Part of what drives me, that drives most of us, to science fiction is the desire to explore. To see new places and meet new people. Because some number of people really liked a particular story I wrote, I got to fly halfway around the world to a country I’d never seen to attend a science fiction convention. I did everything wrong and ended up on the wrong side of fences and on the backs of motorbikes and some random farmer’s field but I also was comfortably steered to the back of convention halls listening to live translation and a voice actor performing and a front-row seat with my name on it to watch big extravaganzas with wire work and drone light shows and schoolchildren astronauts and…
How do you even begin to encapsulate all that into a blog post?
First, this:
I was met at the airport by a person with my name on a sign! How cool is that?? Yeah, sure, Neil Clarke was there, too, but ME. If you’re traveling to a country where you don’t speak the language for the first time and are very nervous about it, nothing makes it easier like someone taking charge of you!
I made a lot of mistakes and there were a lot of reasons this trip should have been less wonderful than it was. For someone who is pretty much addicted to social media, I spent the entire time only able to access two lines of electronic communication: the first was Ali Pay Chat, which only worked with my “Handler” (assistant? Translator? Some people called them “minders” … “Do you have an absent minder?”) Nanping (or “Nancy”). Nancy was awesome! Even if we spent the first day, both of us, just desperately trying to find each other.
My only other means of communication at first was posting comments on my sister’s blog (Read those for a play-by-play!) I could only access these while in the hotel on wi-fi. Leaving my room meant plunging myself into an uncontactable state, so I was alone most of the time, but alone and exploring. It was a full “social media cleanse” and I can go into detail about the hours and hours I spent trying to get that much working but no one wants to read that. (I did eventually learn I could also post to the Codex Writer’s Forum. Yay!)
I also had no money. I was able to use my credit card twice, and then Key Bank decided I must be a scammer and cut me off.
Yet I spent the majority of the time so high on life you’d have thought I was stoned. 😀 I didn’t mind the excuse to be present, and I know I didn’t really need to buy tons and tons of souvenirs, but I would definitely advise anyone coming to China – exchange money ahead of time! And sign up for We Chat. This country runs on We Chat. We Chat is NOT OPTIONAL. You need a working phone to sign up so you have to sign up before you get there.
The convention itself was something to see. It felt like a World’s Fair with massive installations and displays. The sheer wealth was intimidating. Our hotel was as new and clean as a freshly-printed $100 bill with glossy stone floors and a bathroom nearly entirely made of white marble. I had a fainting couch! And someone brought little plates of fruit to my room every day while I was gone, so I snacked on tea and oranges constantly. Also the hotel buffet was ENORMOUS. I never did eat outside of the hotel, but I don’t feel bad about it. There was a noodle buffet. I had hot spicy noodle bowls almost every meal.
I spent the first five days so excited, my heart fluttering like a bird in my chest. Each moment was something new, one goal at a time – find my handler. Get communications working with her. Find the best walking path to the venue, find where my panel would be. Then the panel! I set off walking with two hours to get there. OMG. They blocked off the walking paths once the convention started, to control entrance for paying customers. (This was one of those times where I ended up on the wrong side of fences.) After I finally gave up finding a legitimate path and bullied my way past a guard into the staff area, and from there through Hugo Hall where dancers were rehearsing, I got lost trying to find Mars Hall. This was when I learned, in the grand tradition of Cool Architecture Buildings (looking at you, Weatherhead) part of the second floor did not connect to other parts. The Mars Hall part.
Grabbing a volunteer and running with him, I did make the panel by exactly its starting time! And I am eternally grateful to Richard Man for being later than I was.
While searching for a walking path through the park, I stumbled on this old-timey theme area with pagodas and costumed musicians and dancers and a huge craft fair… and no one was in it but me because you had to walk there from the hotel side of the park, and the guards wouldn’t let you past the barrier without a convention badge. So you had to know it was there. I told everyone. My biggest regret is not being able to buy the beautiful things I saw there, but I had a lot of fun exploring it, and I got to sit and write in my journal in that lovely park a few times.
Am I meandering? Looping? I don’t know, it felt like that. I spent a lot of time going back and forth to the convention center and the hotel, trying to force a walking path where none existed before I gave in and took the shuttle buses. I’m so bull-headed sometimes. They were electric buses, Marie! You’re not killing the environment with a one-mile trip!
The convention was huge, and well-attended. It felt like thousands of people were excitedly squeezing through the security gates every hour. Yet it was also small and cozy – the foreign contingent dining together at the hotel every day. I got to spend a lot of quality time with authors and editors from around the world – Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Serbia, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Singapore – to name a few places. And of course lots of folks from Scotland because next year is Glasgow!
I panic-studied Mandarin for two months when I found out I was actually going, but I really only used a few phrases “Hello.” “Nice to meet you” and “Thank you.” However, I spent most of one day hanging out with two ladies from Argentina and one from Brazil, speaking Spanish! I was very excited and happy to finally put years of study into practice. I mean, before this I’d only used my Spanish with native speakers when eating at certain restaurants on the near West side. 😀
The production values were intense. I really felt like an actress at the Oscars. And unlike at the Nebulas, all I felt when they announced the winner of my category was relief. It was finally over and I could stop fantasizing about going up there, my dress sparkling in the lights, and delivering a potentially-bad speech.
At the Nebulas, deep down, I believed it was my one and only shot, the only time I’d be nominated for an award, but then I was nominated for the Hugos, and it was okay again… it was something that could happen twice. My only regret was that no one would see the little star beads on my dress lit up by that stage lighting!
I should make a whole separate blog post about the Hugos.
The after-party was amazing, and that night I slept soundly the full night through for the first time, freed from pre-awards jitters.
I felt very pretty. Is it vain to say that? People kept telling me I was pretty and I counted 28 incidents of being asked by strangers to take a selfie with them. (Yes, I counted.) One of the university student translators said, “You’re our favorite, because you’re beautiful.” <3 (At least half of those selfies were with university student translators.)
I heard a rumor that there was a game of “Foreign visitor pokemon” going on among them. Gotta photo them all!
Another favorite body-image moment was when I was walking along around the World Science Fiction park and a middle-aged woman pushing a janitorial cart paused, pointed at me, then slapped her bicep with a proud grin on her face. I flexed for her and we both laughed.
There were two free excursions – we each got to pick from about eight trips. I chose Pandas and Wuhou Shrine and Ancient Street – because that sounded like two destinations for the price of one. I saw Pandas! And a shrine! And a street full of shopping! So yes, to the question people keep asking – did I get to leave the convention and actually see Chengdu? YES. I got to tourist it up like a pro. I even ended up getting three separate free tea ceremonies! They had a tea table in the hotel, a Ming Dynasty tea in this little museum next door, and a traditional tea at the re-creation area of the park.
The World Science Fiction Park was lovely and interesting – they a statue celebrating the Three Body Problem and a Memorial to past world cons and lots of flowers and topiaries. Oh! And little LED fireflies that wriggled on stalks at night along the edges of islands. It was a man-made lake, but there was also an “ecological park” next to it with a properly wild marsh that I got to explore. It was neat seeing ducks, well, ducking into the reeds and I was fascinated by these little pink blobs that at first I thought were alien-looking slugs and later decided must be rafts of eggs. Perhaps for the fuzzy red dragonflies in the area? Whatever they were, they liked being near but not in the water and they were aggressively pink!
I tried to walk to the nearest bank once with directions from the hotel concierge and no such thing as google maps and that’s how I explored much of the ecological park, ended up in another more lived-in park, a trash-strewn street (yay I finally found the bad side of town!) and then the aforementioned farmer’s field where two middle-aged ladies were having a good-natured disagreement. One was crouched low, pulling plants up by their roots, and the other stood over her, shaking her head, a purple Gucci-styled purse on a thick gold-tone chain on one shoulder, dusty working slacks under her padded coat. I didn’t need a translator, their tone said everything. “You always think you know everything but you’re wrong.” “Shut up, this will work.”
My attempts to ask “Where is the world science fiction convention?” and “Do you speak English” failed. I didn’t remember the tone correctly for “speak” and I was shy to use the word so I tried just saying “ying yu” for “English” and that didn’t work. I retraced my steps out of the field, around an apartment complex still under construction, through the city-feeling park, back into the less-city-feeling-park… but I couldn’t go back into the ecological park as there was a big fence I’d been let through by a guard.
I digress. I was anxious at the time, but now I am glad I got to really see the ground level of the area where people really lived. Actually, even in my anxiety, I was happy. I was taking pictures. I was hopeful things would sort themselves out so long as I could remember my path to retrace.
I let myself nap when I felt like it and eat when I was hungry – the generous hours of the hotel buffet and the constant supply of fruit helped with that! Time and date felt fluid.
My last two days I was finally able to buy things and so I practiced getting a cab and I bought a new suitcase to get all my gifts home.
Oh! Here is a list of gifts:
A sturdy broach in the shape of the Science Fiction Museum (the conference venue)
A double-sided embroidery of the shape of the Science Fiction Museum and a minimalist Panda
A fan with an illustration of the Three Body Problem (A science fiction fan! Get it! I had to have it – but after 5 attempts to pay with Ali-Pay failed, the fellow at the booth gave it to me.)
A Tibetan brocade shawl (a khata, a traditional gift to visitors)
A sweatshirt with the logo for the Chinese International Science Fiction Convention (local con happening at the same time)
A ball cap with the Science Fiction World magazine logo
A puzzle of a child’s poster for the World Science Fiction Convention Art Contest
A book of all the entries in that contest
A blank journal with the CISFC Logo on it
A SFW pen
A round metal and paper (I think?) wall hanging made by local school kids
A silver cup from Scotland
you see why I needed a suitcase? I had come with only my Cheeseburger Backpack and a small bag that would hold my knitting. I left with Cheeseburger, the knitting bag rolled up with the dirty clothes, using the larger Gift Bag as my personal item, and an awesome yellow hardcase “carry on” size, which I checked.
It took two trips and 6 banks to get money to buy my suitcase, but at the end of it I felt like a conquoring hero! I sang “We are the Champions” while the lady driving me through town on her motorbike filmed me. I hope we went viral. I stupidly didn’t give her my home phone number to send me that. Weirdly, “This is my phone number” was one of the few Mandarin phrases I was good at! 😀 I did give my phone number to the three ladies who had rolled down a grass hill in the park with me… though they didn’t send the video either, so… eh!
In short: China is dope. Visit it. But the telecommunications gap is rough.
