Lost on Planet China - J. Maarten Troost [37]
“Would you like to make an offering to the goddess?”
“Absolutely,” I said, pleased to learn that the statue was a goddess.
“Sign your name here,” the monk indicated, pointing to a ledger. “One hundred kuai.”
Fifteen dollars. That’s no small sum in China. I wondered what I would get in return for this largesse.
“You take the joss sticks and bow three times in front of the goddess and say a prayer,” informed the monk.
“And what should I be praying for?”
“Wealth.”
“Wealth?”
“Yes. You make an offering and bow and pray, and the goddess will make sure you become a wealthy man.”
I pondered this for a moment. The cost of health insurance was becoming onerous. And the price of food certainly wasn’t going down. And we’d probably need a new car in the next few years. I decided that I was amenable to wealth. I paid the monk. He took his chop, a carved seal that the Chinese use much as we use signatures and notary publics to legitimize a document, and stamped it next to my name. And then he placed a small red bag over my head.
“Inside,” he said, “is a Taoist medallion. It is very holy.”
Indeed, there was a round golden medallion inside. “A gift bag too. Thank you very much.”
I did my devotions, and as I prayed for loot, I could hear from somewhere in the depths of my brain the stern voice of Sister Mary Anthony reciting the Ten Commandments—Thou shalt have no other gods before me—and I felt a sudden chill. But then I reflected: I was killing a lot of birds by climbing Tai Shan. I’d live to be a hundred and I’d be a wealthy man.
The last 1,000 feet or so was particularly grueling. I could feel the burn in my legs. You don’t quite comprehend how many steps 6,660 steps are until you’ve climbed them. As I clambered up, I paused to consider the postcards available for sale. They offered a far better view of the mountain than what I could see through the damp, gray gloom. Indeed, they made it seem rather idyllic. But Tai Shan, when viewed ten, possibly twelve feet at a time, depending on the swirling mist, and all the while surrounded by thousands of breathless people, didn’t leave me feeling soft and fuzzy inside. It left me feeling really knackered.
I passed through the last archway, did a desultory raising of the hands together with the others who had staggered up, and then, with my Taoist medallion dangling around my neck, found a mountaintop vendor and celebrated my ascent through the ancient Chinese custom of eating beef-flavored Ramen noodles. And it was good. And then I began to freeze. Powerful gusts of cold, cold wind buffeted the summit. I spent a half hour shivering, poking my head into temples, and then decided, That’s it, I’m done. Mission accomplished. I could now confidently expect to become a rich old man.
I pondered the descent. I could man-up and climb down. Or I could take a cable car. I would take the cable car. Thousands of others were of similar thinking, and as I joined them in the now-familiar hell that is lining up in China, I thought of Neil Peart. And China sang to me / in the peaceful haze of harvest time. What drivel, I thought. Did you think of that while putzing about on your synthesizer, Neil? Clearly, I was in a grumpy state of mind. Indeed, I had only one thought while I was being shoved and squeezed in the line for the cable car. The next person that cuts in front of me I am flinging off the precipitous cliff. And yes—I glared at the elderly four-foot woman who was attempting to push me aside—that means you, Grandma.
7
In China, it doesn’t take long for a first time visitor to realize just how very delusional he has been in terms of his assumptions about the country. If nothing else, traveling through China is a profoundly humbling experience, no more so than when you realize that nearly everything you thought about the country, all your presumptions