China Reflection

Devil Monkey sits outside of the bus station.  He wears the same camaflouge outfit that I saw him in the first time that I encountered him on the streets of Zhongwei.  One of his monkeys rests on his shoulder while the other two sit on the ground, their heads perked up.  It seems that we’re traveling the same route.  I decide to break the ice and have a chat.  Take the Devil out of the Monkey and put the man back in the suit.

“Where are you from?”  I ask him.

“Henan.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Not bad.  Where you headed today?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Good luck,” he answers.

Return to Zhongwei

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The next message I send back is in English:

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

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

Lunch

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

“Are you from America?” he asks me.

“Yes.  What about you?”  I ask.

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

“Are you a Christian?”  he asks me.

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

“We’re both Christians,” he says.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hey, water is 2 RMB, right?”  I ask.

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

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

To Wuhai

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

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

“We?”…

Changing Demographics

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

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

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

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

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

Arrival

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hot water?” I ask.

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

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

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

“Age, 29.  Male.”  No problem here.

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

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

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

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

“Ethnicity?”  he asks again.

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

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

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

“Han or Hui?” he asks again.

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

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 Dynasty^W.  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 Harbin^W in Dongbei Province^W.  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 Burbank^W, 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.