Simon Lewis: Comrade Hack

I got it into my head that to really get going on the novel – which has to be done by the end of the month – I needed to be on a mountain. I’ve written on a few mountains and have convinced myself that they are uniquely conducive environments, what with the good air and the quiet and the views and the general lack of anything else to do, the worthy, unexciting food.

Actually I suspect it’s a form of procrastination, because it can take days to get to a suitable mountain. I flew across China to Dali, a pleasant minority town, and I took the cable car up Cang Mountain to a trecker’s guesthouse which is about three thousand metres up. As it’s the cold season there were no other guests. It was just a few concrete cabins really, with flowers painted on the walls.

The boss was away and it was run by two Bai minority girls who sat around all day doing embroidery. At night they watched Disney cartoons on DVDs with their feet in bowls of hot water, and it would take a sterner man than me to say, ‘Excuse me, but as the paying guest, I should decide what we watch.’ But they were excellent cooks.

They said that Han Chinese people didn’t like their guesthouse because it was quiet. The Han Chinese idea of fun, on the whole, is to make a lot of noise in a big group in the presence of an unwatched TV at full volume.

Though the stars and the view were sublime, the peace unbroken, it wasn’t half chilly at night. After days of not taking my clothes off I came down with the intention of buying some thermal underwear and haven’t managed to bring myself to go back up there again.

In fact all I really require is a place where I don’t know anyone and can wander round or sit in cafes all day with a distracted look on my face and not be bothered or have to spend too much money.

Now I’m staying in a room above a café, and again I am the only guest. The boss has left it in the hands of a student drop out couple from Beijing. He keeps sloping off to play Counterstrike in the internet bar and she changes from one outfit to another then back again so often that for a couple of days I thought there were two of her, twins. I asked her about it and she explained that she had one set of clothes for normal wear (flouncy, hippyish) and another for cooking in (trecking gear). She even changes her shoes. Like all Chinese hippies I’ve met their dream is to open a bar, in their case in Lhasa. I will miss their type when I return to thrusting dynamic Shanghai in a couple of weeks.

Anyway the novel will be done, it’s got to that late stage where it feels like, or more like, computer programming – fixing bugs, adding patches, upgrading. Will write more interesting blog stuff when it’s finished, as I’ll be out and about a bit more.