Changing Demographics
Devil Monkey is on the bus. I immediately notice him sitting towards the  front when I board. He is still wearing the same green camaflouge suit that he wore the night before when he passed me in the street with his three monkeys. Said monkeys are nowhere to be seen. They have disappeared. It’s only him sitting on the bus. He seems smaller and naked without them dragging behind him, like He-Man withouth his sword. He has a friend sitting next to him–maybe another Devil Monkey. I can’t be sure. He recognizes me when I board the bus and raises his eyebrows in surprise. I greet him with a smile. Good Devil Monkey. I sit in a seat in towards the back.
A couple of aesthetic changes take place within the bus itself during the course of the journey to Hai Yuan. At the beginning of the ride, there are still plenty of empty seats on the bus. It is about 3 quarters full, and I am comfortably seated next to the window with no one beside me. As the bus proceeds towards its ultimate destination in Hai Yuan, a place I really know nothing about, more and more people board the bus, filling it well past its alloted capacity. Every time the bus stops for new passengers, the driver opens the back of the bus for them to throw their bags. At the same time he does this, Devil Monkey hurredly gets off the bus and runs to the back. It’s at this moment that I realize where his monkeys are. Fearing that they will escape or be crushed by the baggage, he rushes to the back to make sure they are ok. The passengers who board the bus get on at random intervals and wave the bus down as if they are hailing a taxi cab in New York City. At one point, a woman with a small baby boards the bus and has no place to sit. The ticket-taker hands her a small stool with legs that are about 3 inches off the ground to stoop on. I stand up and tell her to sit in my seat, which she does. I stoop on the stool. However, only a minute later the ticket-taker almost forcefully makes me stand up and take my seat back. The woman with the baby sits back on the stool on the floor. I feel like I have no choice. I sit back in my seat, embarrassed. By this time, the aisle is jam packed with standing passengers.
Besides the increase in the number of humans on the bus, I also notice a change in the style of dress as well. Because the members of the Hui minority are Muslim, the men wear a traditional skull cap on their head. The cap is usually white, or has a few intricately hand woven designs. The women also cover their heads with black or white scarves. Some of the elderly men have long beards, something that I don’t often see amongst members of the Han ethnicity. Many of the older men also wear extremely large, square-shaped sunglasses, much like the former Chairman Jiang ZeminW wore. The bus gradually makes its way towards more barren and arid landscape, and the interior of the bus gradually transforms from a predominantly Han group of passengers to a Hui majority of passengers.
The towns we pass through on the road are dusty and dry. Some of the houses are made of Earth. The number of mosques increases as well. In each small town that we go through, the most spectacular building is sure to be the town’s mosque, always capped with the beautful emerald domes ending in mysterious golden crescent moons. They contrast with the blue sky and make me think of an oasis. At one stop, local women board the bus to hawk small plastic bags of local apricots. No one buys any. The Devil Monkey once again goes back to check on his brood.
We ride through a land not yet desert, but clearly lacking in water  resources. The Earth is cracked and parched with dried sores. It’s waiting to turn red. Still, the fields are tilled and things manage somehow to grow here and there. Ningxia’s speciality is the wolfberry, a small, cranberry like fruit that is supposedly very good for one’s health. They grow on small bushes and it’s easy to mistake them for small chili peppers from the window of a bus. Sometimes people put them in their tea, other times they soak them in grain alcohol. One can even eat them as is, directly from the bush. Even the desert has its treasures. The bus pulls us over small hills that aren’t quite yest mountains. The Earth’s crust is like the skin of a potato now. In less than an hour we’ll be there.
Arrival
I receive many stares at the bus station as I buy my return ticket for Zhongwei for the following morning. I don’t want to return too late the next day. Today will be my one and only day in Hai Yuan. Tomorrow after taking the train to Zhongwei I’ll go to see the girl I met on the train to Yinchun, Amanda from Wuhai, Inner Mongolia. I quickly buy a ticket and go to look for lunch. Devil Monkey and his crew have already left.
As soon as I enter the nearest restaurant, heads turn in my direction. There aren’t many heads to turn, however. It’s still a little bit early for lunch, so there are few customers present. I feel like the stranger who has blown into town in some B Western movie. I wonder if I made the right decision in coming to Hai Yuan or not.
I’m not sure what I should order here as I am unfamiliar with the food, so I  go over to the table next to me and check out what the two guys at that table are eating. They suggest I try a flat noodle dish. Apparently in these parts, noodles are the staple food. I should note that none of the dishes on the menu have any pork in them. Because the majority of people in this town are Hui minority, almost none of the restaurants serve pork. I take the advice of the locals and eat what they suggest. One of them brings me a glass of tea with some herbs and wolfberries in it. I comment on the wolfberries, asking if people all over the province eat these things, and the owner of the restaurant once again confirms the health benefits of this Ningxia specialty. A couple of minutes later he goes out and comes back in with a small back of wolfberries which he graciously gives to me as an extra gift, free of charge. Not bad. The lunch is good and the people are friendly. They talk with me a few minutes about Obama and how he got to be president. One of the guys gives a thumbs up at the mention of Obama’s name. I fill up and begin to feel like I definitely made the right choice in coming to Hai Yuan.
After paying for my meal I decide that I want to find a map of this place if at all possible. I walk away from the bus station uphill in the direction of the town. It feels small to me. It feels empty here. A lot of the buildings have their large doors open, and some of the windows looking inside display empty rooms with cement floors. It’s not run down here, it’s just that there is no one here–the Wild West. As I walk further up the hill, the number of people I pass increase. The stares I get are intensely curious. I can feel them staring at my back after I go by. Up ahead is a school that is just getting out of class. Oh great. I decide to ask one of the kids who is walking in my direction towards the school if she can help me find a map. She gawks at me at first as if I’m from another planet, then says that there is a bookstore up ahead. Leading me to the bookstore, I see the other elementary students across the street begin to point at me with their mouths agape. After I enter the book store I ask the owner about locating a map for Hai Yuan.
“A map?” she says. “Hmmmm…I don’t think there is a map for this place. We have a map for Ningxia, though. Here…where is that…?” She goes to a shelf and locates the section where the maps are and pulls out a book that contains comprehensive maps of Ningxia, including a page for Hai Yuan County. This is not what I want, however. I just want a folding map of the city I am in. They don’t have it. I thank her and turn to leave the store, only to find that the doorway is currently blocked by about 20 young children staring at me. There is no way to get out other than engaging them in conversation.
“Ooohh. You know if there was a fire, this wouldn’t be good,” I joke. They laugh. I feel they would have laughed at anything that comes out of my mouth. I do my best impersonation of Moses and part the sea. Across the street is another bookstore. I search inside for a map, but to no avail. Maybe they just don’t make them. Lewis and Clark would have a field day.
The store owner in the second book store points me in the direction of the center of town. That’s where I want to go. I’m still in search of a map, and that’s probably the best place to find one. It’s also probably the best place to find someone who will know how to sing hua er. Finding this type of singing style is my main mission in coming to this town. It’s the amorphous goal, the blob that brought me here. Now that I’m hear, however, it doesn’t really matter to me if I find the song or not. I’ll do my best to locate IT, but I can’t set my heart on this goal. I just want to let what comes to me come to me and enjoy Hai Yuan while I am here. There’s nothing that I HAVE to do.
After about 5 minutes of walking straight and never veering off the main street, I arrive near the town’s main square and suddenly decide that I want to locate a place to stay for the night so that I can put my bag down. Locating a small in, I walk up four flights of stairs and am greeted by a family behind the check in desk. There is a man with a moustache taking his midday rest, a young girl of about 20, and a younger girl who is about 4 years old. This is the hotel where I will stay. I don’t really care what the room will look like, and I know it’s not that expensive. I just like the look of this family. Still, I decide to play the “check-in” game and have a look at the room before giving my ultimate decision.
The proprietor of the hotel, Mr. Ma, is an amicable family man who shows me to a room at the end of the hallway. There is a leaky public sink on the left side of the hall. Wet, dirty hand towels hang on a wire above the sink. The right side of the hallway is lined with windows that let in the white light reflected off the rooftops and walls outside. Mr. Ma leads me to the room that is just after the public sinks and opens the door to a spacious room with a hard queen-sized bed. I put on my best “scrutinizing face,” squinting my eyes, patting the bed, handling the curtains, checking the lights, etc. Then it’s into the bathroom. The light in their is extremely thin and there are a couple of discarded cigarettes on the floor. The whole room is essentially one giant drain with the shower connected to the wall. There is a plunger placed in the middle of the room, directly over the drainage hole. This deliberate placement is to prevent the stink of the drainage from coming back up.
“Hot water?” I ask.
“Yes, just plug in the shower here, and you can bathe about 20 minutes later after it heats up,” he shows me where the plug to the water heater is at. Afterwards he demonstrates how to use the shower. The water dribbles out at a pitiful pace, but I tell him I’ll take the room anyway. It’s just one night.
I toss my bag on the bed and head back to the front desk with him to fill out the registration. First I pull out my passport. Obviously, I have no Chinese identification card, so it’s all in English and impossible for Mr. Ma to understand. I go through the registration form with him line by line.
“Name, ok. S-C-H-W-A-B, J-E-F-F-R-E-Y.” He writes in my name.
“Age, 29. Male.” No problem here.
“Uh? Identy number?” I point to my passport number and he writes it down. Then I show him the page with the visa number. So far, so good. I’ve done this plenty of times. It’s a breeze. Just as we are about to finish the check in process, we hit a snag that I’ve never met before in China.
“Ethnicity?” he asks. I balk at the question. Ethnicity? He already knows I’m American. I always balked at this question in the past whenever I took standardized tests. There was that block of choices for the test taker to fill in what ethnic group he belonged to:
Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, Other
I usually left this blank or chose “other” when faced with this question, thinking to myself why do the people or machines who mark this test need to know my ethnic background? I realize now that it was probably for statistic results, but still, it always rubbed me the wrong way. Here I am, thousands of miles and years away from the SAT, and I’m being asked to file myself away in an ethnic group by Mr. Ma.
“Ethnicity?” he asks again.
“I don’t have an ethnicity. I’m an American,” I say.
He pauses and contemplates for a second, the pen in his right hand hovering over the registration form.
“Are you Han Chinese or Hui Minority?” he asks again, rephrasing the questions. I’m clearly not getting out of this situation without providing an answer.
“Han or Hui?” he asks again.
The pen doesn’t budge. The air is still. Who am I?
Wizard of Oz
Returning from the desert, I decide to go directly to Hell. After saying goodbye to Dirk Lee and purchasing a ticket for Hai Yuan County (apparently the birthplace of hua er, the singing style I want to hear) departing Zhongwei the following morning, it’s finally time to explore Zhongwei’s “High Temple” and the secrets it holds within.
Taking a bus to the Zhongwei’s drum tower, I make my way through the back streets of Zhongwei towards the High Temple and come upon a glistening tiled road. It’s empty and the Sun bakes the surface. The road is a kind of a  wide pedestrian street or public square lined on both sides by street lamps that are lit up at night. The surface of the street seems to be smooth and made of polished granite. It’s the kind of surface that is perfect for rollerblading, if that is your thing. On the first night that I came to Zhongwei I saw this street, and it was filled with children running around, children on skateboards, old folks sitting around shooting the breeze, young lovers holding hands, and others rollerblading. This afternoon, besides myself, there is not a soul on the glistening Yellow Brick Road. The eerie silence that occurs directly after the tornado deposits Dorothy’s house in Oz, crushing the Wicked Witch to death, pervades the atmosphere. There are no munchkins. There is no wizard. There is only Him. At the end of the glistening street, standing stoically with his overcoat magically blowing open on this windless day, there is a mammoth statue of Mao Ze Dong, towering over all that he sees. On the plaque in front of him it reads:
“The Great Marxist thinker, the great revolutionary, military strategist and philospher–Chairman Mao.”
Behind his shoulder I can see where I want to go, the High Temple. All is quiet and hot, the kind of heat that comes off the sidewalk and makes a buzzing sound in my ears. I share a couple of moments with the Chairmain, with whom I also share a birthday. At this moment I completely understand and share my friend Simon’s affinity towards statues. It brings me peace to be there with the Chairman. No one disturbs us. Satan and his Hell seem far from this place. How little we know.
The Gateway
Entering the gate to the high temple, it is not immediately apparent to me  that evil lies within it’s belly. The temple itself is beautiful and ornate. As I walk around to examine the intricately painted walls and turrets, I am extremely impressed at how well preserved the structure is for having being built during the Ming DynastyW. With over 250 rooms inside the temple, I take my time walking around it’s base. There are other visitors in the floors above me who have just ascended the staircase to the rooftop. It is at the point where one can climb to the roof that I feel the cold and dank air seeping out from behind a corner. Curious at the slight drop in temperature and moldy smell, I decide to investigate further. There, standing at the entrance to the temple’s catacombs is a young chinese man, about my age. He seems like he is debating some question in his mind. He shifts back and forth from one foot to another, gripping his cellphone in one hand. His skin has turned pale.
“I’m glad you came. I was scared. I don’t want to go in by myself.” I shake hands with the frightened young man and ask him what’s inside the darkness.
“This is the gateway to Hell,” he says. “Will you go in with me?”
Beneath the Depths
The young man is from HarbinW in Dongbei ProvinceW. I’ll call him  “Angel.” Like Dirk Lee, Angel is also here on business and will have to stay in Zhongwei for one week. Today is his first day in town. He tells me he has been standing in front of the doorway to the gateway to Hell for the past few minutes, trying to get up his nerve to face his fear and enter the darkness. Like me, he is also 29 years old. He shows me the sign in front of the gateway that describes the secrets of High Temple’s bowels.
According to the notice, underneath High Temple’s majestic and holy turrets lies the largest display depicting the 18 levels of Buddhist Hell and Torment. I have seen displays of Buddhist Hell before, most recently when I visited a cave open to tourists outside of Beijing’s outskirts with my friend, Simon. We entered the cave with a group of Chinese tourists and a guide, walking through the clammy depths for about 20 minutes until we arrived at a precipice that led to a stairwell down to Hell. The guide told us that the tour would end at the top of these stairs, but we were free to venture down to view the display of Buddhist Hell if we wanted to. Just like the great botoanist, Luther BurbankW, Simon and I had nothing to fear, for we were both infidels (and still are). We were the only ones in the group to walk down the stairs. Were the other members of the tour group afraid like Angel, or were they just tired and did not want to walk back up the stairs? Whatever the answer, Angel was clearly afraid of venturing in alone.
“Sure, let’s go in,” I say. We walk into Hell, which is completely dark, except for the faint christmas lights and exit lights that line the walls and ceilings. Walking down the corridor, I become more and more impressed with the underground labrynth of High Temple’s catacombs. They are quite extensive and keep a relatively cool temperature. After a few steps we come to the first chamber, which is labeled, “Hell of Flames.” As soon as we enter this room, a red light turns on automatically and Angel and I are faced with a scene of torture in which a poor soul has his feet burned by hot pokers. Holding the hot pokers are black demons, giggling with relish and justification. He lies strapped to a bed of hot coals. Accompanying the red light is the sound of recorded screaming. Angel and I stand there for a couple of seconds, silently watching this frozen stasis of torture before moving on to the next Hell, the “Hell of Dismemberment by Sawing.” Once again, we are faced by a scene of giddy demons who hold another unfortunate sinner, forever captive due to his crimes in life. He hangs by the arms while two demons voraciously grab opposite ends of the saw and begin to cut him in two, starting from his crotch. Crude blood is painted on his body as it spatters the demon’s legs, bathing them in his sin.
Angel and I walk from room to room, faced each time with another scene of  horror and gore. There is the “Hell of Tongue Ripping,” the “Hell of Torso-severing,” the “Hell of Eye Gouging,” the “Hell of Maggots,” etc. Apparently, each of the separate Hells is specialized for particular sins. Cold-blooded murderers are thown into the “Hell of Pounding,” peeping toms go to the “Hell of Eye Gouging,” people with evil hearts are approrpriately put into the “Hell of Heart Gouging.” As we slowly make our way through the 18 levels of Hell, I begin to wonder if there are perhaps other, easier and more relaxed levels of Hell for those lesser sins? These ones seem pretty heavy. They aren’t, however, Hells that I am personally accquainted with. Where’s the “Hell of perpetual ‘My Heart Will Go On’,” a Hell seemingly reserved for me, as this Celine Dion song is ubiquitous and never-ending all over China? And what about the “Hell of having to drink grain alcohol with grown adults at business dinners?” Something I’m all too familiar with at this point. Let’s not forget the “Hell of having to construct a mobile project and balance it just correctly so that the margin of error for the balance is less thatn .09 percent.” This was a personal Hell that seemed painstakingly impossible, frustrating, and useless to me at the time I had to do it while attending an Indiana University physics and science course. Still, the “lesser Hells” don’t seem to make there way here amongst the big boys. Angel and I continue our walk.
Twice during our lonely walk through the chambers of Hell, our tour is  interrupted by another kind of display, the road to salvation. In between two of the chambers, we notice a large cluster of Christmas lights and a box in front of the lights. Just as we pass in front of the box, more lights automatically illuminate the wall behind the box, showing a set of stairs leading upwards. The light is golden, and the stairway is flanked on both sides by kind Buddhas striking calm and inviting poses. They seem much more benevolent than the bloodthirsty demons torturing the sinners in the 18 chambers of Hell. As I admire the display for the road to salvation, I look more carefully at the box and notice that there is a slot there big enough for one to put money in. Oh. So that’s how you get out of Hell. Neither Angel nor myself put money in the box to salvation. Little do we realize how much our seemingly innocent neglect will affect the outside world.
Pandora’s Box
Exiting Hell without getting lost is not an easy thing to do, but Angel and I manage to escape. We simply follow the green exit signs which thankfully really do lead us upward to the light. Angel seems relieved to be back on the surface again. The color returns to his cheeks and he doesn’t grip his cellphone so tightly. He tells me that he needs to message his wife. They are still newly weds, and this is his first time away for a business trip.
“Before getting married I always thought going on business trip would be great. Now I just want to stay at home and spend time with my wife,” he tells me while punching away a message on his phone at the same time. We walk up to the top of the stairs to view the turrets and and the view of the town. As I make my way up the stairs, I turn around and notice that it’s easy to spot Chairman Mao’s statue in the distance. He still seems larger than life from up here. On the other side of the High Temple I can see Zhong We’s train station that I only arrived at the day before. The town is small and compact. All of the most important places are within walking distance. Walking around the side of the temple, I hear screams coming from the shady side. Thinking perhaps someone has been injured, I rush to investigate. What I discover is almost as disturbing in an entirely different way.
The screams come from some girls directly next to this beautiful and ancient temple, less than 50 meters away. I am relieved to find that they are  not screams of terror, but screams of excitement and joy instead. There are two girls riding on an amusument park ride. It’s not a roller coaster, but one of those rides that circles around and around vertically, while at the same time rotating the seats as a merry-go-round would. The ride is within a large steel circle and makes it’s participants swing back and forth, back and forth. Each time they swing back and forth, they swing higher and higher until they eventually are being fully rotated upside down in one direction, and then backwards in the opposite direction. Although this ride is directly next to the temple, I didn’t notice it until after exiting Hell. Did I unleash this ugly amusement park ride from pandora’s box and carelessly juxtapose it next to this ancient temple, spoiling the view for future visitors? I wonder if I should go back to Hell and toss in a coin. Maybe when I come out, the ugly ride will have disappeared. The girls go back and forth, back and forth, screaming and laughing. Coins and earrings fall to the ground. Do they even know that there is an ancient temple right next door? That Hell is waiting for them? I watch them finish their ride, knowing that I would immediately vomit if I sat in their place. They wobble out of their seats and search the ground for the belongings that fell out of their pockets. Angel finds me watching the girls as they dizzily leave the park below and exit the mysterious amusement park ride.
In the evening Angel treats me to a dinner. During dinner we are mostly silent. The lights in the restaurant go out 3 times while we eat. Customers make a fit. I should have paid the coin. I should have paid the coin. Is Angel contemplating the same sin? Does he feel guilty for not putting the money in the slot to the road to salvation? I look over at him as I scoop a spoonful of porridge into my mouth. He is looking down. At first I think he might be praying. It turns out he’s just sending his wife another message on his cellphone. We hardly speak at all for the rest of the meal.
After dinner, I walk Angel back towards the High Temple. His hotel is near the train station. We part from each other without even exchanging phone numbers in accordance with keeping with the sinner’s vow. I meander my way back towards my hotel and walk along the road. The temperature is cooler now that the Sun is down…almost as cool as when we were underneath the temple. Strolling down the main avenue, I don’t have any real destination in mind. I just want to walk off my stomach a little bit. As I pass the temple, it’s then that I see the Monkey Devil He is short and gangly, with straggly hair shooting out in all directions. His face is wrinkled and he wears army clothes. He walks with a big stride, a stride bigger than his legs, a John Wayne stride, a stride that says he is a man who won’t be messed with. Two monkeys trail him from behind. One is on his shoulders. In one hand he holds leashes to which all three monkeys are connected. Each of the leashes is connected to a collar which is affixed around the monkeys’ necks. The two walking behind the Monkey Devil are older. One is clearly male, and other is female, her mammory glands sag along the road lathargically. The monkey on Monkey Devil’s back is just a baby. From time to time, Monkey Devil yanks the older monkeys along, urging them to walk faster, choking their necks. He holds a whip in his other hand but doesn’t use it. Not yet. Not now. I look at the Devil Monkey and he looks at me, trying to make out my face in the darkness. He sends me a blank stare, but doesn’t slow down his pace and continues to an unknown destination. After he passes, I stop to watch the small procession with curiousity, wondering what other oddities await me in Hai Yuan County the next day. Pandora’s box has been unleashed.
We’re off to see the desert
“Maybe we can be partners today?” The young man sitting in front of me on the bus going to Sha Po Tou says to me. For the past few minutes I’ve noticed him turnning around to glance at me, as if he wanted to speak with me. When I got on the bus, it was full and so I sat in the back in the only available seat. Next to me was a girl, probably 22 or 23 years old. She complimented me on my Chinese, and I felt comfortable squished between her on my right and the old woman on my left. I don’t know what Sha Po Tou is, but I know it’s a place one should go when visiting Zhongwei. I know it has something to do with the Yellow River and the desert. That’s enough for me. Keep expectations low, and you’re sure not to be disappointed. It’s a cloudless day, and the desert is certainly filled with scalding sand, just like a desert should be. As the bus makes its way through the small hamlets that surround Zhongwei, passengers get off carrying bags of groceries or goods from “the city” back to their homes. The homes get progressively simpler as we get farther from the city. Some of them are even made of clay or dirt, it seems. I move forward to sit in an empty window seat. That’s when the young man with the glasses turns around and sees his chance to take a seat next to me, across the aisle.
“My English name is Dirk Lee. You can call me Dirk,” he says. Dirk is not from around here. He comes from the Northeast Province of Jinan City. He has been in the city of Zhongning, between Zhongwei and Yinchuan for the past few weeks on a business trip. That’s all I know at this time. Tonight, he’ll fly back home. His girlfriend is waiting for him.
“Yeah, maybe we can be a pair today. It’s always better if you have someone to travel with you, I think,” he says. Dirk seems like a pretty nice guy. Someone who needs a traveling buddy, anyway. He tells me that he’s been in Zhongning for the past 2 months, sent here to work on some “management projects” having to to with “turbine generators.”
“I do not like this job. But I have to work for life,” he says, matter-of-factly.
Instead of dwelling on turbine generators, we talk about America and the NBA. He’s a big basketball fan and especially likes Kobe and the Lakers. As we talk about the NBA I realize I am really out of the loop. He mentions players that I have never even heard of. It’s been a long time since I’ve had the time or opportunity to watch an NBA game. I don’t even have a television in my apartment. In addition to NBA and basketball, he’s also a huge European soccer fan. I’m even more out of the loop regarding soccer. He tells me that if he could realize any dream it would be to buy his own soccer team. I ask him about any other dreams that he has.
“This is the only one for now. But it should need a lot of money.” Or talk of dreams, sports, and travel makes the trip to Sha Po Tou go by fast. Before I know it we have arrived at our destination. Off to the left side of the bus is one of the many arms of the Yellow River, cutting through the arid landscape and mountains. We exit the bus and walk towards the entrance gate to “The Desert.” There are pictures of camels and children sliding down sand dunes. Dirk Lee and I enter the front gate.
Poet on the Dune
Walking into the front gate of Sha Po Tou, I’m still unsure of what there is  exactly to do here, but I get the ever increasing feeling that I am entering a desert dune wonderland. Yet to catch any glimpse of the desert, I can feel its presence around me, creeping towards me. Dirk and I walk along the road, forgoing the shuttle that would take us to the foot of the gigantic dunes that wait for us ahead. As we walk along, I look off to the left at the mountains in the distance and the Yellow River. There is a gigantic tower right in the middle of the scenery beside the river. From this tower one can bunjee jump towards the river, headfirst. I know I will not do this.
After a few minutes, we can see an enormous sand dune waiting for us. This is Sha Po Tou, or the “Golden Sand and Humming Bell.” It is also the beginning of the Tengger Desert. The dune in front of us seems like a gigantic head, impossible to scale. At the same time, we notice some dots of people slowly trying to make their way down the slope. As we approach the gigantic sand head, we pass stables of camels on the right side. A woman wakes up from her nap, arises, and touts the benefits of riding a camel up to the top of the head for a true desert feel. We decide to pass up the chance. A few steps further, another woman sits on a little 10 seater electric bus and tries to get us to join her. We decide to instead wait for a few minutes as the price is cheaper with more people. I’m not in any rush, and neither is Dirk Lee. We sit down in the shade and stare up at the head of sand in front of us. The woman goes back to the electric bus, sits down, and begins fanning herself lazily.
After a couple of minutes of chatting, Dirk Lee gets up and walks to a table  where another woman is selling gifts and momentos. He tells me that he wants to buy something for his girlfriend. He’s been in Zhongning for almost 2 months, but until now hasn’t bought anything for her. I stay seated in the shade, enjoying the quietness of the scenery, the yellow head of sand behind me, still waiting for us to ascend it. Dirk Lee comes back to the table, having made his purchase. In his right hand is an enormous rock. It appears to be made of sandstone, I am guessing. It’s greenish in color and looks like a cluster of shellfish piled on top of each other in clumps.
“The saleswoman told me it’s called a ‘desert rose.’ Pretty cool, huh? You think my girlfriend will like it?” he asks me, looking to confirm his purchase.
“I’m sure she’ll like it,” I say. I hope no one ever gives me one of these things.
The woman on the electric bus walks over to us and tells us that if we want to go up she’ll give us a lower price. There don’t seem to be many people here today, so we agree on the price and sit on the bus. She rips us another ticket and begins the drive to the top of the sandy head. The ride up is swift and short under the blue sky. They’ve paved a road that leads to the top of the head of sand, and there are relatively few people when we arrive. A mother and her son sit on the sand, admiring the view of the Yellow River bending in front of us below. Off in the distance on the right I can see the beginning of other dunes. Everything around us is brown turning to yellow or yellow turning to brown. There is very little of the color green. The blue sky contrasts starkly with the glinting sand below or feet. I scoop up a handful and let it trickle out between my fingers. It’s warm. Directly in front of us beside the river is the gigantic bunjee tower, creating a sore amids the desert beauty. Behind us is a shop selling souvenirs and a restaurant. I hear the sound of a train coming from behind the shop. Apparantly behind the train tracks is the Tengger Desert, with never-ending dunes. Not 20 paces away from us is a large statue of a famous Tang DyntastW poet from Shanxi named Wang Wei. He strikes a poetic pose, stroking his beard, looking off in the distance at the dunes behind us. I wonder if he ever really stood like that? Was his posture that majestic? He is larger than life, and he holds a brush in his right hand, still dripping with the wisdom of his poems. Beside him is a large stone bearing the inscription of one of his famous poems about the desert and the Yellow River:
“Smoke rises over the desert, straight and lonely; the Sun sets over the Yellow river, perfect and round.”
I pause to look at the statue of Wang Wei, this man who has literally been turned into a giant in front of my eyes. I wonder if this son of the Tang Dynasty realized that one day he would be admired by a son of Lexington, Virginia? I look over at the son and mother sitting on the sand. He takes off his shoes and tests the sand, but it burns his feet. Quickly, he covers them again. Dirk Lee looks at me.
“Let’s go back behind the dunes to play in the desert.”
The Dunes
We walk behind the restaurant towards the train tracks. There is a small tunnel underneath the tracks for us to pass through. After this tunnel, it’s easy for us to see the true beginnings of the Tengger Desert. We take another electric bus towards the desert so that we can truly get in there and experience the desolation of the dunes. As we ride towards the desert, I notice that there are sections of the dunes where there are squares of grass that appear to be growing in checkerboard patteners on top of the sand. The driver of the bus says that this is a method of preventing desertification invented here in Zhong Wei. She also tells us that the railroad in Zhonwei is the first place to lay railroad tracks in the desert anywhere in China. Upon arrival to the beginning of the dunes, we notice that there are kind of shoe covers/slips that one can rent in order to protect his shoes from the effects of walking on the hot sand. An exiting tourist suggests that we purchase these shoe covers as she shoes us the soles of her shoes. They have completely eroded away and melted just from walking on the heated sand of the desert for 30 minutes. Dirk Lee and I both decide to play it safe and purchase the shoe covers for ourselves. After putting the covers over our shoes, we are ready for whatever Nature has to hand out to us.
Walking out into the Sun onto the dunes, we pick out a distant dune to scale. At the top of the dune, there is a small wooden tower that has been built there for tourists to view the desert scenery. We slowly trudge our way to the bottom of the dune, the sand blowing in our faces. I open my umbrella to shield myself from the Sun. As we get to the bottom of the dune, Dirk and I try to pick up speed so that we can make it to the top. Climbing the dune is much more difficult than expected. Each time we make a step forward, our leg sinks into the sand and gravity begins to pull us back down the dune, making our ascent 3 times as difficult as it would be to scale the same hill on solid ground. The dune pulls us in. It is alive and grabs onto our feet, wanting to swallow our bones, dry them, and scald our flesh to feed vultures. I break a sweat. This hill is not so huge, but it is extremely steep. Dirk makes it to the top before I do. I stop 3 quarters of the way up to take a rest and wipe my brow. He beckons me on. I push forward. When I am within an arm’s reach of him, he gives me his hand and helps pull me up. Looking around us, we climb the tower and and enjoy the shade at the top. It becomes quickly apparent that it would be extremely easy to become lost in the desert. With no markers to guide anyone, every dune looks exactly the same. About 50 feet from us is a hotel in the desert. There’s sure to be a restaurant there, and we can walk along the ridge to get there. I don’t want to walk up any more dunes.
Lunch
We are the only people who eating lunch in the hotel’s restaurant. The food is not bad, and is not too expensive, either. Dirk Lee is famished, having forgotten to eat breakfast in the morning. I learn from his lesson never to enter the desert on an empty stomach. In addition to the food, we also order 2 bottles of ice cold “Western Xia Tombs Beer,” named for the tombs that I saw the day before that made up the Pyrmaids of the East.
As we eat, Dirk Lee and I talk about our future plans. He wonders what my 5 year plan is, and is surprised to discover that I don’t really have one. There are some goals that I have, but I don’t put a timeframe on these goals. I don’t have any clear idea of when or if I want to get married (not to mention, who), when or if I want to buy a house, and what kind of job I want to have “for the rest of my life.” This seemingly directionless future baffles him, but I tell him that it is not that uncommon in the States.
“In China, though, there’s so much pressure and competition. We have to think about these things early. We have to save, and think about where we want to live, or how we will take care of our parents.”
As I talk with him, I realize that my life really is pretty “free.” I can take off work when I want to, and when I do work, I can organize my time as I please. Either that, or I am touring with customers. Life doesn’t really get any better than that, at this point. I am extremely lucky. Life is good to me. I have to remind myself of this time and time again. Anytime I have a little complaint about something, anytime something frustrates me, I just have to remind myself of the good fortune of my situation. Dirk Lee is the only son of two farmers. He has to provide for them and work for their retirement. He’ll probably be married in a couple of years. Within 5 years he’ll have a child. He’ll only be allowed to have one because of China’s one child policy. He will try to work his way up through connections and through the years to get a good position. He wants to have a good place to live, a clean environment for his family. Owning that professional soccer team is a long, long way off. We clink our glasses and drink a toast.
“Let me get the bill,” he says, “I save the receipt and give it to my boss, so my work pays for it anyway.”
Desert Buggies
After our lunch, we have some options of things to do in the dunes. There is  one huge RV that leaves to drive further in the desert every 20 or so minutes. It’s large and yellow and can seat about 20 people. It crawls over the dunes at obscure angles like a huge caterpillar. Another option is to rent our own desert buggies, kind of like racing cars and drive them over the dunes around a pre-set course ourselves. The third option is to ride the ubiquitous camels. Dirk Lee and I decide to go with the second option and ride the desert buggies. I like to have the control in my own hands.
We walk over to the boys who rent the buggies. One of them smiles in disbelief when I speak Chinese to him. I tell him that we want to rent two buggies and ride them around the course. We pay the price and take our seats at the drivers’ wheels. I sit in one buggie with one of the boys, and Dirk Lee takes the other one. They are low to the ground and uncovered, just as a buggy should be. They are relatively simple to start and stop, just like a regular car. There are no gears, just “go” and “stop.” I rev the engine and it purrs like a loud cat, sending a small cloud of sand swirling behind. I look over at Dirk Lee. He is ahead of me. Time to go.
Stepping on the pedal of my buggy, it moves forward on the sand without much effort. Dirk Lee has already left me behind. I want to take my time and enjoy this. I don’t feel like racing. This is a time to let the desert take me. I am Mad Max, the road warrior, off in some distant alternate future, or some time-warped past. We go forward along the dune, forward into time, and I turn the wheel to the right so that we can dip down in a large depression, an Earth dimple. I feel my stomach groan into my throat as we make the descent at an angle, tipping slightly to the right. There’s no way that this buggy will tip, however, as its position is so close to the ground and we maintain a good center of gravity. I look off to our right, and that’s when I see “it.” The sand opens up in front of us, large snaking arms reach out to grab us and pull us into a living pit much like that in ”The Return of the Jedi.” The co-pilot screams as he is wrenched out of the buggy by one of the snaking arms. I can’t believe this is happening. I swerve to avoid another one of the arms, having to squint my eyes from all the sand that is blowing into my face, adding definition to the wrinkles around my eyes. Another arm swoops towards the car. I turn my head and look behind me as the arm misses. I can still see the co-pilot in all his agony. He was so eager to speak with me before but now has the misfortune of being slowly consumed by the desert-pit monster. His body head is effortlessly separated from his body and dropped into the living pit to be slowly digested over the period of a thousand years. It’s too late for him and too much for me to watch. With the buggy now only having one human body to carry, I can really pour on the speed and enjoy the car’s capability, however. I ride over another of the beast’s snaking arms and hear it squeal in pain.
Dirk Lee is still ahead. He’s turned left, and all I can see of him is a cloud of sand. I can barely make out him and his co-pilot still in their seats, both of them having survived the desert pit monster. I ride up the side of the dune at an angle, my buggy now laboring a bit to make it up the ascent. I remember how difficult it was to walk up one of these things only an hour or so earlier, and I am ever thankful and grateful to my trustworthy dune buggy for being able to carry me onwards. As we make it over the head of the dune, Tina Turner stands there in all of her glory, waiting for us in the middle of the desert. Her long legs beckon me onwards and give me that feeling of excitement that long legs never fail to bring. She holds in her hand a long spear with death’s name on it. She hoists it over her shoulder and points it towards me, her dyed white hair rolling over her shoulders and breasts like a warrior goddess.
“Bring on the pain!” she yells as she launches the spear in my direction. Luckily I anticipate the angle and velocity of her spear even before she throws it. She has good aim, but my driving skills are better. I swerve to the right at the last second and the spear lands harmlessly in the sand. I continue my course towards Tina Turner. She is now reckless with rage and is unbelievably running towards me! Alright private dancer, if it’s pain you want, it’s pain you’ll get. The buggy speeds towards Tina Turner. From out of nowhere she has produced a an ugly jagged knife, and she appears ready to pounce on the car. She is no match for my speed, however, and misjudges how quickly the buggy is approaching. 10 meters, 8 meters, 3 meters…
WHUMP!
As I crash into Tina Turner’s body, the buggy only slows down for an instant. Like two beautiful black torpedos, the last sight I see of Ms. Turner are her legs rocketing into the sky only to land some 20 meters away in a dune. She lands headfirst in the sand, like an ostrich searching for food. Having dispatched of my second foe, I scan the horizen just to make sure that Ike is nowhere around. Relieved, I soon arrive safely at the end of my desert buggy adventure. Dirk Lee is waiting for me.
“Pretty fun, huh?” he says.
“Yeah, not bad.” I pat my desert buggy on the roof. “Think that’s enough for today. Should we go?”
“Yeah, good idea.”
We walk back towards the entrance where we rented our shoe covers to return them to the guides working there. As I take off my shoe cover, I ask the girl if I can keep them in hopes of starting a new fashion trend in Beijing. She giggles at my suggestion. Her co-worker responds to me.
“If you promise to marry her, she’ll let you keep the shoe cover,” she laughs.
I decide that it’s best to leave the shoe cover in its place and neglect to exchange my hand in marriage at this time. Dirk Lee and I walk back through the tunnel, out to the top of the head of the desert. Wang Wei’s statue awaits us. Dirk Lee and I decide that, instead of taking a bus down to the bottom of the humongous dune, we’ll run down its side like giddy schoolgirls. We stand at the top of the head for a moment next to Wang Wei’s statue and brace ourselves for the descent down the mountain. Wang Wei remains motionless, forever trapped in his poetic pose. I look over to Dirk Lee. He looks at me.
“One…two…three!” Down, down, down to the bottom of the desert, to the place where the dunes meet the waters of the Yellow River. Down to the spot where the shade of the trees mesh with the glinting sands of the dunes. Down to where the colore “of mountains both is and is not” (from Wang Wei’s poem, “A View of the Han River”).
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front when I board. He is still wearing the same green camaflouge suit that he wore the night before when he passed me in the street with his three monkeys. Said monkeys are nowhere to be seen. They have disappeared. It’s only him sitting on the bus. He seems smaller and naked without them dragging behind him, like He-Man withouth his sword. He has a friend sitting next to him–maybe another Devil Monkey. I can’t be sure. He recognizes me when I board the bus and raises his eyebrows in surprise. I greet him with a smile. Good Devil Monkey. I sit in a seat in towards the back.
resources. The Earth is cracked and parched with dried sores. It’s waiting to turn red. Still, the fields are tilled and things manage somehow to grow here and there. Ningxia’s speciality is the wolfberry, a small, cranberry like fruit that is supposedly very good for one’s health. They grow on small bushes and it’s easy to mistake them for small chili peppers from the window of a bus. Sometimes people put them in their tea, other times they soak them in grain alcohol. One can even eat them as is, directly from the bush. Even the desert has its treasures. The bus pulls us over small hills that aren’t quite yest mountains. The Earth’s crust is like the skin of a potato now. In less than an hour we’ll be there.
go over to the table next to me and check out what the two guys at that table are eating. They suggest I try a flat noodle dish. Apparently in these parts, noodles are the staple food. I should note that none of the dishes on the menu have any pork in them. Because the majority of people in this town are Hui minority, almost none of the restaurants serve pork. I take the advice of the locals and eat what they suggest. One of them brings me a glass of tea with some herbs and wolfberries in it. I comment on the wolfberries, asking if people all over the province eat these things, and the owner of the restaurant once again confirms the health benefits of this Ningxia specialty. A couple of minutes later he goes out and comes back in with a small back of wolfberries which he graciously gives to me as an extra gift, free of charge. Not bad. The lunch is good and the people are friendly. They talk with me a few minutes about Obama and how he got to be president. One of the guys gives a thumbs up at the mention of Obama’s name. I fill up and begin to feel like I definitely made the right choice in coming to Hai Yuan.
