When a friend of mine asked me what I was looking forward to about my upcoming China trip, I found it hard to come up with an answer. While I had done a lot of research in choosing the string of destinations in this part of China less traveled by westerners, there was nothing in particular that I needed to see. I was simply attracted to the region because it was the home of many of China’s ethnic minorities, and the gorgeous pictures of places like Black Dragon Pool, Jade Snow Mountain, and Leaping Tiger Gorge were too enticing to pass up.
Now that I’m here, I’m not disappointed. Eye candy is abundant everywhere. Despite the general hassles of travel and the rather exhausting pace of very full days, I feel nurtured by the serenity as I slowly circumambulate the reflecting pool by the three pagodas temple, where the cherry blossoms–an added bonus–shine pink, in both the water and sky! I’m awed by the white-capped spiky peaks of Jade Snow Mountain looming in and out of the fog, reminding me of an ink brush painting. I’m buoyed by seeing people dancing in the streets in the ancient cities of Dali and Lijiang, some in their colorful traditional dress, and some in jeans and sweaters, and how so many people in the crowd from parents with toddlers to gray-haired elders, join in the flow. And these old towns are a tasting paradise. In any 2-3 block radius you can sample homegrown tea, coffee, fruit juices, fruit tea, homemade plum wine, milk powder candy, sesame candy, hot pepper relishes, dried fruits of all persuasions including persimmon, mango, hawthorne bark, and–if you want it–yak jerky.
But was my desire to travel here based on a need to see any of this? I could have stayed home and walked in my own comforting woods. Or traveled only as far as New York to see spontaneous exuberant dancing among strangers in public places. Or been content with past trips to Mount Ranier or the Alps if my penchant was to see snow-covered mountains. And I could likely find many of the street treats at one of my local Asian stores.
What would be missing, however, is the serendipity.
It has been consistently the unplanned, unanticipated moments that have engorged my inner travel bug. There’s an exhilarating feeling (at least, for me) that comes with being in a new place, an invigorating sense of wonder in rounding the next corner, whether the discovery will be an exquisitely ornate pagoda roof, a man carving marble, or a store selling tacky toys and souvenirs that still look totally different from American tacky toys and souvenirs.
Keying into serendipity keeps my writing brain fresh. It reminds me when I’m frowning at the blank page or the blank screen, to lean into that wonder of discovery. The experiences I’ve had here are now part of my brain’s bank of images and memories, ready to be resurrected at just the right moment as fodder for an poetic image, a metaphor, or scene in some future work of fiction or non-fiction.
This doesn’t mean that I’m taking home an assignment to write a poem or story about China. In fact, these blog posts–along with occasional emails and texts to family and friends–will likely be the only types of “straight writing about China” I’ll do. In my own writing process nothing is more of a creativity killer than to intentionally sit down with the purpose of writing about something I’ve recently done. Instead, I’ll try to integrate these experiences into other issues that suddenly call to me, as I did in Ganesh Ascends to Heaven–a story in Immigrants about someone trying to put their life back together by traveling to India after unintentionally killing someone.
And even if I don’t remember everything I’ve seen and done, because I haven’t bothered to take a lot of notes or write much down, I’ll have to trust that when I need it, the muse (like the Black Dragon god of the Naxi people, who lives under the water here and wakes up in spring to give the people luck and prosperity) will dive down into the muck of all my travel images and resurrect just the right one.
