The wonders of China

The dusty mountains cradling the mining city of Datong moved past us, pulling my eyes out of our three-bunk-high sleeper car as we talked to the attendant on the train to Beijing. Here and there, clay villages, desolate and dirt-colored, seemed to spring organically from their surroundings. I, fed up with industry-controlled tourist traps, saw them as the real wonders of China; the quality of the exotic I had come to encounter was undiminished out there by tour buses and gift shop merchants. By the same token, of course, they were unapproachable to me. I thought it was probably better that way.

 

All the Great Places, of course, have been ruined. The Forbidden City—that holy labyrinth at the heart of Beijing—is now accessible to everyone, trodden by the heel of the proletariat every muggy Beijing day for a few kuai--a testimony to the advertising power of the word “forbidden.” Empress Dowager Cixi’s summer palace, another playground for the nobility completed around the turn of the last century, has been similarly compromised; the Temple of Heaven frequented more by foreigners than by faithful, and of course, the Great Wall. These amazing structures have all been packaged by an industry that capitalizes on the Westerners’ taste for the foreign (and Japanese taste for cheap novelty), until you feel so unoriginal in visiting them (look at the tour bus passengers with their matching hats and shirts!) that you become completely disillusioned with the romantic wanderlust that prompted you to come to China in the first place.

 

But in China, miracles happen daily. While signs there are unintelligible to me (sometimes even when translated into English), wonders are hidden in plain sight, somewhere between the Great Places. The ice cream sold at the tourist-trap stands is corn- and pea-flavored, as Chinese people don’t share the Western palate for sweets. In every city there is a bicycle-repairman on every corner, ready to fix your cheaply rented bike when it breaks down (and it will break down) for about 13 cents. China is as exotic as ever, not because of the hot spots listed in the Lonely Planet guide, but because of its people. Still, “exotic” is no synonym for “pleasant,” and different customs can be abrasive to Western sensibilities.

 

My younger brother, Jason, speaks Chinese. He is, actually, the only white person enrolled in his summer language classes at Beijing University. At first, he says, his Chinese was openly made fun of or deliberately misunderstood, but, due to time abroad and hard work over several years, mockery has given place to astonishment and praise. It does not seem far from the sort of astonishment we would show to an English-speaking chimpanzee. A white man who speaks Chinese! Almost sounds like a native! Incredible! He is, I suppose, another of the wonders of China--at least to the Chinese, who don’t mind telling you what they think of you, even when their opinion is less than flattering.

 

Like the train attendant. Anxious to make friends with us, sitting there on the edge of my brother’s bed and looking at pictures from “Amigua” (i.e., the U.S.), he offered his frank opinion that my girlfriend was prettier than Jason’s. My gratification was tempered moments later, however, when he said he believed that I would be the less successful of the two of us. It was hard not to be offended at this, despite my brother’s insistence that “he didn’t say it in an insulting way.” Chinese people almost always say insulting things, albeit in a polite manner lost on foreigners. This can be annoying (though, side-by-side with internationally-infamous rich-American rudeness, the trait becomes endearing).

 

The night before the train ride, in Datong, I came close to losing it. We’d left Beijing days before, for Hohhot, in Inner Mongolia. There was nothing there to see besides a sky made beautiful by the arid climate, unless you wanted to take the “Grassland Tours,” out to bogus yurts maintained by Han people—China’s predominant ethnicity--dressed up as traditional Mongols. Coming back from Hohhot, we stopped in Datong, which boasts famous hanging monasteries and ancient, fourth-century Buddhist caves. They were vast and strange, and could have been something out of Forster, if it weren’t for the numerous stands selling vegetable ice cream, the gift and knick-knack stores and tee-shirt shops, with every vendor aggressively calling at us in broken English.

 

The further away from Beijing we’d gotten, the more we were stared at and the more we heard the unrelenting repetition of the word “Hello!” from every smirking stranger. That and the honking of every car that passed us grated on my nerves. Maybe they weren’t honking at us, the car horn being as necessary a part of the car as the brake in Datong, but everything feels directed toward you when you are the only white person in an entire city. People do not attempt to disguise their stares. That night, I made up my mind to start staring right back at them. It helped.

 

My mood that night was further improved when we ambled upon the nightly festival in the center of the city. These festivals occur in every city in China, imparting a sense of community which in America is reserved for small towns. It seemed as if all the people in the city—children home from school and senior citizens; moms, dads, and teenagers--had gathered together in the town square to eat, play, watch movies and gossip.

 

We came to a large group of tables—a sort of makeshift outdoor restaurant--where the waiter took our order, nearly screaming at us over the noise. The floor was littered with shells, vegetable and animal remains (I distinctly remember a skull of something), but the mutton kebabs and beef noodle soup we ordered were superb (I found that in China, the best foods were usually the cheapest). Following the meal, we bought freshly candied apples from a vendor for about thirty cents, and joined the crowds, who were kicking around what looked like a feathered birdie—the Chinese version of a hacky sack. Of course, people still pointed at us, but I stopped minding so much, distracted from myself for the time being by the miracle of community.

 

On a Beijing morning, before it gets too hot, you can watch the old people exercising. In the park, they are in groups of twenties and thirties, doing Tai-Chi and sword exercises—all moving together, slowly, fluidly. On the street corners, they exercise on what looks like brightly-colored playground equipment, slapping their arms to get their Chi flowing for the day. Many old men take a morning constitutional, pulling wagons filled with endlessly twittering birdcages, which they hang on trees when they rest.

 

Whatever the activity, the Chinese all seem to do it together, no one worrying, as I would, that “I am not expressing my individuality.” There is a sense of community in the city of 7.4 million people that baffles me. And yes, despite all that this people have been through, despite the fact that exercises began as enforced activities under Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution—it seems healthy.

 

“This would not happen in America,” I think. In America, exercising is something that I do to improve myself—to lose that gut, gain that muscle, look like that impossible celebrity, prevent old age.

 

In Beijing, it’s just what you do, because it’s what everyone does—another of the rituals that strengthen your connection with the group—and, by the same token, your distinction from those on the outside, making things more painful for the tourist who wishes he wasn’t. But in this way, wonders survive in China, observable in the ordinary, but unconquered by the West, by tourism, by me.