China Reflection

Dinner and Sunset

“We should have some ‘bao zi’ to eat.  They’re pretty good in the restaurant beneath the hotel,” Mr. Ma tells me, rubbing his stomach.

I’ve had plenty of “bao zi” during my almost 4 years in China.  It’s a kind of steamed bun filled with pork, beef, or vegetables.  The bao zi in the shop that we go to is sure to not serve any pork bao zi since most of the people in Hai Yuan are Hui Minority and do not eat pork.  Usually when I eat baozi, they are not so large.  The ones in Hai Yuan, however, are roughly the same size as babies’ heads.  They are stuffed with beef and are absolutely delicious.  Mr. Ma and I split a portion.  It’s more than enough to fill me up.

“Put on the hat!  Put on the hat!”  Mr. Ma is giddy again and urges me to put on the Muslim hat given to me by Forever Friend in Yinchuan.  We exit the restaurant and mosey our way towards the town square where many people are gathering in the soft light as the Sun sets.  They gather to watch the various acts for tonight’s celebration of the Party’s birthday.  Wearing my muslim hat and local sunglasses, I try my best to blend in with the crowd, but find it impossible.  I just want to sink into the masses and enjoy watching the preparation for tonights’ performances.  Sinking in is not to be, however.  Immediately, people begin to crowd around me, stare, and ask questions.  I’m surrounded, once again, on all sides. 

“Where are you from?”

“Are you Hui?”

“Why did you come to Hai Yuan?”

“You’re the first American I’ve met.  Can we be friends?”

“Hello?”

“What do you think about Beijing?”

“What do you do for work?”

“Hello?”

“How old are you?”

“Is it far from Beijing to Hai Yuan?”

“Can I speak English with you?”

“Hello?”

I take my time answering the questions to the best of my ability and decide to have fun with this scene rather than be overwhelmed by it…and it is extremely easy to be overwhelmed by a crowd.  I’m reminded by the performance of monkeys that I watched earlier in the day as Mr. Ma and I headed out to make our rounds of the town’s mosques.  It seems funny to me that the crowds kept such distance with the little monkeys, but they practically breathe down my neck here.  No side of me is protected from the crowd.  I am aware that there is a person directly behind me, staring at the nape of my neck.  I quickly turn around and point at him, as if to say, “gotcha.”  The crowd laughs.  It’s easy to entertain.  They pull in even closer.  The heat and smell off of their bodies closes in around me.  Nothing about them is menacing, but my personal space has diminished down to almost nothing.  When I turn to talk with someone, I inadvertently brush against another person in the crowd.  I decide to pick one person to talk with, focusing on a young high school student, blocking everyone else out.

“You’re in high school right?” I ask him.

“That’s right,” he answers.

His friends start to giggle.  “His English is really good,” they snicker.

“Can you speak English?” I ask him.

“A little bit,” he says.  “Welcome to Hai Yuan.  You know, I’d like to go to school in Beijing.”  His friends are beside themselves with laughter at this point.  Yes, words are coming out of his mouth.  He tells me that he wants to study engineering there.  He writes his e-mail on a little slip of paper.  The crowd watches as he hands it to me. 

At this point, I begin to realize that the crowd is willing to watch me all evening if possible.  Those who get bored watching me standing there answering questions wander off into the square.  As they wander off to go wherever it is they are going, others wander over to join in the staring contest so that the number of people around me hovers constantly around 20 to 30 people at any given time.  I decide that I need to take a breather and have my own space for a bit.  I pull myself away from the crowd to find Mr. Ma sitting near the stairs.

“I’m going to take a little walk up the road.  You mentioned a park to me earlier that’s up in that direction.  I’ll be back in the evening for the singing.”

Leaving Mr. Ma and the crowd behind, I quicken my pace and take off my hat.  It stills feel strange to wear it.  Although he signed me in as a Hui minority, I know I’m not Muslim and still feel as if I’m not being politically correct by wearing it.  At the same time, I don’t even know how to say “politically correct” in Chinese…do they even have this word? 

Walking up the hill, I’m relieved at the feeling and sight of the Sun going down.  Now I can partially hide my whiteness and foreigness in the darkness, blending in with the night.  At a distance no one will know where I am from.  They’ll see me walking and think that I am just one of them.  Why would an American come here?  Walking up the hill away from the town square, I pass groups of people heading towards the square for the festivities.  The Sun is going down and the sunset itself is a beautiful orange.  It has been a while since I have seen such a nice sunset in Beijing.  The farther I get from the town square, the darker and quieter it becomes.  I start to realize just how far I am from Beijing.

Better than a Hua Er

As the Sun slides behind the houses and arid land in the backdrop, I continue to walk away from the center of town.  A woman walks towards the gate of her house and spots me, making eye contact with me.  I put my hands together in prayer, bow my head, and say, “salaam,” just as Mr. Ma instructed me to do.  She wears a blue hat covering her hair in the Hui style.  Her face lights up in a smile, and she reaches her arm out to me, motioning me to approach her.

“Ah.  Salaam.” she says, enthusiastically.  “Come, come.  Come to my home.”

At first I balk for a second or two, wondering if I should go into her house.  She approaches the wall to her house and unlocks the gate, leaving it open.  She is waiting for me to enter.  I look left and right.  There are no people watching.  It feels safe, but still a little strange.  I haven’t even told her my name, and she is inviting me into her house.  This woman can’t possibly be dangerous.  I walk over to the gate towards her and enter through the doorway of her home.  She shuts it behind her.  Slam!

“Ah.  This is my home.  It’s not very much.  My name is Mrs. Xie (pronounced “Shay”).  Nice to meet you.”

I shake her hand.  She has a sweet smile.  She seems to be in her 40s.  Most of her hair is tucked underneath her blue cap, so it’s hard to tell how long it is.  the area within the wall is made up of a small courtyard.  On the left is a small mud and brick home, separated by a wall in the middle.  The front part of the facade of the house has been newly built with bricks.  It fades into a mud wall.  The new and old mix.  In the middle of the courtyard is a garden with some vegetables.  There is corn and cabbage mostly.  On the other side of the courtyard are two more smaller buildings.  They are made of mud and earth packed together and seem dark inside.  A small cat scurries in front of my feet and hides in its home, a tiny kitten inside of its tiny cubby hole.  The air is still except for our voices.  I can’t hear the performers practicing their patriotic songs anymore.

Mrs. Xie invites me into her house.  The room where whe sleeps has a huge bed that looks as if it can sleep many.  Underneath the bed is a whole where one can make a fire, heating up the area where one sleeps in the wintertime.  There is no one else in the house or the courtyard at this time.  I wonder about her husband and her family.  Mrs. Xie invites me to sit down and gives me a cup of hot water to drink.  Then she starts talking about her children.

“My daughter is studying in Yinchuan now.  She’s studying animation.  She really likes animation.  I wish she could improve her English, though.  Her English isn’t so good.  Would you give her a call sometime?  Here, let me give you her number…”  She searches for a pen and writes down her daughter’s number in my notebook.

“You have to promise to call her.  She would be so surprised to hear from someone from…where are you from?”

“America…the US.”

“Oh…I forgot.  I want to give you something.”  She turns around and rummages through a box, pulling out a stash of Muslim hats.  Some are white, while others are pattern with intracately hand woven blue and gold designs.

“Please take one.  For good luck.  To remember me by.”

I try to tell her that I already have one of these hats, but it’s no use.  She won’t relax until I choose one.  Taking one of the blue ones, I place it on my head.

“Looks good on you.  Oh, my daughter will be so surprised.”  Once again, I feel like an impostor wearing the Muslim hat.

She takes out a book and tells me that she wants to share some family photographs photographs with me.  Opening up the photos, I’m put in a time warp back into her past.  She shows me photos of her and her husband before their wedding.  He was a soldier.  His face is long and thin and reminds me of a WWII general thinking about his honey back home.  Reminds me a little of my Grandpa.  She sighs when she looks at the picture, and I wonder where her husband is again. 

She leafs through other pictures.  One is of a group of boys standing together in their school uniforms.  He holds the picture in her left palm, face up.  Her right hand carresses the photo, and her index finger touches the face of one of the boys.  The boy has the same facial expression as her husband.  It is obviously her son.  Mrs. Xie’s eyes become red, and I can see that she is about to cry.

“This is my son,” she says, her voice quivering.  “He died a year ago of illness.”  I’m not sure what to say.  The air stiffens.

“What about your daughter?” I ask.  Mrs. Xie sighs again, looking at her son’s photo.  She flips the pictures again to one of a girl posing for a photograph in the sun.  The girl is wearing a dark blue dress, and her skin is white and perfect, cheeks are full red, painted.  It’s her daughter.

“You should really call her.  Promise you’ll call her tomorrow.”

“Ok. No problem.”

“She’ll be so surprised that an American came here.  Are there many Hui in America?” she asks.

“Oh…well…I’m not actually Hui,” I tell her.

She pauses and seems to be contemplating some question.  Her eyes look down and when she next speaks, it seems hesitant.

“You’re…not…Hui?  Oh…I thought you were…I thought…” her voice trails off.

“No.  I’m not. I’m American, you know?  I thought you knew I wasn’t Hui.”

“Well…how did you know ’salaam?’  Why did you say that to me?  I thought you were Hui.”  She seems perplexed.

I tell her that I had just seen other people doing the same greeting.  I tell her about Mr. Ma, but she is doesn’t seem to know him.  We continue to look through photos–photos of her when she was young, photos of her children, photos of her and her husband in the snow.  When she tells me her age, 44, I tell her that she doesn’t look 44.  I do this because it’s the polite thing to say.  Her reaction is unexpected, however.

“Why would I try to trick you?  You think I’m tricking you?  I can show you proof.  Do you want to see my identity card?”

I’m on the defensive now.  “No, no.  Not necessary.  I believe you.  You don’t need to show me.” 

It’s too late.  She is on the floor rummaging through boxes.  She pulls one out and dumps its contacts.  Out spills her identity card, her marriage certificate, her housing certificate…all of the proper governmental forms.  She opens them up and points to the date of her birth.

“See…I’m not tricking you.  44 years old,” she smiles almost defiantly. 

We talk for some time and I tell her my purpose in coming to Hai Yuan was originally to hear hua er.  It’s only after I say this that I realize that the reason I’m in Hai Yuan is not to hear music but to talk with her.  Being inside her courtyard, inside her house, sharing the pictures and memories with her is the reason I came here.  I have been telling everyone that I’ve been looking for hua er, but deep down what I’ve really been hoping for is connecting with one person, with a local, if possible…just to share some moments, some conversation, and some memories.  That’s enough.  The birth of the Communist Party seems so far away from this roomful of pictures and memories.  Mrs. Xie doesn’t seem to want to let me go, but I know that it’s getting late.  I know that Mrs. Xie is lonely.  I know that she misses her son.  I know that having me here in her house brings back some of that feeling and intensifies the loneliness.  There’s no way to escape it.  I am heavy with the emotion inside of this room, inside of her. She reminds me once again to call her daughter in the morning, telling me that she’ll be happy to hear from a foreign visitor.  I think to myself that I should give her something to remember me by.  Searching through my bag, I find a picture of myself, Simon, and Pauline from when we went to the botanical garden in Beijing.

“You can keep this photo and show it to your daughter in case she asks,” I say with a smile.  She puts a smile back on her face and holds the picture in both hands.  The hands, the smile, the picture…all of it sends a feeling back to me that is worth a thousand of Hua Er. 

“Han or Hui?”  Mr. Ma asks me again.  I think to myself for a couple more seconds before answering.

“Well, I’m in Hai Yuan now.  So I guess I’m a Hui today.”  I say it again, convincing myself of my own non-ethnicity–”I’m Hui.”  He scratches the character down for “Hui minority” in the notebook.  On this day I have switched tribes.  My history has changed.  It’s at this point that I remember the Muslim cap that Forever Friend gave to me in Yinchuan.  I decide to show it to Mr. Ma.

“That’s great!”  he says, enthusiastically.  “You should put that thing on!”  I put it on as instructed, and he begins laughing.  His family wakes from their sleep and starts laughing, too.  Feeling slightly uncomfortable and yet slightly accepted into the fold at the same time, I leave the hat on for a few minutes.

“You should definitely wear that when we go outside,” he says.  We’ll see.

After finishing the check-in process, I decide to give it another shop locating a map for Hai Yuan.  There’s nothing really specific that I want to or need to do in this town today.  I have this amorphous goal to listen to and experience the elusive Hua Er singing style, but my heart is not set on it.  Again, I don’t have any clue of what I would be listening for anyway.  I’m just going to go where this day takes me.   Turning to Mr. Ma, my new ethnic brother, I ask him if he knows of a place where I can locate a local map.

“Hmmmm…a map.”  He says.  His mouth twitches as he squints his eyes.  “Well, we could go next door.  There is a building with lots of shops in it.  They might have a map there.”  I notice that he has already said we and can only assume that he’ll be coming with me on the search for the map.

“Listen, Mr. Ma, you don’t have to come with me…it’s ok.  I don’t want to interrupt your schedule.”  I am being sarcastic, but he doesn’t catch on.  So far, I’ve only seen one other guest.

“Are you kidding me?” he says.  “I’m bored out of my mind.  If you weren’t here I’d just sleep the whole day.  Let’s go.”  I take my Muslim cap off and put in in my bag before exiting the building.

Performance in the Little Town Square

As Mr. Ma and I walk through the multi-level shopping mall next to his small hotel, two things quickly become apparent:  1) the search for a map is fruitless, and 2) this town does not get many foreigners.  When we do arrive at the book and map section of the mall, the lady behind the counter pulls out the same book of detailed Ningxia maps that I saw in the bookstore early in the day.  No maps specifically for Hai Yuan.  The saleswoman stares at me with a look of disbelief on her face.  The customers stare at me.  The eyes in the back of my neck see children pointing and snickering.  It’s all honest and harmless, but I’m once again reminded of what it’s like to enter the environment where few foreigners dare to tread.  Enjoy it.

“Well…what’s next on your plan?  Where to go from here?”  Mr. Ma asks me.  Is he asking himself, too? 

It’s at this point I decide to go for the gold.  “Do you know of anyone who sings Hua Er?  Or any place I could hear it?”

He seems stumped by this question at first. “Hua er….hua er…wait a sec…yeah.  I know a guy.  He works in the tourism bureau next to the square.  Let’s go see if he’s around.”  This could be it.  We exit the building, taking the stares with us.

As we leave the shopping mall, I am stunned at the site of a crowd of onlookers crowded around the entrance.  They stand in a circle, and all eyes look to the space in the middle.  They watch and laugh as none other than Devil Monkey and his fabulous family of simians entertain.  Devil Monkey stands in the center of the circle holding the monkeys on gigantic leashes that are looped around their necks.  The crowd watches and applauds as the monkeys ride on bicycles, jump through hoops, do summersaults, and clamber up young childrens’ bodies.  Devil Monkey smiles, his disheveled hair lopping here and there as he soaks up the attention.  So this is what happens.  We watch for a few minutes.  I notice that after some time my presence is beginning to draw the attention away from Devil Monkey and his family.  Its seems that White Man attracts the crowds as much as the monkeys do.  So as not to distract the crowd from tipping Devil Monkey, I tell Mr. Ma that it’s time to go and bid farewell to my fellow entertainer.

Just as in Zhongwei where I left the desert for Hell, Mr. Ma and I leave a performace of monkeys to a practicing choir in the town’s square.  We have to walk through the square in order to walk into the government office buildings where the tourism bureau is.  Today is July 1st, the official birthday of the Communist Party.  Tonight there many groups will sing and perform in the square in order to celebrate the formation and endurance of the all encompassing Party.  As we near the square, we pause to watch the choir practice one of the many patriotic songs that will be sung in the evening.  Everyone is dressed in crisp white shirts.  Their faces glisten in the Sun.  I expect angels’ wings to sprout at any moment.  They belt out their tunes and float in the air.  The Chairman would be proud.

The Bureau

One man sits inside the spacious office of the Hai Yuan tourism bureau.  He is busy with paperwork, but he gets up to greet Mr. Ma and myself as soon as we enter the office.  We shake hands and he pours me a cup of tea with wolfberries.  Mr. Ma and I sit down on the large piece of wooden furniture in the office while the man talks with me for a bit about what I’m doing and why I came to Hai Yuan.

“Well, I kind of want to hear Hua Er,” I tell him, not letting go of my quest. 

He furrows his brow and thinks to himself for a moment.

“Hua er.  There is a guy who is can sing it very well…but unfortunately, he left for Beijing yesterday.  He’ll be performing Hua er there.  He’s pretty famous,” he says.

My heart doesn’t sink.  I’m in Hai Yuan.  Whether or not I hear the elusive music is beside the point.  It’s the search for it that makes it fun.  I ask him what else there is to see or do in Hai Yuan.  He reaches under the table that we are sitting at and pulls out a brochure that illustrates and describes Hai Yuan’s tourism sites.  It’s a small green pamplet that reads, “The hometown of Hua Er, Hai Yuan, Welcomes You!.”  On the cover, there are some people dressed in traditional Hui minority costumes standing on a verdant mountain overlooking a small lake.  Opening up the booklet, there are some other pictures of a famous mosque near the area, as well as some photos of some Hua Er festivals, traditional Hui foods, and archaeologists digging up ancient dwellings.  On the back of the booklet there is a page dedicated to the 1920 earthquake that devastated the area.  Pictured at the top of the page there is a tree that has been split in two due to the earthquake’s force.  Underneath the tree is a small photo of many lumps of dirt in a plain.  These lumps are the “10,000 graves” for the people who died in the 1920 earthquake.  This site is located not far from Mr. Ma’s hotel.  10,000 people lie resting underneath the Earth not far from where I will be sleeping tonight.

“So what do you want to do?” asks Mr. Ma.

“Let’s go see some mosques,” I say.

Mosques

Mr. Ma and I walk out past the square where another group of boys is practicing for the Party’s birthday.  All of them wear red ties and smile at me when I walk by.  One of them speaks English to me and asks where I’m from.

“Put on the hat!  Put on the hat!”  Mr. Ma says to me, giggling to himself.  I can’t believe I’m doing this.  I reach into my bag for the Muslim hat as instructed and put it on.  Mr. Ma teaches me how to say, “Hello,” in Arabic (Salaam), and I do so.  I don’t know if the boys quite know what to make of me.

For the next hour Mr. Ma takes me on a grand tour of 4 of the towns many mosques.  As we go from one mosque to the next, I have to keep on reminding myself of the fact that Hai Yuan is not that large…there are just a lot of mosques.  In a way it reminds me a bit of Lexington, Virginia and Rockbridge County.  There are churches specked all across the county, and I always wonder how and where they find the people to attend these churches. 

The first mosque that we go to is quite small.  Outside, there are some teenage boys standing in front of the mosque.  Mr. Ma tells me that they can speak Arabic, as they are studying the language now.  I immediately think back to Yinchuan and Forever Friend.  The people here do not speak Arabic as a language to communicate, but rather a common prayer language.  Standing there talking with the young boys, I feel like an impostor wearing my Muslim hat.  I am not a Muslim, and if I was in America dressed like this in front of a mosque, people would think I was poking fun at the religion.  In Hai Yuan, however, Mr. Ma makes me feel welcome and wants me to wear the hat.  He knows that I am not a Muslim, but he doesn’t seem to care.  He’s just happy to show off his town.  He’s just happy to do something today.

We go from mosque to mosque and I’m surprised at the differences in their structures and upkeep.  They all seem to have that same green dome ending in the crescent moon shape.  I notice that all of the mosques seem relatively empty when we go to visit.  Mr. Ma tells me that they are usually empty except during prayer times.

“If you want to pray, you have to wash everything.  You wash your hands, your face, your feet, your body.  When we wash, we don’t take the water directly out of the faucet.  First you pour the water into a small pot and from that you pour the water onto your hands or body to wash.”

Mr. Ma takes me into the washroom where the cleansing takes place.  Inside there is one solitary practioner washing himself, pouring the water from the golden colored pot on the sink into his hands.  I consider joining him in the process, but wonder if it is the right thing to do or not.  If I was in a church or a temple, I feel like I could just jump right in…but for some reason I have this notion that I am more restricted in this religion.  Mr. Ma is encouraging, though, and I’m sure it wouldn’t be a problem.  Still, I decide just to watch and observe.

After visiting the fourth temple, Mr. Ma has an idea.

“You know, from here we’re not too far from the 10,000 graves.  Would you be interested in seeing that?”

“Let’s go,” I say.  What do 10,000 graves look like?

What they look like

We get in a three wheeled taxi that takes us down Hai Yuan’s dusty backstreets.  The taxi wobbles back and forth on the uneven road, and I feel like I have been transported to a sandy past.  I can only imagine what an earthquake would do to this city’s structures and old roads.  Again, Hai Yuan is not very large, and we arrive at the grave site within 5 minutes.  After paying the driver, Mr. Ma and I get out of the car.

“It’s only a short walk to the hotel from here.  We can just stroll from this point,” he says.  Mr. Ma looks sleepy.  I wonder if he has sacrificed his afternoon nap for me…or his afternoon prayer.  He breathes heavily as we scamper up the embankment.  It’s not a high ridge.  As soon as we scale it, we are faced with an English and Chinese marker to note the catastrophe that occurred here in 1920.

We walk up the embankment to the side of the road.  The gravesite is directly next to the dusty street, and if there was no marker at the gravesite, it would be impossible to know what was there.  One would just think it an empty lot with odd topography.  The lot itself is quite large.  It is entirely clear except for various shrubs that have started growing over the lumps.  The lumps themselves, the graves of the fallen, roll gently over the field.  It seems that time has begun to wear them down.  There is only one gravestone for all of the 10,000 people that have been buried here.  They all lie together underneath the rolling field in the dusty town.  Mr. Ma and I don’t say a word to one another.  Squinting in the sunlight, the air feels stiff and solid…unbreakable.  I feel eons away from the crushing movement of the Earth that wiped out 10,000 people in a matter of seconds.  The silence is deafening.  The dead sleep undisturbed.

The Sun is hot.  Mr. Ma is tired.  I am, too.

“Let’s take a rest,” he says.

Changing Demographics

Devil Monkey is on the bus.  I immediately notice him sitting towards the front when I board.  He is still wearing the same green camaflouge suit that he wore the night before when he passed me in the street with his three monkeys.  Said monkeys are nowhere to be seen.  They have disappeared.  It’s only him sitting on the bus.  He seems smaller and naked without them dragging behind him, like He-Man withouth his sword.  He has a friend sitting next to him–maybe another Devil Monkey.  I can’t be sure.  He recognizes me when I board the bus and raises his eyebrows in surprise.  I greet him with a smile.  Good Devil Monkey.  I sit in a seat in towards the back.

A couple of aesthetic changes take place within the bus itself during the course of the journey to Hai Yuan.  At the beginning of the ride, there are still plenty of empty seats on the bus.  It is about 3 quarters full, and I am comfortably seated next to the window with no one beside me.  As the bus proceeds towards its ultimate destination in Hai Yuan, a place I really know nothing about, more and more people board the bus, filling it well past its alloted capacity.  Every time the bus stops for new passengers, the driver opens the back of the bus for them to throw their bags.  At the same time he does this, Devil Monkey hurredly gets off the bus and runs to the back.  It’s at this moment that I realize where his monkeys are.  Fearing that they will escape or be crushed by the baggage, he rushes to the back to make sure they are ok.  The passengers who board the bus get on at random intervals and wave the bus down as if they are hailing a taxi cab in New York City.  At one point, a woman with a small baby boards the bus and has no place to sit.  The ticket-taker hands her a small stool with legs that are about 3 inches off the ground to stoop on.  I stand up and tell her to sit in my seat, which she does.  I stoop on the stool.  However, only a minute later the ticket-taker almost forcefully makes me stand up and take my seat back.  The woman with the baby sits back on the stool on the floor.  I feel like I have no choice.  I sit back in my seat, embarrassed.  By this time, the aisle is jam packed with standing passengers. 

Besides the increase in the number of humans on the bus, I also notice a change in the style of dress as well.  Because the members of the Hui minority are Muslim, the men wear a traditional skull cap on their head.  The cap is usually white, or has a few intricately hand woven designs.  The women also cover their heads with black or white scarves.  Some of the elderly men have long beards, something that I don’t often see amongst members of the Han ethnicity.  Many of the older men also wear extremely large, square-shaped sunglasses, much like the former Chairman Jiang Zemin^W wore.  The bus gradually makes its way towards more barren and arid landscape, and the interior of the bus gradually transforms from a predominantly Han group of passengers to a Hui majority of passengers.

The towns we pass through on the road are dusty and dry.  Some of the houses are made of Earth.  The number of mosques increases as well.  In each small town that we go through, the most spectacular building is sure to be the town’s mosque, always capped with the beautful emerald domes ending in mysterious golden crescent moons.  They contrast with the blue sky and make me think of an oasis.  At one stop, local women board the bus to hawk small plastic bags of local apricots.  No one buys any.  The Devil Monkey once again goes back to check on his brood. 

We ride through a land not yet desert, but clearly lacking in water resources.  The Earth is cracked and parched with dried sores.  It’s waiting to turn red.  Still, the fields are tilled and things manage somehow to grow here and there.  Ningxia’s speciality is the wolfberry, a small, cranberry like fruit that is supposedly very good for one’s health.  They grow on small  bushes and it’s easy to mistake them for small chili peppers from the window of a bus.  Sometimes people put them in their tea, other times they soak them in grain alcohol.  One can even eat them as is, directly from the bush.  Even the desert has its treasures.  The bus pulls us over small hills that aren’t quite yest mountains.  The Earth’s crust is like the skin of a potato now.  In less than an hour we’ll be there.

Arrival

I receive many stares at the bus station as I buy my return ticket for Zhongwei for the following morning.  I don’t want to return too late the next day.  Today will be my one and only day in Hai Yuan.  Tomorrow after taking the train to Zhongwei I’ll go to see the girl I met on the train to Yinchun, Amanda from Wuhai, Inner Mongolia.  I quickly buy a ticket and go to look for lunch.  Devil Monkey and his crew have already left.

As soon as I enter the nearest restaurant, heads turn in my direction.  There aren’t many heads to turn, however.  It’s still a little bit early for lunch, so there are few customers present.  I feel like the stranger who has blown into town in some B Western movie.  I wonder if I made the right decision in coming to Hai Yuan or not. 

I’m not sure what I should order here as I am unfamiliar with the food, so I go over to the table next to me and check out what the two guys at that table are eating.  They suggest I try a flat noodle dish.  Apparently in these parts, noodles are the staple food.  I should note that none of the dishes on the menu have any pork in them.  Because the majority of people in this town are Hui minority, almost none of the restaurants serve pork.  I take the advice of the locals and eat what they suggest.  One of them brings me a glass of tea with some herbs and wolfberries in it.  I comment on the wolfberries, asking if people all over the province eat these things, and the owner of the restaurant once again confirms the health benefits of this Ningxia specialty.  A couple of minutes later he goes out and comes back in with a small back of wolfberries which he graciously gives to me as an extra gift, free of charge.  Not bad.  The lunch is good and the people are friendly.  They talk with me a few minutes about Obama and how he got to be president.  One of the guys gives a thumbs up at the mention of Obama’s name.  I fill up and begin to feel like I definitely made the right choice in coming to Hai Yuan.

After paying for my meal I decide that I want to find a map of this place if at all possible.  I walk away from the bus station uphill in the direction of the town.  It feels small to me.  It feels empty here.  A lot of the buildings have their large doors open, and some of the windows looking inside display empty rooms with cement floors.  It’s not run down here, it’s just that there is no one here–the Wild West.  As I walk further up the hill, the number of people I pass increase.  The stares I get are intensely curious.  I can feel them staring at my back after I go by.  Up ahead is a school that is just getting out of class.  Oh great.  I decide to ask one of the kids who is walking in my direction towards the school if she can help me find a map.  She gawks at me at first as if I’m from another planet, then says that there is a bookstore up ahead.  Leading me to the bookstore, I see the other elementary students across the street begin to point at me with their mouths agape.  After I enter the book store I ask the owner about locating a map for Hai Yuan.

“A map?” she says. “Hmmmm…I don’t think there is a map for this place.  We have a map for Ningxia, though.  Here…where is that…?”  She goes to a shelf and locates the section where the maps are and pulls out a book that contains comprehensive maps of Ningxia, including a page for Hai Yuan County.  This is not what I want, however.  I just want a folding map of the city I am in.  They don’t have it.  I thank her and turn to leave the store, only to find that the doorway is currently blocked by about 20 young children staring at me.  There is no way to get out other than engaging them in conversation.

“Ooohh. You know if there was a fire, this wouldn’t be good,” I joke.  They laugh.  I feel they would have laughed at anything that comes out of my mouth.  I do my best impersonation of Moses and part the sea.  Across the street is another bookstore.  I search inside for a map, but to no avail.  Maybe they just don’t make them.  Lewis and Clark would have a field day.

The store owner in the second book store points me in the direction of the center of town.  That’s where I want to go.  I’m still in search of a map, and that’s probably the best place to find one.  It’s also probably the best place to find someone who will know how to sing hua er.  Finding this type of singing style is my main mission in coming to this town.  It’s the amorphous goal, the blob that brought me here.  Now that I’m hear, however, it doesn’t really matter to me if I find the song or not.  I’ll do my best to locate IT, but I can’t set my heart on this goal.  I just want to let what comes to me come to me and enjoy Hai Yuan while I am here.  There’s nothing that I HAVE to do.

After about 5 minutes of walking straight and never veering off the main street, I arrive near the town’s main square and suddenly decide that I want to locate a place to stay for the night so that I can put my bag down.  Locating a small in, I walk up four flights of stairs and am greeted by a family behind the check in desk.  There is a man with a moustache taking his midday rest, a young girl of about 20, and a younger girl who is about 4 years old.  This is the hotel where I will stay.  I don’t really care what the room will look like, and I know it’s not that expensive.  I just like the look of this family.  Still, I decide to play the “check-in” game and have a look at the room before giving my ultimate decision.

The proprietor of the hotel, Mr. Ma, is an amicable family man who shows me to a room at the end of the hallway.  There is a leaky public sink on the left side of the hall.  Wet, dirty hand towels hang on a wire above the sink.  The right side of the hallway is lined with windows that let in the white light reflected off the rooftops and walls outside.  Mr. Ma leads me to the room that is just after the public sinks and opens the door to a spacious room with a hard queen-sized bed.  I put on my best “scrutinizing face,” squinting my eyes, patting the bed, handling the curtains, checking the lights, etc.  Then it’s into the bathroom.  The light in their is extremely thin and there are a couple of discarded cigarettes on the floor.  The whole room is essentially one giant drain with the shower connected to the wall.  There is a plunger placed in the middle of the room, directly over the drainage hole.  This deliberate placement is to prevent the stink of the drainage from coming back up.

“Hot water?” I ask.

“Yes, just plug in the shower here, and you can bathe about 20 minutes later after it heats up,” he shows me where the plug to the water heater is at.  Afterwards he demonstrates how to use the shower.  The water dribbles out at a pitiful pace, but I tell him I’ll take the room anyway.  It’s just one night.

I toss my bag on the bed and head back to the front desk with him to fill out the registration.  First I pull out my passport.  Obviously, I have no Chinese identification card, so it’s all in English and impossible for Mr. Ma to understand.  I go through the registration form with him line by line.

“Name, ok.  S-C-H-W-A-B, J-E-F-F-R-E-Y.”  He writes in my name.

“Age, 29.  Male.”  No problem here.

“Uh? Identy number?”  I point to my passport number and he writes it down.  Then I show him the page with the visa number.  So far, so good.  I’ve done this plenty of times.  It’s a breeze.  Just as we are about to finish the check in process, we hit a snag that I’ve never met before in China.

“Ethnicity?” he asks.  I balk at the question.  Ethnicity?  He already knows I’m American.  I always balked at this question in the past whenever I took standardized tests.  There was that block of choices for the test taker to fill in what ethnic group he belonged to:

Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, Other

I usually left this blank or chose “other” when faced with this question, thinking to myself why do the people or machines who mark this test need to know my ethnic background?  I realize now that it was probably for statistic results, but still, it always rubbed me the wrong way.  Here I am, thousands of miles and years away from the SAT, and I’m being asked to file myself away in an ethnic group by Mr. Ma.

“Ethnicity?”  he asks again.

“I don’t have an ethnicity.  I’m an American,” I say.

He pauses and contemplates for a second, the pen in his right hand hovering over the registration form.

“Are you Han Chinese or Hui Minority?” he asks again, rephrasing the questions.  I’m clearly not getting out of this situation without providing an answer.

“Han or Hui?” he asks again.

The pen doesn’t budge.  The air is still.  Who am I?