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Li Shengbo waits for a ride during his travels. Li Shenbo / for China Daily |
Li Shengbo, 24-year-old undergraduate in Beijing, stopped school for a year to hitchhike around China.
Starting in February 2011, Li spent 10 months on the road going to almost all the major cities and the most remote corners of the country, including the snow-peaked mountains in the Tibet autonomous region, and Mohe, the northernmost county in China where the aurora borealis glows in the night sky.
More than 200 people gave him a ride. Their vehicles ranged from a brand new black Hummer to a creaky dray pulled by a horse. In a video he took on the trip, Li was sitting in the back of a pickup truck.
"Finally I got a ride," he shouted at the camera while a strong wind blew on his unshaved face. "It's a dung-cart! I have cow poop all over me," he laughed. "Not bad!" The road was so bumpy that his joyful face was constantly thrown out of the frame.
Before sticking out his thumb for a ride, Li thought that if he asked 50 people for help, at least one would give him a ride.
"I was so naive," he said. "In fact, it was common to be rejected more than 80 times in a row.
"People laughed at you, doubted you, rejected you, or didn't even stop at all," he said. "After being turned down too many times, you started to doubt the world and feel helpless."
His first attempt failed. He waited at a highway entrance, hailing a ride from Beijing to Tianjin. Dust and exhaust fumes made him choke. It was embarrassing to stick out his thumb: Every car roaring by was like a slap in the face.
After two hours, the only driver who stopped said he was not going to Tianjin.
"Finally, I gave up and took the train," he said.
"I was so frustrated."
As he kept trying, Li said he gradually got used to the bitter feeling of being rejected. Robberies and even murders involving hitchhikers have been reported, he said, and there is a good reason for not letting a strange man into your car.
"Drivers are not supposed to stop for you," he said. "If anyone does, you are having a very lucky day."
When he was finally picked up by a red truck in Tianjin, the first time ever, the driver simply said: "You look like a good fella."
Others gave him a ride because he is a student, or because they had the same experience hitchhiking. A middle-aged motorcycle rider picked Li up saying he doesn't have the heart to watch a kid walk alone on the endless highway carrying a huge bag.
Sitting on the back of the motorcycle, Li said it reminded him of sitting on the back of his father's motorcycle when he was a child. Another driver, who picked him up in the desert in Qinghai province, met him again after several months in Tibet, and again offered Li a ride.
"This is the beauty of hitchhiking - you don't know what will happen the next second, just let fate lead you. And that was why I chose to do it," he said. "People always say it is too dangerous. Yes, there were some close calls, but most people were nice and generous."
When there was not a ride, Li slowly walked toward his destination. In 10 months, Li wore out three pairs of sneakers. He once walked more than six hours before a truck stopped for him.
While walking in the grassland in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Li was caught in a gale. Wind howled and cut his face with the pebbles it blew around, leaving red marks like whip marks. It took him more than an hour to walk two kilometers.
"But actually it was much easier to get a ride in a fierce environment," he said. "Few people will fold their hands and see others die. They feel responsible because I would be in danger if they didn't help me."
On his way to Mohe, a storm overwhelmed him and the only road was covered with ice. For every 10 vehicles that passed, there was at least one stopping and offering help, he said. "That was the best hitchhiking experience I ever had in my trip," said Li.
Although Li finished his odyssey mostly by himself, he walked with other hitchhikers occasionally. Once he followed another traveler walking in the icy wind, on the edge of being overcome by the snowstorm, their fatigue and their backpacks.
"I looked at his back. He was so thin and vulnerable, like he was about to be blown away by the wind," Li said. "Then he stopped, and slowly extended his arm toward the road and stuck out his thumb. I suddenly felt he wasn't just calling for a ride. He also gave the thumbs-up gesture to me, saying 'Good job!'"
"What is the difference between death and living a bland life?" he wrote in his application for school leave. "What is the point of a future if you keep living the same life day after day?"
Li said most people dream of things they want to do, but always hesitate to take the first step.
As a college student majoring in communication engineering, Li dreamed of getting out of his boring test-taking life, and aimed for new exciting experiences. But after he came back from his hitchhiking trip, he found the excitement of traveling had faded, as had the cynical feelings about normal life.
"You could live a normal but meaningful life. The point is don't waste time in waiting. If you want to do something just go ahead and do it," he wrote in his book, which is going to be published in April. "The positive thinking my trip brings me, if not the excitement, will last for a long time."
pengyining@chinadaily.com.cn
