The first week here at Jinjiang was like Camp Whitman part 2, only quieter. No students were here and the shops and restaurants that define daily life now were but locked doors and shuttered windows then. We spent the first day exploring campus and the eateries outside of campus, then the afternoon in downtown Pengshan with Dr. Zhou at the supermarket. I highlight downtown because it isn’t a really a downtown compared to Chengdu and Shanghai. There are a few buildings above 8 stories and the streets feel crowded, but there are only 2 grocery stores, branding Pengshan as a ‘village’ by my students. For most of my friends and family back home, you would laugh immensely at this rating if you visited downtown Pengshan because it is most definitely not a village but a city and bigger, I suspect, than Anchorage. As always in China, perspective……. I’m glad Dr. Zhou came because we couldn’t read any labels in Chinese and without here, I most definitely would have gotten some fish sauce and not peanut oil. Most memorable of all was a lady perched near the soap section that corralled me into the hair products and was adamant that I not leave until I had bought the shampoo and conditioner and body soap that she believed I needed to be beautiful (despite everyone on the street going to great lengths to tell me I already am by Chinese standards). I couldn’t help but notice that it was the most expensive. Finally I broke free from her snares and dodged her back-up that was there in case of such an escape. I found Dr. Zhou and asked where the dish scrubbies might be- it appeared they did not exist in China. She innocently took me back to the shampoo assailant and asked her. Snared again to my dismay….. Once the dust settled, I had a scrubbie, no shampoo or conditioner or body wash, and had checked out. Whew.
The highlight of that first week was travelling to Emei Shan, the nearest mountain and one of the 4 most sacred Buddhist sites. Emily came along as translator and guide, which proved invaluable as we made about 6 bus transfers just to get there. We took a bus halfway up the mountain on a narrow, zig-zagging road and hiked through the jungle for an hour and a half to see the monkeys. It was incredible. Finally, we had reached the end of urbanized China and the beginning of forested China. The jungle covered the steep sides of the valley we hiked up as a sheet covers an unmade bed haphazardly- lots of wrinkles and texture. Everything was new and green, exciting and beautiful. We hiked along a lake with ancient looking hotels on the sides with tea houses dotting the side, walked along stone walkways that twisted and curved, stepped and bended over rises and bridges. Birds I couldn’t recognize caught my eye and then disappeared in the underbrush. The jungle was so thick and dense it looked impregnable; indeed, the stone steps were the only place that was welcoming to all of the feet we walked among. Except for the water. The river we followed was inviting. Cool , clear, inviting. Inviting. Images of the green, slimy water we walked along in Jiading every morning flashed in my mind and I laughed, wading through water so clear and crisp that few could resist. Kids and adults alike played and laughed in the shallows and the sunshine. Paradise. This was the first clear water I had seen in China, an odd thought for someone who grew up in a place where water is taken for granted, deemed clean unless marked otherwise, where clean water is in excess. Being surrounded by dirty water had been harder for me than I thought. It made me happy to see people leaning under rock outcroppings with mouths open, letting the cool water fall into their mouths unfiltered. I felt at home again.
The monkeys were a riot. A troop of Macaques stealing, posing, and fighting among the tourists gawking. I loved it, but I also found the people watching fascinating. So many Chinese are terrified of the animals, some of all animals I have discovered, that being near the monkeys was of the worst and most inhuman tortures imaginable. A sign of a lifetime of urbanization, of a lifetime disconnect with the ecosystem and components around them. I know this exists in America too, but I wonder if its to a higher degree here. Baby monkeys stole the show while bigger monkeys stole water bottles and snacks out of the hands of visitors too scared to move when the monkeys got close. I laughed as I left, a monkey jumping on my shoulders as I passed under an awning. I felt his grisly fur against my skin, his surprising weight as he settled down for one moment, and smiled as he jumped off nimbly and lightly, off to find someone who would be afraid and a more lucrative target. Good luck little friend. Its amazing how much they look like us up close. How anyone doubts our commonality is beyond me……..
We got on the last bus heading near the top of the mountain and arrived around dinner time. The busses stop about 1,000 feet from the top at a small village of hotels and shops all trying to make you pay a whole lot of RMB. To go up, you either walk or take the chair lift, which was closed for the night by the time of our arrival. Emily, Penny and Robin (Penny the chemistry teacher, Robin her daughter of 9) stayed at the village for the night. The rest of us began the hike up. Up so high, it was cold again. The first time I’d been cool in China outside. Up so high, there were firs in the forest again. The first trees I recognized in China. Up so high, the birds had room to be heard in their sunset songs, the sunset had clear air to be seen through, the path mostly solitary for the first time in China. Up so high, I got lost in the silence and the music of the jungle and hiked alone, watching the sun set slowly in a show of pastels. Luke met some Chinese people along the way and made friends, both parties working on their non-native language. I drank in the quiet solace of the woods I love so much and had some good time to center myself. One step after another; indeed, they had built a staircase of stone all the way up the mountain; one step after another, past the closing shops and looks of locals at the wai gou ren (foreigner) and all the people headed down; one step after another and I was to a small Buddhist temple near the top as the sun finally set in the horizon. I sat on the steps soaking all of the sounds and sights and smells in, as people walking by saying high and taking photos with and of me. So, this is what being a celebrity is like. I didn’t mind. With all of my clothes on, something I did not expect as I was at the bottom that morning and sweating in a t shirt and shorts, we regrouped and decided to stay there that night. After much negotiating and figuring, we decided it was cheapest to stay at the ‘hotel’ than go higher, and we couldn’t stay at the Buddhist temple (which was cheaper) because we didn’t speak enough Chinese. We ate glorified instant ramen noodles and played Chinese poker (American asshole on steroids) late into the night with Luke’s new friends. Stuart and I shared the softest bed we’d had in China yet, Luke and his friend in another (I wasn’t jealous), and Dina and Sam in the third. I think it was $200 RMB total, so not bad for being on top of the mountain. Just avoid the bathroom. I stayed out late that night staring at the stars.
Even at an observatory in Arizona, the stars were never this clear. There are so many of them, thousands and thousands of stars, you get dizzy trying to make out their shapes. It reminds me of nights in Walla Walla, biking far out into the wheat fields and lying on the cut grass stalks, looking up and naming what you saw. But there is more here. Even halfway across the globe the shapes are familiar. They are a moment of familiarity in between days of infamiliarity. There are just so many… I remember reading something someone once wrote: “imagine if the stars only came out once in a year, or once in a century, or once every thousand of years. How man would marvel at that one sighting! How it would be an event anticipated and celebrated and then recollected like none other. What wonder it would inspire.” And how little everything we make compares to its immensity and beauty now. Was that Emerson or Wendell Berry? All I know is that I don’t want to sleep- just stare at the stars all night. This view won’t be waiting back down in the lowlands.
I still remember that night fondly; I do indeed miss the stars down here. We awoke the next morning at 4:40 with the goal of hiking up to the top and seeing the sunrise. The hotel owner came around at 4:45 waking everyone else up to go see the sunrise. Only in China do the hotel rooms get a 4:45 wake-up call! We had a refreshing walk up in the dark and awaited the sunrise from the highest balcony on the highest temple on the highest mountain to the east of the Himalayas in China (or so it seemed that morning). The east stretched out before us in clear detail, the lights of the city and busy cars the only light in the distance when we arrived. And slowly light came to the world. It was a slow sunrise and when we turned around, we could see alpenglow on the snow capped Himalayas behind us. We think they are the first 20,000 foot mountains of the Himalayan Stepp; they called to us and we both felt their draw. As the sun moved closer and closer to the horizon, the crowd grew from latecomers. When the sun finally peaked its red eye onto our temple, the crowd ‘ooooed’ and ‘awwwwed’ as if it were the first time such an event had occurred, as if its occurrence had been uncertain in some way. Perhaps we haven’t lost that reverence Emerson or Berry spoke of after all.
The rest of the morning was spent walking around the enormous golden Buddha statue with 10 heads and 4 elephants with 6 tusks each or admiring the views in every direction- Sichuan spreading about in unbroken clarity. It was an awesome sight. As the day gained momentum, as did the crowds, the magic began to wear off as tour guides with microphones and groups in tow broke the revered silence. Clouds began to fill in the view of the east, obscuring even the city below which seemed so close not two hours ago, and we realized that the view and experience we received that morning was a rare and magical one for anyone in China. Emily confirmed as such with her excitement at our descriptions and pictures.
The rest of the day was spent sleeping on busses as we went back to the University. Luke and I talked a long time about Game of Thrones and the characters- it’s a hefty task to keep up with them all. Every one thought we were talking in a different language. And now, over 2 weeks later, the magic hasn’t worn off and I return to the sunrise and jungles of Emei Shan when the traffic and clouds of Pengshan are just too much.
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