searching and finding

Up until Tuesday, the only place I could find in Nanjing for bike-renting was the Fuzimiao youth hostel, where there are four big fat mountain-bike tired things leaned up against the wall by the pool table. The electric bike belongs to the boss; you can't rent that, the desk girl says, and then we laugh like it is a great joke . . . she turned friendly in a real way when I switched to Chinese. It's embarrassing how excited people can get about me being able to communicate with them in Chinese. Last night two guys smoking in a black car on the road called me back when I made some smirking answer to their half-greeting from the window as I passed. I gave my phone number, laughing at their forwardness, but I don't have much time to go out in the next few weeks, sorry, it's nice to meet them though. There are the ones like them that make a big deal as a power thing, and then there are the ones like the girl at the hostel, who really was just excited. People like those who work in a tourist area. In the bike store some European-looking woman smiled real big and said hello to me and before I was knew was doing I'd "ni-haoed" her back. She laughed and repeated the greeting, "ni hao", like, ha that's a good one.

It took my roommate searching online and then me biking through 新街口 and then all the way over to the 夫子庙 area to finally find the Giant shop on 太平南路 that sells bikes. It was huge and beautiful but they don't rent like Willie Gee thought they might.

The sleazy sellers at the sleazy secondhand market will rent, they said on Friday when I went. I may have been the first person to ask; I got estimates from five to twenty yuan a day. I was surprised at how easy it would've been to sell the bike that I was pushing. (At first I'd left it outside, but even with a lock I didn't trust it there. These people are professionals, I reminded myself, and when I went back out to retrieve it there was a man squatting next to it, maybe studying it intently. Or maybe he just needed a place to smoke.

When you see the stickers on the crossbar you try not to think about the kid who put them there the week before his bike disappeared, and you try to pretend the guy selling the tallest bike on the floor is not sleazy, because I have a friend - he's this high (measure with my hand way above my own head) - who might need this bike. I smile, and talk long, with the best mix of sweetness and toughness I've got. I learned a long time ago (when I was a waitress and had regular customers) that people can sense when you don't like them, so it pays to try to convince yourself that you actually do.

Finally yesterday I found two sweet shops that were both renting bikes, and seriously professional about it. And next door an outdoor shop where the guy answered all my questions about thermal sleeping bags and I bought two 10 kuai woolen caps.

Sunday morning I left the city in a taxi with a friend and went to the most beautiful temple I've ever been in. Guanyin tipped her delicate pitcher and poured love and mercy in the center of a small lake, and CXJ told me that she only looks like a woman on the outside, inside she's a man (and still looks like one in India). In Buddhism there is no differentiation between man and female. And man, I think, that sounds nice. Really?

Two of those trees that look like money grew huge and framing the main part of the temple. Back in the back there were carvings in hill's stone, and a big one of a sitting Buddha. We stepped inside to see the Guan Yin on one side and the old women didn't care that we weren't gonna buy incense.

CXJ's friend the monk I think was the maybe the top monk at the temple. He left home to become a monk after high school, and that must have been at least twenty years ago. His face has crinkled up around the eyes and he's the most genuine-feeling monk I think I've ever met in China. He has his own room for meditation and calligraphy and one with the happy Buddha and a whole bunch of Guanyins for burning incense and praying in private. We sat in the wooden chairs on either side of the tea table and he served us before returning to his place by the altar, doing some sloshing of water that led to a tiny mouthful worth of tea, but tasty. He is patient, and answers my questions and talks with me about the things I'm interested in. There are different ways to talk to every person says the Buddha, and this guy had that kind of wisdom.