Road to Karakul

We are going to Karakul, a lake that nestles at the knees of a snowy mountain.  The mountain is a steam engine, with snowy bursts blowing off its stack.  It looks like a cloud machine, with its stream of cirrus flowing from the peak.

Sam and the Lake

I feel like we’ve entered an alien world.  Sure, we recognize the things we are seeing, yurt, lake, yak; but we have no real concept of these things as they would exist as a part of these people’s lives.  ”The yurts are where herders live until the weather really comes down from the mountain.”  Just some interesting words while I pause to take a picture.  It is hard, maybe impossible, to understand it as part of a real life without living it yourself.

Yak Herders

Mountain Yurts

There is a boardwalk that runs along part of the lake, so we stroll, mountain wind playing in our hair.  We pause with magnanimity to allow some goats to cross in front of us in search of grazing grounds.  This can’t be real.

Desolate

Yurtastic

We reach a building that may or may not be a restaurant.  We circle the building twice, looking for restrooms, and finally spot some structures away up on a hill behind it.

Why would they put the restrooms so far away, I wonder.

Oh, that’s why, I answer myself as I stand looking down into a cement pit of human waste.  The heroically brave of heart (or maybe just incredibly desperate) traverse out over the pit and squat while standing on two thin, wobbly planks of wood, suspended over disaster.  Flashes of Slumdog Millionaire.  So I praise everything that is good and true for the small mercy that I only have to pee, I stand well back and let fly.  Get the hell out of there as fast as possible.  I don’t want to think about what Sam had to do.

A horseback ride around the rest of the lake seems to fit the bill nicely, so Sam and I and two young Kyrgyz horseguides are on our way.  My horse (Kenny) is sweet and two sizes too small for me.  My guide (Hrrrrbembic [?????]) is friendly and smiles at me.  He offers to wear my backpack as he walks beside the horse.  He smiles again.  He offers his gloves so my hands don’t get scratched on the saddle horn.  More smiling.  I feel like I’m being courted.

As we leave the path he, still smiling, puts his hand on my thigh.  Oh, I think.  That’s friendly.  Now I REALLY feel like I’m being courted.  But then his hand moves to the saddle horn and he swings himself up behind me.  I guess that makes sense, so they don’t have to walk the entire way.  Explains why he took my backpack, too.  I offer his gloves back to him, but he refuses.  The courtship continues.

He is not large, so his arms stretch tight around me to grab the reins as he brings Kenny up to a gallop.  He hums softly and deeply.  All we need is a sunset to ride off into.  Sam cackles with unrestrained mirth behind me.

Halfway around the lake, the boys tell us, through Sam’s best translation of their attempts at Mandarin, that they need to scare off a herd of horses they see up ahead because the males will try to fight our horses.  Ok, sure.  Go to it, boys.  So they take off at full gallop, wearing our backpacks which contain our money and passports.  Leaving us on the far side of a mountain lake, near Afghanistan.  It is times like these when a more reasonable person would probably get concerned.  But I find it thrilling.  (Remind me to tell you about the time I was stranded by my plane on a grass airstrip in Costa Rica!)

So we watch as our belongings become small dots obscured by a twin trail of dust.  The boys disappear behind a hill.  But then we see a herd of horses racing across the grass toward the mountains, our guides galloping behind them, standing in their saddles with arms waving.  It was a stunning display.  And our guides speed back, heroic, with triumph on their faces.

Shining heroes on the left, chasing the wild horses into the mountains.  Praise be!

Wild

Sam’s Rider Returns

As we proceed around the lake, Hrrrrbembic continues to woo me, giggling as he uses my body to shield him from the gusting wind, laughing as we gallop at huge yak bulls and herd them for fun.  It is like a romcom montage.  The Dirty Dancing soundtrack swells in the background.  He is falling in love with me and I think, Oh no, I’ve gone and done it again.  (Remind me to tell you about the time a young Croatian girl whose house we stayed in for one night wrote a love note filled with teenage confusion and ardor, and some hilarious Butchered English, in my journal.)

And just as I have decided to tip him well because he has been friendly and very entertaining, he tries to screw us over.  Arguing we were riding for three hours when I know it was one and a half.

Hrrrrbembic, I think.  How could you??!  Was none of it real?!?  Was it all just an act?  What about the gloves, Hrrrrbembic?  The gloves!!!!!  Didn’t the gloves mean anything to you?!?!?  (This is the middle part of the romantic comedy, where the hero learns of the main character’s deception, thus creating a seemingly insurmountable chasm between them that will miraculously be bridged within the next thirty-five minutes.)  But this isn’t a movie, is it?  It is all over for Hrrrrbembic and I.  Never again!

In Kashgar we eat dinner at a really awesome farmhouse restaurant/compound.  Swollen grapes hang from overhead trellises.  There are several small outbuildings with large windows, curtains blowing gently, cushions on the floor, where private meals can be arranged.  I kinda want to live in one of them.

Non-Market #2: Apakh Hoja Tomb
A few miles outside of the city is a tomb compound for some seventeenth century rulers of Kashgar. Gorgeous, vivid ceramic tiles abound. The most interesting tomb, for both aesthetic and comedic reasons, belongs to Yiparhan, whose name translates to “Fragrant Maid.” The tomb, dubbed “The Fragrant Concubine Tomb” (or, as the sign actually reads, ‘The Fregrant Comcubine Tomb,’) describes the history: “. . . in fact Fragranf Concub-ine is a true lady in history who was called fragrant maid, Apakh Hojia’ sgreat grandneice for her exceptional bodily aroma since her childhood.” So, I guess “exceptional bodily aroma” is something they celebrated back then.

Vivid and Decaying.  Love it.

Decay and Doors.  Love it.

Looooove it.

Moody Columns

Tile Palette

Tile Perspective

Domes and Crescents

Haunted Tomb

Market #3: Occurring at Night
Smoke from sidewalk barbecues wafts away to reveal backlit tables crowded with locals eating dinner along the streets. The chicken kabobs are delicious; the lamb kabobs, not so much. We find some frozen yogurt that doesn’t suck entirely.

Like a capture from a Hitchcock movie.

Dinner Table

Id Kah Square

Outside the Id Kah mosque square sit Cinderella princess carriages, souvenir booths, and sharply dressed camels. When we walk by, the men are surely disappointed that we do not want to take pictures. After all, we are their target audience. Actually, I do want to take pictures, but this is one of those times when the self-righteous, experienced world traveler inside me drowns out the inner child shouting “Look! CAMELS!!!!” and so I refuse to fill that tourist stereotype.

I really want to climb up on that sophisticated camel and get a picture, but we have plans to see more camels soon enough.  So I shall wait.

See him standing on the right?  His zipper is down.

Outside Market

Man Outside the Market

Boys Inside the Market (once again, they loved to see their pictures on the review screen)

Traditional Uyghur Fabric

More Fabric

Nut Booth

There is a pretty heinous bathroom at this market.  I stoop down really low to get under a rope holding a curtain and sort of side-step-scootch through a doorway, but in the process I can not avoid scraping my backpack and side against the filthy wall.  UGH.

There is not enough Purell to make me feel clean again.

Only time can heal this wound.

We learn that when a bunch of men try to “coax” an angry bull down from a tall truck bed by yanking on the bull’s ropes and dragging it forward, its hooves scraping desperately against the feces-covered metal surface, there is a moment before the bull’s forelegs hit the ground when you would swear it is going to flip forward and break it own neck; but instead it finds its footing, takes a beleaguered breath, and rampages in such a way that fear for our lives seems like the appropriate response.

I imagine the headline: “American Man, Reflexes Slowed by Life of Luxury and Excess, Gored by Livestock; Look of Embarrassment at Soiling Himself Frozen on Face.”

Hee-Haw

When they aren’t looking and sounding ridiculous, there is something about donkeys that I find to be wise, handsome, and classy.

Meeh

Moo

Baa

(What sound does a camel make?)

(Plus, how much character does that little boy’s face have?)

Neigh (and Jingle)

“Come . . . ON, you . . . little . . . pieces of- . . . UNGH!”

Digression:

Every once in a while I have a moment here that really makes me stop and take notice of how poorly my brain is working.  It is either post-BAR cerebral lethargy or a conditioned response to Sam doing all of our thinking for us, but in the end I am just kind of dumb right now.  Example: in the dining room there is a glass door that is half-covered by a sheet of that corrugated steel that people pull down in front of their storefronts at night.  Someone walks up to it and pulls on the door, wanting to go outside.  It obviously doesn’t open because the steel is pulled down from the ceiling and blocking the top half of the door.

I think: Duh.  You’re never going to get through that door.  Dummy.

But then this mental titan, this genius, does the unthinkable.  He pushes.  The door swings open to the outside, he ducks under the steel and breaks free from the room in which I would have been hopelessly trapped.

I pity the fool who ends up hiring me, because it is going to take months to get this brain back in working order.

End digression.

After breakfast we take a self-guided ambulatory tour of Kashgar.  It is obvious that we have entered the muslim region of China (and the muslim region of the world, really, for we are now quite close to several of the Stans; namely, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.  But we are also much closer to Afghanistan than I ever anticipated being comfortable with.)  The faces and hair of many women are covered by scarfs, and most men wear cool little square-topped muslim caps.  Telltale pointed arches and domes distinguish buildings covered in brightly painted ceramic tile.

Kashgar Architecture

We feel our way to a large square and find the Id Kah Mosque, the largest mosque in China.  Thousands of people come here to pray.  My eyes flit from the majestic domed columns topped with traditional crescent moon to the troop of Chinese soldiers encamped at the foot of the building behind barricades and rigid lines of riot shields.  It is an obvious show of force with the intent of preventing violent uprisings among the Uyghur people.  However, after passing street after street of these same Uyghur people peacefully going about their morning, selling their fruit and bread, just trying to live their lives, this heavy-handed, overstated military presence seems more likely to incite violence rather than prevent it.  Especially since the soldiers are stationed at the door of the most treasured mosque, at the heart of these people’s religion.

Click for a better view.  Note the soldiers behind riot shields not thirty feet away from a nice old dude selling breakfast.

Mosque Crescent

On the other hand, considering that on more than one occasion in the past hundred or so years a Uyghur leader has been beheaded and his head has been displayed on a pike in front of the mosque (just think!  We’re still talking about in the twentieth century, here) I can appreciate the constant, if small, potential for violence.  It doesn’t seem to warrant this military presence, but what can you do.

There is a sign in the mosque that baldly proclaims the Chinese government’s respect for the Muslim people: after describing the history of the mosque (built in 1442 and incorporating structures dating back to 996) the sign reads

All of it shows fully that Chinese government always pays special attentions to the another and historical cultures of the ethnic groups, and that all ethnic groups warmly welcome Part’s religious policy.  It also shows that different ethnic groups have set up a close relationsip of equality, unity and help to each other, and freedom of beliefs is protected.  All ethnic groups live friendly together here.  They cooperate to build a beautiful homeland,support heartily the unity of different ethnic groups and the unity of our country, and oppose the ethnic separatism and illegal religious activities.

Equality and unity.  I’ll believe that when a muslim does not have to, I’m not kidding, dodge the soldiers with rifles who are running drills directly in front of the mosque’s front door in order to go pray in the evening.  I suppose in the end freedom of religion is protected because the muslim is still allowed to go pray.  How generous.

—

It is pretty early in the morning so there are only one or two men praying in the mosque, scattered between the columns of an open-air prayer area.  The sun rises and warms our socked feet as we tread on the brightly colored carpet.

My shoes look comical and obscenely large next to the others, but I realize again that it is much more than just my shoes that are so obviously out of place here.

Dappled Carpet

Lonely Prayers

Lonely Shoes

Prayer Companions

I’ve never been to a mosque before and I am surprised by the lack of formality.  I am surprised that we aren’t disturbing anyone while we wander in and out of rooms, and I am surprised that Sam, head appropriately covered, is welcome to meander through the prayer areas while men are praying in them.  I suppose I was envisioning visiting the scene after the evening call to prayer (when we probably would not even be allowed inside) rather than on a quiet, sleepy morning.  Nevertheless, I feel a tad humiliated at myself that my expectations are so clearly inappropriate, especially when they are not based on any personal experience or accurate information.  Makes me feel like an enormous boob.

Fantastic decay.  There are some awesome walls, windows, and doors at Id Kah.

Perfection.

After stopping to marvel at the mosque’s fantastic and unintentional green tableau (really just a doorway with a chair and some benches that I found inspiring) and the supercool huge lock for the rings on the huge copper/brass/titanium alloy/adamantium front doors, we continue our exploration through old town Kashgar.

Green Tableau

Mosque Lock  (aka Loque)

Walking through the streets, we see men carving intricate wooden stair railings, cooking deliciously spiced flatbreads, hammering copper into tea pots.  After being spotted taking pictures of some little kids, we spend a lot of time trying to satisfy their endless desire to see themselves on the camera’s review screen.

Grab a Bud

Little Bro

Somehow we enter Koziqiyabixi (proper pronunciation remains unclear) neighborhood, an area with two thousands years of history where people (think: Chinese tourists) can wander through the labyrinth of tall, close alleys and enter some homes that double as places of business selling the same crafts that have been made there for hundreds of years.  I peek into a home to see a little girl standing on a suspended basket and take a picture.  I loved the photo until someone said that it looks like she hanged herself, and now that is all I can see.  (Thanks a lot, Cody.)

Hanging?  or Swinging?

Dots and Stripes

In one home we meet a girl from Washington state who just moved to Kashgar a few months ago after marrying a man she met while teaching English, and we ruminate on how hard that change must have been for her.

In another home, we are led upstairs by the ostensible owner to gawk at the young girl that he keeps up there.  She is probably seven years old, has pretty blue eyes, and is sitting like a little princess chained to a big bed, like a little princess forced to sit in a fancy dress so people can come upstairs and look at the scary blue-eyed Uyghur girl.  It smacks of child exploitation and Sam and I are immediately creeped out.  I am wondering if the girl even lives here, or just gets rented out to different homes so people can come and look at her and give money to the owner for having such an exotic attraction locked away in his upper room.  Creeptastic.  But we stay for a few minutes and take pictures of the kids wearing my sunglasses because it seems to make them laugh.

Blue eyes.  Fancy little dress.  Creepin me out.

Sunglasses

Back outside in the alleys we find another roving gang of self-absorbed (kidding!!) children enthralled with seeing themselves in pictures, but I am more interested in photographing the cute little guy sitting quietly by himself who appears to have just finished eating some dirt.  He could not care less that we are taking pictures, and I find his aplomb, his insouciance, magnetic.

Grimy

Aplomb.  As in, I plum just don’t care about you or your camera.

A lot of kids here have unibrows penciled in.  Apparently that is a desirable physical attribute, and it is one aspect of my not fitting in that I am actually pretty comfortable with.

Unibrow-rrific

Unibrow Family

Checking out that last shot.

There is also a little girl who seems to be sucking on a piece of cloth, but when we are leaving we hear her gag and we turn to see her pulling about two feet of fabric out of what must have been her throat and stomach.  None of the kids seem to understood our shocked reaction.

The caption for this could read either “Washing Up After a Hard Day’s Work” or “Doh!  I Can NOT Believe I Spilled That!!!”

Getting stared down by an intimidating gang of Uyghur toddler street thugs.  (You know they’re serious when their hats have little ears on them.)

I have another Phenomeblonde moment with a Chinese tourist who was taking pictures with some kids.  This brings my total up to I don’t even know how many.  Apparently I rank just below the enthusiastic Uyghur children on this Chinese man’s list of most desirable photo companions, but it is an honor to even be nominated.

Arm raised in victorious accomplishment!

Watching the Planes at the Urumqi Airport

Day: 30.
City: Urumqi
(City Pronunciation: oo-roo-moo-chee)
Location: Airport
Headlines: “Urumqi Riots Leave 140 Dead”; “10,000 Protest Needle Stabbings in Urumqi”
Reaction: NEEDLE STABBINGS?!?!  WTFFFFFFFFF, mate?
Resolution: To thank Buddha that the airport is ten miles away from the city proper, to not set foot outside of said airport, and to feel lucky that we are only here to change planes on our way to Kashgar. Also, to not tell my mom about this until I am safely home. If at all.
Digression: We knew there was rioting in Western China and that we would have to be careful. But needle stabbings in the streets? That is just about the creepiest thing I have ever heard. There aren’t reports of any horrifying diseases being spread, so at least that’s good. Still, the stabbings alone, even if they were done with sterilized syringes, (which I seriously doubt), sound pretty heinous.

So Sam and I wander the small airport, sup on buckets of noodles and dessert on ice cream with that flat wooden spoon, feel encouraged and comforted by the presence of the European couple also going to Kashgar, and feel impressive and adventurous at the surprise of the couple’s Chinese tour guide when she learned we weren’t meeting up with a tour but were rather braving this dangerous and unpredictable world on our own. Interesting how quickly I have transitioned from “Needle Stabbings?!? What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?!?!” to “Yeah, we ARE pretty awesome, aren’t we?”
Conclusion: Yeah, we are pretty awesome, aren’t we?

Top Left: 2 sets of terra cotta soldiers in really cool boxes; 4 We Fuck the Fakeshit hats; 1 pair of Euroshoes with “authentic” Goodyear tread soles.

Middle Left: 2 paintings with silk thread embellishment; 1 rolled-up b/w panorama photo of the Potala Palace in the early 1900s; 1 rolled-up hand-painted thangka; 1 rolled up painting of a boat on a lake; 2 “Polo” cashmere sweaters; 2 souvenir Great Wall t-shirts; 1 traditional black Uyghur shirt with gold design; 1 cd case that came free after buying 38 dvds (Entourage Seasons 1-5, Madmen Seasons 1-2, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy); 1 small wooden elephant with an astonishing smaller elephant carved on the hollowed-out inside of its body; 1 Yak Yak Yak Tibet shirt (for my nephew); 1 stuffed camel (for my nephew); 1 squishy Jelly Pig (for my nephew); 9 silk ties.

Bottom Left: 1 traditional Uyghur scarf; 8 pairs of wooden chopsticks; 3 gaudy florescent seashell wind chimes; 4 blossoming flower tea balls; 3 fake Patek Philippe watches in fancy bags; 4 buddhist wheels in another fancy bag; 3 Tibetan silver and turquoise necklaces for the lovely ladies in my family; 1 prayer wheel; 1 box of green tea incense; 4 rock magnets etched with Tibetan words; 1 Chinese flag patch (triumphantly found after hours of searching because I try to buy a flag patch from every country I visit); 4 small rocks brazenly stolen from Everest base camp; 1 yellow bag with a jar of green tea leaves; 1 can of green tea cubes; 1 amazing inlaid wooden box with a set of dominos.

Top Right: 1 hand-embroidered wall hanging with the 8 auspicious symbols; 2 large pocketed wall hangings; 3 paper lanterns; 1 traditional white Tibetan prayer scarf; 1 brown elephant scarf; 1 hat band from the hat a drunk guy gave me at the Qingdao beer festival.

Bottom Right: 7 silk scarves

Not Pictured: 1 clay, egg-shaped whistle-type-thing; 1 Tibetan woolen winter cap.

And that is all.

I can’t get enough of this haggling, it would seem.

Something happens to you when you spend enough time in these markets surrounded by inexpensive things.  Maybe they pump subliminal messages into your brain through a PA system.

All I know is that I am considering purchasing far more fake designer watches than I ever would have anticipated before getting here.

We’re back at a huge indoor market this morning, this one called Yaxiu.  It is very similar to Silk Street in structure and function – a six-story department store with small booths jammed from wall to wall.  We met Liz, Ursula, and Sam’s friend Mike here and now we are talking to Mike’s “watch guy,” (apparently, when you live here long enough, you buy so many fake designer watches that you get yourself a “watch guy,”) and I’m staring at a beautiful fake Patek Philippe watch, (for example) wondering how I can possibly be convincing myself that I need it.

And then I start wondering if anyone else needs a fake Patek Philippe?  Maybe I should buy a few of them?  I would probably get a better deal on them that way.

And this is the type of crazythink that brings me back to the main point:  I can’t get enough of this haggling, it would seem.

—

Since Kristy is flying back across the Pacific tomorrow, we have a nice dinner at the amazing duck restaurant where we had lunch our first full day in Beijing.  It is a national favorite, as evidenced by the twenty-seven thousand people who are eating here.  The duck is really delicious.  They give you little chinese tortillas and you make duck, cucumber, garlic, and plum sauce burritos.  It’s about as close to mexican food as I would have ever expected to find here.

—

Day 29

Kristy is going back home, to submerge herself in the creature comforts of her own bed, Costco chocolate cake, and mexican food.  I’m actually pretty jealous.  Mostly about the cake.

Breakfast is our last meal together as the China Thrilling Threesome.  After careful discussion of all our options, and considering the fact that Kristy will soon be leaving this exotic Eastern adventureland, we decide the most appropriate farewell meal would be a disgustingly huge and decadent American breakfast at Grandma’s Kitchen.  Greasy, cheesy, bacony potato skins as an appetizer.  That we can’t finish.  Breakfast burritos the size of my thigh.  That we can’t finish.  Fluffy, pillows for pancakes.  That we can’t finish.  Thick, spoon-stands-straight-up ice cream shakes.  That we can’t finish.

So we’re at the airport to drop off Kristy and feel like we are going to vomit all of Grandma’s delicious home cooking on the beautifully polished floor.

It’s gonna be weird having Kristy gone – we’ve all been traveling together for so long.

—

And now, back from the airport, we are, once again, shopping at Silk Street.  I decided I needed to buy some more silk “Gucci” (Guxxi) ties, so here we are.  And I’m also going to buy some unnecessary shoes, probably.

So this entry ends as it started: I can’t get enough of this haggling, it would seem.

SEE THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA AND MING DYNASTY TOMBS!!!!!!!!!!!!

[brochure interior:

Beijing Econotours offers you the best of Beijing.  Never mind that you could go to these places on your own where you would be free to explore at your leisure; it is too hard to negotiate with taxi drivers to take you there, you are tired and lazy, and you don’t want to have to deal with this yourselves.  Just use us!!  It is better to be saddled down with our tour guide and bus driver – free will and spontaneity are overrated, anyway!  Plus, you never know what might happen when you throw exciting variables like Chinese strangers into the mix.  It will be fun!!!

We will you pick you up at your hotel in a van!  It is better for us if you think we will then be on our way to the Great Wall, but really we will have several stops to make first.  But we won’t tell you that!

Expect your local guide, Angel, in the lobby of your hotel tomorrow.  But don’t be looking for a woman in hiking boots, no.  You will recognize her by the tiny white shirt exposing her stomach, tight black pants with fashionable suspenders, and three-inch heels.  The perfect tour apparel!

First Stop: Before experiencing the Great Wall, we will first experience a fascinating morning in Beijing while we wait outside a hotel for the other members of the tour to arrive.  It will be the same street you’ve seen a hundred times, but it’s better on a tour!  When Liz and Ursula, two young British students, finally show up, we will continue the tour.

Second Stop: We will spend fiftee-hhhrmgmg minutes at an authentic jade factory!  It’s really just a store with all the same expensive jade jewelry that you have already seen, but we’re hoping you don’t know that!!  If you are a student, please don’t tell the factory workers because then our tour guides won’t get credit for bringing in legitimate shoppers and we won’t get paid as much!  So please, walk around and see what you like for the next fiftee-hhrm*COUGH* minutes.  But beware – if you sit down instead of walk around, Angel will berate you and lecture you on your responsibility as a tourist to buy something at this store.  Oh, that Angel – she’s such a stickler!!  She will tell you “you have to shop for the next forty-five minutes.”  And then you will shriek “you said we were only going to be here for fifteen!!!”  And she will reply “no, I said we were going to be here for FIFTY minutes.”  So you will spend the next forty-five minutes wearing out a track on the carpet taking the same path around this room, eyes narrowed in suppressed rebellion, bemoaning this absurd task and plotting the demise of sweet little Angel.  It must not be hard to give her a push off the Great Wall, you will think.  However, this will give you a chance to get to know Liz and Ursula and bond with them over this injustice.

Third Stop: We will go to the Ming Dynasty Tombs.  There are many tombs, but only three are open to the public.  Our advertisements will tell you that we will see all three, including the Underground Mausoleum.  However, in an effort to save time for more shopping trips that get us more commission, Angel will only take you to one tomb.  It will only be a few minutes when she tells you it is time to leave and you will become more aggressive, asking her why you have to leave so soon and why you can’t see the other tombs.  You will attempt to make it sound like you merely want to get the most out of your tour, rather than the reality that you simply hate Angel and are rebelling against her every word.  She will lie to your face, telling you that everything else in this huge compound is closed.  You will ask her how it can possibly be closed when those other people are walking through that large, open archway into a different section of the tombs, and why can’t you go through there.  She will begin to raise her voice and tell you it is closed and it is time to go.  You will be willing to take a stand and walk across the courtyard to the open doorway, despite your concern of further alienating Angel and ruining the tour, but Liz and Ursula will seem pretty uncomfortable with this pseudo-confrontation and you will walk back to the van with the rest.

Intricate ceilings of the Ming Tombs.

Please don’t span.  What could that possibly mean?

Back inside the van, the shit will hit the fan.

Angel will tell your squat, emotionally volatile van driver (we will call her The Bull) that she senses we are close to mutiny.  This will infuriate The Bull as she imagines all the commissions they will lose if you refuse to shop.  The Bull will begin to rant to Angel, screeching that they should just take you back to your hotels instead of going to the Great Wall.  Sam will hear this and start yelling back, telling The Bull that you paid for a tour it is incredibly inappropriate for her to threaten you.  The Bull will turn up the heat, turning on Sam and screaming at her, turning to Angel and screaming at her, gesticulating wildly.  You, unwilling to sit there and let this horrible woman yell at everyone, will want to get in on the action and so you start yelling yourself: “Excuse me.  Excuse me.  EXCUSE ME.   EXCUSE MEEEE!!!   EXCUUUSE MEEEEE!!!!?”  You will have to suppress your laughter at the absurdity of the moment.  When The Bull finally shuts the hell up, you will say, with emotion, “EXCUSE ME.  WE WANT TO GO ON OUR TOUR.  We want to see the wall!  We will do whatever you want, just take us TO THE WALL!!!”  You will be yelling again.  You are hoping that if she takes you to the wall, then she will no longer have anything to threaten you with and you can just blow off the rest of the shopping stops.

Liz and Ursula will sit in the back seat, silent and wide-eyed.

Fourth Stop: We will stop for lunch on the way to the wall.  The food will be good, and you will all drink a large beer.  This will settle your nerves.

Fifth Stop: The Wall.  We will go to a section of the Great Wall called Mutianyu.  You will have ninety minutes to explore.  Obviously Angel cannot climb around up there with her stilettos, so you will be on your own.  As Angel will remind you, over and over, you will have ninety minutes.  You MUST be back at 1:30.  12:00-1:30.  Ninety minutes.  If you are late we will leave without you.  Well, once you are at the wall, you will not really care if we leave you or not, will you?  You could easily find a taxi to take you back.  In fact, you will hope that we actually do leave you here, so you won’t have to deal with Angel and The Bull anymore.  So you won’t take that 1:30 deadline too seriously.

Corporate America on the Great Wall

Sam Peeking Over the Battlement

Kristy climbing up a guardhouse.

Sam and Kristy Climbing

You will take a ski lift up to the wall, giving you inspiring views of the wall disappearing in the distance.  At the top, you will see there are very few people here.  For most of this time you will be totally alone.  It will be AMAZING.  A phenomenal piece of world history.  You will walk along the wall, climbing steps between guardhouses, watching it bound over the hills into the horizon.  Amazing.  It will be one of your favorite days of the whole trip.  You won’t even think about returning to Angel at 1:30.  Liz and Ursula will be impressed and grateful for the display in the van, and you all will have thoroughly bonded over the experience, so you will enjoy the extra forty-five minutes you spend climbing the wall.  The go-cart/metal slide you will take to get back to the bottom will be really fun.

Skylight

Great (Wall) Shadows

At 2:15 Angel will be pissed.

While she is scolding you, telling you how late you are, how you must all go at once, how she told you to return at 1:30, you might want to buy a few souvenirs to commemorate your experience.  Even if you won’t want to buy the souvenirs, you will be more than happy to pretend just to piss Angel off even more.  You will have become so good at pretending to shop at the jade factory that you might as well put those skills to use.  Chopsticks?  Hats?  Shirts?  It will be worth a look, won’t it?  When Angel will try to get Kristy to hurry up, Kristy will quietly inform her that we flew halfway around the world to see the Great Wall, we want to buy some shirts, and she can go fuck herself.  It will be awesome.

Then, when Angel thinks she finally has you ready to go, you will see an egg-crepe-thing stand and realize you are hungry.  That it will take several minutes for the nice vendor to make one for each of you is just a bonus as Angel gets angrier.  She will try to demand to Sam that you all leave at once, and Sam will continue to eat her snack as if Sam couldn’t hear her at all.  Again, it will be awesome.

Finally back in the van, The Bull will seem to have given up on you.  She, at least, will understand that she has no power over you now that you’ve seen the wall.  The threat to take you back to your hotels will sound more like an enticement than anything else.

Sixth Stop: Though your experience on the wall and the sweet, sweet revenge of tardiness will have put you in very good moods, you will be wary of another forced march through a tea house.  However, you will participate in an immaculate tea ceremony and will enjoy it thoroughly.  The lychee tea will be especially fantastic.  If only the tea house knew you didn’t have any money, they would have never gone through the whole service with you.  (You will be reminded of an American you met at the acrobatics show in Beijing who got duped into paying hundreds of dollars for the exact same tea ceremony, and marvel at how absurdly stupid that is.)

Seventh Stop: You will be wary of the silk factory as well, but will enjoy this tour immensely.  (If only we, your tour company, will have started with the tea and silk factories instead of the stupid jade factory, you would have all been so much happier in the morning.)  You will see how silk is made into carpets and comforters – you will not have known that they simply take the silkworm cocoon and stretch it out and that’s all there is to making a silk comforter.

By now it will be the evening, and Angel will try to make you feel guilty by saying she doesn’t want to waste any more of your time.  Rather than feeling guilty, you will be ecstatic to get away from her.

[pamphlet back cover:

That will be the end of the tour.  We hope you enjoy!  Don’t forget, look for Angel in the lobby tomorrow.  She will be the bitch with the high heels.

__________________

All of that drama was really pretty hilarious.  I’m convinced that it made the entire day much more fun that it would have been without it.  Plus it was good to help us make friends with Liz and Ursula, who we met up with later to go to a fancy massage parlor.  It was my first full body massage and it was pretty incredible.  I always thought it would be boring to lay there for an hour with nothing to do.  But sixty minutes goes by in a snap when you are spending every second thinking about how good this feels.

A Little Night Guitar on the Streets of Beijing

We meet Sam’s friend for dinner at a Russian restaurant, drink some beer, and go back to the hotel.  Good day.

But it’s booked solid.  Heave the bags backs on, down the street to cross on the overhead bridge, back up the street to try somewhere else.

Booked.

Bags, bridge, try again.

Booked.

Bags, taxi, try again.

We finally find a place that is somewhere that I cannot explain because I cannot explain where any place is in Beijing.

And so, forward with the Day of Cliché.

Cliché no.1: Shopping.  I’m not really one for doing a lot of shopping while traveling, and I am not very good at haggling over prices.  I would rather simply not buy something than invest a ton of time in arguing the price down only to feel bad about screwing these people out of the ten yuan that they obviously need more than I do.  (I suppose I could pay the full, ridiculously high asking price, but I don’t really want to do that either.)  But I’ve been watching Sam, the Mistress of Bargaining, and decide to try it out if I see something cool while walking through Silk Street - a large, multi-level department store filled with individual booths and aggressive proprietors.

Kristy and I are obvious marks as soon as we walk into the building.  My height alerts every salesperson on the entire floor to my presence so they can prepare their shouted advertisement as I walk within earshot.

“YOU NEED SILK KIMONO PAJAMAS?!!!?”  I can hardly tell if they are asking me a question or informing me that I do, in fact, need silk kimono pajamas.  I just love the notion of someone asking me if I need silk kimono pajamas, like anybody really needs that.

I’ve never seen such in-your-face endorsements before: it isn’t like they are just sitting there, announcing their goods into the wind; they make eye contact, grab your sleeve, stand in your way so you can’t get away.  In one narrow section all the girls come out of their booths and physically block me as I watch Sam and Kristy get swallowed up in the crowd.  I try refusing to make eye contact and ignoring their merchandise, but they don’t let up, so I experiment with a small step-and-bump into the girl in front of me who is busy displaying a scarf that is, apparently, “very good quality.”  No movement.  I push harder, she pushes back.  I turn to wedge my shoulder into a small opening between girls, and they feign outrage and injury in the hopes I will feel bad and turn back.  Not a chance.

“GUCCI PURSE, GUCCI BELT, GUCCI SHOES!!”  What is it, exactly, that makes the person at the end of the row think, just maybe, I will stop and buy from them when I just passed twenty other shops selling the exact same things?

(Side note: in Mandarin, the letter x is pronounced as sh, so some of the fake Gucci stuff has labels sewn into them that say Guxxi.)

I decide to try my hand at this haggling business in the quieter Corridor of Cashmere Sweaters.  So I start looking at and feeling some *fingerquotes* “Polo” sweaters when I see the You’d-Have-To-Be-An-Idiot-To-Pay-This opening quote displayed on a calculator screen.  800 yuan for a sweater.  That’s almost $120.  So I laugh at her and turn to leave.  She backs down quickly, hands me the calculator to put in my opening bid.  I lowball it without mercy, something like 30 or 40 yuan.  She laughs at me in turn.  I ignore her for a while, feel some more sweaters, pick out a couple of colors that I like.  I try to get a better deal if I buy two.  As I verrrrry slowly come up from 80 yuan, she inches down from 500.  So I feign disgust and pretend to leave again.  She shouts me back into the booth.  More inching, another frustrated “exit.”  Finally, she is clearly unhappy that she has spent all this time on me and I won’t budge on 110 yuan.  For two sweaters.  She jerks the sweaters into a bag, takes my money and practically throws me out of the shop.  I pay $8 for each sweater when she wanted $115.  I’d be pissed too, I guess.  I see her later and judge from her scowl that she recognizes me.

So I’m actually enjoying the haggling.  It makes my sweaters feel even more satisfyingly soft.

CCTV Building in the background – the structure turns three different corners in the air.  It’s like two tall, crooked vertical towers with a horizontal section that makes a 90 degree turn connecting them.  Very cool.

Cliché no.2: Chinese Acrobats.  If you ever want to feel super special in China, there are a couple of things you can do: wander through the Forbidden City so a bunch of people ask to take pictures with you, or go to an acrobatics show and have ushers serve you ice cream while you sit in the centrally located VIP seats.  And just ignore that fact that all the other people in the theater are also sitting in the VIP seating.  Besides, the important thing is they serve you ice cream!!

Cliché no.3: Beijing’s Heinous Snack Street, home of The Most Disgusting Things on Sticks.  Scorpions, beetles, crickets, cockroaches, roasted to perfection, served on convenient skewers.  Stupendous after-theater fare.

Bee Cocoons, anyone?  Silk worm, sea snakes, centipedes?  Anyone for some beetles?

Delicious Starfish

For a palette cleanser, we stop for some more ice cream at Häagen Dazs, where you sit down and get served ice water with lemon while you eat.  And where the little counter in front of the cash register is sloped so Kristy’s ice cream immediately slides off and spills on the ground, requiring the smarmy scooper-guy to re-scoop it for her while we laugh.

Tomorrow we’re going on a Great Wall tour, so that should be pretty fun!