Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
After walking down the Guiyu streets for an uncomfortable duration—uncomfortable
for the way we stuck out, for the way people stopped what they were doing to watch us and
possibly ready their bricks—we came upon Mr. Han sitting in the doorway of his work-
shop. He was youngish, perhaps in his early thirties, and had a friendly face. His forehead
and hair were powdered with dust. He had been using a small circular saw to cut CPUs out
of a select stack of motherboards. In Chinese, Cecily asked if we could see his workshop.
Like their neighbors, the Hans lived on the upper floors of their building, reserving the
ground floor for a garage-like workroom. One corner of the workshop was a sitting room
with a teakettle and a computer; the rest was filled with piles of motherboards, shelves of
CPUs, and large grain sacks filled with sorted resistors and capacitors. We sat and drank
tiny cups of tea by the half dozen while the family's tiny, eight-year-old son made a racket
throwing circuit boards around in the back of the workshop.
Mrs. Han wanted to know why Cecily, in her late twenties, wasn't married, and whether
I was married, and whether two single people traveling together were perhaps soon to be
married to each other, and finally, once again, whether I was married.
“Is he married?” she asked, looking at me with cautious amusement, as though I were a
zebra.
I said I was not. Married. I didn't elaborate. I was in fact more than unmarried. I was
newly alone, and homeless. After getting back from Brazil, I had moved out of the Doc-
tor's place. Now, when not in Guiyu, I resided on an air mattress on Adam's living room
floor, where I spent my nights praying to be hit by an asteroid.
We began the business of lying to our new friends. Cecily and I had not agreed on a
cover story in the end, but the Hans quite naturally wanted to know what had brought me to
Guiyu, and to their workshop. Improvising, Cecily threw out several stories in quick suc-
cession, no doubt creating some confusion as to exactly what an artist/university research-
er/entrepreneur was. I told Cecily I was worried they wouldn't buy it.
It doesn't matter, she said. We just have to tell them something.
In the meantime, I had realized that the little tyke in back wasn't thrashing around just
for fun. He was working. I told Mr. Han that I'd be happy to relieve his son for a while. I
was a hard worker, I said, a claim that proved wildly hilarious to the entire family. When
the laughter died down, I was still looking expectant.
Is he serious? Mr. Han asked.
I think he is, Cecily told him.
Mr. Han shrugged. Well, sure. Lang can show him how to do it.
