Pumpkin

I came to the tombs the previous day with my friend, Pumpkin, a girl I met previously in Tianjin during a conference.  She is quiet, local, and loves her dog.  The night before, I visited her family’s home in the suburbs of Shenyang^W and was astounded to see her dog in a full dog sweater and doggie shoes.  I always pity animals wearing clothes for some reason.  Dogs are, I believe, color blind, so they have no idea how absurd they look in their clothes.  They are animals, and their sense of fashion is relegated to their owners’ sense of torture.  However, in order to be a polite guest, I did not present my negative views regarding animal fashion.

Pumpkin and her family were excellent hosts.  They fed me and fattened me up.  When I informed Pumpkin of my father being a geologist, her father’s eyes widened due to the fact that the two work in the same field.  While my father thrived in the world of Academia, however, Pumpkin Senior made his way in the oil industry.  Her brother also followed along in Senior Pumpkin’s footsteps and studied geology as well, with a focus on minerals and crystals.  Upon learning that I had visited the famed Xiuyan, home of a large jade industry, he took me back into his room and showed me a gigantic hunk of raw jade he had purchased some weeks before.  I hefted it in my hand in my best attempt to give it an appraisal.  I didn’t know what I was doing.  Before I left the house, Senior Pumpkin made his best attempt to give me a gigantic fossil of a fish he had hanging on the wall.

“It’s real, I assure you,” he told me.

“No, I believe you…it’s too much, though.  Really…” I remained firm as he took the fossil down and handed it to me.  There was no way I was going to be leaving their home with a fish fossil.

“Come on.  Take it.  It’s nothing.  Give it to your father.  He’d appreciate it.  From one geologist to another,” Senior Pumpkin practically pleaded with me.

“I really can’t.  I’m sorry.  This fish needs to stay in China.”  Luckily I won this battle, and the fish hopefully remains on the wall of Senior Pumpkin’s home to this day.  I left their home a few pounds heavier in the gut, but fortunately no fish fossils weighed me down.

In the Forest

After leaving the section of the tomb with the mound, I walk along a small path into the verdant wooded area.  It’s very rare in China that I experience the calm stillness of walking through a graveyard or cemetery.  I like walking or running through them because of the ultimate density that permeates the air.  There’s something surreal about walking through the thick atmosphere that surrounds gravestones.  Even when screaming, it’s impossible to make any significant noise in a cemetery.  The gravestones stifle sound with an oppressive sense of loss and peace.  In China, though, it’s difficult to find gravestones that trace the names of the “beloved fathers,” “cherished mothers,” and “precious” sons and daughters.  Most tombs in China are located against mountains or in farm fields.  Sometimes when I ride a train through the countryside, I’ll notice mounds of dirt with gravestones sticking out of them located in the middle of a field on a farm.  Part of the reason for this lack of cemeteries is that most of them are illegal due to the fact that there is no space in the country for them.  In 2010 alone, the country shut down 175 illegal cemeteries.  At the same time, the government tries to promote “green burials.”  While most people are cremated, more and more people opt for burial at sea.  Since 1997, there have been 80,000 sea burials in Liaoning^W alone. (China Daily).

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a public cemetery for regular folks in China other than those reserved for martyrs.  Cold soldiers, fallen generals, famed astronomers, and feared emperors.  Although gravestones do not abound in the area enclosed by the tomb’s fencing, the run-down feeling of solitude on the overgrown path make me feel as if I’m in a cemetery surrounded by graves.  I continue my walk, thinking that it will take me to an exit on the eastern edge of the tombs’ grounds.  Instead, I reach the fence which surrounds the tombs and separates Huang Taiji from the rest of the living world.

I’m still very far from the main entrance when I reach this fence, and I prefer not to leave the same way I entered.  On the other side of the fence is a road.  Trucks and cars putt-putt along the road, spewing out their exhaust.  I want to go in that direction.  I want to walk along the road.  My goal is there.  The Beginning waits for me.

I walk up to the fence and grab onto one of the rusty iron bars.  In some areas the bars are overgrown with vines.  Is the tomb growing out, or are the living coming in?  I can hear the sound of insects now, mixed with the passing exhaust of the vehicles rolling along the road.  The fence is not high, but it’s quite narrow and I could conceivably injure myself or scrape myself along the metal bars.  They are old and can probably cut me if I’m not careful.  I stick my hand through the bars and open up a fist feeling the sweaty air.  I take my hand back out from between the bars and walk a few feet towards the South, where there is a small break in the bars, and they lean more to the side.  The weak spot in the fence calls to me here.  I take my backpack and heft it over the fence.  It lands out of reach.  No turning back now.  Grabbing onto a vine, I pull onto one of the bars and lift my weight up.  There are two horizontal bars running along the bottom and top parts of the fence where I can put my feet.  I step on the bottom one without too much effort and have a short rest.  Next, I grab higher, with sweaty and grimy palms I pull up to the second level.  This area is a bit trickier to balance.  Grabbing onto the top point of the fence, I lift my right foot gingerly over, taking it from Death to Life.  While I straddle the fence, it’s here that I pause and worry about falling.  Grabbing onto the bush that overgrows the fence, I start to think it would be extremely stupid to injure myself here, on an iron fence enclosure of a tomb.  I imagine impaling myself on the tops of the fence’s rods.  I must look like an idiot standing up here to the cars passing by.  Taking my left foot over onto the Life side, I grab onto two rods’ heads of the fence and decide to jump the rest of the way down, slightly scraping my shin on the descent.  Huang Taiji has taken a piece of me, ever so small.  Let him have it.  Grabbing my backpack, I put it on and press it against my sweaty shirt to continue towards the dirty road and the Beginning.

Beginning

Once again I’m on an ugly stretch of gritty road.  The fumes cough at me, but I know I’m near the beginning of this journey, back to where I started, where ends meet.  From the scenery alongside the road, it would be difficult to tell that I’m nearing my destination.  There are rundown shops, dingy restaurants, and places for scrap metal.  Still, I have my map in my hand, and the point where I am heading is definitely in the direction that I’m going.  I look down on my shin where I scraped it against the fence.  A small cut has formed there, and the sweat is already beginning to seep.    Some people drive by and give me a “helloooooooooooooo.”  I wave at them, feeling my sticky shirt move under the straps of my backpack.  Just to make sure I’m going in the right direction, I ask the owner of a small shop when I buy some water.  I’m headed there, all right.

Before long I see the sign that lets me know I have arrived.  There are the gates with the numbers “1950″ and “1953″ written on both sides of the entrance.  I go inside to the memorial.  It’s fitting that I should be here, back at the beginning.  From Dandong^W where my trip began to Shenyang^W where it ends, I see the remnants of the Korean War once again.  I’m taken back to the beginning of this journey.  This memorial has a museum that is under construction.  There are people in the lobby of the museum working on a display, unfinished.  I exit and walk out to the monument to have a look; another huge obelisk that reads, “the sacrifice these heroes made will forever live in the hearts of the People.”  Monuments for the Dead.  Scars and sweat for the Living.  No one else is around the monument.  I finish this journey the same way I began it, alone.  The workers are in the unfinished museum.  The obelisk is waiting for me.  Still, I know there is something else waiting for me, or maybe SOMEONE.  Without even thinking, I turn my head to look.  Just downhill from the monument I see them: rows of graves, each one with pointy red stars, each one with a mound of concrete bubbling up like a distended belly filled with the memories of its inhabitant’s struggles.  They sit in neat little rows, these mounds.  They burst with silence.  I walk towards them.  The air feels dense, heavier than before.  I know what is underneath.

Pit-pat-pit-pat-pit-pat…I continue up the hill, stepping over running rivulets, and pass a short, squat cannon on one side.  It is of Japanese craftsmanship, and it’s shape reminds me of the Colombian artist, Botero^W who made his figures disproportionately round and fat.  Fleshy.  On the other side of the path there is a Russian made cannon, long and slender with purpose like a ballet dancer.  Markers for spots where officers fell in agony dot the way up the hill, which has turned into a tomb.  The closer I get to the top of the hill, the more the weather deteriorates.  I continue through the mist, and then I see IT.  There is a respite of precipitation and up ahead of me I clearly see a large bullet standing erect at the top of the highland, a looming deathstar monolith.

After the Russo-Japanese War came to its bloody conclusion and Imperial Japan was on the rise, the “ringleader of Japanese militarism Maresuke Nogi^W renamed this hill ‘Er Ling Hill’ as per its pronunciation of 203, and built Er Ling Hill Tower in height of 10.3 meters made by cannonball shell and wasted weapon remained in the period of the war shaped like bullet of Japanese bow gun for the criminal purpose to sacrifice the soul of a deceased Japanese soldiers and deceive Japanese people” (203 Hill introduction sign).  During the Russo-Japanese War approximately 20,000 soldiers died in the battle of 203 Highland  in one of the bloodiest conflicts of the war.  The estimates hover around 7,000 Russian soldiers, and more than 10,000 Japanese soldiers.

I walk up to the eery, ghost-green bullet.  On IT are written the characters for “Er Ling Shan,” which sound like the Chinese characters for “203,” but if written another way, they mean “Where Souls Rest.”  The deathbullet supposedly houses the souls of the Japanese who fell during the battle.  I walk up to the rusty monument and approach it slowly.  Death surrounds me everywhere.  Looking up at the copper green bullet in the swirling mist, I feel a slight shiver.  Touch it.  Touch it.  The voice echoes in my head.

I reach out and touch the base of the monument.  Cold.  Lifeless.  No pity.

There are sounds of Japanese tourists approaching.  A small group of middle-aged Japanese men and women walk up towards the bullet.  I watch them gaze up through past their umbrellas and middle-aged eyes.  I make my way towards them and attempt to speak a bit of Japanese that I pull out of the file cabinet in my brain from seven years before.

“Afternoon,” I say.

“Afternoon….you can speak Japanese?”  The man has a thin face.  He wear’s a kind of baseball hat, the brand of which I fail to remember.  Next to him is an older genteleman with grey hair and horn-rimmed glasses.

“A little.  Are you having a good trip?”  I ask.  It’s hard for me to remember any Japanese on this hill for some reason.

“Good….Been to Japan before?” the thin-faced man asks me.

“Yes, I used to live in Niigata^W for one year.  The girls there are pretty,” I smile, remembering my ex-girlfriend Mayumi.  The smile is also pride for the fact that I can remember how to say this.

“Ah, yes.  Niigata beauties.  Famous for that.  Why do you come here?”

“History,” I say.  I’m falling in the pit of wordlessness again.  He says something I cannot understand.  I need to end this conversation.

“Anyway….uh…have a good trip,” I say.  I give my best attempt at a bow.  He bows back automatically.

Walking down the hillside I decide to purchase a couple of t-shirts from the souvenir stand.  One of them simply states “203 Highland.”  Behind the characters there are 3 communist stars.  The other shirt is a poem about the horrific battle written by a Japanese officer.  I don’t understand most of the characters, but can guess at its starkness based on the fact that each line is separated by an image of barbed wire.  The salesgirl at the T-shirt stand on 203 hill speaks to me in Japanese.

“What size are you sir?” she asks.

I feel the gears in my head click and stall.  At first I don’t know what to say.  It’s strange to have a Chinese speaking Japanese to me, and I’m caught between the gears.

“I’m not Japanese, you know,” I answer in Chinese.  “But we can speak Japanese if you want to,” I switch to Japanese.

The gear problem switches from myself to the salesgirl, and she takes a moment to process what I’ve just said.

“Oh…um…maybe a large for you, then.”  She is back in her salesgirl mode.

I purchase the t-shirts and walk down the hill, past the cannons and the spirits that don’t exist.  The bullet disappears again in the mist.  In the afternoon I visit various other war sites including a prison originally built by the Tsarist invaders.  It was later expande and equipped with a torture room and secret chamber for hanging prisoners during the Japanese period of occupation.

My last site to visit is another war memorial called “White Jade Mountain.”  Much like the 203 highland, the top of the hill for the Jade tower ends in a monument that was built with forced labor as a home for the Japanese war dead.  After the conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War, “Heihachiro Togo, Commander of the Japanese joint fleet and Nogi Maruske^W, Commander of the Japanese third army corps chose (this spot) as the site to build the “Loyalty Tower,”….Chinese craftsmen and migrant workders, actually ranging from 2000 to 3000 people at that time, were press-ganged into doing reserve labor” (Baiyun Tower sign introduction).  The tower itself reminds me of a slightly less sinster verson of the deathbullet at the top of 203 Highland.  One similarity is the shape of the structure.  From far away, it also resembles a bullet.

Bullets.  Loyalty.  The two of them just don’t seem right together.  I can’t imagine a bullet symbolizing anything else but its function:  to kill.  Death.  Looking up to the tower, I’m haunted by the green bullet of 203 Highland and see an image of my own cousin, Chiara, whose life was stolen by a bullet years before.  She wasn’t taken in a battle or a war, not even a fight, really.  She was taken by a careless youth who aimed with intent to kill an opposing gang member.  He missed his mark.  The bullet entered my cousin’s head.  She was in a car, probably frightened by what was happening outside. That emotion, fear, may have been the last thing she ever felt.  I don’t know.  How can I know?   She was 22 years old and we were told she felt no pain.  How does anyone know that?  Who knows what the dead feel when no one has the power to communicate with them?  If those who have passed knew that the only things standing to remember them were large bullets on the tops of misty hills accompanied by cannons and other instruments of death, how would they feel?  My cousin has a rock outside of a courthouse with her name engraved on it in Boston, the city where she died.  Her rock is surrounded by other engraved rocks of those who have died bullet-induced deaths, including the Kennedy brothers.  She has a grave.  There are trees, pieces of artwork, and a college scholarship, all dedicated in her name.  For all this dedication and loyalty to her memory, she is gone.  I feel lost walking past another slender Russian ballet-cannon towards the bottom of the slope.  I miss my cousin.  I think about her and life’s brevity every week.  There’s nothing I can do to stop time, and I don’t believe in ghosts.  Still, they surround me, and I let them inside.  Lushun brings out the past for anyone who’s wiling to walk into the mist.

Traffic Rules

The policewoman stands atop her little traffic throne, sunglasses shading her eyes, her right palm facing outwards to signal the oncoming traffic to stop.  The white gloves on both of her hands protect her delicate fingers from the Sun.  They fit snugly.  Perhaps she painted her nails in the morning.  She can’t let her superiors see the polish.  Against regulation.  It doesn’t matter.  She’ll just keep the gloves on.  Maybe it’ll be odd to wear gloves around the office, but it will make her feel daring, like she’s taking a risk.  Minx.  Hellcat.  Tease.  Her skirt flaps gently with the elements.  Although it’s a long skirt that tries its best to erase any of her sex appeal, the policewoman obviously has it.  She wouldn’t have been hired otherwise.  No skirt could be frumpy enough to completely erase the seductiveness of Dalian’s female traffic policewoman standing in front of the government headquarters directing traffic.  Different modes of transport squirm their way around her in an ceaseless flow of worship, and she never changes the expression on her face, always maintaining an ice-cold veneer of professionalism.  Empress.  Dominatrix.  Leather.  The cars and buses await her silent commands and bow down to her like a goddess perched upon her small traffic island.  She is a symbol of the city, Dalian, tigress of the Northeast. 

As our tour bus floats by the traffic policewoman, I cannot take my eyes off of her.  She’s like the Terminator.  I imagine that she doesn’t even blink while she’s on the job.  The Chinese guide tells us that the city government has height specifications of at least 172 cm for their female police task force.  I was told to look out for these commanding policewomen before coming to the city.  Dalian has a reputation to uphold.

“The girls are tall there….you just keep your eyes open, sonny.  There’s nothing like watching one of those tall Northeastern girls sucking on an ice-lolly in dead winter.”  I seem to remember a dirty old geezer reminiscing this sentiment to me once.  Tall and straight, the officer plants her feet on the traffic circle as if the balance of the world’s gravity depends on her immobility.

Olympic Memories

Our bus glides by the main traffic cir cle in a few short seconds.  The tour also takes us past Dalian’s Olympic Square.  In the middle of the square visitors can stand in front of a statue of a sprinting Liu Changchun^W, a pioneer for Chinese olympic athletes.  Asked to represent the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo^W (1932-1945) in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic games, Liu Changchun is seen as a patriotic hero for his refusal as he stood fast and boycotted representing a government of invaders.  After hearing of his refusal, General Zhang Xueliang^W agreed to sponsor Liu as China’s first ever athlete to join the Olympic games.  As a child, he was known for his tenacious speed, finishing the 100 meter dash in 11.8 seconds while in primary school.

While passing the sprinting statue of Liu Changchun, I notice that where there used to be a stadium in front of the athlete, there is now only an gigantic square.  Behind the square it appears as if a bomb has dropped from the sky, decimating the stadium that once stood in the place of the rubble that now piles up before the runner.  It’s as if an air targeted Dalian and deliberately pinpointed the stadium in order to make way for Liu Changchun giving him another shot at the hundred meter dash.  I’m told that beneath the square lies one of the largest shopping malls for electronics in the city.  I have no time to shop, however.  The bus continues its way past Liu Changchun, leaving him forever frozen from the starter’s pistol pose.  I promise him that I’ll return to take a closer look at the damage that awaits him in front.  For now, however, I stay on the tour bus as it makes its way out of Dalian and towards the nearby satellite city of Lushun^W, home of one of the bloodiest battles of the Russo-Japanese War.

Chinese Tour

As the bus continues it’s route towards Lushun, the tour Chinese tour guide tells us about the places we are going to visit during the day.  The first one is a Qing Dynasty artillery.  Lu Shun, also known as Port Arthur, has played an important and convoluted role in China’s mixed up recent military history.  Due to its strategic position on the Liaodong peninsula, it has been the site of international conflict by foreign aggressors on numerous occasions.  During the Russo-Japanese war, the Japanese and Russians lost thousands of troops fighting for territory over this area in a country that wasn’t even theirs.  My destination today is to visit the site of 203 Hill, named ’203′ because it is 203 meters above sea level.  I never studied anything about the Russo-Japanese war during any history class.  I never even heard of this war prior to visiting Liaoning.  Something about the idea of two foreign powers fighting over turf in a country that isn’t rightfully theirs draws me to the site, however, and I feel like I need to go.  The fact that I’ve never heard of this war makes me want to know something about what happened there. 

This tour, however, does not go to the battle sites, however.  I purposesly chose a Chinese tour bus with Chinese tourists just to see what the experience would be like.  Prior to going on the tour I didn’t even look at the itinerary.  It was cheap, and I just assumed that the tour would take us past one of the most famous battle sites of the Russo-Japanese War.  I was wrong. 

When we exit the bus at the site of the Qing Dynasty artillery, I’m reminded of the beaches at Normandy as we walk around the ghost barracks and tunnels.  The small manmade caves seem so crude and dirty with the smell of mildew.  At the top of one of the manmade earthen dunes, under which soldiers would have been stationed awaiting the Russians, the Japanese, the British (the Americans?), I can only wonder at how hopeless and miserable it would have been to man these stations.  The conditions must have been horrible.  And the Chinese government was in a downward spiral at that time during the tail end of the Qing Dynasty.  As with most dynasties, when they fall, it’s not a pretty fall.  The butt end of the dynasty bleeds the country dry with excess and corruption.  Maybe a famine or flood in one part of the country participates a revolution and uprising of bandits.  Anyway, the end is always messy.  Emperors don’t want to go down.  The Qing Dynasty was having enough problems in Beijing at the time of the Russo-Japanese War.  Lushun must have seemed like a long way away during that time.  Best to leave the Russians and Japanese to have at it.

The guide takes us around the different artillery displays, explaining how the guns here were once used to protect the port from attack.  I notice the other members of the group beginning to lose interest in the history lesson and head over to the ubiquitous souvenir stands to browse the gifts that one can find at any site.  There are hats and t-shirts, Buddhist statues that have nothing to do with anything on the site, even small lighters made up of spent bullet cartridges made to look like the shape of a small tank.  I turn around to look at one of the ancient, rusting cannons which sits atop a platform facing the sea.  There’s a sign that reads, “please do not climb on the relic.”  Tourists line up to take their turn scrambling up the gun, ignoring the sign and straddling the weapon between their legs in a symbol of phallic rebellion.  I walk up to the tour guide to ask him about the rest of the tour.

“Hey, so we’re not going to 203 hill?”  I ask.

He scans the crowd counting the number of tourists to make sure everyone is here. 

“Nope…sorry.  But you’re not missing much.  There’s nothing to see there.  It’s just a hill.”

Nothing to see there, or nothing to buy? 

“Hmmm….that’s too bad….I’d like to go there, anyway.  You think I can leave the tour and go?”

He purses his lips for a second.

“Well…yeah…but you’ll have to sign something saying that you’ve left this tour on your own free will, and you’re responsible for getting yourself back to Dalian.  Why don’t you come with us to the next site, the snake museum?  It’s closer to the spot you want to go to.”

“Uhhh…ok…snake museum, huh?  I heard there was a snake island.  Does this tour go there?”  I remember reading about an island where there were lots of snakes (not native).  Basically, to make a tourist site out of nothing, someone had the idea to fill up a small island with multitudes of snake species in various jungle-like enclosures.

“We can’t go there anymore.  Someone was bitten, and it’s been closed to tourists ever since.”

So much for Snake Island.  The museum will have to suffice.

Double Headed Terror  

It’s in the the snake museum that the tour starts to feel like a Chinese tour.  After entering, we’re told that we should not exit the same way we came in.  We’re supposed to stay on a one-way route.  I’m not sure why at the time.  Are the snakes watching us?  Will they attack if we divert from the pre-planned course of action?  I decide not to argue and just to with the flow.  Suddenly I find myself face to face with a sign displaying the “double headed” snake.  I’m transfixed, staring at this sign, wondering how many double headed animals there are in existence.  The sign itself interests me more than the actual live snakes on display later on in the museum.  Imagine…a snake with two heads!  It could have kissed itself, loved itself, argued with itself.  If it had talked with itself, no one would have thought it was out of its mind(s).  How did this image happen to find its way to Lushun?  Where have all the double headed snakes gone?  Perhaps there is a direct connection between the double headed snake and the double headed reign of terror inflicted upon the land and the Chinese nation during the Russo-Japanese War.  (This may be a bit of a stretch).  In any event, with regards to my educational backround in both history and zoology, the Russo-Japanese War and the double headed snake are both phenomena that I never had any previous knowledge or acces to prior to arriving in Lushun.

As we walk into the next room, a man is standing there with a snake in his hands.  My first instinct is that perhaps one of the snakes has escaped its enclosure, and this hero has nabbed it just in time.  It’s only when I see him offering the snake to tourists that I realize he’s just charging money for visitors who want to have pictures taken with a snake.  It’s not for me, however.  The memory of the guide’s words regarding the incident on Snake Island still ring fresh in my ears.  If it had been a double headed snake, however, I’d be emptying my pockets.

After walking the gauntlet of hawkers selling snake relics, it’s back on the bus.  Despite my instinct to flee, the guide tells me to stay with them a bit more.  Apparently we’re heading to a shop that lies in even closer proximity to 203 hill. 

“After going through the shop, I’ll give you that form that you need to sign,” the guide tells me.  I consent.  It’s hard being a guide, and he’s losing a customer.  The next part of his job is, sadly, one of the necessities of being a Chinese tour guide:  shopping for commission.  Because guides are paid such a low salary and Chinese tourists do not tip, the only way to make any real money is from the commission that the souvenir shops pay the guides after their customers make purchases.

We roll into a gigantic parking lot that is filled with buses from other tour groups.  Beside the parking lot is a large, non-descript modern building that looks like it used to be a warehouse for electric generators.  The guide opens the door of the bus.

“Alright everyone, we’ll stop here for the next hour.  Just like the snake museum, please leave the building through the exit, not the entrance.”

“An hour…jesus…that long!”  Another tourist looks at me and shakes his head.  He and his girlfriend hold hands with each other.  In his other hand, I notice a small creature crawling on his hand.  Upon closer inspection I realize the creature is a miniature turtle.

“Where did you get that thing?”  I point to the turtle in his hand.

“Oh, I bought it outside of the snake museum.”  The turtle makes slow progress towards the young man’s arm.  I wonder how long it will survive.  As I walk through the door of the gigantic shopping warehouse, I wonder how long I’ll surive.

The warehouse itself reminds me of a casino in Las Vegas.  Overstaffed with bright young workers, we’re greeted with a hearty “WELCOME!”  upon entering.  Rows and rows of cheap jade jewelry are laid out in bright, shiny, display cases.  None of the customers seems to really mind that we’re going shopping now.  It’s just part of the experience.  It’s what one does on a tour.  I follow behind an elderly couple:  man with pot belly, blue collared shirt, and grey hat, and his wife with a blue dress with flower-like frills around the collar.  They look at a display case with jade, and the attendant takes out some jade to show them how to tell the difference between fake jade and real jade, scratching selected pieces on the glass.  The couple seems mesmerized, completely taken in by the attendant’s spiel that she has given over and over, time after time.  I leave the couple and suddenly feel like I want to exit the building.  I turn around to go out the way I came in, but I’m stopped by another employee.

“I’m sorry, you have to keep going forward,” she points in the other direction.

I turn around and discover that, like a Las Vegas Casino, this warehouse has been designed so that finding the exit is actually quite difficult.  There’s no straight path to the exit, and I have to wind my way around in a sort of mazelike manner as barriers have been constructed in order to funnel all of the customers past the main display cases with the various jewelry and kitsch.  I’ve had enough, though, and I need to find the exit.  After many twists and turns, I find my way back out into the light.  Our tour guide is outside near the bus, directing customers towards a cafeteria for lunch.

“Hey….I’m ready to go,” I tell him.

“Hmmmm….ok…wait a sec.”  He reaches into the little pack he carries around his waste and pulls out a slip of paper.

“This form provides evidence that you have willingly withdrawn from today’s tour and (company’s name) will not be held responsible for your return trip to Dalian.  By signing this form you agree to free (company’s name) from any reponsibility towards your person.  You leave this tour in good will and good faith.”

I sign my name on the form and shake the guide’s hand.

“Thanks for the tour.  It’s a tough job, isn’t it?” I ask.

“You know it, brother,” and with that, I take off past the cafeteria, around a fence, and out into the streets, looking for the ghosts of 203 Hill.

The surface of this one is tinted grey, like the clouds overhead.  There are a couple of small streaks of white in this one.  It caught my eye, nubbing out of the sand.  I rub my thumb over its ridged edge and fit it in the palm of my hand.  There are some grains of sand still clinging to it.  If I could drill a small hole in the part of the shell where it curves inwards at is thickest point to meet the bottom section of the shell, it would make a nice finishing piece to a necklace, maybe the only piece.  I put the clam shell in my pocket with the other six shells.  Searching for more.

The beach is pretty silent and dismal.  It’s a tourist spot that is waiting, waiting, for the tourists to come.  In China they always come.  There are not many people here on Clam Island on this day, but there are a few on a terrace up ahead.  Next to the terrace is a small restaurant, probably with overpriced and oversalted food.  I hear the voices of a school group behind me, coming down the stairs.  I turn my head to look at them.  At the bottom of the stairs is the Chinese character , “fo,” meaning “Buddhism.  I doubt that this is a holy Buddhist site.  The symbol was probably carved there in red in order to attract more visitors.  It’s impossible just to have a quiet island in China.  One has to put some spiritual significance into the island in order to get the tourists to come.  I pick up a skipping stone and skip it.  I love skipping stones.  Getting the stone to skip twice is easy enough.  Three times is the key.  I walk along the dank beach and listen to the waves, searching for perfect skipping stones and other clam shells to pick up.  The island is not bad.  Time for lunch.

Eraserhead and Tanman

I go to the only restaurant on the island and plop myself down at a round table that is much bigger than it needs to be.  The wind is blowing the cellaphane covering on top of the table.  I put an ashtray in a strategic location so as to keep the covering from blowing away.  One of the waitresses comes over to me and gives me a menu and I order a big bowl of noodles.  I feel like a tiny king on his huge throne.  There are so many empty tables surrounding my table, along with empty chairs.  On the terrace above mine, the seats are starting to fill in with the school group visiting the island.  In the corner of my eye I see the blue and white of their uniforms that form into a middle school collage.

One of the waitresses comes over to take my order.  She has straight bangs.  The left and right sides of her bangs are longer than the middle, kind of making her head look like a sort of helmet.  I order a bowl of noodles and sit back with my bag of clams, watching the grey surf in front of my eyes, trying my best to look cool and purposeful, alone on my throne.

The bowl of noodles comes to me a few minutes later.  Standing behind me I hear a voice.

“Hey man,” it’s the Tanman.  He leans against the wall smoking a cigarette.  “Where yuh from, brother?”

“US.”

“US?  Cool.  Never been there before.  What the heck yuh doing in Zhuanghe?”

Good question.

“Just wanted to visit Clam Island before heading down to Dalian^W.” 

“Sounds good, sounds good…no one comes out here.”  He puffs cigarette smoke in the air.

The cook, Eraserhead, walks over to the conversation.  There are old grease burns on his young arms.  He lights up a cigarette using Tanman’s cigarette.

“So….” I start.  “Are the two of you Buddhist?  I see that there’s a temple next door.”  I gesture over to the temple.

Sluuuuuuurp!  The noodles aren’t so great.  There’s not much to eat out here, though.

“Nah…it’s just gettin’ started here anyway.  Not many people come out here.  You live in Beijing?”  Eraserhead points at me with his cigarette.  His belly is like a deflated basketball.

“I do…ever been there?”

“Coupla times.  City’s pretty big.  Whatcha’ do there?”

“Work in a travel company.”

“Travel eh?  Guess you can go lots of places for free then, huh?”  Eraserhead seems more interested in this conversation as we discuss travel.  I can imagine him desperately trying to find the exit of Clam Island.

Sluuuuuuuuuurp!  Oily and salty.  Little chunks of beef.

“Not really.  I paid to come here.”

Hitchhiker

After finishing my meal and Q & A with Eraserhead and Tanman, I decide it’s time to leave Clam Island.  Because I have a sense of dignity, I send a message to Friendlydriver.  I know he won’t come and pick me up, but I have principles, and I know I owe him 10 rmb, even if he believes I owe him 50 rmb.

I text:  Friendlydriver, I’m leaving Clam Island.  If you want to come and pick me up, please give me a call.  I still owe you 10 rmb.

I walk up the hill to the smell of the gas that’s used in the kitchen below.  Diesel.  This island wants to be developed.  I can feel the Chinese spirit of entrepreneurship trying its best to eek it’s way to Clam Island, but it’s turdness has done a successful job of turning away the investors.  I walk past a statue of an angel.  There’s nothing written below her form as she stands there and spreads out her arms.  There should be a sign here, but it’s unfinished, waiting for that investor’s touch.  I feel almost sorry for this lonely angel on Clam Island.  She wants to be beautiful, but everything about the statue just fills me with bleakness.  Void.  Landfill. 

I’ve got to get off this island. 

I walk around the island away from Nameless Angel, and there before me lies the long buttcrack road that leads back to the main highway.  Not being picturesque at all, I don’t even take a moment to enjoy the view.  It’s a long straightaway that goes to the main road, and there are no buses coming out here.  No cars.  No motorcycles.  Wasteland.  I could die here.  I could die anywhere.  It could happen at any moment.  I think this thought at least once per week, especially if I’m not busy.  Press on.  Stepping across the dirt and gravel, I gradually move away from the Turd and towards Buttcrack Road. 

When I reach the road, everything is suddenly ok.  There’s something that I enjoy about walking on lengthy, straight, narrow stretches of pavement.  Not just walking, actually, but driving as well.  I like places like Montana, or the Southwest, where one can drive for miles and miles without seeing another car, person, or even curve.  I imagine Russia would be great.  This road is one of those places.  I can pretend the possibilities are limitless here, even though there’s no way to go but straight.  “Infinity” roads such as this one save me a lot of wishy-wash.  They go on and on, and I can pour on the speed.  It doesn’t matter that I’m in China, the most populous country in the world.  For the next 20 minutes, it’s just me and the buttcrack, just me and the road.  The scene is bleak.  Left and right are “fields” of grey sludge with crabs darting back and forth.  Up ahead towards the left, I see a guy actually in the sludge.  He’s pulling a net across the marsh, and it seems as if he has to use all his might just to lug it.  I stop when I reach his bicycle and slowly watch him pull his net towards me.  He looks up, but I can’t see the expression upon his face, but I imagine he is Sisyphus, forever doomed to walk through this sludge of crabs, dragging his net behind him for eternity.  The pants that he wears are rolled up around his knees.  It’s calming to watch the footprints form and slowly disappear behind him as he walks.  When he reaches the wall of rocks that line the side of the road, he looks up, wipes his brow and drags the netting up the side of the wall. 

“Crabs?”  I ask.

“En,” he says.

Off again.

I look at my watch and note the time.  It’s already after noon.  If I were to try to walk to the bus station, it would take me more than a couple of hours, I think.  Plus, I have no idea where the bus station is.  When I took Friendly Driver I wasn’t planning to walk back, so I didn’t pay much attention to the direction we were going.   Approaching the main road, I feel my mobile phone buzz.

“If you want to give me the money, you can meet me at the bus station.”  Friendly Driver.

“Ok, I’ll let you know when I get there,” I respond.

Looks as if I still have a mission.  Now to get to the bus station.  I decide to walk left.  Maybe I’ll find a bus going to the station.  I walk for about two minutes along the road next to the coast and feel like a soldier who has been dropped by his regiment.  I don’t have to walk for long.  A minivan cruises by and slows its speed.  A young man with a little beard on his chin sticks his head out of the window and speaks to me in clear English.

“Hey, where are you trying to get to?” he asks.

“I’m just trying to walk to the bus station.  Is there a bus around here somewhere?”

“Not for a bit.  You want to get in the car?  We can drop you off at a bus stop and from there you can get a bus to the station.”  When he says, “we,” I look in the driver’s seat and notice a girl who I guess is his girlfriend sitting in the passenger seat.  They seem nice enough.  I can’t imagine this couple wants to take me back to Clam Island.  I follow my gut.

“Sure, thanks,” I walk to the minvan.  Hitchhiking has never been so easy.

There are some things one can just feel without asking.  I know that this guy isn’t going to ask me to give him anything.  He just wants to help out for a few minutes and is curious.  I also know that this girl is his girlfriend.  I can tell by the way she’s looking at ME.

“So, why is your English so good?” I ask the driver, who’s English name is Sean.

“I lived in Ireland for 7 years,” he said, “I was working in finance then.”

“Ireland, cool….” seems like the right thing to say.  “Did you like it?”  I think back to when I lived in Ireland and completed my student teaching in a two-room school house about one decade earlier.  A decade later I look back at the experience fondly.  During the time I was there, however, there were times I wanted to put a drain in the country so that the cynicism could slowly leak out into the ocean.  Afterwards, the land would be awash with optimism and genuinely nice people and I would plug the hole back up.  Still, I take the experience for what it is and will keep the Liams and Rorys and Sadies in my heart until the day that I die.  I woudn’t change a thing about it, in retrospect.

Sean doesn’t even think for a moment about his Irish experience.  He looks in the rearview mirror so that he can see me clearly.

“No, I hated it,” he says.  “I was bored there.”

“But…you spent 7 years there.  You must like SOMETHING about the country.”  That’s the thing…even when you’re walking on the turd, there must be something redeeming about the turd itself.  I went to Clam Island and I got my clams.  They’re in my bag.  I had a fight there.  I was alive there.  The farther and farther I get from Clam Island, the more endearing it will become to me.  The same thing happened with Ireland.  The same thing happened with Japan after I left.  It’s very rare for me to hate a place or concentrate on the negative aspects after I leave that place, even if I didn’t like it while I was there.  I can get nostalgic for the the telephone polls, if I really think about them long and hard enough.  What about Sean?

“Not really,” he says.  “I didn’t have many friends there.  I didn’t like my job.  It was no fun.  It rains there all the time.  No karaoke.”

“Ah…well, at least you made it back to Zhuanghe.”  His girfriend laughs.  I feel the phone in my pocket vibrate again.  It’s Friendlydriver.

The message reads:  Don’t worry about the 10rmb.  Keep it to yourself.  Have a good trip.

Sean and his girlfriend drop me off at a bus stop where it’s convenient to take a bus to the main bus station.  No more missions in Zhuanghe.  I’ve got its shells in my pocket.  Years later, they’ll be filled when I turn my head to look again.  I love the sludge.

I don’t even call the Taxman or Boss Lady.  It’s a rainy day, and I don’t want to make the two of them get out of bed and “see me off” at the bus station.  I can’t deal with another sack of processed food to weigh me down on my journey to Exhaust Pipe City.  Plus, the evening before  ended so perfectly.  The last vision I want to cradle in my imagination of the two of them is the hazy dream image of the previous evening.  Seeing them again would be like waking up and starting over.  Make a clean cut.  I decide to leave the pile of snacks that Policewoman Qu had given me the day before.  I want to lighten my load for the road.  Cut the fat out of my sack. 

When I leave my room with the red curtains behind, I can hear the sound of light drizzle outside.  Up until this point, I’ve known more rain in the previous two days of travel in Liaoning than I have in the previous hundred days in Beijing.  There will be more rain to come on this day.

Exhaust Pipe City

 When I arrive at Zhuanghe bus station, it could be any small bus station anywhere in China.  I immediately get the feeling that I don’t want to spend the night here as soon as I arrive at the station.  It just has a dirty feeling to it.  Something repels me, like evil inside.  I go to the ticket counter and buy a late afternoon ticket for Dalian^W, which is about 2 hours away by bus.  The current time is just around 10am.  My bus for Dalian leaves after 5pm.  I figure I need to spend some time in Zhuanghe.  I need to see SOMETHING here, or meet SOMEONE.  There has to be a reason for coming here. 

As always, one of the first things I do is to buy a local map.  After purchasing it at the small convenience store behind the information counter, I open it up and immediately begin to look for the green spots that denote public parks and tourist areas.  There’s one spot that catches my eye, Black Island.  I’m curious about this island…perhaps a park devoted to Tintin?  There are other islands and spots on the map, one named Clam Island. 

While looking at the map, I feel a man watching me.  Actually, I hear him first.  He’s jingling his keys around in his pockets.  Black taxi driver for sure.  I’ve met enough of these guys to know one when I see one.  His hair is cut short, his sunglasses are propped up on his forehead above his eyes, and he has a tan face that I do not trust.  Still, he’s the first driver to approach me, and I don’t want to waste time looking for drivers.  His name is Mr. Zhou.  He hands me his business card.  It reads:  Mr. Zhou.  Your Friendly Driver!

To Clam Island

The car is sleek and black.  On the dashboard is one of those fragrance bottles that gives the interior a woman’s scent.  The seats are covered with fake fur, making me feel gaudy and oste.  We drive in silence at first.  I tell Friendly Driver Zhou to go in the direction of Black Island.  It’s only after my instruction that I realize I’ve made the cardinal error of not discussing prices prior to sitting in his car. Damn.  This guy’s got me if he wants me.  I know nothing about the distances or prices here.  I don’t know if these island’s have tickets at their entrances or not.  I ask him about Black Island.

“Yessir.  Black Island.  You’ll like that place….a must see!  There’s wreckage from a Qing Dynasty ship there.  Pretty cool…”  There’s wreckage in your pants, I think to myself.  I don’t know what it is…something about this guy…

“So,” I venture, “What’s the price for going there?”

“That?  Oh…120rmb.”  Silence.  I don’t want to spend that much money for the transportation.

“Hmmmm….what about Clam Island?”

Friendly Driver raises his eyebrows, his glasses move on his head.  The wreckage in his pants settles a little further toward the accelerator, along with gravity. 

“Nothing to see there….just an island.  Just opened up…pretty boring…”  Silence.

“So, what’s the price for going there?” 

“40rmb.”

“Ok, I’ll take it…let’s go there.”  To me, it’s all the same.  An island is an island, and I’m not much of an island man.  I can take it or leave it.  A man is an island, and I’ve got myself floating in the sea.  Indolent clouds sloth apathetically overhead, reflecting the black ocean water that we approach…or is it the sea that reflects the clouds?  I never was a student of meteorology.

The Faceoff

Friendly Driver takes his hands off the wheel and points ahead and to the right.

“There it is, Hoss,” he says.

Clam Island.  I turn my head and look out the window to see a gigantic lump of Earth Turd that has somehow stolen the right to be called Clam Island.  The sight of the island depresses me.  It seems appropriate that the sky is overcast.  I cannot imagine a blue sky behind the Earth Turd.  The middle of the island is discolored and scarred orange after being blasted in the past by dynamite.  The rocks have been quarried out, and its face is slashed like a celebrity missing his nose after a plastic surgery gone awry.  We approach the turnoff for the island and make a right.  Our car goes down a straight and narrow buttcrack of a spit that leads diretctly to the middle of the island.  On both sides of the buttcrack road are pools of black sludge, left behind by the high tide.  I see sideways’ crabs scurrying in and out of their dirty little holes in the sludge.  Sometimes a suicidal sideways’ crab makes a break for it across the road.  One or two are inevitably smashed by Friendly Driver’s vehicle.  The Earth Turd approaches, looming overhead.  I’ll spend a good part of my afternoon here. 

We arrive at the spot where each visitor unbelievably had to buy a 10rmb ticket in order to enter the island.  I pay the money for the island, and then I prepare to pay the Friendly Driver.

“All right…here’s 30 for you now…I’ll give you the remaining 10 when I make my round of Clam Island.  Or do you want to come with me while I walk around?  You’re welcome to.”

Friendly Driver seems to misunderstand, “Wait…no, no no….it’s 40 each way.  Altogether it’s 80 both ways.  You give me the 40 now.”

“Sorry…that’s not what you said.  You said 40.  You didn’t say 80.  I can only give you 30 now.  I’ll give you the 10 when I get back.”  I get out of the car and put my backpack on.

“Wait….nuh nuh nuh nuh….That’s not the deal.  Give me my 40 now.  You can’t just walk off like that!”  His voice gets louder.  There’s no one else around on the island except for the people who just took my ticket money, and they’ve already gone back in their little shack.

“Listen…I’ve got principles.  You need to be clear when you state a price.  You said 40.  I’ll call you when I get back and give you 10.  I’ve got your card.”  I hold up his business card.  When he sees it, suddenly his face turns purple, and he actually starts to drive after me over the pebbles and rubble.  He doesn’t have to drive fast as I’m in no hurry.  It’s at this moment that I realize that he might actually have intentions to fight me.  For some reason, however, I don’t worry.  I can’t even trust his anger.

“No!  Give me back my card!  I will NOT come and pick you up.  Give me back my card.  Give it back to meeeeeeeeee!”

“Look buddy, this is not YOUR card anymore.  YOU gave it to ME, remember?  How am I going to promote your business without your card?”  This last question is a bit overboard, I admit. 

“There’s no WAY I’m picking you up!”  He yells, and then pulls a U-turn and drives back towards the buttcrack road.  I’m left by myself on the island with no idea how to get back to the bus station.  There are no other cars here, and it’s at least a 20 minute walk to the main road.   The dust is still settling from his car as I watch him pull away.  The black vehicle gets smaller and smaller until it disappears as it makes a left turn back on the main road.  Silence and dust.

Time to find some clams.