Dragon's three dreams

I wanted to write another post about Dragon, our guide through Tiger
Leaping Gorge, since he made such an impression on us.

During the grueling two-day hike, he cracked us up by assuring us it
was "very easy." He also tended to underestimate how long parts of the
hike would take us. We gathered that both of these things were because
he must have hiked through those mountains practically every day of
his life. On the first day as we huffed and puffed up the hill, we
passed a very old lady going the other direction with a big basket of
kindling on her back. She cheerfully exchanged a few words with the
few in our group who speak Chinese, and continued on her way, seeming
to be barely winded. I could easily see an old Dragon in the distant
future putting young hikers like us to shame the way this old lady did.

The first evening in the gorge, Dragon came to us as we were finishing
dinner to let us know that we could sleep in the next morning since we
had had such a strenuous day. He then proceeded to tell us about
Zhongdian ("Shangri-la"), the next place we were going, and about the
Tibetans who live there. He then mentioned his own heritage (father
Naxi, mother Tibetan) and told us there are something like 25 ethnic
minorities in Yunnan province.

Someone in our group asked him to tell us about his two dreams he had told her about earlier in the day. He told us his first dream is to own a very big car. we found this very funny and somewhat worrying in
light of our experiences on the bumpy, narrow, cliffside roads in and
around the gorge. He also mentioned that every year a car plunges off
the road into the Yangtze due to the driver having "too much beers."
All this made it seem like a very bad idea to have a very big car, but
we forgave him his apparent bad judgment when he told us the story
behind this dream:

When he was in middle school, he was playing basketball with friends one day. The ball bounced astray just as a man in a big car drove near
them. The ball hit the car, prompting the man to get out and yell at
the kids something like "you kids should be more careful and have more
respect, you're so poor you'll never have a big car like mine!" So
Dragon vowed to prove that man wrong someday.

Dragon's second dream is to become an Intrepid tour guide. (This one I
must say I support slightly more than his first dream.) He said he has
given tours to many Chinese groups and doesn't like them because they
tend to rush from one destination to the next. He said Intrepid tour
groups, made up of foreign travelers, seem to have more patience to
appreciate their surroundings and the culture of the local people. He
emphasized that he really liked our group in particular, in part
because of how we all eat together like family. He repeated this with
the utmost sincerity as if to make clear he really meant it.

He began telling us about "very beautiful" places in Yunnan we had
never heard of, that aren't in the guidebooks, and that tour groups
tend to skip in favor of the more touristy well known places. I'm
convinced he would give fabulous tours off the beaten track in places
with charms only locals are privy to.

The people at Intrepid told him his English needs to improve before he
can become a bonafide tour guide, so we were happy to provide him with
some much-needed practice.

Around that time, the power went out, and Dragon quickly fetched two
candles before we had time to panic. So we continued by candlelight.
When the conversation came to a lull, I asked him if he has a third
dream. After a pause, he said "my third dream is secret." This
prompted some oohs and whistles from some of us who guessed his smile
implied he was hiding something romantic. After some urging and
pleading, he told us his third dream: to marry his girlfriend later
this year. He surprised us by describing her as "not beautiful" -
perhaps he was just being modest. He did follow that with "but she is
very friendly." Her family is Hani, another local ethnic minority
known (according to Dragon at least) for their tasty tofu dishes, the
mention of which made him swoon even more than talking about his
girlfriend. He said we were all welcome to come to his wedding, which
he estimated would be attended by 2,000 locals.

One final story from Dragon: he said if we ever go to the other side
of the gorge we should beware of the monkeys (supposedly they only
live on the other side) because once he and his friends were hunting
wild pigs and monkeys pushed rocks down onto them from above.

Even with all the landmarks, attractions, and beautiful landscapes
we'll see here, I think it's people like Dragon and the old woman from
Baisha, proud yet humble, and very friendly, who will make this trip
really memorable.
J