Beautiful Country (25 page)

There was a lot of talk that evening about the opening ceremony, especially about the security. Everyone said the security was going to be so tight that there was no chance anything would go wrong. The government had designed a special computer system that used cameras at the immigration desks in the airport to scan the face and measure the pupils of every person who entered the country. Placed around Beijing were tens of thousands of cameras that scanned every face in a crowd and matched it up to a face in the computer database. Apparently these high-tech computers could even see through sunglasses. With this system, any threat to security, any dissident or terrorist, could be identified and located within a matter of minutes. However, even with this intense security system in place, everyone had to come to the stadium via official buses. A few people said they suspected that the bus drivers were military officers.

The following day we moved from the Grand Hyatt to the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. There were nineteen state guesthouses laid out on a one-hundred-acre plot of land with lakes on what was once the site of an imperial mansion dating back to the 1200s. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao's wife, Jiang Qing,
had made it her permanent residence. Now, visiting foreign dignitaries and provincial government officials were housed there. My father had been invited to stay in one of the guesthouses by a prominent Chinese businessman. The entrance to Diaoyutai looked like a park enclosed with a high stuccoed wall. At the entrance four armed guards checked our passports. We were ordered to get out of the car and walk through a metal detector while the car was checked carefully for bombs. We drove down a winding lane that crossed two small lakes. Villa Seven was a plain two-storied rectangular building with a Chinese-style portico. We walked inside. The entire staff of twelve was lined up to greet us. We were given a choice of several rooms, all of which were decorated like high-end hotel rooms. We even had a television with CNN.

Later that afternoon, we were driven to a hotel in the north of Beijing and joined other guests of Mr. Zhang's on a luxury coach bus. The bus left at 4 p.m. and we reached the Olympics site forty-five minutes later. The bus passed through an opening in the high chain-link fence that surrounded the entire site and deposited us at the entrance to a football field–sized hospitality tent where we were offered dinner. At 6 p.m. the gates to the Bird's Nest were opened and we, along with thousands of others, walked toward the stadium. I felt as if I were taking part in one of those movies I had seen of massive ancient armies marching to seize a city. To the left of us was a less imposing chain-link fence that separated the spectator area from where all the performers were preparing. I noticed hundreds of young Chinese men dressed in long, flowing, light gray robes that reminded me of the garments that choir boys wear.

As we were walking along, I thought I heard someone call
my name. I turned around and looked but didn't see anyone. Again I heard my name, “Chase! Chase! Hey, Chase!” My father was ahead of me talking to another banker. I looked around but couldn't figure out who was calling my name. Someone grabbed my arm from behind. I turned. It was Random. He looked the same as he had four years before.

“I can't believe I saw you,” he said.

“Are you still playing tennis?”

“No, I'm in business selling shirts with my father. We are making fashion shirts now.” He tugged at the white shirt he was wearing. “I am in charge of this line.”

“Nice,” I said. “Only white?”

“For now, but very good quality.”

“How about the other boys?”

“No, none of them,” and then he mentioned the names of two Chinese men players whom I had never heard of.

“Bowen isn't playing?” I hadn't heard anything about Bowen, nor seen him at any tournaments since the incident at the Orange Bowl. I assumed that he must have gone back to China.

Random shook his head. “He's in Tianjin.”

“On the men's team?”

Random lifted his shoulders and frowned. “I don't think so.”

The crowds were condensing, and I feared I would lose sight of my father as the undercurrents of the converging people were getting stronger and stronger. “Hey,” I said, “I've got to go this way. Where are you sitting?”

“We are in lower section K4.”

“I think we are in the top,” I said, “with Bank of China.”

The opening ceremony began, as most of the world saw, with 2,008
fou
drummers running single file into the stadium. They
were dressed in gray robes, and they pushed their large square drums mounted on wheels. Row by row they filled the entire stadium. In formation they lit their drums to form giant digits for the countdown to the Games. These young men arched their backs and flung themselves over their drums with a dancer's grace and flexibility. They performed the same movement in exactly the same way. Our host at the Bank of China told us that the boys were soldiers and that they had practiced for over two years. I had never seen such synchronization. And they made me think about Bowen. Bowen could never have been one of those 2,008 drummers.

The ceremony lasted four hours, one set more fantastic than the last, but the only thing I could think about was what had happened to Bowen.

By the time we got back to our hotel it was 3 a.m. I had been given tickets for a fencing match the next day, but I had other plans. I decided instead to take a morning train to Tianjin. I wanted to find Bowen.

I arrived at the train station at about 11 a.m. It was packed. The old train station had been razed. In its place a much larger and modern station had been built and had opened a few days before the Olympics. I had never been in such a clean public space. There was not one piece of discarded litter to be found anywhere. Upon entering the train station, I passed through a metal detector, and my backpack was searched. I asked, “
Zai nar mai houche piao
(Where do you buy tickets)?” The security official seemed surprised I spoke Chinese, but after a brief pause, he pointed to the left. I headed off in that direction and after about twenty meters saw the line to buy tickets. There must have been several hundred people queuing in eight lines. I stood at the back of the
first line and waited. As I advanced closer to the ticket booth, I heard the same series of disappointing announcements I had heard four years before. The first said that all the trains before 11:45 a.m. were sold out. I must have bought the last ticket for just as the woman behind the ticket counter pushed my printed ticket toward me, I heard an announcement that the 11:45 a.m. train was also sold out. I purchased a return ticket on the high-speed train leaving to Tianjin at 6:15 p.m.

We lined up to board. The train station was new, but the behavior of the passengers had not changed. Boarding was a free-for-all. The doors of the arriving train had barely opened when people began pushing and shoving to get on the train, showing absolutely no regard for the passengers on the arriving train who wished to get off. I eventually made it onto the train and found my seat occupied by an overweight man. I showed him my ticket, and he shook his head. It wasn't worth a fight so I stood in the space between cars and had my ticket ready to show the ticket taker. This train had a top speed of 330 km/h, and the journey was just over forty minutes. Compared to the two-hour trip I had made four years ago, standing for only one-third of the time would be easy. I found it surprising that even in the middle of the day so many people were traveling between the two cities—but then again the train ran between two cities, both of which had populations of over ten million people. Tickets were extremely cheap. A ticket on the high-speed train was only 50 RMB (a little over six U.S. dollars), less than one-twentieth the cost of a ticket on the high-speed train between New York City and Washington, D.C.

We arrived in Tianjin at precisely 12:25 p.m. As in Beijing, the old train station had been demolished and a much larger one
built. I walked out into the sunlight to a vast concrete plaza the size of four football fields. In the middle stood a tall clock tower with all of the mechanics exposed. Around its base, travelers wearing backpacks sat with a sense of permanence, as if they had no plans to move. The sun shone brighter than in Beijing. I hadn't seen any other Westerners on the train, nor did I see any around the plaza. I bought a map at a kiosk and opened it up to get my bearings. The tennis complex was not far from the train station so I decided to walk.

I reached the tennis complex after about half an hour. It was just as I had remembered it. A group of young boys and girls were practicing. I waited for the coach to notice me. He walked over and asked me what I wanted. I told him I had played in Beijing with the boys' team four years before. I was trying to find one of the players who was from Tianjin. “Do you know Bowen?” He shook his head and pointed to the office. “You can ask in there,” he said.

I found a woman at a desk in a small office. I explained why I had come.

She shook her head. I asked again. She said, “Wait a minute,” and brought in one of the other coaches. He nodded his head. “Bowen. No play,” he said. “Working.”

“
Ta zai nar
(Where is he)?” I asked.

“
Bu zhidao
(I don't know).” He looked away when he answered and I could tell that he was lying. I switched to English.

“I'm an old friend of Bowen's. I came all the way from Beijing to see him.”

“Bowen no here. I don't know,” the coach repeated.

“Is he with his family? His father?”

Maybe because he wanted to get rid of me, or maybe because
I had proved by my knowledge that I was a friend of Bowen's, he decided to help me. He nodded and pointed north. “He works over there, I think. New buildings. Very big.”

“How far?”

“
Hen jin
(Very close), ten minutes?”

I left and headed in the direction that he had pointed. I couldn't imagine Bowen being so close to the tennis courts and not playing.

After a few blocks I saw the tall high-rises. I counted twenty-eight buildings. About half were finished, the others were under construction. The buildings were grouped in clusters of four with shared courtyards. I saw a group of men building a wall at the far side. I walked slowly and then stopped and watched.

There was Bowen, sitting down on a half-built wall with the other workers smoking a cigarette. I watched him throw his cigarette butt down and stand up to return to work. His hair was shaved close. He wore dusty cargo pants and a once-white tank top. His skin was tanned and his thin shoulders and arms were sinewy with muscle. He worked while the other men rested.

The sun was high, and the August air was hot and thick. I looked around for a spot in the shade, but there was none. The building next to where Bowen was working had a fenced-off playground that was part of a primary school housed on the ground floor. I found a bench on the other side of the playground and sat down. The tangle of so many children on swing sets and jungle gyms screened me. I listened for a moment. A high-pitched laugh or shout would peak above the gentle static of the children's voices as they tried their skill at the monkey bars, or
pushed each other on swings, or played king of the mountain on the sliding board.

I don't know what I had hoped to find, but I didn't expect to find Bowen like this. I leaned over and held my head between my knees to find a way to breathe. I closed my eyes and heard the joy in Bowen's voice when he gave me my Chinese name—Yu
—
and when he first told me the Chinese name for America—Mei Guo—the beautiful country—Mei Guo—he had repeated it several times. I sat back up and watched Bowen as he bent down and picked up one heavy concrete block and laid it across a joint. He adjusted it slightly and then began to smooth a thin layer of cement across the top and side. He turned to pick up another concrete block. He kept his back flat as he bent down. He straightened his body and set the concrete block in its place on the wall. He gently pushed and pulled each side until it was lined up just right. He took a step back to examine it. Unsatisfied, he made one more tiny adjustment and then smoothed a thin layer of cement across the top of the next block. He turned to retrieve another concrete block.

He didn't work with gloves. His fingers and palms would now be so callused that he would not be able to hold a racket the way he used to, when the racket was an extension of his arm. He would no longer be able to feel the speed and weight of a tennis ball. He would no longer be able to play the game the way that he had, the way that so many people dreamed of playing, but so few ever could.

For three hours I watched Bowen single-handedly complete one side of the wall, concrete block after concrete block. Bowen worked with the steadiness and precision of a machine. When
he had completed his side of the wall, he turned to help another worker, an elderly man who was thin and stooped.

A teacher emerged from the primary school, leading a troupe of children single file. She clapped her hands and shouted to the children and they broke ranks and scattered, running and laughing, across the playground. The playground was now almost completely darkened by the shadow of an adjacent building. The children ran in circles around her until she called out again. They dropped into a loose arc around her. She led them in songs and clapping games. Some of the children stood up and jumped around and waved their arms as they sang. With each successive song the teacher slowed the tempo, and the children were calmed as if a light had been dimmed.

Why had I come?

I checked my watch, it was almost five. I looked back at the construction site and saw that the other workers—all, that is, except Bowen—had begun to pack up their belongings. The sun was making its slow descent, but Bowen remained. He worked alone now, building the wall, brick by brick. There was no joy in the way he worked as there had been in the way he had played tennis. But he worked in a way that was different from the other men who had slapped cement on the bricks without care and never checked to see if they placed them on the wall crooked or straight. I remember the pride he had shown when he had spoken about his father as a master craftsman. I remembered the story he told me about his beginnings in tennis—about how he practiced every day by himself, hitting a ball against a wall, here in Tianjin. I wondered if the wall he was building would ever serve the same purpose for another young player.