But how do you get the llamas up there?

We spent so much time exploring, adventuring, and running around China-- literally running; running and flying and riding and walking and biking-- for nineteen or twenty hours at a stretch that when we finally made it to a hotel checkpoint, I immediately gravitated toward the everyday normalcy of television. It was like a tractor beam. We probably spent an average of ten hours total in any hotel room, but I spent the vast majority of that time physically wrapped around the television monitor with the remote control down the front of my shirt.

There wasn't much point. Only two channels on the whole stupid television were ever in English. One of them was HBO, which hey! Score! Except that every single time I turned it on, it was playing Funny People. Every city, every province, every hotel. Funny People. On a loop. It seemed an odd choice. Even odder, the Chinese government had edited it down to about forty-seven minutes. If you watch Funny People in China, you have no idea that Adam Sandler is sick or that Laura is married so you come away feeling strangely buoyant the first eleven or so times you watch it.

The other English-speaking channel was some sort of ongoing international news program that managed to be both hypnotizing and totally repellent. The format appeared to be simple-- four people seated behind a news desk discussing world events.

Which seems completely innocuous, right? I turned it on for background noise one morning while I was packing and I found myself concentrating harder and harder on the screen until I was sitting on the carpet, nose to nose with the lead anchor with my knees tucked up under my chin.

For starters, there was absolutely zero background distraction on this channel. No tickers, no scrolling feed, no station indicator, no weather map, no blue screen, no digitized dancing bears, no background props, no lettered signs of any type, no wall paint. It was like watching hostages debate one another in an abandoned warehouse on a hidden video feed.

Secondly, one of these people only communicated in Chinese. So when the other three people were discussing something in English? Dude Number Four would throw his two cents in there in Mandarin while everyone else sat back and listened, and then the other three would comment on what he just said in English. No translation of any of it, just moving right along. It was exactly like watching Hank Hill and Boomhauer have a conversation. Only, I suspect, more cerebral.

And I say "suspect" because (thirdly) I never had the slightest idea what these people were talking about. I think I have a fairly realistic grasp of how much I know versus how much I don't know (a little versus a lot), but over the years I've read enough about the world and attended enough college that I never expect to be utterly flabbergasted when I watch the news. I never expect to find myself perched on a hotel room floor in China with one eye squeezed shut, poking at the television screen with a shaky index finger and muttering bullshit under my cold, cold breath.

"Well, today marks the 3,529th Annual Festival of Anspi today in Bananastekistan and the parades are in full swing. From sunrise to sunset, the royal children will be gathering dragonflower vines and butternut roots to make their ceremonial capes, and the villagers have been hard at work for weeks building the ten-story llama lofts."

The other newscasters smile and nod. The Chinese guy shuffles some papers and interjects in Mandarin.

"Oh, absolutely!" someone answers, laughing. "I was in Bananastekistan two years ago for the festival and it was simply amazing. I still have my wooden pith helmet full of glitter and moss."

Then just as quickly as it started, it's over. Their smiles vanish in unison like ships lost at sea.

"The euro zone debt crisis reached a critical point yesterday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average once again fell short of wide expectations despite an overall rise in commodities trading."

But it's too late, I can't be cured by banality, I'm already curled up in a sweaty ball with my face all screwed up trying to figure out what the fuck I just heard.

Randy walked into the room then, back from his breakfast salad foraging, and he informs me that it's now 6:20am and I better get my luggage out to the bus if I have any hope of seeing it tomorrow morning in Kunming.

"Have you ever heard of Bananastekastan?" I ask him.

"What?" he answers, and I am at once smug and validated.

"Oh wait. You mean 'BananastekIStan'," he corrects, "of course I have. The llama lofts are supposed to be unbelievable."

Comments

[Erin]

I feel I should mention that I'm citing a hypothetical example here, there is no Bananastekistan and as far as I know the llama lofts are not a real thing.