Clara had some ideas for things we wanted to do today, but thankfully we got to sleep in first. I also wanted to wash some clothes, so while I waited for my friends, I washed some of my clothes in the bathroom sink.
I didn’t expect to like washing clothes so much—right up to the point where I hated it. Since I am traveling for over three weeks, I have had to wash clothes several times.
I enjoyed how relaxing it was to listen to music and scrub my clothes, hoping that I was getting them clean enough to not stink. I scrubbed and soaked and rinsed and wrung, spending the mindless work thinking about the trip and praying for people around me.
Our first stop of the day was the house where三毛 (San Mao) grew up. I didn’t realize we were going there until we arrived. Or someone probably told me and I forgot. That happened rather often. So I was pleasantly surprised when we ended up at her house.
San Mao was a Chinese writer who lived from 1943-1991. For several years in the 1970s, she lived in the Sahara desert with her Spanish husband, Jose Maria Quero. This experience inspired her book, Stories of the Sahara. This book was the first Chinese book that I read in Chinese.
A friend of mine, Shirley, gave me the book for my birthday one year, and after starting and failing to read the book a time or two (mostly because I forgot what was happening in the book), I started my habit of reading just one page every day while I was eating breakfast. After about a year, I finally finished the book, and even though I didn’t understand everything, I understood enough to enjoy it. After that, I continued the habit with other books and my Chinese started to get better. Six months or so ago, I went back to this first book and read the first story in one sitting and understood so much more than I remembered from the first time. That was really encouraging! So I was excited to be at her house.
The house wasn’t opened yet, but there was a cute little café, and since we were tired and hot, we decided to order some drinks. The seats were Japanese style, so we took off our shoes and sat on little mats next to the table.
After we finished our drinks and chatted for a while, the house opened, so we headed over and walked around.
San Mao’s life was difficult. She lost two husbands rather suddenly, and she struggled emotionally and mentally as she lived in another country. Her life was vibrant and exciting, but there was a lot of inner turmoil that she was dealing with.
Beautiful art often comes from dark places. I have seen this again and again in my own life and in the lives of those around me. I want to be careful that I don’t look at someone’s life that seems so exciting and fun and assume that their life is perfect. We all have struggles, and we are all dealing with darkness.
Where do we find our hope and our joy? San Mao finally ended her own struggle with suicide when she was 47 years old. I know that the only place that I can find complete hope and peace is in my God, and I need to remember to look to Him rather than trying to find my satisfaction in things that won’t fulfill me.
Next, we headed to a Daoist temple. This temple was built into a mountain, so we spent most of the morning climbing the mountain, passing places of worship along the way. Lots of people were placing their hope and trust in the idols made of wood or stone that we passed.
After sweating our way through the temple and enjoying the incredible views and the beautiful architecture, we headed to our next spot, which was an area called Xia Hao Li. This area was similar to the place that Ruby and I had visited the day before.
Once we arrived, our only goal was to find a restaurant with air conditioning. After lunch, we tried to go outside to walk around, but the heat was unbearable. Instead, we headed straight to a café and rested there until another friend, Wendy could join us.
Once Wendy arrived, we tried to prepare ourselves to go back out into the heat. By now, it was about 3p.m., so we were hoping that the heat would be more bearable. It wasn’t. We tried to walk around, and it was a beautiful area, but after just a few minutes outside, we were covered in sweat. But even when we tried to find our way out of the area, we kept running into road blocks. We finally headed back to the road and took a taxi back to our hotel.
We found some Thai food for dinner and then stayed in our hotel for the rest of the evening, playing games and relaxing, enjoying the beautiful view of the city at night from our window.