Guido in 🇨🇳🇹🇼@Full_Metal_QR
It's past midnight in Changsha and I'm sitting on a curb, eating noodles.
The street is alive the way Chinese cities are alive at 1 a.m. A girl walks past and shouts "VERY HANDSOME MAN!" Another stops and asks for my WeChat. Then another. I've done nothing to deserve this. I'm wearing the same shirt I slept in.
The noodles are so good I almost cry.
The owner is a small woman, maybe sixty. She says something to me in Chinese. I don't understand a word. But she's looking at me the way a mother looks at her son.
I try to tip her. She refuses, and pushes the money back into my hand like I've offended her. I do not fully understand it, but I understand its kindness, and that I'm not supposed to pay for it.
I don't know why everyone here has been so kind to me. I don't even know what the I’m doing in Changsha. I couldn't point to it on a map.
But the noodles are hot. The girls are laughing down the street. The grandma loves me. And somewhere on this curb, past midnight, in a city I can't find on a map, I think this might be one of the best nights of my life.
Thank you, China. I don't know what I did to deserve your people, but I'm grateful for every one of them.
