The Best Travel Writing 2011 - James O'Reilly [99]
Seeing my face in the mirror, I’m shocked at my puffy eyes and pallid skin. Riding a motorcycle for so many hours at one stretch is never healthy, and I am still also recovering from the effects of Beijing pollution.
In Beijing my expat friends were still sleeping in their luxurious, American-style homes and apartments with filtered water and filtered air before a day of work in offices with filtered water and filtered air. Maybe they will think of me this weekend when they ride out to the Ming Tombs on one of their forays into the countryside. Last week the little trips seemed the height of adventure.
I take my cup of coffee outside, passing the other rooms where pairs of male shoes sit neatly outside each door. These black shoes made of leather and so carefully polished cannot be truckers shoes. The little yellow pots of water had been moved to the other side of the hallway. I peer in cautiously. They don’t look like chamber pots but there is something in them. What can it be? I look closer to see globs floating on top of the water. Gross. They are spittoons.
Suppressing a gag, I hurry outside. The courtyard is empty except for a small Chinese motorcycle leaning on its side against the opposite wall: there are no trucks in sight. I surmise that the drivers pumped themselves back up with amphetamines and continued on their route.
Now to see where I am. I hear the river and try to find a way out of the compound to take a look at it. Tiptoeing down the hallways I find an unlocked door that leads outside onto a natural terrace overlooking a beautiful river cutting deeply into a stone canyon with a deeply striated stone cliff rising to the mountain behind.
All this hidden behind a crappy stucco compound, valueless in contrast to the income-generating brothel. In the West this place would have been the site of a luxurious resort with a terrace overlooking the river where one could sip coffee in the morning and beer in the evening, enjoying the spectacle of nature. It would have at least been a campground. But who wants to visit such a place here, in Northern China? Heibi Province is the poorest of the northern provinces, the mountains offer no weird and spectacular rock formations like those in Gualin and Yunnan, so tourists don’t come. This is merely a relaxing, beautiful, natural place, only a day’s journey from a major city. But in the United States it would be swarming with backpackers, kayakers, and mountain climbers.
Back in Beijing, an American friend, Rick, had told me a story about camping that illustrated the Chinese attitude toward nature. Jiangshan, the leader of my send-off party and the owner of a camping supply shop, had led the group on an overnight outing. Jiangshan had described beautiful mountains and clean air and a perfect riverside campsite. The group had been thrilled with the ride but the “perfect place to camp” was an asphalt parking lot with bright streetlights standing sentry all around. Rick had difficulty explaining diplomatically why their faces had all fallen flat. Jiangshan was quite taxed to understand why they’d rather pitch their tents on uneven ground in the messy, dark woods.
Jiangshan’s adventure shop is stocked with a few tents and sleeping bags but only Western visitors buy these things—the students, teachers, and expats who discover that China has amazing and beautiful countryside. They camp, and inevitably a group of locals comes and stares at them as they cook their meals and fish and put up the tents and bed down. It is a concept absolutely and completely foreign to Chinese villagers, and when I look at their lives I see why. Most of them are already camping, with their coal stoves and hand-carried water. They see the forest as a source for wood to burn and food to forage. It’s easy to understand how they would wonder why wealthy people would make themselves so deliberately uncomfortable.