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“I think it’s more like 10 percent,” I said.

“Yes, about 10 percent,” Geert agreed.

“So there’s a 10 percent chance I’m going to die,” Jack said. “And my trip is just beginning.”

“Look, you don’t know if it’s SARS. It could be any number of things. But what I think you should do is just live for today. And I think we need to go. What time is it?”

“It says here on my brand-new watch that it’s 6:23 A.M.”

“As they say, even a stopped watch is right twice a day.”

As we got up to leave, Jack gave the running tally. “Fake watches, cat-burgers, ‘Free Bird’ on the jukebox, apocalyptic air, and SARS.”

“You got it,” I said. “Welcome to China.”

Before leaving for Hong Kong, Jack had called a friend who had provided a number of Chinese contacts for us to look up in southern China, including a woman in Guangzhou named Gallon. “She has a business on eBay. You might find it hilarious or deeply disturbing, but here’s the link,” his friend had e-mailed. I’d clicked on the link in a crowded Internet café in Hong Kong. It was something about Egghuggers. I’d expected knitted sweaters for Easter eggs. But then, as a half-dozen people waited for the computer behind me, my screen began to fill with photos of dozens of male genitalia bedecked in a variety of sacs. I desperately stabbed at the little X in the corner. Close, close, please close now.

Tragically, when we arrived in Guangzhou, Gallon’s e-mail address no longer worked. But Kenny’s did and he’d agreed to show us around Guangzhou.

We met Kenny in the lobby of the hotel after Jack had spent the better part of the afternoon with his feet under scalding water. “Whoa. You guys are big,” he exclaimed. “Cantonese people are smaller than the Chinese up north.”

This was true. The Chinese to the north were considerably taller, quite likely because of differences in diet. It’s noodles in the north, rice in the south. Jack, in particular, towered over everyone in Guangzhou. Kenny wore a T-shirt with a kneeling woman in dominatrix leather. He had lived in Los Angeles and spoke flawless English. He told us he was involved in transportation; when a car-parts supplier needed a widget, he’d find a widget producer for them in China.

We walked with him from Shamian Island back into Guangzhou proper. On the bridge over the highway, we came across a young girl with a horrific leg condition. Her legs were split open to the bone and she sat on the pedestrian overpass with a beggar’s bowl.

Since my encounter with the albino boy in Qingdao, I’d discovered that some people do such things to children in China. Children are burned, disfigured, and maimed simply to provoke pity and an outpouring of kuai. But Kenny seemed to anticipate my train of thought.

“Her parents are very poor,” he said. “Don’t assume that this was done on purpose just to make some money. Everyone pays for their own health care here,” he went on. “No money. No doctor. It’s not good for the poor. But in your country, you have what, 250, 300 million people? We have 1.5 billion. Not 1.3—1.5 billion. Many people are not counted. And it’s very expensive to insure 1.5 billion people.”

“That’s not legal,” he said as we passed the endangered-animal traders. “And that’s a fake,” he continued, pointing to an enormous root vegetable that looked uncannily like a man with an erection, which was drawing a large crowd. We walked back through the Qingping Market—despite Jack’s fears, it was the only way into Guangzhou proper—and then crossed some invisible line where the animals were no longer meant to be eaten, but to be cared for as pets—turtles, cats, dogs, fish, rats. And then down we went into a gleaming subway station with flat-screen televisions.

The subway seemed the epitome of the new China, and as we rode we talked economics. “You see this part of your shirt,” Kenny said, pointing to a button. “You probably think this was made in a factory, but it wasn’t. It was made in a village, in a house. Much cheaper in the village. Millions of houses