The Happy Buddha

As you already know, I rose Thursday afternoon in a haze of confusion as my mind stuttered like a rusty old starter motor squaling in protest at the notion of trying to turn the engine in its days well past its prime. Jimmy's comment had the effect of taking a solid hammer and giving it a carefully applied good whack to snap things into operation.

"I-- what--"

"You--"

"Right," I abruptly cut him off, knowing as a man damned by his own hand exactly what he had done, "I forgot. I better go apologize to Mickey--"

He laughed. "Oh no no," he managed between chuckles, "you misunderstand. You need not worry, she thinks you're rather funny. I think they might come out again later, with today being your last night in Guilin."

I had closed my eyes during the flashback of the memory. It seemed appropriate to slowly bring my hand to the bridge of my nose to banish the pain, though for what reason completely escaped me. I shake my hand when I stub my toe to get the pain out, and I suppose that that makes about the same amount of sense, on reflection. None of these actions had the desired effect of undoing what I now knew I had done last night.

"Come on," Jimmy said, coming to my rescue, "Let's go meet the girls, they're at the train station. Then we get some dumplings like you like."

"I don't know if I'm ready to face Mickey just--"

"Mickey? No! Mickey and Kari, they're at work! Lisa and Linda, they come from Yangshuo."

"Oh." This had the kind of motivational effect he desired. At least this was a different kind of trouble I could wrap my head around. Balance in all things, as Jimmy constantly taught me.

We ventured forth from the warmth of the hotel into the strength of the cold that had unseasonably come to Guilin to shake the natural order up a bit. The train station was only a 5 minute walk from my hotel, but Jimmy let me know that the girls might be waiting as I'd taken a little longer than he predicted, so we made it in 2 to head off any trouble. I had taught him the oft-broken maxim to "never keep a lady waiting" as we headed out in the fast-style Hong Kong walk.

Lisa and Linda were already there, and must have observed our racing pace when we arrived before we noticed them. They were all smiles at the brief reunion, and we soon set off for my new favorite dumpling place, the girls recanting their tales of their visit to the ancient city of Xingping, about an hour away from Yangshuo.

As we came to the street where stalls lined the already narrow pedestrian boulevard, a young girl selling flowers approached the group, choosing some likely targets in Jimmy and me seeing us paired with two girls. She moved away from Jimmy as he managed to nonchalantly gesture that he wasn't interested, and began plying me with her surprisingly fluent English.

"Rose sir buy a flower sir perhaps the pretty girl would like a flower," she managed all in one breathe.

"No, I--"

"Buy flower sir only 2 Yuan," she continued, and then suddenly switched gears as she came up very close to me. Her free hand immediately darted out and rubbed a rough circle on my stomach. "Happy Buddha," she declaimed, taking in my smile and belly in a slightly louder voice.

I laughed. The others laughed. I gently disengaged and chose to try out some of my Mandarin with her. After following us for about a block away occasionally correcting my pronunciation, she finally lost interest and began to head back.

The dumplings weren't quite as good as they had been the day before, but you still got a large heaping plate of steamed dumplings for around a buck. The girls let us know that they had to be back in Yangshuo in a couple of hours, so we set out to do some site seeing along the Li Jiang river. We caught glimpses of the glass bridge / gazebo and one of the pretty local parks in Guilin, before settling down for a cup of coffee at a small restaurant set over the river (through the Dragon gate, as they let me know remembering my Chinese name). A middle aged woman had the horizontal harp looking ancient Chinese instrument (the one you hear the blind man play during the fight seen in the movie Hero) and offered to play one of about 20 songs for a couple of Yuan; we took her up on it, gently allowing the fusion of the eastern harmonies with the western liquid stimulant as the sun set over the river. What must have been a few hours later, we brought the girls back to the train station and huffed it towards the main bridge where Mickey was waiting to meet us.

Without much say in it, I was definitely indirectly teaching Jimmy that the whole "never keep a lady waiting" idea wasn't one that we managed to make good on very often. I won't take all the blame for it though, cause Mickey was getting out of work earlier than we'd expected, so we went for the next best thing and came as close to a running walk as we could reasonably manage.

She was waiting with a smile and probing eyes, with the look of an innocent girl wondering what scandal I might cause today. I started to mumble an apology but she brushed it off before I had any traction with it and let me know that she had had fun last night. Conferring briefly, we decided to go for some Korean BBQ, but were interrupted by the airline service letting me know that they were going to drop off my ticket now rather than the time they'd indicated. A quick cab ride or two and Kari met up with us, and we began grilling away food on the small Korean grill set in the center of the table.

Leaving the restaurant, we paused awhile to watch a few kids trying to work out some new tricks on a skateboard, a few ramps and pipes set up to mess around on. There was bar right there we decided to try out, where I set to teaching them an old favorite dice game (7/11/doubles for those of you who've had the misfortune of trying it out). All in all a fun night, but a relatively calm night. And sooner or later it was time to say our goodbyes.

Jimmy met me the next morning as had become his ritual, helping me to avoid catching the late check out fee and managing to talk the hotel into giving me some hot water (they still were shutting the damn thing off somewhere around 10:30 instead of 12 like they promised). We decided to grab some food and chat for a couple hours at one of the sidewalk coffee shops, and then I got a text from Harrison in Chengdu.

"Yeah man, I'm here. Chengdu is pretty cool. Hit me on this number when you get to town."

I relayed the gist of it to Jimmy and then added, "I guess it's time to hit the road."

"Hit the road. I will remember that."

"Take care man."

"Yeah.. And come back like you said!"

He began to show me the way to the airport bus station, when another small kid walked up to me, flower in hand.

"Flower sir? Buy flower?"

"No," I laughed, recalling the incident with the girl, "the Buddha doesn't need a flower."

Perfectly on cue, a small hand darted out and began the same circular motion and programmed response.

"Happy Buddha!"