The following took place when I was still living in and teaching English in Yichun, a small city in Jiangxi Province. Jiangxi is located in the South of China. The province is most famous for being the capital of porcelain, and for being the starting point of the “Long March,” a political escapade led by Mao Ze Dong and Zhou En Lai in which the Red Army retreated and regrouped from the Chinese Nationalist Party. They marched over 8,000 miles in 370 days. This story has neither anything to do with porcelain, nor anything to do with the Long March. I just wanted to provide a small taste of Jiangxi’s place in history.
Today my parents and I will ascend “Bright Moon Mountain.” That’s the literal translation for the semi-famous mountain that’s not too far from Yichun, where I live and teach English to some 450 college students. I remember first hearing about “Bright Moon Mountain” when I was still living in Japan, teaching English to junior high school students with the JET (Japanese Exchange Teaching) program in Niigata. At that time I had already decided that I wouldn’t be staying in Japan for another year. Some of my perspective Yichun students had already gotten hold of my msn messenger, and we conversed with each other from time to time. One student told me about Bright Moon Mountain. It sounded like something out of a fairy tale. I had to go there and see it for myself. I’ve climbed it about 5 times already, and it really is a beautiful spot, near rustic villages where I vividly remember seeing butchered hogs in the street. The mountain is covered with bamboo, making it look like the peach fuzz hair on a prepubescent teen’s face from a distance.
Although I have climbed Bright Moon Mountain before, today is the first time for my parents to climb it. They have visited Yichun in the past, but have yet to meet the fairies, gnomes, princesses, and butchered hogs of the aforementioned peak. I would like to have a quiet visit with my parents, but in rural China it’s quite difficult to have a quiet visit anywhere. Someone always wants to join in. I just decide to go with the flow and accept the joiners for the most part.. It’s all part of the show. Today, my friends, Yi Xiao Hua and Irene join us to go to the Bright Moon Mountain. Irene is a good friend of mine and fellow English teacher from Yichun who teaches at the university. I know Yi Xiao Hua through her daughter, whose name is Cai Yue. I met Cai Yue at a restaurant when I was eating noodles by myself. A high school student at the time, Cai Yue approached me and wanted to practice her English with me. I agreed. After that, she invited me to go to her mother’s house for a dinner, and I’ve met her and her husband from time to time ever since. My Swiss friend, Simon, and I refer to Yi Xiao Hua as “Snake Woman” due to the fact that we both ate snake with her (a meal which continues to be the spiciest meal of my entire life). The nickname seems appropriate for her, as I believe she was born in the year of the snake. Additionally, her personality is quite like a snake’s bite at times. She speaks fast with a voice suggesting she smokes the occasional cigarette while singing karaoke and drinking. When she wants to, she can change that snake bite voice into a beautiful song. Her hair is short; as short as most men’s hair. She eats spice and peppers with every meal (once she told me that she would die within two weeks of visiting the U.S. because she does not believe they have the right peppers there to sustain her diet). She almost always wears high heels. Gambling while playing Mah Jong (a kind of Chinese board game using cubes instead of cards) is one of her favorite hobbies, and she often loses large sums of money. When she makes a request of you, you really have no choice but to accept (or pretend to accept) what she asks, just so she will not kill you. Cai Yue told me that once Snake Woman suspected that her daughter had a boyfriend. This suspicion so infuriated her mother that she picked up a butcher’s knife in her anger, wishing to find and see who the hell this boy was. I don’t know if Cai Yue was making this up, but I wasn’t going to find out. I certainly wasn’t going to pursue Cai Yue as a love interest. Despite her setbacks, I’m really crazy about Snake Woman. She can be a little overbearing at times, but I’m definitely never bored when I’m around her. She is who she is, and she makes no bones about it. She’s one of those people who seems a little rough around the edges but definitely has a good heart, and I’m thoroughly thankful she’s on my side.
It becomes clear to me when Snake Woman meets us that we will not be climbing to the top of the Bright Moon Mountain today. Snake Woman is wearing high heels again. Bright Moon Mountain is quite steep at parts, and there are steps the entire way up. This is the thing about famous and semi-famous Chinese mountains—they have steps all the way up. In America we might have a simple dirt trail, but certainly not paved steps all the way to the peak. The Chinese have a long history, and with that history comes the conquering of countless peaks. How can you truly conquer a mountain unless you have paved steps all the way to the top? Another thing about mountains—you have to buy tickets to enter them, like a ride at Disneyland or a haunted house in a fun park. You pay the price and walk in the gigantic gate at the foot of the mountain to let you enter it.
After entering the gigantic gate, we begin our ascent up Bright Moon Mountain. It’s a clear day, and my parents, both in their late 60s, are in good shape. I’m more worried about Snake Woman, who is in her 40s, as she follows us at a slow pace, wheezing every step of the way. She keeps saying that she is out of shape and needs to rest. Her feet, obviously, are in a great deal of pain. On the way up we pass some construction. It seems that they are building a hotel at the bottom of the mountain. There are also farmers selling dried fruit, nuts, children’s toys, etc. There are two waterfalls to see on this mountain, and we make it to the first one, our faces cooled by the mist of the water as it sprays up from the rocks. This is as far as Snake Woman is going to make it. For fear that she has brought her butcher knife, I am not going to push her to go any further. My parents seem pleased with the hike. We take in the peach-fuzz prepubescent bamboo scenery juxtaposed to the waterfall and start our way back down the steps.
Bright Moon Mountain is also famed for its hot springs. Many people have begun to retire there because of this. The village near Bright Moon Mountain is called Wen Tang, and we decide to go there and soak are feet in the healing water. There are some old folks there when we get to the spring, and they are doing the same. We gather large buckets to put our feet into and collect the scalding hot water. Snake Woman’s brother lives here. I don’t actually know if he’s really her brother or not. In China you call your friends and cousins of the same age “brother” or “sister,” so it’s always unclear to me who is really related and who is just a friend. He meets us and we all tentatively put our feet in the slowly cooling water. Sitting across from us is an elderly couple who have retired here from Shanghai. It makes me think of retirees going to from NYC to Florida, a world away from the hectic pace of the big city. After a soak, we have some lunch in a nearby restaurant for some local food. Snake Woman’s brother leaves the restaurant early and we make our way back to Yichun using the public transportation once more. The rice fields along the way are being plowed by farmers trailing their water buffalo from behind. They beat them with sticks from time to time, keeping them in line as a school’s headmaster might whack the hands of naughty students. My mother frantically snaps pictures to capture it all. When we arrive back in Yichun, my father has a hankering to get some coffee..
On the way to the coffee shop we pass a woman selling a kind of snack called “zongzi.” Zongzi is a snack made of glutinous rice wrapped in reed leaves. The Chinese traditionally eat this rice on Dragon Boat Festival to commemorate a famous poet and statesman who killed himself, named Qu Yuan. At the time Qu Yuan was living, officials refused to heed his advice, leading to the downfall of the government. Stricken with grief and disappointment, Qu Yuan went to the nearby Mi Low river, hefted a gigantic stone in his arms, and jumped into the current where he drowned to his death. His body was never recovered. In order to prevent his body from being devoured by fish, people scattered glutinous rice wrapped in reeds into the river’s waters. This tradition has continued ever since, as has the tradition of having dragon boat races on the day of the festival.
As I pass the zongzi saleswoman and think about Qu Yuan, I notice a large rat scurry across the alley towards her. The woman doesn’t scream or make a peep of any sort as the rat approaches her. With reflexes as quick as a scorpion’s tail, she lifts up her right foot and steps directly onto the rat, pinning it to the ground. Its hind legs and tail are sticking out from under the woman’s foot, struggling to get free. Zongzi Woman doesn’t budge an inch. She would certainly make Qu Yuan beam with pride on this day. She keeps both hands on her coal-powered zongzi apparatus and the other foot pinned firmly onto the rat’s squirming body. Another man wearing a leather coat walks nonchalantly over to the woman who is pinning the rat down. He casually lifts up his right leg and places his foot down on the rat’s body. It’s as if Leather Jacket Man and Zongzi Woman have previously choreographed this rat’s death sequence beforehand. With a little bit of effort, he begins to squash the rat into the cement, smothering its life with his own foot, just as someone would extinguish a cigarette on the ground. The rat doesn’t make any noise as his life is squeezed out of its vessel. His body limp, smashed into the cement, the two culprits lift up their feet, knowing the deed is done. The woman goes back to selling her zongzi.
Another woman has stopped to watch the carnage and look on in horror. Leather Jacket Man notices the look of horror on this woman’s face and decides to torture her a bit. In the most unbelievable development of this part of the story, he reaches down, and with his bare hands he picks up his murder victim and begins to tease the horror stricken onlooker with it. He chases the woman, taunting her with the dead rat’s bloody body in his hand. The woman laughs hysterically, probably in terror. I cannot believe what is happening in front of my eyes. Firstly, who knows what kind of diseases this rat is carrying? We are constantly reminded in the U.S. to wash our hands again and again. And never…NEVER…touch dead animals. Secondly, how could anyone ever even consider chasing a strange woman with a rat? It would never even enter my mind as a possibility. Eventually Leather Jacket Man gives up his pursuit and tosses the rat half-heartedly towards the woman he is chasing. Its body just misses hitting her by inches. Leather Jacket Man walks away, laughing. Zongzi Woman stands at her post laughing. The surrounding crowd is laughing. Even the woman who was chased by Leather Jacket Man is laughing. I watch this entire scene in disbelief with my parents, thinking to myself how thankful I am to be in China and have the opportunity to see things like this. This is just one of countless many scenes that would never happen in the U.S. I look at my parents and say, “that was the most amazing thing I’ve seen all day.” We walk away from the scene of the crime towards the coffee shop, still digesting what we just witnessed. The sky darkens; not a bright moon or rat in sight.
