Nín hÇŽo(hello)
Following two flights and a 30 hour train ride we were ready to take a bus to our final destination. A contact got us set up with bus tickets and set us on our way. We knew that we would have to get off our bus and buy a new ticket to get to where we wanted to go. Upon arriving at the bus station we managed to buy bus tickets to what was our final destination even though we didn’t speak Chinese and they didn’t speak English.
So another bus ride ended at another bus station. We were here (so we thought) and we look at the river and I say… is it just me or did you think that the Yellow river would be a little bigger than this? Also, the description sounded like a small town and this seems like a metropolis. The bus driver pulls our backpacks from the roof. He then wrote something down in Chinese in our notebook and tried to give us 50(about 9 USD) yuan. This was very confusing so we declined the money and began to negotiate a ride to the hotel via taxi. The first taxi wanted 300 yuan… well that is ridiculous.. so we negotiate some more and get him down to 100 yuan, but think the hotel is probably around the corner so we leave the bus station via foot.
Upon leaving the bus station we find some taxis who point us towards the hotel but none want to negotiate to take us. Finally, we met a taxi with someone who spoke a little English and she explained that we were an hour from the hotel… ohh that is why the bus driver wanted to give us 50 yuan… he shortened his day by a couple of hours by dropping us one town short of the destination. We’ve been had and now we need to get to our final destination via taxi. The next negotiating sessions didn’t yield as much success but we were able to finagle a ride for 120 yuan which dropped us in front of our hotel.
At the end of the day we considered it a miracle that we ended up where we were supposed to go… I realized a little bit about dependence and it was incredibly freeing to realize that I could not depend on myself whatsoever because there is now way I would get to where I needed to be. This is also a reality in the faith as our own will has nothing on God’s will for how we live our lives.
Zàijiàn(Goodbye in Chinese)
Kevin
