WHY I LOVE THE CHINESE

France, 2008

BORDEAUX TRAIN STATION, six o’clock in the evening, cold and dark and pissing down outside, I’m standing in the middle of the main hall, oblivious to the rush-hour madness pushing and shoving all around me, watching (for no particular reason) a Chinese guy struggling with a ticket machine.

The Chinese guy notices he’s being watched and suddenly turns and starts walking straight at me with a determined look in his eye, like he’s about to go Jackie Chan on my staring ass! Before I have time to apologise, he asks in English if I can help him understand the French instructions the ticket machine is arrogantly dishing out.

Sure, why not, I’ll give it a go—I don’t speak French, but I can probably read it.

It turns out the ticket he wants has to be purchased in person from the ticket office, so I accompany him to the room to act as his interpreter. Again, no idea why either of us thought this was a good idea, I’ve already told you I didn’t know French; although I did know slightly more than he did. The queue was long and, as he spoke good English, we started chatting, and I told him a bit about the journey I was on—to which he replied, “Wow! This is something really funny and amazing!”

After we had secured his ticket and I was saying goodbye, he told me he wanted to cook me a Chinese meal and hear more about my trip, so I followed him to a student residence close to the station and, as we walked down the long corridor from the lift to his room, I realised mine was the only non-Chinese face in the building. The whole block, he explained, was inhabited by Chinese students.

I dropped my backpack onto the floor in the corner of his room and we introduced ourselves properly. Baijian was 24 years old and was completing his post-graduate studies in France. There was an open-door policy in force on his floor and every few minutes a different Chinese student stuck his head in to say hello to my host; and each time Baijian explained to the person in Chinese the story of how this English guy had ended up in their building, and then switched to English to introduce me. Everyone expressed their awe at what I was doing, the words ‘brave’ and ‘crazy’ were thrown around liberally—I had taken on instant hero status among the Chinese, and I gotta tell you, it felt pretty damn good.

As Baijian started to cook dinner, I was invited into the bedroom opposite to check my emails on somebody’s laptop and to watch TV. If I was thirsty, I was poured a drink. If I was tired, I was told to put my feet up on the bed. Over the next half hour, two dozen different Chinese students came to introduce themselves to me, and they sat around asking me questions, telling jokes, offering me snacks, and just being curious and funny and kind. After feeling so exhausted, hungry and dejected just an hour earlier, I couldn’t process all that had happened to change my predicament.

Dinner, despite the struggle with the chopsticks, was delicious. Desert, not so much: chopped banana and pear—covered in mayonnaise! Fortunately it was custom to eat from the same bowl, so all I had to do was pretend to eat very slowly while watching Baijian demolish the lot. Seriously though, fruit with mayonnaise—who does that? (I asked ChatGPT if I might be remembering it wrong, but nope, the Chinese really do).

As evening turned to late night, I started thinking about returning to the train station, where I would have to spend the night as there wouldn’t be any trains leaving for Paris until the morning. Baijian’s room was so tiny and cramped that I suddenly felt I was intruding on his personal space, so I stood up, thanked him for everything and headed for the door. But as I was doing so, a girl entered the room dragging a mattress behind her. While I had been in his friend’s room earlier, Baijian had paid a visit to every single student on the floor asking if anyone had any extra bedding.

“You will stay here tonight,” he told me. “You can’t sleep in the train station; it’s too cold and too dangerous. Please, you are my guest. We will wake early tomorrow and go to the station together, as I am travelling with my friends to Biarritz.”

I was lost for words. I thought I might cry.

Throughout the night Baijian was like a kid at a pyjama party: he wouldn’t stop talking. Each time I got five minutes of silence and thought he had fallen asleep, he would ask another question about my journey or my life back in England and I would answer him. I didn’t have the heart to tell him to go to sleep; he was too nice a guy. We parted company at the train station early the following morning, but not before he handed me a bag of salami sandwiches he had prepared for me while I showered.

Ever since then I’ve kept a special place in my heart for the Chinese. And in each one of the Chinese students that I’m fortunate enough to welcome into my classroom every year, I see Baijian and his friends and feel a warmth that is hard to explain.