But many others (thousands and maybe even billions) opportunities to have strange experiences are on the way; because, as the old and wise saying goes: “the one who travel on the remnants of the Silk Road is bound to do cool stuff”. Ha.

To come back to our mouton, I am now in Xi’an, for the second time in history (I do not count my previous reincarnations). Xi’an, capital of the Chinese Empire for 13 dynasties and which 8 meters tall walls are 1400 years old. I had a non fruitful conversation on the train in Chinese with… a Chinese guy. But my Chinese is terrible, so it didn’t go that far. He had allergy from something, so his eyes looked like a raccoon. So he was going back home to study something. Yep, fruitful.

But I’ve changed my mind and I will try to get a ticket for Lanzhou for tomorrow night, so I can really get started with this Silk Road business of mine…

I was writing not so long ago (see “The Art of Baguette”) about the fact that I find amazing the lunches in Provence, with barbecue all the time and fresh salads and baguette of course. I had also praised for a long time what I call “the Art of Leisure” in most of the Mediterranean Europe which consists of drinking a good coffee and chatting with friends all day long; something that I haven’t found in North America and that I miss very much.

Well I found it very much in China. The cliché of Chinese people hurrying all the time to “work more to earn more” (as our dear president Sarkozy loves to say) is really just a cliché. People are just hanging around, chilling, having nice time, drinking beer and having street barbecues everynights! It is absolutely wonderfull! And it’s great food for almost nothing (ok sometimes it can be a bit weird, but still)!

I feel absolutely respectful toward their ability of enjoying… life! That’s something that is too often forgotten in our mighty and so developed Occidental World!

And that’s without even mentionning the dancing! But this is for tomorrow (I have been invited to dance lessons by a Chinese grandma…).