China Reflection

Swan Song

As soon as I turn my phone on, the message appears out of nowhere on my phone:

“Where are you, Garlic Head?”

Like a stalker, Policewoman Qu seems to be in step with my every move.  It’s as if she has a microchip built into her brain that alerts her as to when I will turn my phone on and off.  Luckily, I anticipated her supernatural abilities and only turned my phone on about an hour before leaving for Xiu Yan Manchu Autonomous County.  Surely, she cannot have enough time to come and meet me before I depart Dandong.  Surely, I can escape unscathed.  I answer her phone with a message of my own.

“I’m sorry.  I’ll be leaving from the bus station for Xiu Yan soon.  Thanks for a wonderful time in Dandong!”  There, that should do it.  She should get the message.

Ring! Ring! Ring!  It’s her!  She’s calling me here, in the bus station.  I pick up?

“Policewoman Qu?”  I ask.

“Garlic Head!  You’re in the bus station!  I work right near there.  I’ll be over in a few minutes to see you off.”  Shit.  She’s coming to the station.  If I know Chinese people, she’ll be bringing a garbage sac full of fruit and snacks to weigh me down.  It always happens when Chinese “see you off” at the station.  It’s impossible to escape without extra snacks.  I sit down in the station and wait for her to come.  A few minutes later, the phone rings again.  She is outside the station in her car.

Luckily, Mrs. Qu is fully decked out in her policewoman gear, so I am certain she won’t try any funny business with me.  She opens the door from the inside of the car and puts her hazard lights on, peeking over the edge of her Cool Hand Luke sunglasses.  I get into the car.  She purses her lips.  Was I wrong?  Is this the moment?  Is she going to kiss me?

“You didn’t call me this morning….” she says, her voice trailing off.

“I wanted to get my thoughts together…some things I had to do before going to Xiu Yan,” I glance to the side, in the back of the car.  Sure enough, there’s a large bag filled with snacks and drinks. 

“Oh…ok…well, anyway, I remembered you told me you like blueberries, so I got you this….” she swivels in her seat and grabs the plastic bag.  Inside there is a blueberry fruit juice drink, as well as two gigantic apples, a package of Harbin sausages, and 3 bags of MSG potato chips.  She hefts it into my lap, directly onto my testicles.  I feel myself sink into the passenger seat, as if we’re about to go on a road trip.

“Well…I guess this is it…”  I look at my watch.  The bus will be arriving soon, and I don’t want to miss this chance to leave.

“Alright, Garlic Head…well…don’t let me down about Sweet Potato.  We need to find a match for her!”  She smiles and leans over for a friendly embrace.  I lift the bag off of my lap and rise out of the car seat, swivel around, close the door, and I’m off:  through the entrance of the bus station, one step closer to Xiu Yan.

City of Jade, City of Manchu

The largest Buddha jade statue in the world is in Anshan City, Liaoning Province.  It stands 6.1 meters high and weighs approximately 260 tons.  It’s made of Xiuyan Jade.  The reason for its name is is due to the fact that the jade comes directly from jade deposits near Xiuyan County in Liaoning Province.  Xiuyan is one of the major jade depositories in China, the other being in Hetian, Xinjiang (in China’s Northwestern corner).  There are also sufficient jade deposits near Yunnan and Myannmar.  According to an informal survey (conducted by yours truly) of  local jade salesmen in one of Xiuyan City’s plethora of jade markets, approximately 60 percent of the population in Xiuyan is employed through the sale or distribution of jade products.

My purpose for coming to Xiuyan, however, has absolutely nothing to do with jade.  It’s not that I don’t like jade.  I find it attractive and shiny, sometimes a bit gaudy if it’s the wrong shade.  Still, I’m not a jade hunter in any sense.

Coming to this city was not an aribtrary stopover.  I DO have a mission for Xiuyan.  The first time I looked at a map of Liaoning on the train, something special caught my eye with regards to Xiuyan.  Instead of the map reading “Xiuyan City,” the Chinese on the map translated to “Xiuyan Manchu Ethnic Autonomous Region.”  Manchu.  Ethnic.  Autonomous. 

The Manchu intrigue me.  Outnumbered by a ratio of 350:1 at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty (1644), this minority somehow managed to occupy the emperor’s throne for a period of time eclipsing my own country’s entire post-independence history.  Granted, the Manchu were not without their own stability problems and spent a good deal of time “harmonizing” the country during their reign by putting down major uprisings in Xinjiang and Tibet, as well as the Taiping Rebellion^W where a peasant uprising led by the self-proclaimed brother of Jesus Christ, Hong Xiuquan, sucessfully occupied Nanjing and much of Southern China for 11 years.  Many speculate that it was this particular uprising, in addition to an increase of greed, corruption, ennui, and arrogance that led to the Manchu’s eventual downfall at the beginning of the 20th century. Additionally, they were up against an alliance of Western and Japanese powers whose  modernized military easily overmatched what China had to counter at the time.  Whatever the reason for the Manchu’s fall from grace, the dynasty certainly reached high points of prestige especially under the rule of the scholarly Emperor Kangxi for 61 years, starting when he turned 27 years old in the year 1661.   The Manchu owed much of their success and extended reign to the fact that the system of government that they instilled left much of the previous Ming government intact, choosing in many instances only to replace the higher offices with Manchu officials.  It may largely be a result of this system of continued Ming feudalization that many Han Chinese refer to the modern Manchu as having “no culture” of their own.  In a sense, their reverence, respect, and continuation of Han feudal customs made them “more Chinese than Chinese,” as the saying goes according to scholars and layman alike.  They were absorbed into the Han Chinese sponge.  Coming from a country filled where one has to be extremely sensitive to cultural nuances and political correctness, however, I remain skeptical that all vestiges of their culture have been wiped out.  In Beijing, when one views a cultural relic from the Qing Dynasty, it’s apparent to see just how distinct the Manchu managed to remain for such a long time when one looks at the clear and obvious evidence of an individualized system of writing.

Language.  The Manchu had their own language.  Language is the essence of culture, the bone marrow, the nuts and bolts.  I believe that everything about culture boils down to language.  We think and act, and more importantly, see the world according to our own language.  I know this from the own fact that I can feel a shift in my thinking, in my world view, sometimes even in my personality, when I use Chinese to express myself in writing or speaking.  I become a different self.  I don’t lose my core being, but the way I structure my thoughts certainly alters.  I unlock a door to a part of my brain I previously never knew existed.  So, what about this Manchu language?  It’s apparently dead, or mostly dead.  I have never found anyone still able to speak it or read it.  How does this happen?  The Manchu ruled China until the beginning of the 20th century.  Now I can’t even find one person who can say “hello” in Manchurian.  There must be someone.

I won’t see the Buddha statue on this day.  Melt him down and trade him for a living, breathing, speaking Manchu.  I’m in Xiuyan to bring the dead back to life.

Arrival

“You here to buy jade?”  The pudgy man working at the information booth at the bus station looks at me with an all-knowing grin on his face.  Of course I’m here to buy jade…why else would a white guy be in Xiuyan?  He comes out from behind the booth where he is working.   In front of his working space is an immacuately carved jade sculpture sitting directly in the center of the bus station.  It seems too polished to be here, and probably deserves to be in a hotel lobby or museum somewhere.  I remind myself that I am in Xiuyan, and jade is ubiquitous here.

“I like jade, but I was wondering if you could help me with something else.  You’re Manchu, right?”  I take a guess.  I cannot tell the difference between Manchu and Han Chinese simply by appearance.

“Right.  Most people in this town are,” he answers.

“I was wondering if you can speak Manchurian?”  I decide to go for the gold now.

“Uh…no…I can’t actually,” he seems a bit confused.  When am I going to ask about jade?

“No problem.  Anyway, I was wondering if you could help me out with that.  Maybe you’ve got an idea of where I could find someone who could speak and write Manchurian.”

He looks around and smiles again.  How many people have asked him this question?

“Wait right here,” he says as he turns to go back to his desk.

“Hey Bob (cannot remember his co-worker’s name), do you know anywhere that this guy can find someone who can speak Manchurian?”  While Pudge and Bob take a few seconds to discuss my options, I take a photo of the jade sculpture in the center of the station. 

“Excuse me,” Pudge says, coming over with a slip of paper in his hand.  “You might want to try going to the culture center.  They may have someone there who can speak Manchurian.  That’s all we could think of.  Sorry.”  He shrugs his shoulders.  I ask him if there are any specialties in the town that I should eat for lunch.

“That’s no problem,” he says, patting his stomach.  He seems much more at ease talking about food.  “Try the lamb soup with the flat noodle skin.  See if you like that.”  I thank him for his suggestion and leave the bus station entering the first restaurant that serves the Xiuyan lamb soup specialty.  I slurp up the hearty broth and chew my lamb chunks slowly, planning my next steps toward the dead language.

Jade Buffet

After lunch I check into a cheap hotel around the corner, and I’m once again on my mission.  The help at the fron desk tell me the quickest way to get to the Culture Center.  Apparently, walking there won’t take me too long.  I’m instructed to cut a path through the jade market across the street for a shortcut.  After leaving my culinary relics from Policewoman Qu in my hotel room, I set out for the culture center. 

Before even crossing the street, some jade salesmen sitting in front of my hotel catch my attention.  There are 3 men just sitting on the curb with uncut pieces of jade that they want to sell to passersby.  I chat with them for a few minutes.

“You’re here to buy jade?” the one on the left asks me.  It just doesn’t make sense that I’d come to Xiuyan for any other reason.

“Well, maybe later,” I say.  “I was looking for somebody who could speak Manchurian.  You guys don’t know anyone do you?” 

They look at each other.  One of them takes a drag of his cigarette.  None of them speak Manchurian.  But…they’ve got some fine looking chunks of jade.

The covered market across the street is filled with jade.  There are polished jade sculptures of Buddha, jade necklaces, jade errings, the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac, little jade feet with jade spiders on them, jade mountains, jade monsters, jade mothers giving birth to jade babies.  Jade, jade, JADE!  Just by being surrounded by all this jade, I start to think that maybe I should buy some of it.  I never had the intention before, but it’s all here.  It’s the same feeling I get when I go to an all-you-can-eat buffet.  I’m in the buffet and there’s all this food, and I’m not even particularly hungry.  Despite the limited confines of my stomach, I pile up my plate like a voracious wolf just out from weeks in the wilderness.  I panic, thinking that at any moment, an army of white-haired retirees will enter the buffet and snatch up all of the food, leaving me with only parsley and carrot sculptures to choose from.  My eyes grow bigger and bigger.  The jade buffet is never-ending.

As I’m reveling in my jade overdose, I notice that there is the light of the exit not far from me.  I need to make my escape and get away from this jade.  I can feel it pulling me in, like the macaroni and cheese at the buffet, it stretches its grip on me and doesn’t want to let go.  I have to go, though.  I have to make it to the culture center.  There’s got to be something else in this town besides non-Manchu-speaking Manchus and a jade buffet.

After exiting the buffet, I come to a relatively empty road.  I don’t know which direction to go, so I decide that instead of walking I’ll take the first taxi that comes my way.  I don’t have to wait long.

Drive to the Center

“Culture Center,” I tell the taxi driver.  He does a double take when he hears where I want to go.

“Ah, the culture center.  I have a cousin who works there.  Whatcha’ going there fah?”  He holds a cigarette in one hand while he drives.

“I want to see if there’s anyone who can speak Manchurian or not,” I say.

“Really?  That’s something else.  Waitaminute.  Let me give my cousin a call.  Maybe he knows someone, ya know?”  He tosses his cigarette out the window and continues to drive while searching for his phone.  He pulls out the phone and dials a number.

“Ya?  Cuz?  Hey, it’s me.  Listen ta’ this?  I got this foreigner who’s researching Manchurian culture and language,” the driver winks at me, “ya…ya…anyway, wasn’t there a guy who could speak Manchurian there?  Ya…ya…I know….it’s something….sho’ is…ok…I’ll tell ‘im.”  He turns the phone off and turns my way.

“Well, sonny, ya’re in luck.  My cuz’ knows a guy.  He says he’s gonna’ give ‘im a holla’ and then see whatcha’ do ‘im fo…sound good?” he asks.  His accent is a little tough for me to decipher, but I can get the general gist.

“Yeah, well, that’s awesome.  Thanks, mister.”

We don’t have much further to drive, and within 4-5 minutes we arrive at the culture center.  We wait outside for the driver’s cousin to arrive.  The driver gets out of his cab, and leans against the car, pulling out another cigarette.  We’re now parked in front of the culture center.  It’s a drab looking, grey building without much character.  If I couldn’t read the Chinese characters for “culture center,” I would never know where I was, instead thinking I had arrived at an a government office in transition, or a closed down library.  I get out of the car and walk over to the driver.  He’s still smiling. 

“Ya beard’s nice.”  He strokes his own hairless chin. 

“Thanks.”  I instinctively stroke my own beard.  Am I really in the right place?  Who’s going to come out of those glas doors at the front of the culture center?  It feels like a dead end spot.  How can there be culture in that building?  I shake my head inside my mind, knowing that looks are often deceiving.  Still, I have my doubts for a split second.

The doubt evaporates suddenly when the doors open.  When He does come out, I know I’ve made the right choice.  Wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and with glowing spirit eyes, the Tan Man pushes the glass doors open and walks over to the taxi driver and myself.  He puts his hand out for me to shake.  I grab it, firmly.  He has a good grip.  Hunter spirit.

“So, you’re here for the Manchu, eh?  Welcome, my boy.  Welcome…”