Country Driving [42]
Nowadays, outside of Beijing, brick walls still cling to sheer cliffs, and tourists often wonder: Was it really necessary to build defenseworks in a place like this? But Mongols were indeed capable of attacking such remote regions, and sometimes a leader’s position on Genghis Khan’s family tree was a major factor. Low genealogical status could initiate a chain of events that swept southward, resulting in violence against the Ming. Spindler calls the incident of 1576 “the Raid of the Scorned Mongol Women”—a failed harem that eventually inspired the stunning Great Wall of Beijing.
THE PARKING LOT AT the Mausoleum of Genghis Khan was full of black Santanas with tinted windows. My heart always sank at such a sight—it was like watching a flock of crows settle into a quiet forest. In rural China, black Santanas are cadre cars, and if they show up en masse at a tourist destination it usually means that a junket is in full swing. When I arrived at the mausoleum, it was early afternoon but many of the cadres were drunk from their lunchtime banquets. They stumbled out of Santanas, shouting and laughing in the parking lot. I followed a group of three Chinese men as they staggered up the steps to the entrance, where they initiated an argument with the attendant. He was Mongolian, and he asked them for the standard admission price of thirty-five yuan per ticket. It was less than five dollars.
“How ’bout this,” slurred one of the cadres. “I’ll give you a hundred for three.”
“Three tickets cost one hundred and five,” the Mongolian said.
“Special price,” the cadre said. “Give special price. One hundred.”
“We can’t do that. It’s thirty-five each. One hundred and five.”
“How ’bout this,” the cadre said. “I give you one hundred.”
“One hundred and five.”
“One hundred.”
Each man spoke very slowly, and they continued this inane conversation for several minutes. In China, admissions to state-run tourist sites are nonnegotiable, and I couldn’t figure out why the attendant remained so patient, until I realized that he was also intoxicated. He slumped against his desk; the ticket booth reeked of grain alcohol. Inside the gate, three buildings were shaped like massive ger, traditional Mongol tents, their roofs decorated in tile of burnt orange and deep blue. Everywhere I saw drunk cadres: they staggered through hallways; they tripped down steps; they sat red-faced in the shade, heads in their hands. They wobbled in front of exhibits, trying to read inscriptions about the history of Genghis Khan and the Yuan dynasty.
Exhibits appeared in Chinese, Mongolian, and English. As in many Chinese museums, there were subtle shifts between languages. One English sign read:
GENGHIS KHAN IS CONSIDERED BY THE WORLD AS A GREAT STRATEGIST AND STATESMAN.
The Chinese version said:
IN THE HISTORY OF THE CHINESE PEOPLE, GENGHIS KHAN WAS A GREAT STRATEGIST AND STATESMAN.
In China, people often speak of Genghis Khan as if he were Chinese, at least in the cultural sense, because he founded a dynasty that ruled China. And from the Chinese perspective, Mongolia was a natural part of the empire—it had been ruled by the Qing dynasty until their collapse in 1912. During the twentieth century, Mongolia proper became a Soviet satellite and then an independent nation, but Inner Mongolia remained under Chinese rule. After Mao Zedong came to power, he encouraged Han Chinese settlement in the region, and nowadays the population is over 80 percent Chinese.
The Chinese have also occupied the history just as efficiently. At the Mausoleum of