next day, still with some miles of road to go, I thought. I wanted to go to ask the driver about how many hours left for us to get to Nanchang, but I undid it. Of course the driver would not understand it. However, I saw a girl who sit right after my seat, she was around 20’s I guessed and looked like a student or something and maybe she could speak English.

Again, I guessed wrongly. She was so shy, but after seeing my serious face asking her, she tried to help me using her digital hand phone’s dictionary. I woke Rani up, he introduced himself to the girl and started to ask many questions with his Chinese during the travel. That girl who would help us and took us to the Nanchang University.

After a long tiring hours driving bus from Hangzhou, we arrived to International Exchange Student College Nanchang University. We dropped all our luggage from the bus. A minute before the bus take off, I just realized that I did not know the name of the little angel who had helped us to get here. I did not even asked her phone number too. I turned around and scream out loud to the passing bus, “What’s your name?”. She heard me and said, “Bei Bei”. Just a short answer she gave and gone by the car we drove with.