2 Questions Every Girl is Asking Herself

Chapter 4

I paced around the courtyard breathing out hot air into the cool evening sky. This can't be happening! This can't actually be happening! What kind of hotel does this to its guests? Hotels have curfews? I could just imagine a disclaimer posted at the front entrance saying: 'Dear guest, if you return later than midnight, you will be locked out of the premises and rendered homeless.' What are we, Cinderella and the pumpkin carriage here? I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

In the end, Han said, "Let's just go back to my hotel. It's on Si Fang Jie."

'Is this a joke?'I thought. I was trying so hard not to spend the night with him, and now I have no choice? I didn't even have enough cash left on me to get another room. I contemplated the other option of sitting on the cold stone bench until dawn. That didn't seem comfortable, or at all lady-like.

So we cabbed back, and spent a few uncomfortable hours sharing a bed, where I learned Han is 30, and works as a loan administrator for a few private lenders. He studied Chinese Literature in university. His mom is a teacher, dad used to manage a few people in a factory in a small town in SiChuan. They divorced when he was six, but it made him mature a lot sooner.

I also learned that Han is in fact not single, and has several girlfriends. Fidelity seems to have zero meaning to him. His girlfriend is well aware of his sexual escapades, but accepts it, and even supports it. She intends to marry him.

"My girlfriend keeps on asking me when I'm going to get some more girlfriends. If I only have the one girlfriend, it's embarrassing. Because most guys around us have several girlfriends. Did you see that chubby guy at the noodle stand with that pretty girl?" Han says.

"Yeah? She's very pretty. Isn't that his girlfriend?" I ask.

"That's his other girlfriend," Han says.

My jaw must have dropped in the darkness. I stared straight into the ceiling, with my brows firmly knotted into a deep frown of confusion. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. What kind of girl would want to marry someone like Han? What kind of surroundings make Han think this kind of arrangement is at all acceptable? I didn't know what to make of Han, or the world around him.

Han asked me to abandon my tour group and come with him on his road trip. He'll pay for my flight back home. I thanked him for the generous offer, but refused, for I very much looked forward to the next destination, Xi Shuang Ban Na – China's tropical jungle.

At around 6 o'clock, I got up and walked out through the 800 year old town in its morning glory. It's so quiet and peaceful. Some of the shop keepers are out sweeping the narrow bluestone streets. Backpackers are on their way to the next destination, where ever that may be. Photographers with their long lenses try to capture this bit of quietude, the moment where this charming old lady is just waking up, before she puts on her make up for the world to see. You begin to see how old the place really is, the wrinkles that went unnoticed in the dim lights at night.

I feel slightly sad about leaving Han, but understand such is the nature of things. Some people are meant to walk with you for a while, and then your paths will part. So just enjoy your time together, however short it may be, and let fate decide, if and when, your paths will cross again.

I let out a gentle sigh and draw in a big breath of fresh air. My lungs are filled with happiness. Watching this town in the soft sunlight of dawn, I reminisce for a moment the eventful past 15 hours, I got to see the old town of Lijiang in its hustle and bustle under the hot afternoon sun, watched it turn into an experienced seductress at dusk, and now its age and purity in the morning. I drank green tea in an ancient teahouse, met a boy at a noodle stand, checked out the infamous bar scene, experienced an "intimate encounter", got locked out of my own room, and spent the night in a boutique hotel right here on Si Fang Jie.

That was fun.

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