The Discovery

On a recent trip to Handan^W, the former capital of the State of Zhao during China’s Warring States^W period, I came face to face with the Deal Maker.  My friend Simon and I had decided to travel to Handan, a dusty city in Hebei with its glory days far in the past.  This is the city where I purposely chose to spend my 30th birthday.  We had been talking about visiting for some time, always delaying the trip for some reason or another.  Now, here we were, in the proclaimed “proverb capital” of Northern China (due to the city’s ancient history, many Chinese proverbs and there stories originate in Handan).  Upon checking into a cheap hotel room, the staff turned on the television in front of our beds.  This action is synonomous with breathing–the tv must be turned on once the room is open.  As the hotel staff was pleased that our television worked properly, she gave me the remote and handed it to me with the utmost professionalism.  I was just about to turn off the television until I looked at the screen and made an uprecedented realization–I actually recognized and knew the Chinese actor on the television screen!  Although he was now dressed in a police uniform, there was no mistaking it…I was looking directly at the Deal Maker.

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

A few months back when I took a whirlwind tour of the US going through Seattle, Salt Lake City, Yellowstone, Jackson Hole, Las Vegas, and LA, the Deal Maker was one of our customers on the trip.  Always with a few days growth of whiskers on his face at the time, the Deal Maker dressed casually and looked like any other shmoe, if not a little more friendly.  This trip to the US was to be a family vacation with his wife and daughter.

“Our son is American,” his wife told me while we waited to change flights in the airport in Seoul.

I do not have a television in China, and so I do not watch any Chinese tv shows or movies.  I didn’t know that the Deal Maker was in fact Jiang Wu, a famous Chinese actor who has been in such films as “To Live,” “A Beautiful World,” “Shower,” and the police television drama playing on the screen across hotel rooms in Handan, amongst others.  He just seemed like a regular guy to me.  Taken out of their environment and scope of fame, that’s all celebrities are anyway–just regular guys and girls.  As someone completely ignorant of mainstream Chinese pop and film culture, I immediately liked Jiang Wu and found him to be an engaging guy.  He was also easy to travel with, andhe had a round smile as wide as Jack from “Nightmare Before Christmas,” (apologies for the extra cinema reference).  He kept this smile with him throughout the sites we visited, including Jackson Hole.

Jackson Hole is a place that brings back personal memories for me, as I spent many summers here during my youth, bicycling on the roads looking at the jagged mountains that loomed overhead.  I remember once hiking up what seemed to be the steepest ski slope I have ever seen with my sister, Kimberly, and my younger brother, Jonny.  We were trying to get to the road above.  As the slope approached the road, the incline became steeper and steeper.  I clearly remember grabbing at grassroots to pull myself up to the dirt road that criss-crossed along the slope.  This time, we would only be in Jackson Hole for a night, and most of the time would be spent not near the wilderness, but in the quaint, but very touristy “Western” town after making the drive from Yellostone National Park.  It seemed strange and almost dreamlike to return to a place of youthful family summers, but this time with a group of 15 Chinese tourists.

All of our guests marveled in awe at the elk antler archways which have become Jackson Hole’s symbol.

“Are those fake?” one of the guests asked me, pointing to the hundreds (if not thousands) of antlers that are collected by boy scouts every year when the elk shed them naturally in the Spring.  I assured him that they were the real deal.  Near Jackson Hole is one of the largest protected areas for elk.  While the Chinese pointed at, touched, and took pictures of the antler archway, a bearded man on a motorcycle crossed the road and came over to us.

“Hey dudes!” he said.  “Where you guys from?” he asked, a grin peeking through his white whiskers.

The members of our group became excited at the local savage straddling  his motorcycle waiting for pictures and contact with the Chinese world.  One by one they stood with him to take photos.  Harley Davidson culture and 5000 years of Chinese history merged instantly under the Sun.

“Yeah,” he said while he revved his motor for effect.  “I like the ladiessss!”  He put his arm around one of my customers and I thought for a brief instant that he would whisk her off in the distant Western landscape with her wrapped in his motorcycle muscles.

My boss came out of one of the many shops around the square that sell Western art.

“Jeffrey….come in here for a minute.  Need you for something.”  This is good.  A use for me.

I walked into one of the store that Zhao Jing walked out of.  The interior was filled with carpets made of animal skins, chandelier lights made of elk antlers, handmade wooden furniture, and what appeared to be antique revolvers.  Jiang Wu, his wife, and their daughter stood with one of the salesgirls in the store.  She was a young girl with a European accent who I later found out was from Romania.  They stood in front of a beautifully hand-carved rocking chair made of buckeye.

“Jeffrey, we want to buy this chair, but I don’t know what the girl is saying to me…”  Jiang Wu’s wife turned to me.

I learned from the Romanian girl that the chair in the shop was not for sale as it had already been sold to another customer.  When I relayed the information to Jiang Wu and his wife, they asked if the shop had any other chairs like this one.  I could only imagine at the staggering price they would have to pay just to ship the chair back to China.  But I’m not the Deal Maker, and I don’t have the salary of a Chinese movie star to back up my deals.

Just then the owner of the shop, a Mr. John Bickner walked in the door with the stepping stride of  a young John Wayne.  He was a large man–not fat, but with an American build as thick as the oak tree handshake that he gave me.  He introduced himself to me, enveloping my hands into his gigantic fingers.  John Bickner was a man proud of his work.  He talked about the chair, and the wood and tree it came from, how he polished it himself, how long it took to get to this point.  He showed us some other wooden tables in the shop and told us about their wood.

“This one was a fine piece of buckeye…if you look over here at this redwood, you can see….I finished this piece about two years ago….” etc.

Jiang Wu, being the Deal Maker, pressed the point.  His wife as well.  Although John Bickner’s work was finessed and skilled, we didn’t have much time to look at all of it.  The Deal Maker wanted the chair.  John Bickner took his oak tree hand and put rubbed his granite jaw.  This chair had already been sold.  How to solve this issue?

“You know…”  John Bickner started slowly.  “I have some other chairs that aren’t exactly like this one, as well as some other works that you could have a look at if you’re interested…Come and meet me at my warehouse just outside of the square.  Did you guys drive a car here?”

I told him we did, and pointed to the 8-10 passenger van that we came in (we drove 2).  John Bickner then gave directions of how to get to his warehouse, drawing a crude map on the back of a napkin. 

“Meet you there in about 5 minutes,” he said as he glided out of the door with us following.

Deal Maker in the Warehouse

The drive to the warehouse was not far.  Jackson Hole is a small town, and it only took us a couple of minutes to get out of the “city center.”  The warehouse itself is at the end of a lovely dead-end street.  We parked the van at the end of the street and exit, and crossed over a small bridge which lead us across a crystal clear stream.  Needles from a nearby tree fell into the stream.  John Bickner was there waiting for us next to the warehouse.  There were tree stumps strewn about, as well oddly-shaped sections of trees which appear to be in the beginning stages of re-shaping and morphed into works of art.  I noticed 4 tractor trailors next to the warehouse, pointed to them and inquired as to their purpose.

“Oh…those.  Those are full of elk antlers.  Let me show you.”  He hopped up on the trailer and opened the doors.  Sure enough the inside was filled with elk antlers.

“Every year they grow to their full length and then the elk shed them naturally.  In the Spring time, the boyscouts go out and collect the antlers.  We have a big auction to buy them.  Those antlers in there are actually going to be shipped to South Korea and China so they can be used for medicine.”

Standing there in front of these trailors full of elk antlers, it never occured to me that the beginning part of the journey of certain types of Chinese medicine could be in a place as beautiful and far away from China as Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  And here was the start…right beside John Bickner’s residence and furniture warehouse.  The Deal Maker’s wife turned to me and tugged on my shoulder.

“Are these real or fake,” she said in a whisper.  I was about to translate the question when she stopped me.  “Don’t tell him I asked that question,” she said.

John Bickner pulled out one of the racks of antlers so that Jiang Wu and his wife could have a closer look.

“Jeffrey…do you think if we buy some of his furniture he would give us one of these racks of antlers?”  Jiang Wu’s wife looked at me through her sunglasses.

“No problem,” said John Bickner, cowboy hero of the West.  There was a pause before Jiang Wu’s wife asked once more.

“Do you think we could have 2 sets of elk antlers?”

I hesitated to ask this question, thinking I might have already pushed the button too much.  But these were my customers.  I had to do my duty.  I asked the question.  John Bickner also hesitated.  What could he have been thinking?  Who do these Chinese people think they are?  Are they going to buy anything, or just take elk antlers for free?  Of course, if I give away a couple of racks, maybe they’d be more willing to buy more….

“Yeah…sure thing.  I can do that,” he said.  The Deal Maker was pleased.

John Bickner dismounted his trailor and closed the door.  Maybe weeks later the contents would be shipped off towards Asia.  They would be sliced into pieces and put into packages, ready to be sold in a large wholesale Chinese medicine market in some city, maybe Guangzhou^W in the South.  Men with poor circulation would come in looking to by the antlers, sold and measured by the gram.  At this time, however, they would remain in John Bickner’s backyard, resting for thier future journey. 

For the following half hour, we were led about the warehouse and workshop.  John Bickner was proud of his work, and rightfully so.  He seemed to know each piece and tree as one would know old friends.  This was an exciting venture for me, as I find workshops and “works in progress” fascinating.  However, what we really wanted to find was “the chair” and it wasn’t there.  Not all hope was lost, however.  Jiang Wu and his wife stood in the warehouse admiring a long slab of Redwood tree.

“Jeffrey,” said Jiang Wu’s wife, “I love this tree.  Ask him if he could make a table out of this that could seat 12 people.  Also, we’d need 12 chairs made for the table of course.”

I translated to John Bickner.  He answered, “Sure.  That can be done.  It’s going to take some time, though.”  This was great.  Here it was, the deal.  And here I was helping to make the deal, supporting a local artisan as well as giving our customers what they wanted. 

We never found a chair that was to the liking of Jiang Wu or his wife.  John Bickner said he could have one done in about 6 to 8 weeks.  After that time, it would be shipped out to China.  He had quite a bit of work to do, preparing an awesome rocking chair, a redwood table for 12 people, along with 12 chairs to go along with the table.  The Deal Maker was happy, John Bickner was happy, a smile spread across my face.  In the span of those 15 to 20 minutes we were in John Bickner’s warehouse, I had done my part to support local business as well as international commerce and relations between China and the U.S.A.  The deal was done.  The chair has yet to arrive…the Deal Maker is waiting patiently even as you read this sentence…

I’ve once again been summoned from my post near the main entrance of the 2009 China International Mining Exhibition.  For one month I have been preparing for this mining exhibition, held in the outskirts of Tianjin^W, the economic powerhorse one hour away from Beijing.  Prior to arriving at the exhibition I have been on loan to Mountain River Travel Service in order to be up to date on the conference.  I don’t normally work with this travel service, but my boss shared me as an “English resource” with a friend of his who is the head of the Mountain River company.  Apparently, there are mining exhibitors from all over the world attending this conference and he doesn’t trust the English abilities of his current employees enough to leave foreigners in their hands during the conference.  It is Mr. Zhang’s (the boss or Mountain River) hope that some of the participants in the conference will want to do a bit of traveling in China after the conference and inspections of mines in various areas of the country.  I have translated and researched cities famous in coal, zinc, gold, copper…cities and sites that I have never heard of before.  It’s been a month of learning and research.  He has had me write and translate a selection of itineraries for the participants.  I have visions of leading an expeditionary force of geologists blackfaced covered with soot and wearing headlamps out of the mouth of a coal mine. 

“AMERICAN TOUR GUIDE SAVES GROUP OF BRAZILIAN MINERS,” the headline will read in some future newspaper somewhere.  I’ll be a star.  The geologists will thank me.  My boss will thank me.  I’ll reach across borders and learn about other cultures while appreciating veins of raw material deep down in the bowels of the Earth at the same time.  Historic.

 When we arrive at the conference, however, it’s a different story.  My hopes and dreams are dashed almost as soon as Mr. Zhang, Pei Pei (the cute assistant…pronounced “pay pay,”) and the other tour guide named Jenny all don our matching pink shirts that we’ll wear throughout the remainder of the conference.  We look and feel out of place at the conference.  We set up a lap top computer and one stool tall enough to sit at the desk where we’ll hopefully greet hordes of perspective customers.  We take out our copies of the different itineraries and spread them nicely over the desk for the mining participants to glance over.  I have nowhere to sit, so I find a stool that is much too small and sit down next to Pei Pei while Mr. Zhang walks out to the car to have a smoke.  Jenny and Pei Pei soon lose interest in the conference and begin watching a movie on the laptop.  I take out the Wallace Stegner book I happen to be reading and dive into it, determined to get something done.  A few minutes later, a Chinese volunteer at the conference rushes over to me and asks me to deal with the Zimbabwean, which brings us up to date.

“Ok…so what is it that he wants us to do?” asks the Chinese exhibitor from Guangxi^W Province.  I am not a translator, and this business has nothing to do with tourism…it won’t help our business.  Still, translating is fun because it’s a challenge, and I’ve never really done it much.

“Tell him that we have LOTS of GOALDDDD.  And it’s not just deep in the grrrrouuund.  Much of it is on the surface.  We are looking for investors.  We don’t want to pleeeey around,”  he repeats himself again.  I try my best to translate.

“Well, if we are going to invest, or talk about business, we need to see some information.  How can we just take your word for it?”  asks the Chinese exhibitor.

“That is what I have been TRYING to EXPLLAAAAIN.  Our hotel is not around HERE. We are staying in Beijing, and would like for you to meet us at a quiet place near there.  We never know who we can trust until we sit DOWN for a face to FACE.”  In my mind I, the translator, even begin to question this presenter’s credibility.  How do you come to a mining conference with nothing to hand out…not even a business card?  And all of the information is back in the hotel in another city?  Seems shady to me.  Yet…this has nothing to do with me.  I’m just the communications manager.  The “meeting” ends in a sort of stalemate without the Chinese committing to anything.  The Zimbabwean pulls his belt up closer to his gut and walks away.

When I return to our desk Pei Pei and Jenny are still watching the movie that they were watching before.  Apparently no customers have arrived at this point.  Mr. Zhang is nowhere to be seen.  Beside Pei Pei is a girl who, unlike the four of us, is constantly busy.  She works with ticket sales for flights and trains.  She is extremely cordial, and as it turns out she can also speak in sign language.  I have been learning a little bit of sign language with my friend, Zhang Long, and we have a brief conversation.  From time to time she calls me over to help her translate requests for certain foreign visitors. 

There are 2 men from Brazil who return to the flight desk to repeatedly change there flight times and inquire about whether or not the airline will refund their tickets, should they change their flight times again.  One of the men is quite handsome, and they are both large with broad Western shoulders.  I know almost nothing about South America.  It seems so foreign to me, and I am intrigued by the two of them.  Most of the participants in the conference seem to be from Australia, Africa, and Canada.  These two are the only ones I have seen from Brazil.  They seem as intrigued with me as I am with them.  Each time they return to the desk to ask for new information about different flights, they also ask about me as well.

“You’ve been in China for how long?” says the younger of the two men.  He has huge hands and curly hair that is kept in place by some kind of spray.  His eyes are green, with a clean-shaven face.

“About 4 years,” I answer.

“And not married?  No girlfriend now?” he asks.

“Not at the moment, no.”

“What are you DOING here?”  he asks.  I’m stuck for a moment at how to answer this question.  I feel as if he’s seen right through my facade.  I’m just another foreigner having fun, enjoying life, riding the wave in China.  Going with the flow, delaying the day when I have to grow up.  Making itineraries that will never be seen through and preparing for trips that will never, ever happen.  The smokescreen of my life is blown away in seconds by this broad-shouldered Brazilian Goliath, and I feel naked without any protection.  Luckily, I’m only phased for a few seconds.

“Just enjoying life, working as a travel agent,” I answer.  His colleague calls him over, and the two leave me to think about the time-freeze I’ve just experienced.  I don’t have much time, however.  A voice from behind me is calling my name.

“Jeffrey….?  Jeffrey…..?  Is that you?”  I turn around to find one of shortest and cutest Chinese girls smiling up at me.  She’s saying my name, but I have no idea who she is.

“Yes, I’m Jeffrey.  I’m sorry.  You are….?”

“I’m Sophie.  I was at Yichun University in Jiangxi^W Province,” she answers.  Yichun….the bamboo trees of Bright Moon Mountain flash through my brain.  I’m swimming in the Xiu Jiang River.  I walk across the rice fields to my English classes.  I devoted two years of my life to this school and city, but the girl standing in front of me doesn’t register in my head.

“It’s ok.  I was Brandon’s student.  The other American teacher.  Not yours.  I’m so surprised to see you here.”  I feel better now, relieved.  She was not one of my 800 students after all.  Still, it’s an incredible coincidence to find a Jiangxi connection here at a mining conference in Tianjin.  So this is what happens to our students.  It turns out that Sophie is working as a translator in a company that deals with iron ore, so she is here with her boss, a very funny man from Henan^W who stands next to her and watches her speaking English with intent. 

“She’s a good girl,” he says.  “Maybe she can go to America and stay there?  Her English is pretty good, right?  You know any guys looking for a Chinese girl?”

“Don’t listen to him,” Sophie says with a shrug.  Apparently sexual harrassment is no problem in these parts.  She seems to be pretty happy.  It turns out that her boyfriend is also living in Tianjin.  This is the 3rd job she’s found within 5 months in the city, and she likes it so far.  We talk for a few minutes and then plan to meet up later in the evening.  It feels good to be back in the Jiangxi world, and for a moment I can feel my invisible hand reaching in my pocket to once again don my teacher’s cap.  Just before I’m about to place the cap on my head, our conversation is interrupted once again by another volunteer from the conference.  A young girl in a white track suit runs over to me.

“Excuse me, sir?  Could you help us with some translation again?  There’s another African from Zimbabwe who needs your help.” 

I’m on it.  I leave Sophie and my colleagues behind so that I can tend to the workload that isn’t mind.  Although the weekend gives us no customers, I do get an insight into the world of mining through the eyes of a few Zimbabweans.  While they may not be here to play around, I certainly am.

In the words of my grandmother, Louise Oppenheimer Levin, the opening lyrics of “Hope,” when translated into English would be considered, “Corn, pure corn.”  It’s true, that they are extremely over the top and sentimental…too sentimental for any singer from the West to put his or her name to the song nowadays.  Still, when I first heard the song I couldn’t understand the lyrics at all.  It was just the melody I liked.  And now…here I am in a recording studio trying to sing the song over and over again.

We’ve been in the studio for a couple of hours now, and we keep having to do double-takes, as I cannot remember the lyrics, or I sing them off key, or not in time.  The lyrics that I downloaded and practiced for this recording session were from an alternate version of “Hope,” so all of my preparations were in vain.  In the room, there are a few young hipsters who work for the Anhui TV station.  The guy with the longest hair coaches me through singing the lyrics as I re-enter the studio after they have taken a 10 minute pizza break.  Watching them scarf down the pizza during the interim, I’m reminded of my college days at Indiana University when my housemates and I would order a “Big 10″ pizza which came equipped with 10 fattening breadsticks and ranch dipping sauce.  I can’t imagine eating this stuff anymore, I’m so conditioned on Chinese food now.

“Let’s try it again,” says the long-haired stud.  I’m not sure why I’m recording my voice singing this song.  It’s my understanding that they are going to use my recording at a later date.  In addition to singing the song, they also have me read a self introduction in Chinese that roughly translates to the following:

“Hello.  My name is Jeffrey, just an ordinary volunteer.  When I volunteer and teach English to my blind students, I’m filled with hope.  This is why I chose this song to sing.  Their hope is my hope.  I hope in the future, we can all have more hope.”  Perfect…the selfless hero.  Except I’m not.

I push through the lyrics of the song, thinking that my job is done, that this is the last time that I’ll have to put on this masquerade as the volunteer I’m not.  But I learn, it’s only just beginning.  After the recording is finished, the long-haired stud turns to me and tells me of the next plan.

“Alright.  Now that we’ve got it down, you’ll be ready to perform it on stage with He Jie (the 3rd place finisher in China’s “Supergirls,” kind of a Chinese version of American idol).  We’ll just use the voice that you recorded today during the performance. ”

It Comes Together

Two weeks later.  I wait outside the metro stop near Yong He Lama temple.  The long-haired stud told me that he should be arriving in a few minutes.  I wonder what kind of car he’ll be driving?  I stand out of the Sun as it shines down, so as to keep out of the heat.  I’m wearing shorts, a collared shirt, and sandals.  I decided to wear the collared shirt in order to make the tiniest effor at dressing up.  I remember that they told me to look “semi-nice” for this performance, so hopefully my half-hearted attempt will suffice.  I imagine that today’s “performance” will only be a replica of last time.  Maybe we’ll be filmed from the waist up lip-synching the song, “Hope.”  Maybe.

I get a call.  The long-haired stud has arrived.  There’s a bus at the end of the street where I see him waving me on.  As I hop on the bus, I look around and notice that it’s mostly full.  Apparently I’m not the only volunteer today.  Sitting in front of me is a robust, young, man who took an all night train from Sichuan to Beijing.  He does volunteer work with pandas.  Beside me is a girl from Hebei Province who works at Beijing Institute for Disabilities as a sign language interpreter and teacher.  Two rows in front of me is a young man who is missing both of his arms.  Sitting beside him is his young girlfriend with dyed blond hair.  Behind me is a young deaf couple.  The guy’s name is Zhang Long, and he is from Tianjin, not far from Beijing.  I don’t know it at the time, but after today we will become friends.

I’m sitting on the bus, unsure of where are destination is.  All I’m told is that we are going to a recording studio on the outskirts of Beijing and that dinner will be provided.  I take the lyrics of “Hope” out of my pocket to look them over.  I want to be prepared for the “performance” whenever it happens.  Still, it doesn’t matter how many times I look over the lyrics; I can’t remember the song in it’s entirety.  I’m not that worried, though.  If this “performance” is anything like the last recording, there will be plenty of double-takes to correct my mistakes.

We take the bus for about an hour, going through the Beijing suburbian traffic.  The cityscape changes to flat fields and smaller buildings.  When we arrive at the studio, we pull into a parking lot filled with cars and news crews.  After deboarding the bus, a young man wearing horn-rimmed blackframe glasses from Anhui TV station comes out to greet us.  He takes one look at the flip-flops I am wearing and frowns.

“Hey man….don’t do that.”  He points down at my feet.  Now I know that today is not going to be a simple studio recording.  This is going to be a full on camera, live TV audience type deal.  My whole body, including my feet will be shown somewhere in China at some point in the future.   It’s all beginning to dawn on me, and I feel duped.  I also feel like a deceiver–the modern day white male version of Lin Miaoke^W.

“So, let’s show you guys where the performance will be,” Blackframe Glasses says to us.  He and another girl from Changsha^W accompany us into the studio.  We’re lead into a dark auditorium with a large stage set up at the front.  Facing the stage of rows of bleachers.  In a couple of hours, the stage will be embellished with lights and bubbles, and the bleachers will be filled with teeny-boppers getting ready to see their favorite stars lip-synch their one-hit wonders.  It’s all coming together in my mind.  I am just a ligament the skeleton of a “Volunteer and Superstar Variety Show” that Anhui TV has set up.  Each of the volunteers has his/her own speciality.  The Panda guy will sing a song about loving nature, Zhang Long will use sign language to a sort of interpretive dance to a popular Chinese song, the guy without any arms will incredibly and unbelievably play a piano song with his feet!  And I will lip-synch to the song, “Hope.”  I am an impostor.  In a way I think it’s appropriate that I wear no shoes…I shouldn’t even be wearing shorts or underwear.  I should just strip naked to the audience to show them what a fake I am.

Over the Top

We go back to the “green room,” a classroom on the 3rd floor, to prepare for our “performances.”  I pull out the crumpled lyrics to “Hope” and begin to study them a little frantically.  The room is a little cold and intense.  It feels like we’re all getting ready for the guillotine or a big interview.  The audience will begin arriving soon, waiting to see which superstars are paired with which volunteers.  After 4 years in China I am still just as unfamiliar with modern pop and movie stars as before.  I don’t have a tv, and I rarely watch movies; instead, spending most of my time trying to learn about obscure historical figures like Fang Xiao Ru^W (read about him!) and places like Handan^W (will have to write an upcoming post about this place).  I have no time for pop culture; yet, now I find myself being plunked right down in the middle of it. 

I am one of the first people who will perform, so my stage death will end soon enough.  As I prepare, Blackframe Glasses comes into the green room to talk with me.

“Jeffrey, after you sing your song with He Jie, the MC is going to ask you a couple of questions.  They’ll ask you a question about which student made the deepest impression on you during your time with Hong Dan Dan.  MAKE SURE to tell them about Lu Yao, the student who gave you the drawing (see previous post titled “Voice in the Dark” for reference).  Remember, this is very important to talk about this story.”

“Ok. Sure.”

“Oh…and put my shoes on, man.  You can’t go on stage with He Jie wearing sandals!  Come on.  Don’t do that.”  He takes off his shoes and I squeeze into them just barely.  A little more respectful.  After the shoe switch he leaves the room.  15 minutes until I’m on stage.

The girl from Changsha comes into the green room to fetch me.

“Jeffrey.  Let’s go.  You should meet He Jie before you two ‘perform’ together.”

Changsha girl takes me by the hand and leads me out of the green room.  The air chills. 

SLAM!

I turn behind me.  The door of the green room has been slammed shut.  In its place is a whirling darkness that leads into a void.  There’s no going back there.  Changsha girl’s hand turns icy cold in my grip.  I turn around to look at her once more and am horrified to find that the skin has peeled off her face.  Muscles and tendons melt and drip down to the floor in a sticky glob.  Her once tight-fitting (and attractive) jeans and snug shirt have been replaced by a black robe.  She floats down the hall and pulls me with her, a scythe of impending death resting in her left hand.  The bony joints of her left hand pull me towards the door of the film studio.  I can hear the crowd inside. 

“Walk in through the door.  We’ll go to the left side of the stage.  He Jie is waiting to meet you,”  the Spirit of Death says to me.  The doors open.  Inside the live studio audience of teeny-boppers is waiting to greet the next act.  No one sees me enter as all eyes are currently on the superstar on stage. 

He Jie is indeed a beautiful girl.  She has sparkles on her face, and a lovely smile.  I turn to look for the spirit of death, but Changsha girl has returned.  Time to face reality.

“Let’s take a picture together, so 10 years later when our children ask us about how we met, we can show them this photo,” I say to He Jie.

She complies with my request and we snap one photo together.  Changsha girl gives me instructions of how I’m to walk on stage.  She takes me behind centerstage.

“So, when the instrumental music starts, you’ll just walk through the stage.  It’s going to split open, and you walk out there and just start lip-synching.  Remember to open your mouth so that it looks like you are singing,” she reminds me.

I sit down behind the stage and pull out my lyrics to study them one last time.  It doesn’t matter.  Everything will look perfect or horrible on tv.  And I will never watch this farce for as long as I live.  My feet feel uncomfortably squished at this point.  It’s as I’m amidst studying the lyrics that I notice my own voice piping in the loudspeakers…

“Hello.  My name is Jeffrey, just an ordinary volunteer.  When I volunteer and teach English to my blind students….”

It’s the same recording I did in the studio.  The moment is coming.  The music starts.  I stuff the lyrics into my shorts and stand up.  God splits the stage in two, it opens up, the lights hit my face, and I walk out to the loving people.  He Jie is there in her splendored and glitzy shortness, awaiting her prince.  As soon as the lyrics begin, my mind draws a complete blank.  I completely forget how to even say, “hello” in Chinese….but….I remember to open and close my mouth as the words of my own voice magically come out of the loudspeakers.  I must look just like a marionette puppet throughout the song, my mouth dropping and raising just like a dummy.  It doesn’t matter.  The audience is mostly looking at He Jie.  She must be thinking, this idiot foreigner….how did I get hooked up with him.  God, I’ve fallen!

As soon as the song finishes, the crowd of TV teeny-bopper zombies bursts into applause.  The music changes to a piano melody that drips like sap from a pine tree.  An MC who looks like a price is right contestant with slicked back hair comes out to “interview” me in front of the audience.  He asks the usual questions about how long I’ve been in China, where I’ve learned my chinese, how long I’ve “volunteered” at Hong Dan Dan.  Then he asks me the question I was prepped for:

“So, Jeffrey,” the music gets quiet, “tell us…is there a blind student that you can tell us about?  Maybe one who left a lasting impression on you?”

Like a robot, I tell them the story of Lu Yao, of how she participated in one of our English corners and drew a picture for me.  I remember her face being mere millimeters from the picture she drew as she labored away on her artwork.  It’s really the only story I have about a particular “student” or longterm member of Hong Dan Dan.  The MC looks at me; it’s a look of anticipation.

“Well, Jeffrey, we’re sorry that Lu Yao couldn’t be here today….but…” he gestures to someone offstage, “….she was able to prepare a special gift from her home in Liaoning^W province.  We hope that you enjoy.”  One young staff member of the TV station comes on stage carrying a framed pencil sketch of my likeness playing the banjo.  It’s been autographed by none other than Lu Yao.  At this moment, my mind freezes.

How the hell could Lu Yao draw this in such a short amount of time?  And how did they get it here from Liaoning?  There’s no way that she drew this.

Just like Lin Miaoke, I put on a pretty smile as I’m handed this gift, the origins of which are still ambiguous to me.  I try to act as if I am genuinely touched by this presentation, and yet I feel perplexed and almost fooled instead.  I take my gift and exit the stage, leaving the ruse behind me.  The next act is up.  It’s the Panda guy from Sichuan.  I watch him enter the stage, and the audience goes wild as he is accompanied by another one of China’s teeny-bopper hearthrobs.  They execute their songs perfectly.  The Sichuan guy gives a 5 minute speech about the love he feels for the pandas, followed by professing his love to his girlfriend, who amazingly the TV station has managed to contact via video phone.  It is a perfect performance, pulling the audience’s heartstrings.  Teeny-boppers bat their eyelashes at the superstar on stage and shed tears over the young man from Sichuan letting his soul open to the world on national television.  It’s a perfect TV story with a happy ending for all.  I’m just happy I don’t have a tv and can let it live on in memory.

A call from Heart’s Eye

On my way back from Ningxia^W and Inner Mongolia^W I received a phone call from Mrs. Zheng, the leader of the Heart’s Eye movie theater for the blind.  This theater is located in the same courtyard where our office is currently located, and I’ve mentioned it in previous posts.  Every Saturday morning members of Beijing’s blind community come from near and far to “watch” a movie.  Someone with regular vision sits at the front of the theater with a microphone and narrates those portions of the movie that the listeners cannot see and need narration for.  In addition to these movie features, the Heart’s Eye Theater (also called “Hong Dan Dan”) organizes other activities and outings for Beijing’s blind community.  Hong Dan Dan has a small staff of regular employees, and Mrs. Zheng and her husband are constantly busy trying to organize and improve the activities.  Besides the blind community itself, however, the other major players who take the major role in all of the activities are the volunteers who come every week to assist.  I, myself, have not personally been a volunteer for the theater.  Once we organized a dumpling making activity and Lu Yao, one of the blind students who used to live in the dormitory next to the theater joined us.  From time to time when we host events at our center, some of the members of Hong Dan Dan join in.  It’s mostly a friendly and neighborly relationship.  Or so I thought it was, before I received the call from Mrs. Zheng.

Mrs. Zheng:  Jeffrey, I’ve got something important to talk with you about.

(The noise of the train is so loud, I have to talk at the top of my voice, while sticking my finger in my left ear to block out the background noise).

Me:  What’s up?  Is something wrong?

Mrs. Zheng:  Anhui TV Station is doing a program on volunteers, and they want to include Hong Dan Dan in their program.

Me (sensing that I will be asked a favor):  Yeah?  That’s great!

Mrs. Zheng:  They need a white, western, male, who has been a volunteer for us and was born after 1980.  Do you think that you could do it?  I was going to ask the English girl who teaches them choir, but they specifically requested a white male.

Me:  Well…I’d be fine with it.  But a couple of things.  I was born in 1979…December 26, 1979…almost 1980.  Also, I’ve never volnteered with you guys before.  This could be a problem.  (I’m trying to say no, but the words won’t come out…part of me wants to see where this goes).

Mrs. Zheng:  That’s not that important.  We can talk about it more when you get back.  I’ll go ahead and tell them it’s ok with you.  Alright?

Me:  Alright (I guess).

A Song of Times’ Past

Besides checking in with Mrs. Zheng about the Anhui TV station activity, I don’t worry much about the activity.  We decide that maybe it would be best if I were to actually go in and volunteer at least once before the activity so that I can talk about what it is like to be a volunteer.  I tell her that I don’t think I’m ready to narrate a movie, but I’ll come in and tell a story instead.  I mostly busy myself with office work, etc.  Then one day in the office, an unknown number calls my mobile phone and I answer.

Me:  Hello? Who’s this?

Other:  Hi, is this Jeffrey?  I’m with Anhui TV station.  Mrs. Zheng told you we would call?

Me:  That’s right.

Anhui:  Anyway, so maybe we can ask you some questions about the blind students you have been teaching sometime.  We can find a place and time to meet.

Me:  Oh, that would be fine.  But I think you should know…I don’t have any blind students.  I haven’t really volunteered there.  I just know some of them and Mrs. Zheng.  I go there often.  My friends and I organize activities near there.

(Silence)

Anhui:  Well.  That’s alright.  Can you tell me your favorite Chinese song?

Me:  Uh….”Camel Bell?”

Anhui:…..any others?  that one is kind of old…

Me:  the “Chinese Kung-fu” song is cool, too.

Anhui:….no, no…not right.  Anymore?

I think back to one of the first songs that I heard when I came to China:

I arrive in Jiangxi^W hearing the song over and over again.  It is the theme song to a Korean soap opera, but it really has quite a sentimental melody to it.  At one point there is a chorus of children in the background.  The chorus of children doesn’t feel cheesy to me.  It feels appropriate.  When I first hear it, I have no idea what the words are saying, but I like the melody.  It gives me goosebumps to think about it now.  It is all around me.  When I walk down the street in Yichun I can hear the theme song of the tv show blaring out from the stores that I pass by…there is a store that sells metalworks and pipes, there’s another store that sells solar water heaters, a restaurant owner sits lazily at a table with no customers.  A fly swatter dangles from his fingertips as he rests his head in the crook of his right elbow.  The song is a wistful first impression of culture shock and part of my introduction to my 800 students in Yichun.  I hear it and think of a certain crisp autumn day in Yichun^W, Jiangxi Province.  The sky is blue, and the rustle of the rattling of the swirling leaves on the ground fill the air.  I am going to a lunch for my South African colleague’s child’s 100 days of life celebration, a watermark event in a baby’s life in China.  We’ll eat plate after plate of food.  Outside, the wind will continue to swirl as leaves are gently pulled off the tree branches lining the town’s streets.  I see another day where I hike up Bright Moon Mountain, about a half an hour drive from Yichun.  I go there with my student, Nancy.  The weather is cold, the sky is blue again–always with this song, the sky is blue.  Waterfalls on the mountain are either frozen or trickling.  I can see Nancy’s breath as she pushes the air out.  The mountain is sleeping.  She puts her face close to my camera as I take a close-up.  She is in Shanghai now.  I’m in Beijing.  I miss these days.  The song is always missing, hoping.

Me:  “Hope.”  From that tv show.

Anhui:  Good….good.  That’s a good song.  Can you learn that song?  You may be performing it with Sister He (pronounced “Huh”) from the “Supergirls” show (China’s version of “American Idol”).

Me:  I can try to learn it…but I’m not a very good singer.

Anhui:  It doesn’t matter.  As long as you try.  Anyway, talk with you later Jeffrey.

I look up the lyrics to “Hope” in the evening when I get home.  I have no idea what “performance” the guy on the other end was talking about, but I have a feeling that I will find out soon enough, in a very intimate way.  In the evening, I return home and say a little prayer of hope to Lin Miaoke, knowing that her spirit of guidance is the only force able to pull me through the next chapter of this particular Chinese saga in my life’s story.

“The most dangerous asteroids, capable of a global disaster, are extremely rare…These bodies impact the Earth only once every 1,000 centuries.  Comets in this size range are thought to impact even less frequently, perhaps once every 5,000 centuries or so.”

Space is just too large.  The void is endless.  There are too many paths for the asteroids and comets to follow.  Zeroing in on planet Earth is (luckily for us) a possibility that is so small, it practically doesn’t even exist.  These massive, destructive bodies go whizzing by us, making “near misses” of our precious planet by distances of hundreds of thousands of kilometers away.  It’s almost as if they are purposefully ignoring our planet, swooping through outer space without any directive other than to miss us.

My older brother, Bryan, is not an asteroid, I am not a comet, and my boss is far from being any sort of space debris.  We are not destructive bodies, at least not on a large scale.  Our paths are neither as fast, nor as aimless as these gigantic space projectiles.  But…the Earth is a large place (in comparison to the size of our bodies)…there are many places we could choose to go.  The chances of the three of us getting together are minute.  Yet, it happened in Seattle.  I was there.  I am one of the three.  I can attest to the miracle of the 3 heavenly bodies colliding together in a gigantic explosive BASH of rock, ice, and a lot of love.

Brother Bryan

My older brother, Bryan, used to live in Seattle.  I remember traveling to the city with my parents and then by myself to meet him and stay with him during the decade he moved from one neighborhood to the next.  Always elusive and mysterious, my family and I had some vague idea of what he was doing, but if someone asked us to write it down on a chalk board, the classroom might just end up looking at a gigantic question mark.  He definitely walks to the beat of his own drummer.  There is no doubt about that.  I’m more likely to receive a postcard or 8 page handwritten letter from him than I am an e-mail.  During one 3 week stretch I received numerous postcards from him, all from different locations:  Mexico, Japan, Seattle, Hong Kong.  The two of us know each other too well.  He is my twin; we just happened to be born 10 years apart.  I look up to him and model my writing after his example.  I think he is brilliant with a pen.  We share a sense of humor and similar outlook on life.  Upon seeing the stream of postcards from different locations I could only assume that he wanted to confuse me, throw me off his trail–like a serial killer playing cat and mouse with Sherlock Holmes.  At one point I received an e-mail from a high school acquaintance of his named Gavin Pinchback who told me that he had brushed shoulders with Bryan while enjoying a hotel breakfast in Kyoto, Japan.  Hot on his trail, I started to put the clues together.  I knew he could not evade me forever.  I would track this metor down at any cost.

Seattle

My boss told me that we would be taking a tour group to Yellowstone National Park in August.  Our first stop would be in Seattle.  We would be there for a day and a half.   Seattle.  SEATTLE!  This was it!  This was the chance I had been waiting for.  I had heard rumors from various family members that there had indeed been Bryan sightings in and around Seattle, and he was currently residing somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, like Bigfoot coming in and out of the city leaving only footprints.  I say “residing” cautiously. The Bryan Stone gathers no moss.  He is constantly on the move and manages to fit himself neatly and snuggly into just about any nook or cranny, disappearing from site like a phantom on Halloween night.  I took my chance and sent numerous e-mails to him, hoping for a response.  I told him the plan, that I would be in Seattle with 15 Chinese travelers, and it would be ideal if we could arrange a meeting, even if for a few hours.  At first there was no response to my e-mail, but I wasn’t surprised by this.  He was off in the wilderness for sure, out of tune with the world wide web, working on his writing or for the CIA (I’m still not sure which).  Surely, one day he would catch wind that I was e-mailing him.  The Bryan Stone is resourceful.  Surely, one day he would respond…and he did!

“Seattle sounds good.  I am there now (or close by).”  There were other things said in the e-mail, but this was all I needed to know.  Bryan was in the Seattle vicinity.  I prepared my lasso, now confident that I could rope up the most elusive of shooting stars.

World’s Collide on Queen Anne

After arriving in Seattle, meeting our local Chinese tour guides, and eating our local Chinese cuisine, we headed out past the Space Needle towards the strip mall area where we would be staying in a Holiday Inn Select hotel.  Despite not being the classiest of areas, everyone had a comfortable room with a nice bed.  Immediately after entering the room, I called the cellphone number where Bryan could be reached.  He picked up.  Flashes of the ensuing collision went through my imagination.  It was going to happen!  I told him of our plan to meet on Queen Anne in a small park that overlooks the city, the Sound, the Space Needle, and off into the distance, the ominous Mt. Ranier.  He agreed.  We hung up. 

After all the guests were washed up, getting the airplane smell and jetlag feeling off of their bodies, we piled into the large van that would take us to one of Seattle’s most beautiful urban spots of Queen Anne.  Some of the city’s nicest houses are there, and the passengers in the car “oooohed” and “ahhhhhhed” as we passed the spic-and-span colorfully painted houses with large gardens in front of them.  Upon arriving at the top of Queen Anne, we walked through the “open garden” of one of the houses.  The air wasn’t as crisp as it could have been, but still worlds apart from Beijing smog.  Off in the distance, I could smell the smell of a barbecue, giving me pangs of memories in Portland, Oregon where I loved to barbecue time and time again (sometimes loading up the grill with charcoal only to make one burger for yours truly).  We walked along the street towards the small park where I was to meet Bryan.  I have a picture that my mother took of the three brothers in that park:  Bryan, the eldest, myself, the middle one, and Jonny, the youngest.  But…am I remembering it wrong?  Was it my father, Jonny, and me in the picture?  I can’t remember clearly.  I need to be refreshed.  The meteors need to collide.  Worlds need to come together.

And there he was.  Leaning against the railing overlooking the city was Brother Bryan, waiting for us.  I walked up to him and poked him on the shoulder.  We embraced.

“Brotherrrrrrrr!” We both said at the same time.  The chances of this meeting are so slim.

Even slimmer than the chances of us meeting on Queen Anne while I’m in Seattle for a day and a half are the chances of my friend and boss, Zhao Jing, meeting with Bryan on Queen Anne.  But he was there, too.  And this is one of my favorite things in the world.  I love it when this type of collision happens:  two bodies that have nothing to do with each other, other than the fact that they share a connection of ME, meet and talk with one another.  To me, this was already the highlight of the trip–watching Brother Bryan and Zhao Jing talk with each other, trying to figure one another out at the top of Queen Anne.  For a period of about 20 minutes the worlds collided in a once and 1,000 year chance miracle.

This was one of the first lines that Strong Horse told me on our first encounter at a Thanksgiving party.  The party, held last year to celebrate my personal favorite American holiday, was hosted by members of the Beijing Hash House Harriers.  The ‘Hash House Harries’ refer to themselves as “a drinking club with a running problem.”  Meeting every Sunday at a different location in the city, the Harriers convene (rain or shine), to run a predetermined route marked in chalk by arrows, false turns, and beer stops along the way.  At the end of every Sunday run, they reconvene in a circle to sing drinking songs, make toasts, and be as chauvenistic and “dudey” as possible.  They are, in essence, Beijing’s version of “Animal House”–beer bellies bobbing proudly along the wide avenues of the city’s streets amidst stares from bewildered local urbanites.  Whenever I want an “American” feel, I can certainly feel it in the Hash.

It was at this Thanksgiving party that I first met Strong Horse (the literal translation of his Chinese name).  With a perfectly placed British accent, he introduced himself to me in the ever so polite tones of the gentleman that he is.  He told me that he had recently returned from 4 years studying in Sheffield, England, or “Sheffie” as he liked to refer to it.  Upon returning to Beijing, he decided it was high time to spend some family time with his mother and father.

Sea Turtle

Chinese refer to their contrymen returning from overseas as “sea turtles.”  Strong Horse wears his shell with pride.  He used to work with Sinopec (a major Chinese oil company).  I assume that the job he help with this company was a relatively high status and well-paid job.  He is in his early 40s and has not been working since returning from his time in “Sheffie.”

I like this sea turtle’s style of life.  He seems to glide with ease with no apparent destination in mind from my point of view.  I feel comfortable with Strong Horse when I’m talking with him.  I feel like he can see certain things from my perspective.  I can talk with him like I can with a foreigner, switching back and forth between English and Chinese.  We are just good friends.  We talk about the things that good friends talk about, the life of two bachelors sitting together in a bar eating barbecue and drinking beers.

Each time I meet with Strong Horse he has a list of different English questions to ask me.  He pulls out a sheet with the following phrases:

“Stand Clear.”

“Weird.”

“No sales of alcoholic beverages to minors.”

I’m willing to play with these phrases and teach him some English when we meet.  I know that he’s not studying English for a test or to get a good job.  His English is excellent.  He studies language for the same reason that I do…to communicate and to use his mind.  We talk about the expression,”stand clear,” an expression I have never used once in my 29 years of life.  When can it be used?  Is it correct?  Is this British English or American English?  The pronunciation of “weird” is a question in his mind.  I go over it a few times with him.  It’s his new favorite word for the day.

“And why isn’t it, ‘no alcoholic beverages  for minors’ instead of ‘to’ minors?”

I can’t answer this question.  I’m not an English teacher anymore.  I could research it, but I haven’t until this point.

Strong Horse and I order another beer.  We are sitting at one of my favorite barbecue spots in Beijing.  Sometimes I feel the need to get some bbq scallops and oysters.  Barbecue, however, is not something one does alone.  You need a sea turtle, a man’s man, to join you on these occasions.  The weather is hot.  Strong Horse pulls off his shirt, exposing the gigantic bowling ball of a sea turtle’s shell that his belly has turned into.  Like a rock, it sits there taking in all of the food and drink that we consume.

“Come on…let it out,” he beckons me to take off my shirt. This is a habit Chinese have in the summer months.  You can find shirtless men anywhere and everywhere in public.  I don’t usually join them, but sitting here with Beijing Man, I decide, what the heck?  I lift my shirt up and let my chest hair air out in the summer night.  Strong Horse and I order another beer…another one down the hatch.

The sign above the restaurant called “Guolizhuang” (Man in a Pot) welcomes us.  Simon and I have looked for this restaurant numerous times; up until now, however, we have continuously been thrown off track.  On this day Simon brings a map with him listing the directions for both locations of the infamous eatery specializing in male genitalia of various animals.  Today we have finally made it to Guolizhuang.  Besides myself and Simon, our two friends Albert (another mainstay of the Chinareflection family), and Little Han (my co-worker), have joined us.  We didn’t tell them where we would be going…just “out for dinner” was the world.  Now we’re here, and it’s time to eat some penis.

The Male Stone

Entering the restaurant, I notice that we are the only customers here.  I expected the place to be filled with lovers of strange delicacy and men seeking to enhance their sex-drives and testosterone count.  We instead find a lobby filled only with emptiness and staff members, all dressed in decorative outfits.  When we show them the map that we used to find the location of the restaurant, the waiter tells us that we are lucky we came to this location instead of the other one that is listed.

“Our other branch on your map closed down a few years ago.  This is currently the only location for this restaurant.”

Simon tells the waiter that, according to the website he looked up, there is also a branch of “Man in a Pot” in Atlanta, Georgia (Olympic connection?).  That branch, unfortunately, also closed down 10 years prior.  People just don’t know what they are missing.

The waiter ushers us into a private room of our own and hands us menus to look at.  Little Han immediately tells us that she would like to eat some vegetables in additon to the penis that we will be ordering.  The cover of the menus has an interesting photograph of a famous peak located in Guangdong^W province called the “Yangyuanshi” (male stone), named for its uncanny resemblance to a fully erect phallus.  If I get nothing else out of this meal, I’ll at least have another idea of a future trip to take to the south of China.

The menu itself is filled to the brim with all sorts of animal penises of all sorts and sizes:  dog’s penis, horse’s penis, cow’s penis, deer’s penis, etc.  I note that the most expensive item I find on the list is Canadian seal’s penis priced at more that 3500 RMB per plate.  We decide to order sheep’s testicles, donkey’s penis, dog’s penis, and cow’s penis.  In addition we order two non-penile dishes in order to keep a balanced diet. 

The serving of the penis

The dishes that arrive are some of the most beautifully arranged and presented dishes I have seen, and Chinese restaurants know how to present a dish.  Unfortunately, none of them remotely have any resemblance to a phallus. 

The donkey dish that we eat is prepared to look like Peking Roast Duck.  It’s sliced into small pieces, and seems to have been barbecued to a dry crisp.  Served with the slices of donkey penis are an assortment of cold vegetables (i.e. shredded carrots, cucumbers, radishes, and spring onions).  Like Peking Duck, these fresh vegetables are to be placed within accompanying pancakes, rolled up, and dipped into a sauce. 

The cow’s penis is also cut into slices.  Each of the slices is frilly on the outside, with a hole in the middle (possibly this hole is the urethra?).  In the middle of the dish is an upside-down wine glass filled with rice wine, suspended in animation due to the suction with the glass and the plate.  At the top of the glass is a cherry to balance the plate.  The taste isn’t bad, but it’s rather tough to chew.

I have eaten dog before (on numerous occasions in fact), but this is the first time for me to eat dog’s penis.  Served and sliced up with hot peppers, the dog’s penis is tender and spicy.  In the middle of the plate is a carrot carved into the shape of a phoenix.  This dog will hopefully not rise from the ashes to bite me.

The lamb’s testicle dish is the one that least resembles any kind of animal genitalia.  Served in an aluminum dish, the testicles are mashed up, appearing as one gigantic mass of testosterone in the center.  The dish itself is surrounded by seasoning salt to make the the whole experience more aesthetically pleasing.

The etiquette of the Penis

“It’s important that your female friend doesn’t eat the donkey, the sheep, or the dog…at least not very much.  The hormones in these dishes could have a bad affect on females,” the waiter says as he gives us the dishes.

“The donkey’s penis is very long, and if you are eating the tip or the bottom of the shaft, she cannot have these.  Girls should only eat the center portion of the penis.”

Images of  Little Han eating the wrong animal’s penis and suddenly sprouting a beard and adam’s apple flash through my mind.  She adheres to the restrictions given to her by the waiter.  We see no hormonal changes overcome her throughout the evening.  Simon, Albert, and I enjoy the other dishes to our hearts’ content.

At the end of the meal, the waiter brings us a little blue gift package.  It’s long and wrapped in a beautiful bow.  It’s the kind of box that one might put an exquisite pair of chopsticks in.  Unsure of what’s inside, we ask the waiter to open it up.  Upon opening the box, it’s still unclear to us what is is we are looking at.  Inside the box is a small bone.  I ask the waiter to explain.

“Dogs are the only animals to have a bone in their penis.  As a gift, we present you with the bone to take home.”

Smiling with his prize in hand, Simon holds the gift package up for all to see.  After numerous failures in finding the “Man in a Pot” restaurant, we have finally succeeded.  The momento rests in my desk drawer.

“I stayed up all night praying.  Didn’t sleep at all,” Paul says to me when we meet in the hotel lobby in the morning.  He seems wide awake and full of energy.

“You prayed all night?”  I ask him.

“All night,” he says.  “And you know what…” he pauses, “a miracle happened…My friend asked me to pray for her.  She’s been having some trouble recently, and asked me to pray for her.  I did.  And something good happened.”

I’m glad that Paul is so full of light and energy today.  He is like a box of Rice Krispies with his ’snap,crackle, and pop’ attitude.  I don’t have time to find out what the “good thing” is that happened to Paul’s friend.  Jacky and Amanda walk into the lobby to greet me.  The students are waiting for me.  I don’t know where I’m going.

The teacher

We get into the Jesusmobile and drive through the town.  It’s not a huge town, but there’s really no such thing as a tiny village anymore.  There are thousands of people here, and the towns and areas that used to be grasslands are being mined for the coal that lies beneath the surface.  Amanda’s parents’ grassland where they previously took their sheep to graze has been purchased by the government so that it can be mined.  This is progress.

We take a right underneath a dusty bridge and head past the restaurant where we’ll be eating lunch later.  I’m told that we’ll have fish from the Yellow River, which runs beside the town.  But first thing’s first…time for me to be a teacher again.

When we pull up to the school, nothing particular stands out to me about the building at first.  It has 3 stories stacked on top of one another.  I hear the voices of kids chanting and repeating what teachers are saying.  There’s a courtyard in front of the school with dry, flat, colorless landscaping.  It seems utterly ordinary.  There is a propaganda poster in front of the school that reads, “Dedication today will lead to tomorrow’s success.”  This is just what I was hoping for…an ordinary, typical, Chinese elementary school.

The school’s principal comes out to greet us as we pull out in front of the office building.  Amanda used to be a teacher at this school.  They greet one another, and then introduce Paul, Jacky, and myself.  Luckily, the students are in class now; otherwise, I’m sure I’d be mobbed by a crowd.  Our coming here is a big event.  The principal leads us into her office.  As we walk through the hallway on the way to the office, I notice an unusal amount of calligraphy displays on the wall.  She reminds me that Wuhai is famous for its calligraphers.  Apparently, there’s a calligraphy museum located in the center of town.  After entering the principal’s office, we sit down on the huge couch while she pours tea for us.  As she picks up the gigantic red thermos, she explains what’s to come:

“So, we thought we’d combine a few classes together into one large auditorium for you to teach them.  This way, more students will get to talk with you at a time,” she says.  The water trickles out of the thermos as steam rises from the cups.

“Ok.  About how many students will I be talking with this morning?” I ask her, anticipating the number that will come out of her lips.

“About 200 or so,” she says.  200…not a bad number.  I have an idea of the lesson that I will give to the students.  I have a stock, “first day lesson,” that seems to work well for kids the first time we meet.  It involves writing one’s name vertically, and then saying introducing something interesting about oneself from each of the letters.  So, my name, “J-e-f-f-r-e-y” and introduction might go something like this:

J: I lived in Japan for one year.

E: I used to be an English teacher.

F: I have 6 people in my Family.

F: I lived in France when I was 2.

…and on and on.  I’m certain that whenever I do this activitity with students that not all of them understand what I’m saying; however, understanding is not the point.  The point is to get them interested in English as something that can be fun and useful.  The point is to get them speaking with each other.  After I finish doing my own name, I model introducing myself to a student or another teacher, and then tell them that they should try and do the same introduction with their name and at least 3 friends.  In a class of 200 students, there are sure to be some students who understand just about everything that I am saying.  They spread the word, the class gets active, the world comes together…everyone is happy and doing something.  This approach is a lot different from the Chinese approach of rote memorization and drilling vocabulary into students.  I’m not about to do that on a one-time visit to a school.  I want as much interaction as possible, so I take my own approach to teaching.  I know it’s not perfect, but it’s active, and it appeals to the students…and it’s fun!  Learning a language should be fun.  That’s what I’ve always thought, anyway.

I don’t tell them any of my plan for the activity.  We just talk for a while, all in Chinese, about the students and the school, etc.  Amanda and the principal catch up with one another.  After we empty our glasses, it’s time to go upstairs and put on the teaching show for the youth of China.

The principal leads us out of her office and out the front doorway of the school.  We walk across the parking lot and square that’s in front of the school.  Our objective is to get to the building across the square.  It’s not a long way to go, but…I’ve already been discovered.  The students start running over to look at me.

“FOREIGNER!  FOREIGNER!”  I’m not sure which of the kids is yelling this, but it’s the first word that I hear.

“Hello?  How are you?”

“What’s my name?”

“Where are you from?”

“Who’s he?”

“FOREIGNER! FOREIGNER!”

I smile through it all and soak it up.  It’s time to be a rock star again.  The kids chase me, but I keep my pace slow and steady.  If I started running now I’d never escape them all.  The principal doesn’t even seem to notice them.  She leads the way up the stairs of the dusty building that we enter.  It’s dusty not because of its oldness, but rather because of its newness.  It seems like it was just finished the day before.  The odors of sawdust and construction fill the building and blow in and out with the breeze.  We walk up the stairs to the second floor.  Just before we reach the top of the stairs, the principal turns to us and says good luck.  There they are…200 children sitting quietly waiting for me.  My audience, my fans.  It’s good to be a teacher.

Class Dismissed

When I start off, there are two girls who sit in front of the class who ask if it’s ok to give me a hug. 

“Of course, why not?”  They hug me.  I worry for a second that every single child will want a hug now, but it doesn’t happen.  The class starts out slowly, and the students are relatively attentive, listening to me when I talk.  In a class this big, there are always one or two students who stick out and can answer the tougher quetions.  Anyone can be king for a day, anyone can entertain a class of Inner Mongolians for one or two periods.  The “newness” effect stays with the kids for about the same amount of time that it takes for the class to run its course.  I go though my self-introduction and then have the kids do their own introductions with each other.  The part of the class where they talk with one another is always my favorite part.  I roam around the room to help people think of words that begin with the letters in their names so that they can complete the activity.  There’s sort of a controlled chaos atmosphere in the classroom, but most of the kids are taking part in the task at hand, asking me questions, speaking with their classmates, etc.

After the teaching part of the class finishes, the students ask me to sing them a song.  I tell the I’ll sing one for them if they first sing one for me.  They discuss with each other, some of them yell out songs names.  Finally, the same two girls who gave me a hug when I walked into the room offer to lead the class in a song.  It’s a revolutionary song.  I don’t understand all of the words, but I can tell that it’s a song that goes well with marching.  The kids sing in unison, yelling the song out in orders, more like a drill seargant barking at soldiers.  I sing them “God Bless My Underwear,” sung to the tune of “God Bless America.”  It’s one of my favorite songs to sing when put in this situation.  It’s just the right length for a song, and no one will get the joke except for me. 

Lunch

“You must be so tired,” the principal says to me after finishing up with the second round of kids. 

“Serving the people invigorates me!” I say, throwing back some propaganda as a joke.  I’m actually not tired at all.  It’s been a long time since I was a “teacher.”  I used to do this sort of thing everyday.  It’s like pulling a comfortable couch out of the attic to sit on for a while, dusty, but still familiar.

After finishing the two classes, taking pictures, and, yes, signing autographs, the principal tells us she would like to take us out to lunch.  Joining us for lunch will be another English teacher, the school’s music teacher, and the physical education teacher.  They are already waiting for us at the restaurant, so we’ve no time to waste.

The restaurant is around the corner from the school, and I’m once again reminded that we’ll be eating fish directly from the Yellow River.  Amanda, Jacky, and I get back in the Jesusmobile after saying goodbye to the kids who are now also on their lunch break.

We pull up to a dusty courtyard where one of the meanest and ugliest dogs greets us as we get out of the car.  Jacky laughs.

“Crazy dog,” he says.

The dog continues to bark at me.  I feel an urge to throw something at it or taunt it.  It’s neck is tied to the end of a chain which is connected to the tree in the center of the courtyard.  We have a staring contest for a few seconds.  The mutt barks at me, unable to jump on me and do whatever it is he wants to do.  I stamp my foot down, causing the dust to unsettle, and the dog runs back a few steps in fear, still yapping his yap.  I’m getting hungry.

“Jeffrey…come on in,” Amanda yells to me, coming out of a hanging curtain meant to keep flies out of the room in which we’ll be eating.  She ushers me into the room, which is already filled with the other guests for the lunch.  The music teacher is the first one to shake my hand.  He has a huge belly, and his face reminds me of Santa Clause without the beard.  He wears a shirt with horizontal stripes on it, eccentuating his belly.  Beside him is the physical education teacher.  Also stocky in structure, he is built like a firehydrant.  There is another young girl standing next to Amanda.  She is quiet like a mouse and I ask her if she is also one of Amanda’s old students.  Giggling, Amanda tells me that she is the school’s other English teacher.  She looks so young, 15 or 16 years old I would have guessed. 

I remember this part of the meal because at this time we have not yet opened the grain alcohol.  There is a salad and the fish has already arrived, fried and crispy.  I like it when they prepare fish this way in China because  I don’t have to worry about the bones.  When I eat a crispy fried fish whole, I can just crunch the bones up in my teeth.  This makes the consuming of the fish much more convenient and much less dangerous.  We sit around the round table, waiting for the rest of the dishes to arrive.  I sit facing the door, as is Chinese custom when there is a guest.  The food arrives dish by dish…and then comes the grain alcohol.  Oh no…another spiral into madness.  The time is only just past noon.   At the same time the bottle arrives through the door, my heart leaps out of my body and walks out the door.  I know that we will finish this bottle off.  I’m already anticipating getting that first taste out of my mouth–that first sip of toilet water.  After that, the grain alcohol just feels hot and I don’t notice the taste so much.  Soon I’ll start to like it.

“Cccccrrraaak.” The music teacher twists open the bottle of grain alcohol.  Now it’s just us…teachers and children and foreigners around the table.  The food is in piled up, and the silence commences.  The physical education instructor pours glasses of the grain alcohol for all the adults at the table.  I can’t get away from this glass.  I have to drink with each person.  Inside I’m holding my breath; outside I try to keep a semblance of calm.  I’ve usually don’t get out of hand with this stuff, but I definitely have let it get the better of me and my friends in the past.  When I first came to China I wasn’t familiar the alcohol (called baijiu) has bested me from time to time.  I remember abandonding my friend in a barbershop after losing a bout with baijiu.  Brandon Pusey had come to visit me from the US after we traveled in Vietnam for a while.  We spent some winter weeks in Yichun in Jiangxi Province and decided to have a night of darts, baijiu, and peanuts in my apartment.  After finishing up the bottle, he decided he needed to go out in the cold and get a haircut.

“Don’t leave me in the barbershop, Jeffrey…you have to tell them how to cut it.”  I can still remember his cries of “No….Wait” as I left him giggling in the barber’s chair when I abandoned him.  He returned to my apartment with a shaved head.

Baijiu 1: Foreigners 0

The meal commences with a toast given by the physical education teacher. 

“Welcome to our school!  Welcome to Wuhai!  We always appreciate visitors and hope you can return in the future!”  He reaches his glass to me and lowers to a level lower than my own glass.  The alcohol looks like water.

Clink!  Down the hatch with the first toast.  My throat is on fire.  I’m going to eat too much this meal.  I can feel it already.  The conversations start to mix with each other after the first toast, and everyone relaxes a little bit, their faces already beginning to flush.  It’s at meals like this one where I can really take in the drinking culture.  People don’t just drink casually.  No one drinks alone.  Everyone is always toasting with someone else.  To drink by oneself is self-destructive…because the next toast is only seconds away from the previous one.

“What do you think of Wuhai?” the music instructor asks me.

“Amanda tells us that you are in the tourism industry.  I have a friend in the US.  I can’t remember which city, though…New Jersey?” the principal is asking me or telling me.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.  This fish is awesome.  Man, look at the music instructor’s belly!  How did he fit it into that shirt?

The music instructor seems to be reading my mind.  He rises for another toast.  Clink!  Down the hatch.  Not so painful anymore.  That teacher is so quiet.  She’s not really a teacher is she?  So young. 

“Jacky…what do you think about this meal?  Pretty good, huh?”

The principal stands up to toast Amanda and myself.

“Today was a wonderful day for Wuhai…for our school…an international day!  Ha ha ha.  Amanda, you’re always bringing good fortune back to us.  We miss you at our school, but we’re glad that you could bring Jeffrey back with you.  Jeffrey….welcome to Wuhai, and thanks for an excellent class!”

Clink!  Down the hatch.  Butter.

The toasts are coming in droves now.  We probably drink 4 more.  The stuff is strong, and it’s sloshing around in my belly.  I suddenly miss the crazy dog in the courtyard.  I continue to stuff my face with the food, but nothing can overcome the taste of the baijiu that is running through me.  Luckily, I know that the end is coming…until.

“A song!  A song!  Sing a song!”

It’s come to that point of the meal where people start to request singing.  This always seems to happen when out for a celebration…but I’m ok with it.  I like singing.  So I decide to bless them with a song that I wrote in high school about a super hero I created, called “Slash-Eyeball.”  It’s an utterly immature and ludicrous song, nonsensical in meaning.  I purposely slur the words and make them unintelligable so that none of the people who can speak English are able to understand the lyrics.  Although they can’t understand the words, the listeners beat on the table with their chopsticks, keeping in time to the rather groovy melody that I created more than a decade earlier.  Afterwards, the erupt in applause.  My song is followed by the music teacher and the physical education teacher.  One of them sings an Inner Mongolian song, the other a song I happen to like called “Camel’s Bell.”  By now, everyone’s faces are flushed, the room is heated with our sweat, and those who are smokers have lit up.  There are bones on the table and Mongolian tunes in the air.  There’s not one hint of the grey hair…and yet, he returns in the evening.

Zoo

After a rest in the afternoon, I head out with Jacky on his electric bicycle to visit a nearby park.  In the park there is an abandoned zoo with depressed monkeys, a forlorn bear, and lathargic birds.  We walk around the park talking about this and that.  Just as I suspected, Jacky’s father, Jesus/Paul has dabbled in quite a few things throughout the years.  He was a policeman, a bookstore owner, a bible salesman, and a fur trader.  All of these things add up to whatever it is he does now.  Jacky and I walk from the cages as the grey sky looms over us.  We stare at a bear, it’s uneven patches of unhealthy fur aching to be fed with nature.

“Do you think money or life is more important?” Jacky asks me.

“Well…you need money to live…in most places.  But money isn’t life.  I don’t know.  Money can’t buy everything.”  I say. 

“Are you rich?” Jacky asks me point-blank.

I’m a little bowled over by this question and don’t know how to answer.  “Well, I’m lucky…I’ve never really had to worry about money that much.  I’m not poor, that’s for sure.  I’m not rolling in money, though.  Comfortable,” I say.

We walk over to the birds and continue the jutted conversation of a 29 year old American and a teenaged kid from Inner Mongolia.

“Why did you want to become a Christian?” I ask Jacky.

He looks at the birds and tosses a little pebble into the cage.  “My dad says that we can’t trust people.  We just have to trust Jesus.  What he says is the truth.  People will always lie to you, but Jesus won’t lie to us.”

Creepy.  Can’t help thinking it.  But if he and his father are happy with this belief, then I am happy for them.  He gets a phone call.  It’s Paul.  We have to go back to the hotel.  Dinner is coming.

Hua Er

Paul takes us to a Peking Duck restaurant for dinner.

“I thought you’d like this.  I know you’re going back to Beijing tomorrow, but I like Peking duck anyway. ”

“Of course.  Thanks.”

I’m told that we’ll wait to eat for a bit, as there are other guests who are coming.  We’re ushered upstairs to a private room, and luckily there’s no baijiu waiting for us.  In the private room is a guy whose name is Frank.  He tells me that he’s also a Christian and that he’s met this famous pastor who preaches to the TV mega-revivals that I always flipped through when I was a kid looking for cartoons on Saturdays and Sundays.  He’s been to the US and visited many churches there as well…even to Virginia.  Seems like a friendly enough guy.

After a few minutes of waiting, the other four guests arrive.  There is a couple with their small child.  The man, David, is also a Christian and training to be a pastor.  He is with his wife and daughter.  All 3 of them are Christians.  They’ve brought with them Lily, one of the thinnest and most delicate Chinese girls I’ve ever seen.  Her hair is in wavy curls that cascade in a waterfall over her shoulders onto her orange dress.  She is also an English teacher, but is not a Christian…not yet.

As they arrive, the food does as well.  Paul orders beers instead of baijiu.  Before we start eating, we join hands so that David can lead us in a prayer.  Lily…innocent Lily…looks around and then looks down with everyone else as David prays.

“Jesus…we thank you for this food and for bringing us friends from near and afar.  We give grace to you for this meal and for this day.  Amen.”

Lily asks,”Is that how it is?  Every meal?  Each prayer is like that?”  Her eyes are wide and curious like a deer’s.  I have the feeling that she is on the path to being converted.

The meal is good.  It’s a mixture of Beijing duck and some dishes that I’ve never had before…there’s a mashed potato dish that is new to me that is excellent, with some cilantro in it as well.  Frank talks with me more about Christianity and China.

“It’s getting more and more here.  The young people have nothing to believe in anymore,” he says.  “You know, I just felt so welcome when I went back to the States.  The people in the Church community were so friendly to me.  It was different there of course…I mean, not so much to do, but it definitely felt…well, it was amazing to go to these sermons where everyone was praying together…really something…why did you come to Inner Mongolia anyway?” he asks me, changing the subject.

“Well, I originally wasn’t going to come here.  I was going to Ningxia at first.  And on the train I met Amanda.  When she got off the train I told her that I would come back and meet her in Wuhai…I wanted to see it for myself.”

“Why didn’t you take the airplane to Yinchuan?  Much faster,” Paul says.

“If I had taken the airplane I never would have met Amanda,” I laugh.  Good answer.

“But why did you go to Ningxia?” Frank asks again.

“Well…it’s kind of a strange reason…” I tell them about the grey hair and Beihai park and my unfulfilled quest to hear hua er. 

“Hua er?” Paul asks.  “You know…Lily can sing Hua Er.  Would you like to hear it?”  Silence.  It’s going to happen.  She’s going to sing hua er.

“I would love to hear Hua Er,” I say.  “Can you sing something?” I ask Lily.

“Ah…I only know a little bit,” she says modestly.  “But I can try to remember.”  She stands up, her hands at her side.  Her orange dress is frozen in the light.  The lights themselves seem to dim.  No one speaks.  The room is waiting for her to sing.  This is the reason I came on my trip…to hear this song…to fulfill the Grey Hair’s prophesy.  Lily looks off into space and seems to be focusing on a point in the wall behind our heads.  The door beside that we entered in from opens up and in floats the Grey Hair.   The Grey Hair is also accompanied by a face.  The face is a bit paler than the faces of other Chinese faces that I am familiar with.  On the eyes of the face is a pair of large square-rimmed brown glasses.  The hair on the face’s head is also grey flecked with black.  The mouth is a friendly mouth, widening into a grin.  Underneath the face are all the other things that should go along with it…a body, arms, legs, shoes, shirt, pants, etc.  But…I can’t take my eyes off of the long, grey, hair.  It haunts me, waving back and forth in the wind like a snake’s tongue.  The Grey Hair turns its head ever slowly as Lily begins to break the silence with her breathing…he is enchanted by her dress, her hair, her innocence.  All of us sit there, waiting–the Christian family, Frank, Amanda, Jacky, Jesus, and me.  We all wait for Lily to sing the Grey Hair’s song.  We wait.  She sings.

“I thought you might want to have some kebabs,” Paul says.  It’s after 10:30 at night already, but I’m game.

Jesus’ car is not fancy.  It reminds me of the kind of car that a college kid would buy just to get around.  As we drive through Wuhai’s streets lined on both sides by tall street lights, I notice that there are hardly any cars driving on the road. 

“What’s this town famous for?” I ask Paul.

“Jacky, do you want to answer that question?” Paul asks Jacky in English.

“Um…coal…and calligraphy,” Jacky answers after thinking for a couple of seconds.

“Amanda told me about your Chinese name.  That it means you like to study.  I really think you must have AMAZING Chinese,” Paul tells me.  “How do you study it?  What’s your method?”

“Well, I just try to speak it as much as possible and…”

“Oh, he carries a little notebook around with him all the time to write down word he’s never heard,” Amanda cuts me off.  “Jeffrey, show Jacky your notebook.”

I pull out my little notebook that I really do carry around with me wherever I go.  This is my favorite notebook.  It was given to me by Lynn, probably my best friend and co-founder of Chinareflection.  She gave me my previous notebook as well.  In both notebooks she wrote dedications on the first page…words of inspiration to keep me studying…to keep me on the right path.  The first notebook would open up like a fan or scroll…almost like an accordian with the pages folded on top of each other.  I used it so much that it fell apart.  This second notebook is just a small, regular, brown notebook.  The only thing that differs from this notebook and other notebooks is that it has a homemade touch.  On the outside of the notebook is a little cloth sleeve that protects its cover and keeps it from falling apart.  Lynn sowed this together by hand.  My notebook has character.  It is my Bible.  I take it wherever I go.  At meal times I sit on it, putting it underneath my right buttock.  Eating and drinking with friends or new acquaintances is the best time to learn a language because people talk freely and will usually say whatever is on one’s mind.  When we eat, we are at our most relaxed and most social.  I have to keep my notebook prepared for any chance I have that may pass if I am not listening carefully.  It rests underneath my buttock, ready to hatch open with new ideas and words at any time.

We arrive at an outdoor restaurant.  The ground is strewn with discarded kebab sticks.  Paul orders a bunch of them, too many.  He also orders a kind of lamb stew and some beers as well.  It’s far more than I want to eat.  I hardly touch any of the lamb sticks.  Just not that hungry at this time of day.  Jacky, however, inhales the kebabs with just the kind of voracity that I would expect from the son of Jesus.  Over beers we talk.

“So, Jeffrey, an amazing coincidence about today…” Amanda starts.  “I told Paul that you are from Virginia.  He was talking about going there.  Also, my American friends just left today for Viriginia.”

“Really?  Where do you want to go in Virginia?” I ask Paul.  I grab a kebab.  May as well help myself.

“Do you know Rocky Mount, Virginia?”  he asks.

“Never heard of it,” I say.

“There’s a Bible college there called Blue Ridge School of the Prophets.  Have you heard of it?” he asks.

“I don’t know…I’ll have to look it up.  Why do you want to go to Bible college?” 

“Well, I’m not 100 percent sure.”  when Paul says “sure” his ’s’ whistles a little bit.  It sounds smooth, like he’s trying to hypnotize me.  “If I feel the call from Jesus Christ…if I think it is my mission to go there, then I’ll try to go.”

“Oh. Ok…What got you interested in Christianity, anyway?”  My kebab is finished.  Jacky is eating the cubes of mutton like a madman.

“Some American teachers came here to Wuhai, and they started to talk to us about religion.  It just appealed to me.  I just know it’s true.  That Jesus is there for me.  And in China, there are more and more Chinese starting to believe in Christianity.  It’s becoming better and better.  Without this…without religion or something to believe in, it’s just money…are you Christian, Jeffrey?”

“Uh…no…I guess I’m Jewish…but I don’t believe.”  Such a strange answer.  I’ll have to spit this one out someday.

“I think America is losing it’s religion.  China is starting to gain some.  But it’s really the young people that are starting to believe.  They need it.”  He puts his right hand on the back of his son’s neck.  “I don’t know…maybe I’ll go to Rocky Mount with Jacky if I do go.”

I later learn that Rocky Mount is only about an hour away from my home near Roanoke, Virginia.  I imagine that there are some pretty deeply religious people up there in the mountains.  A place so close to home that I had to come all the way to Wuhai, Inner Mongolia to discover it.

After a few minutes, they tell me what the general plan is for the next day.  We’ll go to a “country school” in the morning where I’ll “teach” a class, or maybe two classes of students.  I know to some extent what it is that I will do, but I’m still excited by the fact that I’ll be faced by complete strangers the next day…strangers ready to listen and hang on to my every word.  They’ll look up at me and I’ll be a star.  It sounds small-minded to chase such an environment, but I know that I’ll be a star.  I’ve learned to accept and transcend this star status when I go to these small places in China.  It would never happen like this in the States.  I can’t imagine a Chinese person traveling to a community and receiving the same reception that I am lucky enough to receive in China.  Save the odd English teacher, this town does not see any Westerners.  I can be a bridge for these kids, if only for a day.  I know that I’ll just be the “white face,” but I still like doing it.  Maybe one of the kids that I’ll talk to the next day will truly want to listen to what I have to say.  Maybe they won’t just look at me as “the foreigner.”  Maybe one of the hundreds of kids that I meet will want to travel abroad after he/she meets me.  It’s just a small kernel of hope, but it’s still a kernel.

Jacky polishes off the kebabs that are left, throwing the sticks down on the table and the ground.  We get back in the Jesus’ mobile and Paul takes me to the hotel where I’ll be staying for the night.  I have no idea in which direction we are traveling but feel completely safe in the car with these people whom I’ve only known collectively for less than a day. 

“In the morning we’ll meet you for breakfast,” Paul says as we check into the hotel.  The hotel is about 15 stories high.  There’s not much activity in the lobby, and I’m sure I’m the only foreigner to be staying here at the time.

“You need to get some rest,” Amanda says.  “You’ll need you’re energy for tomorrow.”

“Where are you from?”  I ask him.

“Henan.”

“Ah, I know Henan.  I’ve been to Jiao Zuo.  It’s a nice town,” I say, making conversation.

“You’re Chinese isn’t bad.  How long have you been here?”

“4 years.  How long have you been doing your monkey act for?”

The monkey on his shoulder hops off and walks around on the ground.  Two of Devil Monkey’s friends, co-workers?, sit on the ground.  One of them pets the oldest of the 3 monkeys.

“I’ve been doing this for a few years now.  Going from town to town.  Not a bad way to see the country, eh?”  he asks.

“Not bad.  Where you headed today?”

“Back to Yinchuan.  From there, not sure where I’ll go yet.”  He scratches his head.

“How often do you get back home?”  I ask him.

“About once a year, during the Spring Festival.”  He pauses.  “What are you doing here, anyway?  Hai Yuan isn’t much.”

“I just took a week off of work.  I work in a travel agency.  Came here to hear Hua Er.  Do you know this kind of singing?” I ask.

“No, never heard of it.  Hua Er.  Nope…hey…do they have guys like me in the States?”  he asks.

“Haven’t seen many guys walking around with monkeys.  Probably not allowed.  Some people might have a problem with you pulling these monkeys around.  But if you want to give it a shot, you can call the travel agency I work with.  Why not?” I say, joking.

“Too far for me.  I wouldn’t know anything about the States.  You’ve got a black president now, right?”

“Yep.  That’s right.  Obama.”  I look at my watch.  The bus’ll be coming soon.

“Hey, I’ve gotta’ get going.  Good luck, man,” I say.

“Good luck,” he answers.

Return to Zhongwei

When I get on the bus, there are seats enough for everyone.  Across the aisle from my seat is an old Hui Man with a long beard.  He and his wife both cover their heads, his with a white cap, she with a kind of scarf.  He has a bad cough.  His sunglasses are flat, huge, and round.  They are the kind that reflect everything projected towards them.  He has a bad cough and chews on his lip.

During the ride, the young guy sitting next to me pulls out a cigarette and starts to fumble with it in his hand.  I know that he wants to smoke it, but he doesn’t take his lighter out yet.  He’s sitting so close to me, so if he starts smoking, the smoke will blow into my face.  The bus stops and the old couple gets off at a small crossroads between two villages.  One girl boards the bus and sits in the seat next to the window where the old man was sitting.  They guy next to me continues to fumble with his cigarette.  I really don’t want smoke in my face on a bus.

“You’re not really going to smoke that are you?”  I say with a smile.

“Uh…yeah…what?” He’s uncertain.  Did I say that?

“I have an allergy to cigarette smoke.  Sorry.”  I make this line up, hoping that he’ll catch on.

“Oh, ok.”  He puts the cigarette in his breast pocket.  Success…or so I think.  A couple of minutes later, he moves across the very narrow aisle and sits next to the girl, pulls out the cigarette and lights up.  He’s only about a foot further away from me now.  The smoke comes into my face.

I look away from the man out the window and remember my promise to Mrs. Xie the night before.  I’m supposed to send her daughter a message on my phone.  Looking up her number, I type a message in Chinese that reads:

“Hi, last night I met your mother in Hai Yuan.  I’m from America.  She’s so hospitable.”

A couple of minutes later, her daughter replies to me:

“Sorry, you must be mistaken.  My mother doesn’t know any Americans.”

Of course she doesn’t believe me.  The likelihood of an American traveling to Hai Yuan is very slim, not to mention the likelihood of an American being inside of her house talking with her mother.  I decide to send another message.  This time I write in Chinese and in English, and I mention her mother’s full name, telling her that I met her mother by chance the evening before.  This message is sure to convince her.  The response I get is not what I expect:

“Who are you?  Why are you in  Hai Yuan?  And how do you casually know my mother?  Don’t tell me that you just ‘bumped into her’ cause I won’t believe you.  Who told you my mother’s name!?”

After seeing this message I’m reminded of the evening before when her mother believed that I thought she was trying to trick me when she told me her age.  Something’s up with this family…sometime, somewhere, someone did something to them that made them lose their trust in people.  There is spite and hurt in her message, like a trapped animal.  I can’t believe that she is so guarded and suspicious.  It never occurred to me.

The next message I send back is in English:

“If you don’t believe me, that’s ok.  But I really did meet your mother, and she is very nice.  You can ask her.  If I am ever back in Hai Yuan again, I hope to see her once more.  Good luck with your studies.”

A few minutes later the reply comes.  She starts to ease up on the defensive and believe me, telling me she has a test coming up soon.  There is still a tinge of shock and awe that an American was in her house the evening before.  It’s a good thing I left a photo with her mother.

Lunch

By the time we arrive in Zhongwei, my stomach is growling.  I take a bus from the station back to the center of town near where I stayed the night before going to Hai Yuan.  On the bus, a young Chinese couple eyes me from time to time.  Both of them have friendly faces, both are wearing round spectacles.  The man approaches me, moving past a lady holding onto the back of a seat to support herself.

“Are you from America?” he asks me.

“Yes.  What about you?”  I ask.

“China,” he laughs.  “From Lanzhou in Gansu Province.”  Lanzhou is a place I’ve always wanted to visit.  One of the best Chinese teachers I’ve ever had is from there.  She currently studies in Boston, MA, one of the only students of mine that I taught in Yichun to make it for further study in the U.S.

“Are you a Christian?”  he asks me.

“No…I guess I’m Jewish…but I don’t believe in God.”  I’m never sure how to express this correctly.  I like affiliating myself with Judaism, but at the same time I know that I am a non-believer, “an infidel,” as Luther Burbank would say.  However, I can be Jewish if I want to…my mother is Jewish (also an infidel?–I’ll have to ask her), and my father’s father was Jewish (my father is a dyed-in-the-wool atheist).  Yesterday I was Hui.  Today I’m a Jew.  That’s the way the way the world is.

“We’re both Christians,” he says.

“Are there lots of Christians in Lanzhou?” I ask him.

“There are a lot who go to our church.  Maybe 200 or so whenever we go.”

“How many churches are there in Lanzhou?” I ask.  I’m really curious about this sort of thing.  Unfortunately, the couple needs to get off the bus at the next stop.  Possibly this conversation is the one that leads me to Gansu at some point in the future.  Another grey hair.

After the couple exits the bus, I ride for another 5 minutes until we arrive at the drum tower.  Walking past the drum tower, I find a side street and a small restaurant to have my lunch at.  Ordering a small bowl of noodles, I decide to sit outside, as the restaurant itself is too hot.  Next to the umbrella that I sit under, there is a small drink cooler.  No one else sits outside on the street, although there are other tables.  After my noodles come, I start to slurp them down in silence.  A guy approaches the front of the restaurant and opens up the cooler to purchase a drink.  He pulls out a bottle of water and waits for the waitress inside to come out so that he can pay.  I look up at him.

“That’ll be 2 RMB,” I say with a smile.

He reaches into his pocket, pulls out 2 RMB and gives it to me directly.  After that he turns and walks away, opening up his bottle of water.  I look back inside the restaurant to see if the waitress has noticed.  She has her back to me and is fanning herself with a menu.  I could pocket this 2 RMB easily but decide to inform the waitress of what just happened.  I call out to her.

“Hey, water is 2 RMB, right?”  I ask.

“Uh-huh.  You can pull one out of the cooler.”  She says, not getting up.

I stand up and walk over to her.  “No, a guy just bought a bottle.  Here’s your money.”  I give it to her.  She laughs as she takes the money, and I can’t help cracking a smile, either.

To Wuhai

After lunch it’s on to Inner Mongolia, specifically, Wuhai.  I don’t know anything about Wuhai except for the fact that my hero, Amanda, lives there.  I’m going there specifically to see her and her town…no other reason.  In the afternoon, I wait for the train at the Zhongwei station and buy some food for the ride.  I’ll eat on the train, as it’s arrival time is late in the evening, after 10pm.  I don’t want to eat too much, so I just buy some canned porridge, some bread, and some fruit.  The pack of people lined up to get on the train stand in a large clump around the exit of the station.  It’s the kind of clump one can find anywhere at any station in China.  The train will be delayed for a few minutes.  I put my baggies of snacks down, along with my backpack.  I’m ready to go.  Taking out my phone, I send a message to Amanda and tell her that I’m on the platform waiting for the train.

“Ok.  We will meet you when you arrive.  Have safe journey.”

“We?”…