That Holiday Memory

I like Ottessa Moshfegh's writing, just that I haven't gotten around to reading her debut novel 'Eileen' (2015). I read her short story titled 'The Man in Xinjiang', published in The New Yorker on August 15, 2018.

This short story is fairly arresting. Ottessa Moshfegh wrote of her personal experience, succinctly. This isn't exactly a romantic tale although it's full of romance, somewhat. There's an element of danger, which thankfully doesn't translate into actual harm.

In this story of her youth, the author traveled to the autonomous region of Xinjiang in Northwest China with her then already-broken-up-boyfriend-Tim-turned-traveling-companion. The travelers took a bus and turned up at Karakul Lake at the Pamir Plateau, a good 200km from Kashgar, at an altitude of 3600m. I knew exactly where she was referring to. I had traveled the same route myself a decade and a half ago. Except I didn't just stay at random yurts and hire random guides to take me horseback riding in the snow mountains.

There was an odd physical attraction between her and their 'guide', Adil. When Tim fell ill on the second day, and the author went out to get him medicine and supplies, there was a chunk of alone time with Adil, a serious chat, and a sort-of marriage proposal, then rejection. Then the author fell ill on the third day; they were afraid that they had been poisoned by Adil and would be killed in this yurt. It's terrifying to have a strange man come on to you in this remote area, even odder when it's assumed she's traveling with a boyfriend.

In the end, the author and Tim cut short their stay, hailed a passing driver, successfully hitched a ride from that sane driver, and hightailed it back to Kashgar overnight. I do like how the story ended, and am glad that the couple was okay, and Adil, as intense as he was, meant them no harm.

Adil swatted at a fly, as though to shoo away any more thoughts of Tim. “I want to be your boyfriend,” he said. He suggested that I send Tim home and stay there with him. I smiled, but Adil wasn’t joking. He reached across the small table between us, took my hand, and held it against his cheek. Something about the sweetness of the gesture made me pause to consider his offer. I was about to head back to New York, where the perils of modern life loomed. Living as a shepherdess in a beautiful mountain village was a tempting alternative. We sat in silence as the fantasy took shape.

The hilarious part is, for someone totally not into the genre of romance in films and books, I totally get what the author felt when she wrote that in the later years, she reminisced about living in the beautiful mountains. If you stay in a mountain village for a few weeks and you're single, you'll probably get a ton of marriage proposals too. Teeehehehehe. I suppose many Uyghur men are diehard romantics, and can be very charming when they're totally at home on horseback, and the great outdoors and among the mountains. IF you like that type of men. HAHAHAH.

Well, mountains have that effect on me too. Hanging out in the vast space for a few weeks make me want to throw caution to the wind, and stay on forever with what little I have, because seemingly, I don't need much living in the mountains. Nature provides everything. That idea itself is romantic because at the back of my mind, I know that this idyllic life wouldn't last beyond six months. LOL. Well, it doesn't have to be Xinjiang, only because uhhh, it's the Chinese government's bugbear now and forever. It could be Bhutan, somewhere even more idyllic and peaceful. :P But yes, I do always wonder, what if I had picked a different route in life?