Pingyao Part 2: Everything is Ting Bu Dong (TBD)

I have always held the belief that you can learn a lot about a people by studying what they read and what they eat. So I visit a bookstore in Pingyao and a restaurant where the locals eat. Like an earnest student, I make a detailed inventory of everything I see.

The bookstore has the following sections (the books are all in Chinese but the signs are in English):

Hundred Branch Knowledge, Children Dance, Poetry Couplets Hung in Front of a Hall,
Theory of Natural, Pursuing a Goal with determining to mature, Pop Care, Great Books (this section was under lock and key and all the books had a golden sheen to them!)

I am most interested in figuring out what the Pursuing a Goal with determining to mature section means. I finally decide that it is a self-help section. However, what throws me off completely is a video game in this section entitled the “Bards Tale.” The picture above says it all: A barbarian looking dude gallops towards a hot blond chic with cleavage and an overflowing mug of beer! Must take a lot of determination for the poor “bard” to pursue such an arduous goal? I mean beer and blondes don’t come by easily in China do they? If you do crack this one, please e-mail me.



Moving on to gastronomical absurdity of astronomical proportions. Below is an inventory of my favorite items from a local restaurant (picture above captures only one section):

Pingyao beef, The hand grasps the beef, Steamed rolling wish Otes flavor, Domestic life skoal beans a round mass if, Syrup long chinese yam, Pingyao bowl gets wet bare, Sour picked cababe with mound, Burn the eggplant, Bum (my favorite! austere in its simplicity but so insane!), The red flour rubs cha mound fights, Orchid Zhou knife cut face, Powder vegetables if water...

The list goes on! So if you have an existential crisis in China I recommend the following routine:
Wake up early, visit the Pursuing a Goal with determining to mature section. Pick out your favorite bards tale where you can chase blond chicks with big boobs and beer. When you are exhausted, treat yourself to a grand meal of Burn the eggplant + hand grasps the beef and you will be all set!

On a more serious note, the Chinese can be inscrutable to the uninitiated traveler. One needs to dig a lot deeper than bookstores and Chinese restaurants to even ask the right questions. At the same time, the inability to understand, speak and comprehend is what makes your experience beautiful and humbling. When you lose your sense of language, you are inadvertently attuned to non-verbal expression.

While everything is Ting Bu Dong (Chinese for I don't understand), in the absence of language, China becomes a celebration of eyes, smiles, colors and transcendental interactions. Your other senses come alive and mix in a synesthetic whirl.