Qinghai was my last Chinese province to visit in 2003. I have returned three more times, and each visit added to the number of kind persons I met there.
On my first visit, when in Xunhua Sala'ar Autonomous Xian, a mad man rushed at me and pushed me strongly. I fell in the dust but was not hurt. I could not hold it against him as he suffered mental disease. Several persons came to help, and a Sala'ar woman invited me to her home for refreshing and resting. Then, she accompanied me to a small restaurant and offered me a bowl of handmade noodles, as only Muslims can do. The butcher who had witnessed the accident from his shop came to ask for news, and offered to accompany me to a hospital if I needed.
In Xining, I needed a map but didn't know where to buy it. I asked a passer-by, who was a Tibetan. He could speak local Chinese dialect a little but I couldn't. He took me by the sleeve and accompanied me to a faraway Xinhua Bookstore. There, he didn't leave before making sure I had found what I wanted.
In Tongren Xian, I was very tired after walking a whole day. I could not find anyone speaking Chinese putonghua, let apart Italian, French or English. Finally I saw a sign: 茶馆, Tea House. How nice it was to sit and rest! But more than a businessman, it is a friend that I found. A Tibetan University student was back home from summer holidays and was helping his sister-in-law with the tea house. Though he had a very strong accent in Chinese, we chatted for two hours while having suyou cha (butter tea) and he didn't let me leave without a big bag of qingke (barley flour) and a large piece of butter, so I could make my own suyou cha back in Beijing. We remained friends until now.
Then I met Zhang Jun who not only was a skilled driver but a dedicated and honest man, not money-oriented but who liked to "serve" his clients. He showed me things that I could never discover by myself such as a cascade hidden in the mountain; he brought me to the home of the late 10th Panchen Lama, and on the morning of my departure, he came to pick me up at my hotel for free and didn't leave the bus station before making sure I was on the right bus.
On another visit, a Mongol ethnic woman offered me her apartment in Xining, but as she was in Beijing at that moment, she called her neighbor and told her to give me the key. We had just met, and she trusted me to that point? I was really moved.
On my third visit, a seller of knee-protectors recognized me, at the market, and said last time I had paid for three pairs and taken only two. He was right. But I had never expected him to give me one pair for free, as it was my error.
This year, I went to spend the Losar festival with the family of a university student I support financially. The five family members called me Ani (aunt) in Tibetan. The evening before I left, the mother prepared a large bread for me to bring back. The daughter and her father not only accompanied me from their village to the bus station in Tongren, but stayed with me until I could find a bus, what wasn't easy on Chu san (the third day of the new year).
Then I visited another girl I support for study. She lives in Minhe Xian, a Hui and Tu Autonomous Xian, but their village is inhabited exclusively by Han. Every family member showed respect and kindness to me. Not only three meals including pork, chicken, beef and fish were prepared for me within a few hours, but when I left, a relative offered to drive me to the bus station at one hour from the village, and finally drove me up to Xining, and didn't want to be paid.
But I will never forget what happened to me recently. On the bus from Jainca to Ping'an, I gave my seat to a woman with a toddler. Trying to keep balance, I put my notebook on the upper shelve with my gloves and a tangkha. When I got off, I forgot my notebook, which contained the notes of several interviews, phone numbers, data of my hotel in Xining, and of my return flight to Beijing. I was desperate.
The next day, when I reached Xining, I rushed to the bus station. An employee said: "If you don't know the car's number, there is no way out", as buses have irregular schedule, but he had compassion for me and he introduced me to the wonderful Ms. Wei. Sometimes it pays to be a foreigner...
"Don't worry, within 48 hours your notebook will be here," said the woman. But I was leaving the next morning.
After several calls and patient explanations, Wei Suxia finally traced the bus, and the driver Ma Jianxiong and his assistant Zhao Ersha. But the men, both Hui, were off that day. Wei convinced them of the notebook's importance for me, and the good hearted Ma and Zhao decided to return to Xining to hand the precious notebook to me. This is the most touching event of my four trips to Qinghai.
