Sole Savior

The rubber sole of my father’s shoe cracks beneath the toe in a horizontal line, slowly splitting away and peeling itself back towards Nature.  It brings to mind photographs of dried salt flats in the desert.  The land splits apart in hexagonal formations and the Earth’s crust opens up; the hexagons fit together like puzzle pieces assembled by some giant’s fingers.  A retired geologist, my father knows much about land and the kind of erosion that millions of years of exposure to the elements can make on the Earth’s surface.  Shoes and other such items manmade are another matter.  It only takes a few years for these  shoes to begin to dematerialize.  It just takes a few years–a few years combined with numerous excursions to limestone outcroppings along the Blue Ridge Parkway, various trips to the Grand Canyon, summers in France, travels to film festivals across North America, and trips to China with my mother.  This trip is the third such visit.

My father has worn his shoes for more than 5 years.  They are brown, ordinary shoes that can double as walking shoes or dress shoes, depending upon where and when he chooses to wear them.  The gortex lining on the inside makes them waterproof, keeping his piggies dry from the rain, if not protecting the sole from Nature’s assault.  The only label resembling a brand name on the inside of the shoes reads, “Colorado:  Spirit of Adventure.”  When he bought them at the time, he originally planned to purchase a pair of Ecco shoes.  Ecco, however, was too expensive, so he went with the “Spirit of Adventure” instead.  He settled on this pair for about $100 and suffers no regrets at all about his decision.   

“They have had hard wear, but lasted a long time,” my dad says of the shoes.

Besides this pair of shoes, the only other pair he brought with him to China were his running shoes.  My father used to be a runner, participating in marathons as a young man.  After numerous trips to France, however, the French cycling culture took hold of him and now he is a biker.  He wakes up every morning and takes one of his three bicyles to ride up to the Blue Ridge Parkway, ascending the weathered mountain’s slopes at slow and steady revolutions of the pedal’s wheels.  Traveling to China for 10 days, he knew that he would not have many chances to ride a bicycle in the mountains.  As a result, much of the exercise he has to settle with takes its toll on his aged shoes.  They are coming apart, but it is not too late to save them.

“We can fix your shoes here,” says my boss, Zhao Jing.  He looks down at them and notices the gash in the sole, waiting to rip itself lose from my father’s right foot.   My mother agrees with Zhao, and we decide to do something about the situation.

We have been staying for two nights in a hotel on Wutai Mountain^W in Shanxi^W Province.  Zhao Jing drove us up here the previous night to  stay for two nights so that we could take in scenery different from what Beijing has to offer us.  Wutai Mountain’s 5 peaks are bald and rounded at the top, shaped like gigantic turtles’ shells.  Each of them has an average elevation of 2,700 meters.  They are each crowned with monasteries at the top.  The U-shaped valley that we stay in for two nights is filled with hotels, monasteries, and temples (in one temple visitors can still look into the room that Mao Ze Dong^W once slept in on his way from Yan'an^W to Beijing).  Famed as one of the five famous Buddhist peaks in China, Wutai Mountain is visited by thousands of Chinese every year.  It’s a holy place with stories abounding.

As Legend Has It

While visiting one of the many temples (Three Pagodas Temple) during our visit, one nervous and lonely Chinese tourist told us a version of the origin of how Wutai Mountain came to be.  The woman’s lips were dry, and she seemed dehydrated and a bit nervous–as if she had just been pursued by someone.  She chastised us for speaking within the temple’s grounds, and then proceded to broadcast music at the highest volume her mobile phone would permit.  As we began to exit the temple, she warned my father to walk out backwards so as not to anger her god.  My mother waited for us at the bottom of the stairs with Zhao Jing.  My father slowly reversed his way out of the temple’s gate, avoiding a small pile of dog’s excrement left drying squarely in the middle of one of the steps under the deep blue sky.  During his backwards descent down the steps, the delirious, but well-natured woman told us Wutai Mountain’s story:

“Long long ago this area used to be flat and barren.  Nothing could grow here.  A wandering monk ventured into a cave in a far off land only to find a sleeping dragon resting there.  The dragon was protecting her eggs in the lair.  Knowing that a dragon’s eggs were full of life and energy, the monk took one of them, flew to Wutai Mountain, and planted the egg in the ground.  After that, the land became fertile and rich.  But when the gods found out that the monk had stolen the egg, they made passing through the land difficult, causing the rise of the five peaks we have today.”

The Cobbler

In this once barren land of temples and monasteries, dragon’s eggs and gods, there sits a cobbler waiting for a geologist’s calling.  As we make our way back towards our hotel for an evening rest, we happen upon the cobbler in the street.  He is sits out in the open fixing a woman’s high-heeled shoe.  Her sole, too, is coming undone.  My mother pulls out her camera to snap photos of this phenomenon.  Cobblers in parking lots on holy buddhist sites are don’t exist where I come from.  My parents and I watch as the man’s huge hands with rough, sausage fingers pry the broken down skin of her heel off of the sole.

“Is he out here everyday?” my mother asks.

He says he is from Shanxi Province and it seems that he has been in the shoefixing business for some years, going from place to place wherever the trade might take him.  Wherever there are people, there are shoes to be fixed.  It seems he’s been doing this business at Wutai Mountain for some time.  I wonder to myself if he had to buy the entrance ticket or not.  In addition to fixing shoes, he also makes keys.  He holds nails in his mouth, takes them out one by one, then hammers in a new sole for the bottom of the high-heeled shoe.  The work is done in about 3 minutes. 

After the woman leaves, my father shows takes off shoe and puts on a pink slipper with a cartoon of a cat decorating the top.  He hands his eroded shoe to the cobbler.  The cobbler turns the Spirit of Adventure over in his hand, examing it with his puppet eyes that are spaced farther apart than those of us who are non-cobblers.  He wears an army coat and and a small, blue rimmed hat rim.  His legs are pressed together and he hunches his back over with a smile as he inspects the shoe.  Zhao Jing squats beside the cobbler, about a foot away from the schoe.  We all watch as the operation begins.  

“I’ll be done in about five minutes,” he says.

My mother, father, and myself each look on in awe as this man whose profession doesn’t exist in our country goest through his tools and instruments.  There are needles and hammers, nails and thread, srewdrivers and chisels, all spread out before him on his little desk.  He selects just the right metal rodlike screwdriver.  Before puting this instrument to use he applies a bit of adhesive between the ever-widening crack in my father’s sole.  After the adhesive is applied, he picks up his metal instrument and starts poking holes through the inside of the shoe.  He makes about five holes, and with each puncture, his face winces with the strain it takes to force his way through the shoe’s thick exoskeleton.

“The quality of these shoes is too good,” the cobbler smiles.   They were made in China.  My parents laugh.  The audience has increased to about 10 people now.

I try to guess why exactly he is poking holes through my father’s shoe but decide not to ask anyone.  I just have the feeling that no one here except the cobbler knows how shoes really work.  There’s something magical about the way he works so methodically, smiling and wincing between each puncture.  Then he reaches for a thick thread and it all comes together for the other spectators and myself as he begins to, in effect, stitch the shoe together.  My father shakes his head in amazement.  Like a practiced surgeon, he makes no slip-ups.  His workmanship is not in the least bit shoddy.

“5 RMB,” he says with a smile.

My father gets up and slips on his shoe, leaving the pink slipper behind for the next customer.  He reaches into his pocket and gives the cobbler 10RMB, telling him to keep the change.  The geologist and the cobbler exchange handshakes, a job well done.  It’s on the following morning that we will leave to return to Beijing, departing from the still winter mountain scene of mythical dragon’s eggs, flying monks, and magical cobblers.  We pass by the spot where he had his shoe resurrected.  There’s nothing there but the parking lot, the temples behind, and the bald turtle peaks of Wutai Mountain in the background.  The cobbler is nowhere to be found.  Zhao Jing drives us in his minivan, out the same way we came.  The Spirit of Adventure is alive and well carrying us on our way through the mountains of Shanxi, past the coalways of Hebei, onward towards the city. 

•